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Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) - "Roughing It, Part 1."

Various - "Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume I."

Various - "Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 19, 1917"

John Jay Smith and John F. Watson - "American Historical and Literary Antiquities, Part 4."

Publishers Newswire Announced Today its Latest List of Books to Bookmark, for Q4/2008
REDONDO BEACH, Calif. -- Publishers Newswire, an online resource for small publishers, as well as lesser known and first-time book authors, has announced its latest quarterly 'Books to Bookmark' list, for Q4/2008. This list is a round-up of new and interesting books which are often missed due to not originating from big name authors, or major New York book publishing houses.

Book, 'Letters From Heroes', captures triumphs of the men and women who served in World War I and II
GILROY, Calif. -- The hardships, struggles, hopes and triumphs of the men and women who served in World War I and World War II is wonderfully captured in 'Letters From Heroes' (ISBN: 978-1-58909-570-0), by Edward T. Cook, a new book just published by Bookstand Publishing. This poignant collection of real letters from real servicemen allow the reader to see things through the eyes of these soldiers and understand their thoughts about war, training, sickness, the enemy and even their food.

In New Book, Mystery of the 6,000 Year Old Science and Art of Astrology Has Been Solved
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. -- Author of the new book, ASTROMASKS (ISBN: 978-0-615-23386-4), Vijay Rishii Ph.D., announced today that his book reveals the secret code behind the ancient and controversial science of astrology. The author decodes astrology using a new concept of complementary pairs, and gives new meanings to the zodiac signs and their real connection to humans on earth, which has never been done before in the entire history of astrology.

The History of Rome (Volumes 1 5) - Theodor Mommsen

T >> Theodor Mommsen >> The History of Rome (Volumes 1 5)

Change in the Nomination of Priests

The nomination of the priests, which had been a prerogative of the
kings,(8) was not transferred to the consuls; but the colleges of
priests filled up the vacancies in their own ranks, while the Vestals
and single priests were nominated by the pontifical college, on which
devolved also the exercise of the paternal jurisdiction, so to speak,
of the community over the priestesses of Vesta. With a view to the
performance of these acts, which could only be properly performed by
a single individual, the college probably about this period first
nominated a president, the -Pontifex maximus-. This separation of the
supreme authority in things sacred from the civil power--while the
already-mentioned "king for sacrifice" had neither the civil nor the
sacred powers of the king, but simply the title, conferred upon him
--and the semi-magisterial position of the new high priest, so decidedly
contrasting with the character which otherwise marked the priesthood
in Rome, form one of the most significant and important peculiarities
of this state-revolution, the aim of which was to impose limits on the
powers of the magistrates mainly in the interest of the aristocracy.

We have already mentioned that the outward state of the consul was
far inferior to that of the regal office hedged round as it was
with reverence and terror, that the regal name and the priestly
consecration were withheld from him, and that the axe was taken away
from his attendants. We have to add that, instead of the purple
robe which the king had worn, the consul was distinguished from the
ordinary burgess simply by the purple border of his toga, and that,
while the king perhaps regularly appeared in public in his chariot,
the consul was bound to accommodate himself to the general rule and
like every other burgess to go within the city on foot.

The Dictator

These limitations, however, of the plenary power and of the insignia
of the magistracy applied in the main only to the ordinary presidency
of the community. In extraordinary cases, alongside of, and in a
certain sense instead of, the two presidents chosen by the community
there emerged a single one, the master of the army (-magister populi-)
usually designated as the -dictator-. In the choice of dictator the
community exercised no influence at all, but it proceeded solely
from the free resolve of one of the consuls for the time being, whose
action neither his colleague nor any other authority could hinder.
There was no appeal from his sentence any more than from that of the
king, unless he chose to allow it. As soon as he was nominated, all
the other magistrates were by right subject to his authority. On the
other hand the duration of the dictator's office was limited in two
ways: first, as the official colleague of those consuls, one of whom
had nominated him, he might not remain in office beyond their legal
term; and secondly, a period of six months was fixed as the absolute
maximum for the duration of his office. It was a further arrangement
peculiar to the dictatorship, that the "master of the army" was bound
to nominate for himself immediately a "master of horse" (-magister
equitum-), who acted along with him as a dependent assistant somewhat
as did the quaestor along with the consul, and with him retired from
office--an arrangement undoubtedly connected with the fact that
the dictator, presumably as being the leader of the infantry, was
constitutionally prohibited from mounting on horseback. In the light
of these regulations the dictatorship is doubtless to be conceived as
an institution which arose at the same time with the consulship, and
which was designed, especially in the event of war, to obviate for a
time the disadvantages of divided power and to revive temporarily the
regal authority; for in war more particularly the equality of rights
in the consuls could not but appear fraught with danger; and not only
positive testimonies, but above all the oldest names given to the
magistrate himself and his assistant, as well as the limitation of the
office to the duration of a summer campaign, and the exclusion of the
-provocatio- attest the pre-eminently military design of the original
dictatorship.

On the whole, therefore, the consuls continued to be, as the kings had
been, the supreme administrators, judges, and generals; and even in a
religious point of view it was not the -rex sacrorum- (who was only
nominated that the name might be preserved), but the consul, who
offered prayers and sacrifices for the community, and in its name
ascertained the will of the gods with the aid of those skilled in
sacred lore. Against cases of emergency, moreover, a power was
retained of reviving at any moment, without previous consultation of
the community, the full and unlimited regal authority, so as to set
aside the limitations imposed by the collegiate arrangement and by
the special curtailments of jurisdiction. In this way the problem of
legally retaining and practically restricting the regal authority was
solved in genuine Roman fashion with equal acuteness and simplicity
by the nameless statesmen who worked out this revolution.

Centuries and Curies

The community thus acquired by the change of constitution rights
of the greatest importance: the right of annually designating its
presidents, and that of deciding in the last instance regarding the
life or death of the burgess. But the body which acquired these
rights could not possibly be the community as it had been hitherto
constituted--the patriciate which had practically become an order of
nobility. The strength of the nation lay in the "multitude" (-plebs-)
which already comprehended in large numbers people of note and of
wealth. The exclusion of this multitude from the public assembly,
although it bore part of the public burdens, might be tolerated as
long as that public assembly itself had no very material share in
the working of the state machine, and as long as the royal power by
the very fact of its high and free position remained almost equally
formidable to the burgesses and to the --metoeci-- and thereby
maintained equality of legal redress in the nation. But when the
community itself was called regularly to elect and to decide, and the
president was practically reduced from its master to its commissioner
for a set term, this relation could no longer be maintained as it
stood; least of all when the state had to be remodelled on the morrow
of a revolution, which could only have been carried out by the
co-operation of the patricians and the --metoeci--. An extension of
that community was inevitable; and it was accomplished in the most
comprehensive manner, inasmuch as the collective plebeiate, that is,
all the non-burgesses who were neither slaves nor citizens of
extraneous communities living at Rome under the -ius hospitii-,
were admitted into the burgess-body. The curiate assembly of the
old burgesses, which hitherto had been legally and practically the
first authority in the state, was almost totally deprived of its
constitutional prerogatives. It was to retain its previous powers
only in acts purely formal or in those which affected clan-relations
--such as the vow of allegiance to be taken to the consul or to
the dictator when they entered on office just as previously to the
king,(9) and the legal dispensations requisite for an -arrogatio- or
a testament--but it was not in future to perform any act of a properly
political character. Soon even the plebeians were admitted to the
right of voting also in the curies, and by that step the old
burgess-body lost the right of meeting and of resolving at all.
The curial organization was virtually rooted out, in so far as it
was based on the clan-organization and this latter was to be found
in its purity exclusively among the old burgesses. When the plebeians
were admitted into the curies, they were certainly also allowed to
constitute themselves -de jure- as--what in the earlier period they
could only have been -de facto-(10)--families and clans; but it is
distinctly recorded by tradition and in itself also very conceivable,
that only a portion of the plebeians proceeded so far as to constitute
-gentes-, and thus the new curiate assembly, in opposition to its original
character, included numerous members who belonged to no clan.

All the political prerogatives of the public assembly--as well the
decision on appeals in criminal causes, which indeed were essentially
political processes, as the nomination of magistrates and the adoption
or rejection of laws--were transferred to, or were now acquired by,
the assembled levy of those bound to military service; so that the
centuries now received the rights, as they had previously borne the
burdens, of citizens. In this way the small initial movements made by
the Servian constitution--such as, in particular, the handing over to
the army the right of assenting to the declaration of an aggressive
war(11)--attained such a development that the curies were completely
and for ever cast into the shade by the assembly of the centuries, and
people became accustomed to regard the latter as the sovereign people.
In this assembly debate took place merely when the presiding
magistrate chose himself to speak or bade others do so; of course
in cases of appeal both parties had to be heard. A simple majority
of the centuries was decisive.

As in the curiate assembly those who were entitled to vote at all were
on a footing of entire equality, and therefore after the admission
of all the plebeians into the curies the result would have been a
complete democracy, it may be easily conceived that the decision of
political questions continued to be withheld from the curies; the
centuriate assembly placed the preponderating influence, not in the
hands of the nobles certainly, but in those of the possessors of
property, and the important privilege of priority in voting, which
often practically decided the election, placed it in the hands of
the -equites- or, in other words, of the rich.

Senate

The senate was not affected by the reform of the constitution in the
same way as the community. The previously existing college of elders
not only continued exclusively patrician, but retained also its
essential prerogatives--the right of appointing the interrex, and of
confirming or rejecting the resolutions adopted by the community as
constitutional or unconstitutional. In fact these prerogatives were
enhanced by the reform of the constitution, because the appointment
of the magistrates also, which fell to be made by election of the
community, was thenceforth subject to the confirmation or rejection
of the patrician senate. In cases of appeal alone its confirmation,
so far as we know, was never deemed requisite, because in these the
matter at stake was the pardon of the guilty and, when this was
granted by the sovereign assembly of the people, any cancelling
of such an act was wholly out of the question.

But, although by the abolition of the monarchy the constitutional
rights of the patrician senate were increased rather than diminished,
there yet took place--and that, according to tradition, immediately on
the abolition of the monarchy--so far as regards other affairs which
fell to be discussed in the senate and admitted of a freer treatment,
an enlargement of that body, which brought into it plebeians also, and
which in its consequences led to a complete remodelling of the whole.
From the earliest times the senate had acted also, although not solely
or especially, as a state-council; and, while probably even in the
time of the kings it was not regarded as unconstitutional for non-
senators in this case to take part in the assembly,(12) it was now
arranged that for such discussions there should be associated with
the patrician senate (-patres-) a number of non-patricians "added to
the roll" (-conscripti-). This did not at all put them on a footing
of equality; the plebeians in the senate did not become senators, but
remained members of the equestrian order, were not designated -patres-
but were even now -conscripti-, and had no right to the badge of
senatorial dignity, the red shoe.(13) Moreover, they not only
remained absolutely excluded from the exercise of the magisterial
prerogatives belonging to the senate (-auctoritas-), but were obliged,
even where the question had reference merely to an advice (-consilium-),
to rest content with the privilege of being present in silence
while the question was put to the patricians in turn, and of only
indicating their opinion by adding to the numbers when the division
was taken--voting with the feet (-pedibus in sententiam ire-,
-pedarii-) as the proud nobility expressed it. Nevertheless,
the plebeians found their way through the new constitution not
merely to the Forum, but also to the senate-house, and the first
and most difficult step towards equality of rights was taken in
this quarter also.

Otherwise there was no material change in the arrangements affecting
the senate. Among the patrician members a distinction of rank soon
came to be recognized, especially in putting the vote: those who were
proximately designated for the supreme magistracy, or who had already
administered it, were entered on the list and were called upon to vote
before the rest; and the position of the first of them, the foreman of
the senate (-princeps senatus-) soon became a highly coveted place of
honour. The consul in office, on the other hand, no more ranked as a
member of senate than did the king, and therefore in taking the votes
did not include his own. The selection of the members--both of the
narrower patrician senate and of those merely added to the roll--fell
to be made by the consuls just as formerly by the kings; but the
nature of the case implied that, while the king had still perhaps some
measure of regard to the representation of the several clans in the
senate, this consideration was of no account so far as concerned
the plebeians, among whom the clan-organization was but imperfectly
developed, and consequently the relation of the senate to that
organization in general fell more and more into abeyance. We have no
information that the electing consuls were restricted from admitting
more than a definite number of plebeians to the senate; nor was there
need for such a regulation, because the consuls themselves belonged to
the nobility. On the other hand probably from the outset the consul
was in virtue of his very position practically far less free, and
far more bound by the opinions of his order and by custom, in the
appointment of senators than the king. The rule in particular, that
the holding of the consulship should necessarily be followed by
admission to the senate for life, if, as was probably the case at
this time, the consul was not yet a member of it at the time of
his election, must have in all probability very early acquired
consuetudinary force. In like manner it seems to have become early
the custom not to fill up the senators' places immediately on their
falling vacant, but to revise and complete the roll of the senate on
occasion of the census, consequently, as a rule, every fourth year;
which also involved a not unimportant restriction on the authority
entrusted with the selection. The whole number of the senators
remained as before, and in this the -conscripti- were also included;
from which fact we are probably entitled to infer the numerical
falling off of the patriciate.(14)

Conservative Character of the Revolution

We thus see that in the Roman commonwealth, even on the conversion of
the monarchy into a republic, the old was as far as possible retained.
So far as a revolution in a state can be conservative at all, this one
was so; not one of the constituent elements of the commonwealth was
really overthrown by it. This circumstance indicates the character
of the whole movement. The expulsion of the Tarquins was not, as the
pitiful and deeply falsified accounts of it represent, the work of a
people carried away by sympathy and enthusiasm for liberty, but the
work of two great political parties already engaged in conflict, and
clearly aware that their conflict would steadily continue--the old
burgesses and the --metoeci-- --who, like the English Whigs and
Tories in 1688, were for a moment united by the common danger which
threatened to convert the commonwealth into the arbitrary government
of a despot, and differed again as soon as the danger was over.
The old burgesses could not get rid of the monarchy without the
cooperation of the new burgesses; but the new burgesses were far from
being sufficiently strong to wrest the power out of the hands of the
former at one blow. Compromises of this sort are necessarily limited
to the smallest measure of mutual concessions obtained by tedious
bargaining; and they leave the future to decide which of the
constituent elements shall eventually preponderate, and whether they
will work harmoniously together or counteract one another. To look
therefore merely to the direct innovations, possibly to the mere
change in the duration of the supreme magistracy, is altogether to
mistake the broad import of the first Roman revolution: its indirect
effects were by far the most important, and vaster doubtless than
even its authors anticipated.

The New Community

This, in short, was the time when the Roman burgess-body in the
later sense of the term originated. The plebeians had hitherto been
--metoeci-- who were subjected to their share of taxes and burdens,
but who were nevertheless in the eye of the law really nothing but
tolerated aliens, between whose position and that of foreigners proper
it may have seemed hardly necessary to draw a definite line of
distinction. They were now enrolled in the lists as burgesses liable
to military service, and, although they were still far from being on
a footing of legal equality--although the old burgesses still remained
exclusively entitled to perform the acts of authority constitutionally
pertaining to the council of elders, and exclusively eligible to the
civil magistracies and priesthoods, nay even by preference entitled to
participate in the usufructs of burgesses, such as the joint use of
the public pasture--yet the first and most difficult step towards
complete equalization was gained from the time when the plebeians no
longer served merely in the common levy, but also voted in the common
assembly and in the common council when its opinion was asked, and the
head and back of the poorest --metoikos-- were as well protected by
the right of appeal as those of the noblest of the old burgesses.

One consequence of this amalgamation of the patricians and plebeians
in a new corporation of Roman burgesses was the conversion of the
old burgesses into a clan-nobility, which was incapable of receiving
additions or even of filling up its own ranks, since the nobles no
longer possessed the right of passing decrees in common assembly
and the adoption of new families into the nobility by decree of the
community appeared still less admissible. Under the kings the ranks
of the Roman nobility had not been thus closed, and the admission of
new clans was no very rare occurrence: now this genuine characteristic
of patricianism made its appearance as the sure herald of the speedy
loss of its political privileges and of its exclusive estimation
in the community. The exclusion of the plebeians from all public
magistracies and public priesthoods--while they were admissible to
the position of officers and senators--and the maintenance, with
perverse obstinacy, of the legal impossibility of marriage between old
burgesses and plebeians, further impressed on the patriciate from the
outset the stamp of an exclusive and wrongly privileged aristocracy.

A second consequence of the new union of the burgesses must have been
a more definite regulation of the right of settlement, with reference
both to the Latin confederates and to other states. It became
necessary--not so much on account of the right of suffrage in the
centuries (which indeed belonged only to the freeholder) as on
account of the right of appeal, which was intended to be conceded
to the plebeian, but not to the foreigner dwelling for a time or
even permanently in Rome--to express more precisely the conditions
of the acquisition of plebeian rights, and to mark off the enlarged
burgess-body in its turn from those who were now the non-burgesses.
To thisepoch therefore we may trace back--in the views and feelings
of the people--both the invidiousness of the distinction between
patricians and plebeians, and the strict and haughty line of demarcation
between -cives Romani- and aliens. But the former civic distinction was
in its nature transient, while the latter political one was permanent;
and the sense of political unity and rising greatness, which was thus
implanted in the heart of the nation, was expansive enough first
to undermine and then to carry away with its mighty current those
paltry distinctions.

Law and Edict

It was at this period, moreover, that law and edict were separated.
The distinction indeed had its foundation in the essential character
of the Roman state; for even the regal power in Rome was subordinate,
not superior, to the law of the land. But the profound and practical
veneration, which the Romans, like every other people of political
capacity, cherished for the principle of authority, gave birth to the
remarkable rule of Roman constitutional and private law, that every
command of the magistrate not based upon a law was at least valid
during his tenure of office, although it expired with that tenure.
It is evident that in this view, so long as the presidents were
nominated for life, the distinction between law and edict must have
practically been almost lost sight of, and the legislative activity
of the public assembly could acquire no development. On the other
hand it obtained a wide field of action after the presidents were
changed annually; and the fact was now by no means void of practical
importance, that, if the consul in deciding a process committed a
legal informality, his successor could institute a fresh trial of
the cause.

Civil and Military Authority

It was at this period, finally, that the provinces of civil and
military authority were separated. In the former the law ruled,
in the latter the axe: the former was governed by the constitutional
checks of the right of appeal and of regulated delegation; in the
latter the general held an absolute sway like the king.(15) It was
an established principle, that the general and the army as such should
not under ordinary circumstances enter the city proper. That organic
and permanently operative enactments could only be made under the
authority of the civil power, was implied in the spirit, if not in the
letter, of the constitution. Instances indeed occasionally occurred
where the general, disregarding this principle, convoked his forces
in the camp as a burgess assembly, nor was a decree passed under
such circumstances legally void; but custom disapproved of such
a proceeding, and it soon fell into disuse as though it had been
forbidden. The distinction between Quirites and soldiers became
more and more deeply rooted in the minds of the burgesses.

Government of the Patriciate

Time however was required for the development of these consequences
of the new republicanism; vividly as posterity felt its effects,
the revolution probably appeared to the contemporary world at first
in a different light. The non-burgesses indeed gained by it
burgess-rights, and the new burgess-body acquired in the -comitia
centuriata- comprehensive prerogatives; but the right of rejection on
the part of the patrician senate, which in firm and serried ranks
confronted the -comitia- as if it were an Upper House, legally hampered
their freedom of movement precisely in the most important matters, and
although not in a position to thwart the serious will of the collective
body, could yet practically delay and cripple it. If the nobility in
giving up their claim to be the sole embodiment of the community did not
seem to have lost much, they had in other respects decidedly gained.
The king, it is true, was a patrician as well as the consul, and the
right of nominating the members of the senate belonged to the latter as
to the former; but while his exceptional position raised the former no
less above the patricians than above the plebeians, and while cases
might easily occur in which he would be obliged to lean upon the
support of the multitude even against the nobility, the consul--ruling
for a brief term, but before and after that term simply one of the
nobility, and obeying to-morrow the noble fellow-burgess whom he had
commanded to-day--by no means occupied a position aloof from his
order, and the spirit of the noble in him must have been far more
powerful than that of the magistrate. Indeed, if at any time by
way of exception a patrician disinclined to the rule of the nobility
was called to the government, his official authority was paralyzed
partly by the priestly colleges, which were pervaded by an intense
aristocratic spirit, partly by his colleague, and was easily suspended
by the dictatorship; and, what was of still more moment, he wanted
the first element of political power, time. The president of a
commonwealth, whatever plenary authority may be conceded to him,
will never gain possession of political power, if he does not continue
for some considerable time at the head of affairs; for a necessary
condition of every dominion is duration. Consequently the senate
appointed for life inevitably acquired--and that by virtue chiefly
of its title to advise the magistrate in all points, so that we speak
not of the narrower patrician, but of the enlarged patricio-plebeian,
senate--so great an influence as contrasted with the annual rulers,
that their legal relations became precisely inverted; the senate
substantially assumed to itself the powers of government, and
the former ruler sank into a president acting as its chairman and
executing its decrees. In the case of every proposal to be submitted
to the community for acceptance or rejection the practice of
previously consulting the whole senate and obtaining its approval,
while not constitutionally necessary, was consecrated by use and wont;
and it was not lightly or willingly departed from. The same course
was followed in the case of important state-treaties, of the
management and distribution of the public lands, and generally of
every act the effects of which extended beyond the official year;
and nothing was left to the consul but the transaction of current
business, the initial steps in civil processes, and the command in
war. Especially important in its consequences was the change in
virtue of which neither the consul, nor even the otherwise absolute
dictator, was permitted to touch the public treasure except with the
consent and by the will of the senate. The senate made it obligatory
on the consuls to commit the administration of the public chest, which
the king had managed or might at any rate have managed himself, to two
standing subordinate magistrates, who were nominated no doubt by the
consuls and had to obey them, but were, as may easily be conceived,
much more dependent than the consuls themselves on the senate.(16)
It thus drew into its own hands the management of finance; and this
right of sanctioning the expenditure of money on the part of the
Roman senate may be placed on a parallel in its effects with the
right of sanctioning taxation in the constitutional monarchies
of the present day.