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Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. - "The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Vol. 7"

Edward Bulwer Lytton - "The Caxtons, Complete"

Joseph Morris - "It Can Be Done"

Giovanni Boccaccio - "La Fiammetta"

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)

Intrigues of the Nobility

Electioneering intrigues and priestly trickery proved in the hands
of the nobility more efficient than any other weapons. The extent
to which the former must have prevailed is best seen in the fact
that in 322 it appeared necessary to issue a special law against
electioneering practices, which of course was of little avail. When
the voters could not be influenced by corruption or threatening, the
presiding magistrates stretched their powers--admitting, for example,
so many plebeian candidates that the votes of the opposition were
thrown away amongst them, or omitting from the list of candidates
those whom the majority were disposed to choose. If in spite of all
this an obnoxious election was carried, the priests were consulted
whether no vitiating circumstance had occurred in the auspices or
other religious ceremonies on the occasion; and some such flaw they
seldom failed to discover. Taking no thought as to the consequences
and unmindful of the wise example of their ancestors, the people
allowed the principle to be established that the opinion of the
skilled colleges of priests as to omens of birds, portents, and the
like was legally binding on the magistrate, and thus put it into their
power to cancel any state-act--whether the consecration of a temple
or any other act of administration, whether law or election--on the
ground of religious informality. In this way it became possible that,
although the eligibility of plebeians had been established by law
already in 333 for the quaestorship and thenceforward continued to
be legally recognized, it was only in 345 that the first plebeian
attained the quaestorship; in like manner patricians almost
exclusively held the military tribunate with consular powers down
to 354. It was apparent that the legal abolition of the privileges of
the nobles had by no means really and practically placed the plebeian
aristocracy on a footing of equality with the clan-nobility. Many
causes contributed to this result: the tenacious opposition of the
nobility far more easily allowed itself to be theoretically superseded
in a moment of excitement, than to be permanently kept down in the
annually recurring elections; but the main cause was the inward
disunion between the chiefs of the plebeian aristocracy and the mass
of the farmers. The middle class, whose votes were decisive in the
comitia, did not feel itself specially called on to advance the
interests of genteel non-patricians, so long as its own demands were
disregarded by the plebeian no less than by the patrician aristocracy.

The Suffering Farmers

During these political struggles social questions had lain on the
whole dormant, or were discussed at any rate with less energy. After
the plebeian aristocracy had gained possession of the tribunate for
its own ends, no serious notice was taken either of the question of
the domains or of a reform in the system of credit; although there was
no lack either of newly acquired lands or of impoverished or decaying
farmers. Instances indeed of assignations took place, particularly in
the recently conquered border-territories, such as those of the domain
of Ardea in 312, of Labici in 336, and of Veii in 361--more however on
military grounds than for the relief of the farmer, and by no means to
an adequate extent. Individual tribunes doubtless attempted to revive
the law of Cassius--for instance Spurius Maecilius and Spurius
Metilius instituted in the year 337 a proposal for the distribution
of the whole state-lands--but they were thwarted, in a manner
characteristic of the existing state of parties, by the opposition
of their own colleagues or in other words of the plebeian aristocracy.
Some of the patricians also attempted to remedy the common distress;
but with no better success than had formerly attended Spurius Cassius.
A patrician like Cassius and like him distinguished by military renown
and personal valour, Marcus Manlius, the saviour of the Capitol during
the Gallic siege, is said to have come forward as the champion of
the oppressed people, with whom he was connected by the ties of
comradeship in war and of bitter hatred towards his rival, the
celebrated general and leader of the optimate party, Marcus Furius
Camillus. When a brave officer was about to be led away to a debtor's
prison, Manlius interceded for him and released him with his own
money; at the same time he offered his lands to sale, declaring
loudly that, as long as he possessed a foot's breadth of land, such
iniquities should not occur. This was more than enough to unite the
whole government party, patricians as well as plebeians, against the
dangerous innovator. The trial for high treason, the charge of having
meditated a renewal of the monarchy, wrought on the blind multitude
with the insidious charm which belongs to stereotyped party-phrases.
They themselves condemned him to death, and his renown availed him
nothing save that it was deemed expedient to assemble the people for
the bloody assize at a spot whence the voters could not see the rock
of the citadel--the dumb monitor which might remind them how their
fatherland had been saved from the extremity of danger by the hands of
the very man whom they were now consigning to the executioner (370).

While the attempts at reformation were thus arrested in the bud,
the social disorders became still more crying; for on the one
hand the domain-possessions were ever extending in consequence of
successful wars, and on the other hand debt and impoverishment were
ever spreading more widely among the farmers, particularly from the
effects of the severe war with Veii (348-358) and of the burning of
the capital in the Gallic invasion (364). It is true that, when in
the Veientine war it became necessary to prolong the term of service
of the soldiers and to keep them under arms not--as hitherto at the
utmost--only during summer, but also throughout the winter, and when
the farmers, foreseeing their utter economic ruin, were on the point
of refusing their consent to the declaration of war, the senate
resolved on making an important concession. It charged the pay, which
hitherto the tribes had defrayed by contribution, on the state-chest,
or in other words, on the produce of the indirect revenues and the
domains (348). It was only in the event of the state-chest being at
the moment empty that a general contribution (-tributum-) was imposed
on account of the pay; and in that case it was considered as a forced
loan and was afterwards repaid by the community. The arrangement was
equitable and wise; but, as it was not placed upon the essential
foundation of turning the domains to proper account for the benefit
of the exchequer, there were added to the increased burden of service
frequent contributions, which were none the less ruinous to the man
of small means that they were officially regarded not as taxes
but as advances.

Combination of the Plebian Aristocracy and the Farmers against the
Nobility--
Licinio-Sextian Laws

Under such circumstances, when the plebeian aristocracy saw itself
practically excluded by the opposition of the nobility and the
indifference of the commons from equality of political rights,
and the suffering farmers were powerless as opposed to the close
aristocracy, it was natural that they should help each other by a
compromise. With this view the tribunes of the people, Gaius Licinius
and Lucius Sextius, submitted to the commons proposals to the
following effect: first, to abolish the consular tribunate; secondly,
to lay it down as a rule that at least one of the consuls should be
a plebeian; thirdly, to open up to the plebeians admission to one
of the three great colleges of priests--that of the custodiers of
oracles, whose number was to be increased to ten (-duoviri-,
afterwards -decemviri sacris faciundis-(6)); fourthly, as respected
the domains, to allow no burgess to maintain upon the common pasture
more than a hundred oxen and five hundred sheep, or to hold more than
five hundred -jugera- (about 300 acres) of the domain lands left free
for occupation; fifthly, to oblige the landlords to employ in the
labours of the field a number of free labourers proportioned to that
of their rural slaves; and lastly, to procure alleviation for debtors
by deduction of the interest which had been paid from the capital,
and by the arrangement of set terms for the payment of arrears.

The tendency of these enactments is obvious. They were designed
to deprive the nobles of their exclusive possession of the curule
magistracies and of the hereditary distinctions of nobility therewith
associated; which, it was characteristically conceived, could only be
accomplished by the legal exclusion of the nobles from the place of
second consul. They were designed, as a consequence, to emancipate
the plebeian members of the senate from the subordinate position which
they occupied as silent by-sitters,(7) in so far as those of them at
least who had filled the consulate thereby acquired a title to deliver
their opinion with the patrician consulars before the other patrician
senators.(8) They were intended, moreover, to withdraw from the
nobles the exclusive possession of spiritual dignities; and in
carrying out this purpose for reasons sufficiently obvious the old
Latin priesthoods of the augurs and Pontifices were left to the old
burgesses, but these were obliged to open up to the new burgesses the
third great college of more recent origin and belonging to a worship
that was originally foreign. They were intended, in fine, to procure
a share in the common usufructs of burgesses for the poorer commons,
alleviation for the suffering debtors, and employment for the
day-labourers that were destitute of work. Abolition of privileges,
civil equality, social reform--these were the three great ideas, of
which it was the design of this movement to secure the recognition.
Vainly the patricians exerted all the means at their command in
opposition to these legislative proposals; even the dictatorship and
the old military hero Camillus were able only to delay, not to avert
their accomplishment. Willingly would the people have separated the
proposals; of what moment to it were the consulate and custodiership
of oracles, if only the burden of debt were lightened and the public
lands were free! But it was not for nothing that the plebeian
nobility had adopted the popular cause; it included the proposals in
one single project of law, and after a long struggle--it is said of
eleven years--the senate at length gave its consent and they passed
in the year 387.

Political Abolition of the Patriciate

With the election of the first non-patrician consul--the choice fell
on one of the authors of this reform, the late tribune of the people,
Lucius Sextius Lateranus--the clan-aristocracy ceased both in fact and
in law to be numbered among the political institutions of Rome. When
after the final passing of these laws the former champion of the
clans, Marcus Furius Camillus, founded a sanctuary of Concord at the
foot of the Capitol--upon an elevated platform, where the senate was
wont frequently to meet, above the old meeting-place of the burgesses,
the Comitium--we gladly cherish the belief that he recognized in the
legislation thus completed the close of a dissension only too long
continued. The religious consecration of the new concord of the
community was the last public act of the old warrior and statesman,
and a worthy termination of his long and glorious career. He was
not wholly mistaken; the more judicious portion of the clans
evidently from this time forward looked upon their exclusive political
privileges as lost, and were content to share the government with the
plebeian aristocracy. In the majority, however, the patrician spirit
proved true to its incorrigible character. On the strength of the
privilege which the champions of legitimacy have at all times claimed
of obeying the laws only when these coincide with their party
interests, the Roman nobles on various occasions ventured, in open
violation of the stipulated arrangement, to nominate two patrician
consuls. But, when by way of answer to an election of that sort for
the year 411 the community in the year following formally resolved
to allow both consular positions to be filled by non-patricians, they
understood the implied threat, and still doubtless desired, but never
again ventured, to touch the second consular place.

Praetorship--
Curule Aedileship--
Complete Opening Up of Magistracies and Priesthoods

In like manner the aristocracy simply injured itself by the attempt
which it made, on the passing of the Licinian laws, to save at least
some remnant of its ancient privileges by means of a system of
political clipping and paring. Under the pretext that the nobility
were exclusively cognizant of law, the administration of justice was
detached from the consulate when the latter had to be thrown open
to the plebeians; and for this purpose there was nominated a special
third consul, or, as he was commonly called, a praetor. In like
manner the supervision of the market and the judicial police-duties
connected with it, as well as the celebration of the city-festival,
were assigned to two newly nominated aediles, who--by way of
distinction from the plebeian aediles--were named from their standing
jurisdiction "aediles of the judgment seat" (-aediles curules-).
But the curule aedileship became immediately so far accessible to
the plebeians, that it was held by patricians and plebeians
alternately. Moreover the dictatorship was thrown open to plebeians
in 398, as the mastership of the horse had already been in the year
before the Licinian laws (386); both the censorships were thrown open
in 403, and the praetorship in 417; and about the same time (415) the
nobility were by law excluded from one of the censorships, as they
had previously been from one of the consulships. It was to no purpose
that once more a patrician augur detected secret flaws, hidden from
the eyes of the uninitiated, in the election of a plebeian dictator
(427), and that the patrician censor did not up to the close of our
present period (474) permit his colleague to present the solemn
sacrifice with which the census closed; such chicanery served merely
to show the ill humour of patricianism. Of as little avail were the
complaints which the patrician presidents of the senate would not fail
to raise regarding the participation of the plebeians in its debates;
it became a settled rule that no longer the patrician members,
but those who had attained to one of the three supreme ordinary
magistracies--the consulship, praetorship, and curule aedileship
--should be summoned to give their opinion in this order and without
distinction of class, while the senators who had held none of these
offices still even now took part merely in the division. The right,
in fine, of the patrician senate to reject a decree of the community
as unconstitutional--a right, however, which in all probability it
rarely ventured to exercise--was withdrawn from it by the Publilian
law of 415 and by the Maenian law which was not passed before the
middle of the fifth century, in so far that it had to bring forward
its constitutional objections, if it had any such, when the list
of candidates was exhibited or the project of law was brought in;
which practically amounted to a regular announcement of its consent
beforehand. In this character, as a purely formal right, the
confirmation of the decrees of the people still continued in
the hands of the nobility down to the last age of the republic.

The clans retained, as may naturally be conceived, their religious
privileges longer. Indeed, several of these, which were destitute
of political importance, were never interfered with, such as their
exclusive eligibility to the offices of the three supreme -flamines-
and that of -rex sacrorum- as well as to the membership of the
colleges of Salii. On the other hand the two colleges of Pontifices
and of augurs, with which a considerable influence over the courts
and the comitia were associated, were too important to remain in the
exclusive possession of the patricians. The Ogulnian law of 454
accordingly threw these also open to plebeians, by increasing the
number both of the pontifices and of the augurs from six to nine, and
equally distributing the stalls in the two colleges between patricians
and plebeians.

Equivalence of Law and Plebiscitum

The two hundred years' strife was brought at length to: a close by the
law of the dictator Q. Hortensius (465, 468) which was occasioned by a
dangerous popular insurrection, and which declared that the decrees of
the plebs should stand on an absolute footing of equality--instead of
their earlier conditional equivalence--with those of the whole
community. So greatly had the state of things been changed that
that portion of the burgesses which had once possessed exclusively
the right of voting was thenceforth, under the usual form of taking
votes binding for the whole burgess-body, no longer so much as asked
the question.

The Later Patricianism

The struggle between the Roman clans and commons was thus
substantially at an end. While the nobility still preserved out
of its comprehensive privileges the -de facto- possession of one of
the consulships and one of the censorships, it was excluded by law
from the tribunate, the plebeian aedileship, the second consulship
and censorship, and from participation in the votes of the plebs
which were legally equivalent to votes of the whole body of burgesses.
As a righteous retribution for its perverse and stubborn resistance,
the patriciate had seen its former privileges converted into so many
disabilities. The Roman clan-nobility, however, by no means
disappeared because it had become an empty name. The less the
significance and power of the nobility, the more purely and
exclusively the patrician spirit developed itself. The haughtiness
of the "Ramnians" survived the last of their class-privileges for
centuries; after they had steadfastly striven "to rescue the consulate
from the plebeian filth" and had at length become reluctantly
convinced of the impossibility of such an achievement, they continued
at least rudely and spitefully to display their aristocratic spirit.
To understand rightly the history of Rome in the fifth and sixth
centuries, we must never overlook this sulking patricianism; it could
indeed do little more than irritate itself and others, but this it
did to the best of its ability. Some years after the passing of the
Ogulnian law (458) a characteristic instance of this sort occurred.
A patrician matron, who was married to a leading plebeian that had
attained to the highest dignities of the state, was on account of this
misalliance expelled from the circle of noble dames and was refused
admission to the common festival of Chastity; and in consequence of
that exclusion separate patrician and plebeian goddesses of Chastity
were thenceforward worshipped in Rome. Doubtless caprices of this
sort were of very little moment, and the better portion of the
clans kept themselves entirely aloof from this miserable policy of
peevishness; but it left behind on both sides a feeling of discontent,
and, while the struggle of the commons against the clans was in itself
a political and even moral necessity, these convulsive efforts to
prolong the strife--the aimless combats of the rear-guard after the
battle had been decided, as well as the empty squabbles as to rank
and standing--needlessly irritated and disturbed the public and
private life of the Roman community.

The Social Distress, and the Attempt to Relieve It

Nevertheless one object of the compromise concluded by the two
portions of the plebs in 387, the abolition of the patriciate, had
in all material points been completely attained. The question next
arises, how far the same can be affirmed of the two positive objects
aimed at in the compromise?--whether the new order of things in
reality checked social distress and established political equality?
The two were intimately connected; for, if economic embarrassments
ruined the middle class and broke up the burgesses into a minority of
rich men and a suffering proletariate, such a state of things would at
once annihilate civil equality and in reality destroy the republican
commonwealth. The preservation and increase of the middle class, and
in particular of the farmers, formed therefore for every patriotic
statesman of Rome a problem not merely important, but the most
important of all. The plebeians, moreover, recently called to take
part in the government, greatly indebted as they were for their new
political rights to the proletariate which was suffering and expecting
help at their hands, were politically and morally under special
obligation to attempt its relief by means of government measures,
so far as relief was by such means at all attainable.

The Licinian Agrarian Laws

Let us first consider how far any real relief was contained in that
part of the legislation of 387 which bore upon the question. That
the enactment in favour of the free day-labourers could not possibly
accomplish its object--namely, to check the system of farming on
a large scale and by means of slaves, and to secure to the free
proletarians at least a share of work--is self-evident. In this
matter legislation could afford no relief, without shaking the
foundations of the civil organization of the period in a way that
would reach far beyond its immediate horizon. In the question of the
domains, on the other hand, it was quite possible for legislation to
effect a change; but what was done was manifestly inadequate. The new
domain-arrangement, by granting the right of driving very considerable
flocks and herds upon the public pastures, and that of occupying
domain-land not laid out in pasture up to a maximum fixed on a
high scale, conceded to the wealthy an important and perhaps even
disproportionate prior share in the produce of the domains; and by
the latter regulation conferred upon the domain-tenure, although it
remained in law liable to pay a tenth and revocable at pleasure,
as well as upon the system of occupation itself, somewhat of a legal
sanction. It was a circumstance still more suspicious, that the
new legislation neither supplemented the existing and manifestly
unsatisfactory provisions for the collection of the pasture-money
and the tenth by compulsory measures of a more effective kind, nor
prescribed any thorough revision of the domanial possessions, nor
appointed a magistracy charged with the carrying of the new laws into
effect. The distribution of the existing occupied domain-land partly
among the holders up to a fair maximum, partly among the plebeians
who had no property, in both cases in full ownership; the abolition
in future of the system of occupation; and the institution of
an authority empowered to make immediate distribution of any
future acquisitions of territory, were so clearly demanded by the
circumstances of the case, that it certainly was not through want
of discernment that these comprehensive measures were neglected.
We cannot fail to recollect that it was the plebeian aristocracy,
in other words, a portion of the very class that was practically
privileged in respect to the usufructs of the domains, which proposed
the new arrangement, and that one of its very authors, Gaius Licinius
Stolo, was among the first to be condemned for having exceeded the
agrarian maximum; and we cannot but ask whether the legislators dealt
altogether honourably, and whether they did not on the contrary
designedly evade a solution, really tending to the common benefit,
of the unhappy question of the domains. We do not mean, however, to
express any doubt that the regulations of the Licinian laws, such as
they were, might and did substantially benefit the small farmer and
the day-labourer. It must, moreover, be acknowledged that in the
period immediately succeeding the passing of the law the authorities
watched with at least comparative strictness over the observance of
its rules as to the maximum, and frequently condemned the possessors
of large herds and the occupiers of the domains to heavy fines.

Laws Imposing Taxes--
Laws of Credit

In the system of taxation and of credit also efforts were made with
greater energy at this period than at any before or subsequent to it
to remedy the evils of the national economy, so far as legal measures
could do so. The duty levied in 397 of five per cent on the value of
slaves that were to be manumitted was--irrespective of the fact that
it imposed a check on the undesirable multiplication of freedmen--the
first tax in Rome that was really laid upon the rich. In like manner
efforts were made to remedy the system of credit. The usury laws,
which the Twelve Tables had established,(9) were renewed and gradually
rendered more stringent, so that the maximum of interest was
successively lowered from 10 per cent (enforced in 397) to 5 per cent
(in 407) for the year of twelve months, and at length (412) the taking
of interest was altogether forbidden. The latter foolish law remained
formally in force, but, of course, it was practically inoperative; the
standard rate of interest afterwards usual, viz. 1 per cent per month,
or 12 per cent for the civil common year--which, according to the
value of money in antiquity, was probably at that time nearly the same
as, according to its modern value, a rate of 5 or 6 per cent--must
have been already about this period established as the maximum of
appropriate interest. Any action at law for higher rates must have
been refused, perhaps even judicial claims for repayment may have been
allowed; moreover notorious usurers were not unfrequently summoned
before the bar of the people and readily condemned by the tribes to
heavy fines. Still more important was the alteration of the procedure
in cases of debt by the Poetelian law (428 or 441). On the one hand
it allowed every debtor who declared on oath his solvency to save his
personal freedom by the cession of his property; on the other hand it
abolished the former summary proceedings in execution on a loan-debt,
and laid down the rule that no Roman burgess could be led away to
bondage except upon the sentence of jurymen.