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

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


Early Urban Character of Rome


But in connection with this view of the position of Rome as the
emporium of Latium another observation suggests itself. At the time
when history begins to dawn on us, Rome appears, in contradistinction
to the league of the Latin communities, as a compact urban unity.
The Latin habit of dwelling in open villages, and of using the
common stronghold only for festivals and assemblies or in case of
special need, was subjected to restriction at a far earlier period,
probably, in the canton of Rome than anywhere else in Latium. The
Roman did not cease to manage his farm in person, or to regard it
as his proper home; but the unwholesome atmosphere of the Campagna
could not but induce him to take up his abode as much as possible
on the more airy and salubrious city hills; and by the side of the
cultivators of the soil there must have been a numerous non-agricultural
population, partly foreigners, partly native, settled there from
very early times. This to some extent accounts for the dense
population of the old Roman territory, which may be estimated at
the utmost at 115 square miles, partly of marshy or sandy soil, and
which, even under the earliest constitution of the city, furnished
a force of 3300 freemen; so that it must have numbered at least
10,000 free inhabitants. But further, every one acquainted with
the Romans and their history is aware that it is their urban and
mercantile character which forms the basis of whatever is peculiar
in their public and private life, and that the distinction between
them and the other Latins and Italians in general is pre-eminently
the distinction between citizen and rustic. Rome, indeed, was
not a mercantile city like Corinth or Carthage; for Latium was an
essentially agricultural region, and Rome was in the first instance,
and continued to be, pre-eminently a Latin city. But the distinction
between Rome and the mass of the other Latin towns must certainly
be traced back to its commercial position, and to the type of
character produced by that position in its citizens. If Rome was
the emporium of the Latin districts, we can readily understand
how, along with and in addition to Latin husbandry, an urban life
should have attained vigorous and rapid development there and thus
have laid the foundation for its distinctive career.

It is far more important and more practicable to follow out the
course of this mercantile and strategical growth of the city of
Rome, than to attempt the useless task of chemically analysing the
insignificant and but little diversified communities of primitive
times. This urban development may still be so far recognized
in the traditions regarding the successive circumvallations and
fortifications of Rome, the formation of which necessarily kept
pace with the growth of the Roman commonwealth in importance as a
city.


The Palatine City


The town, which in the course of centuries grew up as Rome, in its
original form embraced according to trustworthy testimony only the
Palatine, or "square Rome" (-Roma quadrata-), as it was called in
later times from the irregularly quadrangular form of the Palatine
hill. The gates and walls that enclosed this original city remained
visible down to the period of the empire: the sites of two of the
former, the Porta Romana near S. Giorgio in Velabro, and the Porta
Mugionis at the Arch of Titus, are still known to us, and the
Palatine ring-wall is described by Tacitus from his own observation
at least on the sides looking towards the Aventine and Caelian.
Many traces indicate that this was the centre and original seat of
the urban settlement. On the Palatine was to be found the sacred
symbol of that settlement, the "outfit-vault" (-mundus-) as it
was called, in which the first settlers deposited a sufficiency
of everything necessary for a household and added a clod of their
dear native earth. There, too, was situated the building in which
all the curies assembled for religious and other purposes, each at
its own hearth (-curiae veteres-). There stood the meetinghouse of
the "Leapers" (-curia Saliorum-) in which also the sacred shields
of Mars were preserved, the sanctuary of the "Wolves" (-Lupercal-),
and the dwelling of the priest of Jupiter. On and near this hill
the legend of the founding of the city placed the scenes of its
leading incidents, and the straw-covered house of Romulus, the
shepherd's hut of his foster-father Faustulus, the sacred fig-tree
towards which the cradle with the twins had floated, the cornelian
cherry-tree that sprang from the shaft of the spear which the
founder of the city had hurled from the Aventine over the valley of
the Circus into this enclosure, and other such sacred relics were
pointed out to the believer. Temples in the proper sense of the
term were still at this time unknown, and accordingly the Palatine
has nothing of that sort to show belonging to the primitive age.
The public assemblies of the community were early transferred to
another locality, so that their original site is unknown; only it
may be conjectured that the free space round the -mundus-, afterwards
called the -area Apollinis-, was the primitive place of assembly
for the burgesses and the senate, and the stage erected over the
-mundus- itself the primitive seat of justice of the Roman community.


The Seven Mounts


The "festival of the Seven Mounts" (-septimontium-), again, has
preserved the memory of the more extended settlement which gradually
formed round the Palatine. Suburbs grew up one after another, each
protected by its own separate though weaker circumvallation and
joined to the original ring-wall of the Palatine, as in fen districts
the outer dikes are joined on to the main dike. The "Seven Rings"
were, the Palatine itself; the Cermalus, the slope of the Palatine
in the direction of the morass that extended between it and the
Capitol towards the river (-velabrum-); the Velia, the ridge which
connected the Palatine with the Esquiline, but in subsequent times
was almost wholly obliterated by the buildings of the empire; the
Fagutal, the Oppius, and the Cispius, the three summits of the
Esquiline; lastly, the Sucusa, or Subura, a fortress constructed
outside of the earthen rampart which protected the new town on the
Carinae, in the depression between the Esquiline and the Quirinal
beneath S. Pietro in Vincoli. These additions, manifestly the
results of a gradual growth, clearly reveal to a certain extent the
earliest history of the Palatine Rome, especially when we compare
with them the Servian arrangement of districts which was afterwards
formed on the basis of this earliest division.


Oldest Settlements in the Palatine and Suburan Regions


The Palatine was the original seat of the Roman community, the oldest
and originally the only ring-wall. The urban settlement, however,
began at Rome as well as elsewhere not within, but under the
protection of, the stronghold; and the oldest settlements with
which we are acquainted, and which afterwards formed the first and
second regions in the Servian division of the city, lay in a circle
round the Palatine. These included the settlement on the declivity
of the Cermalus with the "street of the Tuscans"--a name in which
there may have been preserved a reminiscence of the commercial
intercourse between the Caerites and Romans already perhaps carried
on with vigour in the Palatine city--and the settlement on the
Velia; both of which subsequently along with the stronghold-hill
itself constituted one region in the Servian city. Further, there
were the component elements of the subsequent second region--the
suburb on the Caelian, which probably embraced only its extreme point
above the Colosseum; that on the Carinae, the spur which projects
from the Esquiline towards the Palatine; and, lastly, the valley
and outwork of the Subura, from which the whole region received
its name. These two regions jointly constituted the incipient city;
and the Suburan district of it, which extended at the base of the
stronghold, nearly from the Arch of Constantine to S. Pietro in
Vincoli, and over the valley beneath, appears to have been more
considerable and perhaps older than the settlements incorporated
by the Servian arrangement in the Palatine district, because in the
order of the regions the former takes precedence of the latter. A
remarkable memorial of the distinction between these two portions
of the city was preserved in one of the oldest sacred customs of
the later Rome, the sacrifice of the October horse yearly offered
in the -Campus Martius-: down to a late period a struggle took
place at this festival for the horse's head between the men of the
Subura and those of the Via Sacra, and according as victory lay
with the former or with the latter, the head was nailed either to
the Mamilian Tower (site unknown) in the Subura, or to the king's
palace under the Palatine. It was the two halves of the old city
that thus competed with each other on equal terms. At that time,
accordingly, the Esquiliae (which name strictly used is exclusive
of the Carinae) were in reality what they were called, the "outer
buildings" (-exquiliae-, like -inquilinus-, from -colere-) or
suburb: this became the third region in the later city division,
and it was always held in inferior consideration as compared with
the Suburan and Palatine regions. Other neighbouring heights also,
such as the Capitol and the Aventine, may probably have been occupied
by the community of the Seven Mounts; the "bridge of piles" in
particular (-pons sublicius-), thrown over the natural pier of the
island in the Tiber, must have existed even then--the pontifical
college alone is sufficient evidence of this--and the -tete de
pont- on the Etruscan bank, the height of the Janiculum, would not
be left unoccupied; but the community had not as yet brought either
within the circuit of its fortifications. The regulation which
was adhered to as a ritual rule down to the latest times, that the
bridge should be composed simply of wood without iron, manifestly
shows that in its original practical use it was to be merely a
flying bridge, which must be capable of being easily at any time
broken off or burnt. We recognize in this circumstance how insecure
for a long time and liable to interruption was the command of the
passage of the river on the part of the Roman community.

No relation is discoverable between the urban settlements thus
gradually formed and the three communities into which from an
immemorially early period the Roman commonwealth was in political
law divided. As the Ramnes, Tities, and Luceres appear to have
been communities originally independent, they must have had their
settlements originally apart; but they certainly did not dwell
in separate circumvallations on the Seven Hills, and all fictions
to this effect in ancient or modern times must be consigned by
the intelligent inquirer to the same fate with the charming tale
of Tarpeia and the battle of the Palatine. On the contrary each
of the three tribes of Ramnes, Tities, and Luceres must have been
distributed throughout the two regions of the oldest city, the
Subura and Palatine, and the suburban region as well: with this
may be connected the fact, that afterwards not only in the Suburan
and Palatine, but in each of the regions subsequently added to the
city, there were three pairs of Argean chapels. The Palatine city
of the Seven Mounts may have had a history of its own; no other
tradition of it has survived than simply that of its having once
existed. But as the leaves of the forest make room for the new
growth of spring, although they fall unseen by human eyes, so has
this unknown city of the Seven Mounts made room for the Rome of
history.


The Hill-Romans on the Quirinal


But the Palatine city was not the only one that in ancient times
existed within the circle afterwards enclosed by the Servian walls;
opposite to it, in its immediate vicinity, there lay a second city
on the Quirinal. The "old stronghold" (-Capitolium vetus-) with a
sanctuary of Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, and a temple of the goddess
of Fidelity in which state treaties were publicly deposited, forms
the evident counterpart of the later Capitol with its temple to
Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, and with its shrine of Fides Romana
likewise destined as it were for a repository of international
law, and furnishes a sure proof that the Quirinal also was once
the centre of an independent commonwealth. The same fact may be
inferred from the double worship of Mars on the Palatine and the
Quirinal; for Mars was the type of the warrior and the oldest chief
divinity of the burgess communities of Italy. With this is connected
the further circumstance that his ministers, the two primitive
colleges of the "Leapers" (-Salii-) and of the "Wolves" (-Luperci-)
existed in the later Rome in duplicate: by the side of the Salii
of the Palatine there were also Salii of the Quirinal; by the side
of the Quinctian Luperci of the Palatine there was a Fabian guild
of Luperci, which in all probability had their sanctuary on the
Quirinal.(5)

All these indications, which even in themselves are of great weight,
become more significant when we recollect that the accurately
known circuit of the Palatine city of the Seven Mounts excluded the
Quirinal, and that afterwards in the Servian Rome, while the first
three regions corresponded to the former Palatine city, a fourth
region was formed out of the Quirinal along with the neighbouring
Viminal. Thus, too, we discover an explanation of the reason why
the strong outwork of the Subura was constructed beyond the city
wall in the valley between the Esquiline and Quirinal; it was at
that point, in fact, that the two territories came into contact,
and the Palatine Romans, after having taken possession of the low
ground, were under the necessity of constructing a stronghold for
protection against those of the Quirinal.

Lastly, even the name has not been lost by which the men of the
Quirinal distinguished themselves from their Palatine neighbours.
As the Palatine city took the name of "the Seven Mounts," its
citizens called themselves the "mount-men" (-montani-), and the
term "mount," while applied to the other heights belonging to the
city, was above all associated with the Palatine; so the Quirinal
height--although not lower, but on the contrary somewhat higher,
than the former--as well as the adjacent Viminal never in the strict
use of the language received any other name than "hill" (collis).
In the ritual records, indeed, the Quirinal was not unfrequently
designated as the "hill" without further addition. In like manner
the gate leading out from this height was usually called the
"hill-gate" (-porta collina-); the priests of Mars settled there
were called those "of the hill" (-Salii collini-) in contrast to
those of the Palatium (-Salii Palatini-) and the fourth Servian
region formed out of this district was termed the hill-region
(-tribus collina-)(6) The name of Romans primarily associated with
the locality was probably appropriated by these "Hill-men" as well
as by those of the "Mounts;" and the former perhaps designated
themselves as "Romans of the Hill" (-Romani collini-). That a
diversity of race may have lain at the foundation of this distinction
between the two neighbouring cities is possible; but evidence
sufficient to warrant our pronouncing a community established on
Latin soil to be of alien lineage is, in the case of the Quirinal
community, totally wanting.(7)


Relations between the Palatine and Quirinal Communities


Thus the site of the Roman commonwealth was still at this period
occupied by the Mount-Romans of the Palatine and the Hill-Romans
of the Quirinal as two separate communities confronting each other
and doubtless in many respects at feud, in some degree resembling
the Montigiani and the Trasteverini in modern Rome. That the
community of the Seven Mounts early attained a great preponderance
over that of the Quirinal may with certainty be inferred both from
the greater extent of its newer portions and suburbs, and from
the position of inferiority in which the former Hill-Romans were
obliged to acquiesce under the later Servian arrangement. But
even within the Palatine city there was hardly a true and complete
amalgamation of the different constituent elements of the settlement.
We have already mentioned how the Subura and the Palatine annually
contended for the horse's head; the several Mounts also, and even
the several curies (there was as yet no common hearth for the
city, but the various hearths of the curies subsisted side by side,
although in the same locality) probably felt themselves to be as
yet more separated than united; and Rome as a whole was probably
rather an aggregate of urban settlements than a single city. It
appears from many indications that the houses of the old and powerful
families were constructed somewhat after the manner of fortresses
and were rendered capable of defence--a precaution, it may be
presumed, not unnecessary. It was the magnificent structure ascribed
to king Servius Tullius that first surrounded not merely those two
cities of the Palatine and Quirinal, but also the heights of the
Capitol and the Aventine which were not comprehended within their
enclosure, with a single great ring-wall, and thereby created
the new Rome--the Rome of history. But ere this mighty work was
undertaken, the relations of Rome to the surrounding country had
beyond doubt undergone a complete revolution. As the period, during
which the husbandman guided his plough on the seven hills of Rome
just as on the other hills of Latium, and the usually unoccupied
places of refuge on particular summits alone presented the germs
of a more permanent settlement, corresponds to the earliest epoch
of the Latin stock without trace of traffic or achievement; as
thereafter the flourishing settlement on the Palatine and in the
"Seven Rings" was coincident with the occupation of the mouths of
the Tiber by the Roman community, and with the progress of the Latins
to a more stirring and freer intercourse, to an urban civilization
in Rome more especially, and perhaps also to a more consolidated
political union in the individual states as well as in the confederacy;
so the Servian wall, which was the foundation of a single great
city, was connected with the epoch at which the city of Rome was
able to contend for, and at length to achieve, the sovereignty of
the Latin league.




Notes for Book I Chapter IV


1. A similar change of sound is exhibited in the case of the following
formations, all of them of a very ancient kind: -pars--portio-,
-Mars- -Mors-, -farreum- ancient form for -horreum-, -Fabii- -Fovii-,
-Valerius- -Volesus-, -vacuus- -vacivus-.

2. The --synoikismos-- did not necessarily involve an actual
settlement together at one spot; but while each resided as formerly
on his own land, there was thenceforth only one council-hall and
court-house for the whole (Thucyd. ii. 15; Herodot. i. 170).

3. We might even, looking to the Attic --trittus-- and the Umbrian
-trifo-, raise the question whether a triple division of the
community was not a fundamental principle of the Graeco-ltalians:
in that case the triple division of the Roman community would not be
referable to the amalgamation of several once independent tribes.
But, in order to the establishment of a hypothesis so much at
variance with tradition, such a threefold division would require to
present itself more generally throughout the Graeco-Italian field
than seems to be the case, and to appear uniformly everywhere as
the ground-scheme. The Umbrians may possibly have adopted the word
-tribus- only when they came under the influence of Roman rule; it
cannot with certainty be traced in Oscan.

4. Although the older opinion, that Latin is to be viewed as
a mixed language made up of Greek and non-Greek elements, has been
now abandoned on all sides, judicious inquirers even (e. g. Schwegler,
R. G. i. 184, 193) still seek to discover in Latin a mixture of
two nearly related Italian dialects. But we ask in vain for the
linguistic or historical facts which render such an hypothesis
necessary. When a language presents the appearance of being an
intermediate link between two others, every philologist knows that
the phenomenon may quite as probably depend, and more frequently
does depend, on organic development than on external intermixture.

5. That the Quinctian Luperci had precedence in rank over the Fabian
is evident from the circumstance that the fabulists attribute the
Quinctii to Romulus, the Fabii to Remus (Ovid, Fast. ii. 373 seq.;
Vict. De Orig. 22). That the Fabii belonged to the Hill-Romans is
shown by the sacrifice of their -gens- on the Quirinal (Liv. v.
46, 52), whether that sacrifice may or may not have been connected
with the Lupercalia.

Moreover, the Lupercus of the former college is called in
inscriptions (Orelli, 2253) -Lupercus Quinctialis vetus-; and the
-praenomen-Kaeso, which was most probably connected with the Lupercal
worship (see Rom. Forschungen, i. 17), is found exclusively among
the Quinctii and Fabii: the form commonly occurring in authors,
-Lupercus Quinctilius- and -Quinctilianus-, is therefore a misnomer,
and the college belonged not to the comparatively recent Quinctilii,
but to the far older Quinctii. When, again, the Quinctii (Liv. i.
30), or Quinctilii (Dion. iii. 29), are named among the Alban clans,
the latter reading is here to be preferred, and the Quinctii are
to be regarded rather as an old Roman -gens-.

6. Although the name "Hill of Quirinus" was afterwards ordinarily
used to designate the height where the Hill-Romans had their abode,
we need not at all on that account regard the name "Quirites" as
having been originally reserved for the burgesses on the Quirinal.
For, as has been shown, all the earliest indications point,
as regards these, to the name -Collini-; while it is indisputably
certain that the name Quirites denoted from the first, as well as
subsequently, simply the full burgess, and had no connection with
the distinction between montani and collini (comp. chap. v. infra).
The later designation of the Quirinal rests on the circumstance
that, while the -Mars quirinus-, the spear-bearing god of Death, was
originally worshipped as well on the Palatine as on the Quirinal--as
indeed the oldest inscriptions found at what was afterwards called
the Temple of Quirinus designate this divinity simply as Mars,--at
a later period for the sake of distinction the god of the Mount-Romans
more especially was called Mars, the god of the Hill Romans more
especially Quirinus.

When the Quirinal is called -collis agonalis-, "hill of sacrifice,"
it is so designated merely as the centre of the religious rites of
the Hill-Romans.

7. The evidence alleged for this (comp. e. g. Schwegler, S. G. i.
480) mainly rests on an etymologico-historical hypothesis started
by Varro and as usual unanimously echoed by later writers, that the
Latin -quiris- and -quirinus- are akin to the name of the Sabine
town -Cures-, and that the Quirinal hill accordingly had been peopled
from -Cures-. Even if the linguistic affinity of these words were
more assured, there would be little warrant for deducing from it such
a historical inference. That the old sanctuaries on this eminence
(where, besides, there was also a "Collis Latiaris") were Sabine,
has been asserted, but has not been proved. Mars quirinus, Sol,
Salus, Flora, Semo Sancus or Deus fidius were doubtless Sabine,
but they were also Latin, divinities, formed evidently during the
epoch when Latins and Sabines still lived undivided. If a name like
that of Semo Sancus (which moreover occurs in connection with the
Tiber-island) is especially associated with the sacred places of
the Quirinal which afterwards diminished in its importance (comp.
the Porta Sanqualis deriving its name therefrom), every unbiassed
inquirer will recognize in such a circumstance only a proof of the
high antiquity of that worship, not a proof of its derivation from
a neighbouring land. In so speaking we do not mean to deny that
it is possible that old distinctions of race may have co-operated
in producing this state of things; but if such was the case, they
have, so far as we are concerned, totally disappeared, and the views
current among our contemporaries as to the Sabine element in the
constitution of Rome are only fitted seriously to warn us against
such baseless speculations leading to no result.




CHAPTER V

The Original Constitution of Rome



The Roman House


Father and mother, sons and daughters, home and homestead,
servants and chattels--such are the natural elements constituting
the household in all cases, where polygamy has not obliterated the
distinctive position of the mother. But the nations that have been
most susceptible of culture have diverged widely from each other
in their conception and treatment of the natural distinctions which
the household thus presents. By some they have been apprehended
and wrought out more profoundly, by others more superficially;
by some more under their moral, by others more under their legal
aspects. None has equalled the Roman in the simple but inexorable
embodiment in law of the principles pointed out by nature herself.