The History of Rome, Book I - Theodor Mommsen
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Upon the whole it is plain that this Servian institution did not
originate in a conflict between the orders. On the contrary, it
bears the stamp of a reforming legislator like the constitutions of
Lycurgus, Solon, and Zaleucus; and it has evidently been produced
under Greek influence. Particular analogies may be deceptive, such
as the coincidence noticed by the ancients that in Corinth also
widows and orphans were charged with the provision of horses for
the cavalry; but the adoption of the armour and arrangements of
the Greek hoplite system was certainly no accidental coincidence.
Now if we consider the fact that it was in the second century of
the city that the Greek states in Lower Italy advanced from the pure
clan-constitution to a modified one, which placed the preponderance
in the hands of the landholders, we shall recognize in that movement
the impulse which called forth in Rome the Servian reform--a change
of constitution resting in the main on the same fundamental idea,
and only directed into a somewhat different course by the strictly
monarchical form of the Roman state.(13)
Notes for Book I Chapter VI
1. I. V. Dependents of the Household
2. -Habuit plebem in clientelas principium descriptam-. Cicero,
de Rep. ii. 9.
3. I. III. The Latin League
4. The enactments of the Twelve Tables respecting -usus- show
clearly that they found the civil marriage already in existence.
In like manner the high antiquity of the civil marriage is clearly
evident from the fact that it, equally with the religious marriage,
necessarily involved the marital power (v. The House-father and
His Household), and only differed from the religious marriage as
respected the manner in which that power was acquired. The religious
marriage itself was held as the proprietary and legally necessary
form of acquiring a wife; whereas, in the case of civil marriage,
one of the general forms of acquiring property used on other
occasions--delivery on the part of a person entitled to give away,
or prescription--was requisite in order to lay the foundation of
a valid marital power.
5. I. V. The House-father and His Household.
6. -Hufe-, hide, as much as can be properly tilled with one plough,
called in Scotland a plough-gate.
7. For the same reason, when the levy was enlarged after
the admission of the Hill-Romans, the equites were doubled, while
in the infantry force instead of the single "gathering" (-legio-)
two legions were called out (vi. Amalgamation of the Palatine and
Quirinal Cities).
8. I. IV. Oldest Settlements In the Palatine and Suburan Regions
9. I. V. Burdens of the Burgesses
10. -velites-, see v. Burdens of the Burgesses, note
11. I. V. Rights of the Burgesses
12. Even about 480, allotments of land of seven -jugera- appeared
to those that received them small (Val. Max. iii. 3, 5; Colum. i,
praef. 14; i. 3, ii; Plin. H. N. xviii. 3, 18: fourteen -jugera-,
Victor, 33; Plutarch, Apophth. Reg. et Imp. p. 235 Dubner, in
accordance with which Plutarch, Crass. 2, is to be corrected).
A comparison of the Germanic proportions gives the same result.
The -jugerum- and the -morgen- [nearly 5/8 of an English acre],
both originally measures rather of labour than of surface, may be
looked upon as originally identical. As the German hide consisted
ordinarily of 30, but not unfrequently of 20 or 40 -morgen-, and
the homestead frequently, at least among the Anglo-Saxons, amounted
to a tenth of the hide, it will appear, taking into account the
diversity of climate and the size of the Roman -heredium- of 2
-jugera-, that the hypothesis of a Roman hide of 20 -jugera- is not
unsuitable to the circumstances of the case. It is to be regretted
certainly that on this very point tradition leaves us without
precise information.
13. The analogy also between the so-called Servian constitution and
the treatment of the Attic --metoeci-- deserves to be particularly
noticed. Athens, like Rome, opened her gates at a comparatively
early period to the --metoeci--, and afterwards summoned them also
to share the burdens of the state. We cannot suppose that any
direct connection existed in this instance between Athens and Rome;
but the coincidence serves all the more distinctly to show how the
same causes--urban centralization and urban development--everywhere
and of necessity produce similar effects.
CHAPTER VII
The Hegemony of Rome in Latium
Extension of the Roman Territory
The brave and impassioned Italian race doubtless never lacked
feuds among themselves and with their neighbours: as the country
flourished and civilization advanced, feuds must have become
gradually changed into war and raids for pillage into conquest,
and political powers must have begun to assume shape. No Italian
Homer, however, has preserved for us a picture of these earliest
frays and plundering excursions, in which the character of nations
is moulded and expressed like the mind of the man in the sports
and enterprises of the boy; nor does historical tradition enable
us to form a judgment, with even approximate accuracy, as to the
outward development of power and the comparative resources of the
several Latin cantons. It is only in the case of Rome, at the
utmost, that we can trace in some degree the extension of its power
and of its territory. The earliest demonstrable boundaries of the
united Roman community have been already stated;(1) in the landward
direction they were on an average just about five miles distant
from the capital of the canton, and it was only toward the coast
that they extended as far as the mouth of the Tiber (-Ostia-), at
a distance of somewhat more than fourteen miles from Rome. "The
new city," says Strabo, in his description of the primitive Rome,
"was surrounded by larger and smaller tribes, some of whom dwelt
in independent villages and were not subordinate to any national
union." It seems to have been at the expense of these neighbours
of kindred lineage in the first instance that the earliest extensions
of the Roman territory took place.
Territory on the Anio--Alba
The Latin communities situated on the upper Tiber and between the
Tiber and the Anio-Antemnae, Crustumerium, Ficulnea, Medullia,
Caenina, Corniculum, Cameria, Collatia,--were those which pressed
most closely and sorely on Rome, and they appear to have forfeited
their independence in very early times to the arms of the Romans.
The only community that subsequently appears as independent in this
district was Nomentum; which perhaps saved its freedom by alliance
with Rome. The possession of Fidenae, the -tete de pont- of the
Etruscans on the left bank of the Tiber, was contested between the
Latins and the Etruscans--in other words, between the Romans and
Veientes--with varying results. The struggle with Gabii, which
held the plain between the Anio and the Alban hills, was for a
long period equally balanced: down to late times the Gabine dress
was deemed synonymous with that of war, and Gabine ground the
prototype of hostile soil.(2) By these conquests the Roman territory
was probably extended to about 190 square miles. Another very
early achievement of the Roman arms was preserved, although in a
legendary dress, in the memory of posterity with greater vividness
than those obsolete struggles: Alba, the ancient sacred metropolis
of Latium, was conquered and destroyed by Roman troops. How the
collision arose, and how it was decided, tradition does not tell:
the battle of the three Roman with the three Alban brothers born at
one birth is nothing but a personification of the struggle between
two powerful and closely related cantons, of which the Roman at
least was triune. We know nothing at all beyond the naked fact of
the subjugation and destruction of Alba by Rome.(3)
It is not improbable, although wholly a matter of conjecture, that,
at the same period when Rome was establishing herself on the Anio
and on the Alban hills, Praeneste, which appears at a later date
as mistress of eight neighbouring townships, Tibur, and others of
the Latin communities were similarly occupied in enlarging their
territory and laying the foundations of their subsequent far from
inconsiderable power.
Treatment of the Earliest Acquisitons
We feel the want of accurate information as to the legal character
and legal effects of these early Latin conquests, still more than
we miss the records of the wars in which they were won. Upon the
whole it is not to be doubted that they were treated in accordance
with the system of incorporation, out of which the tripartite community
of Rome had arisen; excepting that the cantons who were compelled
by arms to enter the combination did not, like the primitive three,
preserve some sort of relative independence as separate regions
in the new united community, but became so entirely merged in the
general whole as to be no longer traced.(4) However far the power
of a Latin canton might extend, in the earliest times it tolerated
no political centre except the proper capital; and still less
founded independent settlements, such as the Phoenicians and the
Greeks established, thereby creating in their colonies clients
for the time being and future rivals to the mother city. In this
respect, the treatment which Ostia experienced from Rome deserves
special notice: the Romans could not and did not wish to prevent
the rise -de facto- of a town at that spot, but they allowed the
place no political independence, and accordingly they did not bestow
on those who settled there any local burgess-rights, but merely
allowed them to retain, if they already possessed, the general
burgess-rights of Rome.(5) This principle also determined the
fate of the weaker cantons, which by force of arms or by voluntary
submission became subject to a stronger. The stronghold of the canton
was razed, its domain was added to the domain of the conquerors,
and a new home was instituted for the inhabitants as well as for
their gods in the capital of the victorious canton. This must not
be understood absolutely to imply a formal transportation of the
conquered inhabitants to the new capital, such as was the rule at
the founding of cities in the East. The towns of Latium at this
time can have been little more than the strongholds and weekly
markets of the husbandmen: it was sufficient in general that the
market and the seat of justice should be transferred to the new
capital. That even the temples often remained at the old spot
is shown in the instances of Alba and of Caenina, towns which must
still after their destruction have retained some semblance of
existence in connection with religion. Even where the strength
of the place that was razed rendered it really necessary to remove
the inhabitants, they would be frequently settled, with a view
to the cultivation of the soil, in the open hamlets of their old
domain. That the conquered, however, were not unfrequently compelled
either as a whole or in part to settle in their new capital,
is proved, more satisfactorily than all the several stories from
the legendary period of Latium could prove it, by the maxim of
Roman state-law, that only he who had extended the boundaries of
the territory was entitled to advance the wall of the city (the
-pomerium-). Of course the conquered, whether transferred or not,
were ordinarily compelled to occupy the legal position of clients;(6)
but particular individuals or clans occasionally had burgess-rights
or, in other words, the patriciate conferred upon them. In the
time of the empire there were still recognized Alban clans which
were introduced among the burgesses of Rome after the fall of their
native seat; amongst these were the Julii, Servilii, Quinctilii,
Cloelii, Geganii, Curiatii, Metilii: the memory of their descent was
preserved by their Alban family shrines, among which the sanctuary
of the -gens- of the Julii at Bovillae again rose under the empire
into great repute.
This centralizing process, by which several small communities
became absorbed in a larger one, of course was far from being an
idea specially Roman. Not only did the development of Latium and
of the Sabellian stocks hinge upon the distinction between national
centralization and cantonal independence; the case was the same
with the development of the Hellenes. Rome in Latium and Athens
in Attica arose out of a like amalgamation of many cantons into
one state; and the wise Thales suggested a similar fusion to the
hard-pressed league of the Ionic cities as the only means of saving
their nationality. But Rome adhered to this principle of unity with
more consistency, earnestness, and success than any other Italian
canton; and just as the prominent position of Athens in Hellas
was the effect of her early centralization, so Rome was indebted
for her greatness solely to the same system, in her case far more
energetically applied,
The Hegemony of Rome over Latium--Alba
While the conquests of Rome in Latium may be mainly regarded as
direct extensions of her territory and people presenting the same
general features, a further and special significance attached to
the conquest of Alba. It was not merely the problematical size and
presumed riches of Alba that led tradition to assign a prominence
so peculiar to its capture. Alba was regarded as the metropolis
of the Latin confederacy, and had the right of presiding among the
thirty communities that belonged to it. The destruction of Alba,
of course, no more dissolved the league itself than the destruction
of Thebes dissolved the Boeotian confederacy;(7) but, in entire
consistency with the strict application of the -ius privatum- which
was characteristic of the Latin laws of war, Rome now claimed the
presidency of the league as the heir-at-law of Alba. What sort
of crises, if any, preceded or followed the acknowledgment of this
claim, we cannot tell. Upon the whole the hegemony of Rome over
Latium appears to have been speedily and generally recognized,
although particular communities, such as Labici and above all
Gabii, may for a time have declined to own it. Even at that time
Rome was probably a maritime power in contrast to the Latin "land,"
a city in contrast to the Latin villages, and a single state in
contrast to the Latin confederacy; even at that time it was only in
conjunction with and by means of Rome that the Latins could defend
their coasts against Carthaginians, Hellenes, and Etruscans, and
maintain and extend their landward frontier in opposition to their
restless neighbours of the Sabellian stock. Whether the accession
to her material resources which Rome obtained by the subjugation
of Alba was greater than the increase of her power obtained by
the capture of Antemnae or Collatia, cannot be ascertained: it is
quite possible that it was not by the conquest of Alba that Rome
was first constituted the most powerful community in Latium; she
may have been so long before; but she did gain in consequence of
that event the presidency at the Latin festival, which became the
basis of the future hegemony of the Roman community over the whole
Latin confederacy. It is important to indicate as definitely as
possible the nature of a relation so influential.
Relation of Rome to Latium
The form of the Roman hegemony over Latium was, in general, that
of an alliance on equal terms between the Roman community on the
one hand and the Latin confederacy on the other, establishing a
perpetual peace throughout the whole domain and a perpetual league
for offence and defence. "There shall be peace between the Romans
and all communities of the Latins, as long as heaven and earth
endure; they shall not wage war with each other, nor call enemies
into the land, nor grant passage to enemies: help shall be rendered
by all in concert to any community assailed, and whatever is won
in joint warfare shall be equally distributed." The stipulated
equality of rights in trade and exchange, in commercial credit
and in inheritance, tended, by the manifold relations of business
intercourse to which it led, still further to interweave the
interests of communities already connected by the ties of similar
language and manners, and in this way produced an effect somewhat
similar to that of the abolition of customs-restrictions in our own
day. Each community certainly retained in form its own law: down
to the time of the Social war Latin law was not necessarily identical
with Roman: we find, for example, that the enforcing of betrothal
by action at law, which was abolished at an early period in Rome,
continued to subsist in the Latin communities. But the simple and
purely national development of Latin law, and the endeavour to
maintain as far as possible uniformity of rights, led at length
to the result, that the law of private relations was in matter and
form substantially the same throughout all Latium. This uniformity
of rights comes most distinctly into view in the rules laid down
regarding the loss and recovery of freedom on the part of the
individual burgess. According to an ancient and venerable maxim
of law among the Latin stock no burgess could become a slave
in the state wherein he had been free, or suffer the loss of his
burgess-rights while he remained within it: if he was to be punished
with the loss of freedom and of burgess-rights (which was the same
thing), it was necessary that he should be expelled from the state
and should enter on the condition of slavery among strangers. This
maxim of law was now extended to the whole territory of the league;
no member of any of the federal states might live as a slave within
the bounds of the league. Applications of this principle are seen
in the enactment embodied in the Twelve Tables, that the insolvent
debtor, in the event of his creditor wishing to sell him, must be
sold beyond the boundary of the Tiber, in other words, beyond the
territory of the league; and in the clause of the second treaty
between Rome and Carthage, that an ally of Rome who might be taken
prisoner by the Carthaginians should be free so soon as he entered
a Roman seaport. Although there did not probably subsist a general
intercommunion of marriage within the league, yet, as has been
already remarked(8) intermarriage between the different communities
frequently occurred. Each Latin could primarily exercise political
rights only where he was enrolled as a burgess; but on the other
hand it was implied in an equality of private rights, that any Latin
could take up his abode in any place within the Latin bounds; or,
to use the phraseology of the present day, there existed, side by
side with the special burgess-rights of the individual communities,
a general right of settlement co-extensive with the confederacy;
and, after the plebeian was acknowledged in Rome as a burgess,
this right became converted as regards Rome into full freedom of
settlement. It is easy to understand how this should have turned
materially to the advantage of the capital, which alone in Latium
offered the means of urban intercourse, urban acquisition, and urban
enjoyments; and how the number of --metoeci-- in Rome should have
increased with remarkable rapidity, after the Latin land came to
live in perpetual peace with Rome.
In constitution and administration the several communities not
only remained independent and sovereign, so far as the federal
obligations did not interfere, but, what was of more importance,
the league of the thirty communities as such retained its autonomy
in contradistinction to Rome. When we are assured that the position
of Alba towards the federal communities was a position superior
to that of Rome, and that on the fall of Alba these communities
attained autonomy, this may well have been the case, in so far as
Alba was essentially a member of the league, while Rome from the
first had rather the position of a separate state confronting the
league than of a member included in it; but, just as the states
of the confederation of the Rhine were formally sovereign, while
those of the German empire had a master, the presidency of Alba may
have been in reality an honorary right(9) like that of the German
emperors, and the protectorate of Rome from the first a supremacy
like that of Napoleon. In fact Alba appears to have exercised the
right of presiding in the federal council, while Rome allowed the
Latin deputies to hold their consultations by themselves under the
guidance, as it appears, of a president selected from their own
number, and contented herself with the honorary presidency at the
federal festival where sacrifice was offered for Rome and Latium,
and with the erection of a second federal sanctuary in Rome--the
temple of Diana on the Aventine--so that thenceforth sacrifice was
offered both on Roman soil for Rome and Latium, and on Latin soil
for Latium and Rome. With equal deference to the interests of
the league the Romans in the treaty with Latium bound themselves
not to enter into a separate alliance with any Latin community--a
stipulation which very clearly reveals the apprehensions entertained,
doubtless not without reason, by the confederacy with reference to
the powerful community taking the lead. The position of Rome not
within, but alongside of Latium, is most clearly apparent in the
arrangements for warfare. The fighting force of the league was
composed, as the later mode of making the levy incontrovertibly
shows, of two masses of equal strength, a Roman and a Latin. The
supreme command lay once for all with the Roman generals; year by
year the Latin contingent had to appear before the gates of Rome,
and there saluted the elected commander by acclamation as its
general, after the Romans commissioned by the Latin federal council
to take the auspices had thereby assured themselves of the contentment
of the gods with the choice that had been made. Whatever land or
property was acquired in the wars of the league was apportioned
among its members according to the judgment of the Romans. That
the Romano-Latin federation was represented as regards its external
relations solely by Rome, cannot with certainty be maintained.
The federal agreement did not prohibit either Rome or Latium from
undertaking an aggressive war on their own behoof; and if a war
was waged by the league, whether pursuant to a resolution of its
own or in consequence of a hostile attack, the Latin federal council
may have been legally entitled to take part in the conduct as well
as in the termination of the war. Practically indeed Rome must
have possessed the hegemony even then, for, wherever a single state
and a federation enter into a permanent connection with each other,
the preponderance usually falls to the side of the former.
Extension of the Roman Territory after the Fall of Alba--Hernici--Rutulli
and Volscii
The steps by which after the fall of Alba Rome--now mistress of a
territory comparatively considerable, and presumably the leading
power in the Latin confederacy--extended still further her direct
and indirect dominion, can no longer be traced. There was no lack
of feuds with the Etruscans and with the Veientes in particular,
chiefly respecting the possession of Fidenae; but it does not appear
that the Romans were successful in acquiring permanent mastery over
that Etruscan outpost, which was situated on the Latin bank of the
river not much more than five miles from Rome, or in dislodging
the Veientes from that formidable basis of offensive operations.
On the other hand they maintained apparently undisputed possession
of the Janiculum and of both banks of the mouth of the Tiber. As
regards the Sabines and Aequi Rome appears in a more advantageous
position; the connection which afterwards became so intimate with
the more distant Hernici must have had at least its beginning
under the monarchy, and the united Latins and Hernici enclosed on
two sides and held in check their eastern neighbours. But on the
south frontier the territory of the Rutuli and still more that of
the Volsci were scenes of perpetual war. The earliest extension
of the Latin land took place in this direction, and it is here that
we first encounter those communities founded by Rome and Latium
on the enemy's soil and constituted as autonomous members of the
Latin confederacy--the Latin colonies, as they were called--the
oldest of which appear to reach back to the regal period. How
far, however, the territory reduced under the power of the Romans
extended at the close of the monarchy, can by no means be determined.
Of feuds with the neighbouring Latin and Volscian communities the
Roman annals of the regal period recount more than enough; but
only a few detached notices, such as that perhaps of the capture
of Suessa in the Pomptine plain, can be held to contain a nucleus
of historical fact. That the regal period laid not only the
political foundations of Rome, but the foundations also of her
external power, cannot be doubted; the position of the city of
Rome as contradistinguished from, rather than forming part of, the
league of Latin states is already decidedly marked at the beginning
of the republic, and enables us to perceive that an energetic
development of external power must have taken place in Rome during
the time of the kings. Certainly great deeds, uncommon achievements
have in this case passed into oblivion; but the splendour of them
lingers over the regal period of Rome, especially over the royal
house of the Tarquins, like a distant evening twilight in which
outlines disappear.