The History of Rome, Book II - Theodor Mommsen
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Encroachments on That Equality of Rights--
As to Wars and Treaties--
As to the Officering of the Army--
As to Acquisitions in War
These stipulations must probably even in the regal period, certainly
in the republican epoch, have undergone alteration more and more to
the disadvantage of the confederacy and to the further development of
the hegemony of Rome. The earliest that fell into abeyance was beyond
doubt the right of the confederacy to make wars and treaties with
foreigners;(3) the decision of war and treaty passed once for all to
Rome. The staff officers for the Latin troops must doubtless in
earlier times have been likewise Latins; afterwards for that
purpose Roman citizens were taken, if not exclusively, at any rate
predominantly.(4) On the other hand, afterwards as formerly, no
stronger contingent could be demanded from the Latin confederacy
as a whole than was furnished by the Roman community; and the Roman
commander-in-chief was likewise bound not to break up the Latin
contingents, but to keep the contingent sent by each community as a
separate division of the army under the leader whom that community had
appointed.(5) The right of the Latin confederacy to an equal share in
the moveable spoil and in the conquered land continued to subsist in
form; in reality, however, the substantial fruits of war beyond doubt
went, even at an early period, to the leading state. Even in the
founding of the federal fortresses or the so-called Latin colonies
as a rule presumably most, and not unfrequently all, of the colonists
were Romans; and although by the transference they were converted from
Roman burgesses into members of an allied community, the newly planted
township in all probability frequently retained a preponderant--and
for the confederacy dangerous--attachment to the real mother-city.
Private Rights
The rights, on the contrary, which were secured by the federal
treaties to the individual burgess of one of the allied communities
in every city belonging to the league, underwent no restriction.
These included, in particular, full equality of rights as to the
acquisition of landed property and moveable estate, as to traffic
and exchange, marriage and testament, and an unlimited liberty of
migration; so that not only was a man who had burgess-rights in a
town of the league legally entitled to settle in any other, but
whereever he settled, he as a right-sharer (-municeps-) participated
in all private and political rights and duties with the exception of
eligibility to office, and was even--although in a limited fashion
--entitled to vote at least in the -comitia tributa-.(6)
Of some such nature, in all probability, was the relation between
the Roman community and the Latin confederacy in the first period
of the republic. We cannot, however ascertain what elements are
to be referred to earlier stipulations, and what to the revision
of the alliance in 261.
With somewhat greater certainty the remodelling of the arrangements of
the several communities belonging to the Latin confederacy, after the
pattern of the consular constitution in Rome, may be characterized as
an innovation and introduced in this connection. For, although the
different communities may very well have arrived at the abolition
of royalty in itself independently of each other,(7) the identity
in the appellation of the new annual kings in the Roman and other
commonwealths of Latium, and the comprehensive application of the
peculiar principle of collegiateness,(8) evidently point to some
external connection. At some time or other after the expulsion of
the Tarquins from Rome the arrangements of the Latin communities must
have been throughout revised in accordance with the scheme of the
consular constitution. This adjustment of the Latin constitutions in
conformity with that of the leading city may possibly belong only to a
later period; but internal probability rather favours the supposition
that the Roman nobility, after having effected the abolition of
royalty for life at home, suggested a similar change of constitution
to the communities of the Latin confederacy, and at length introduced
aristocratic government everywhere in Latium-- notwithstanding the
serious resistance, imperilling the stability of the Romano-Latin
league itself, which seems to have been offered on the one hand by
the expelled Tarquins, and on the other by the royal clans and by
partisans well affected to monarchy in the other communities of
Latium. The mighty development of the power of Etruria that occurred
at this very time, the constant assaults of the Veientes, and the
expedition of Porsena, may have materially contributed to secure the
adherence of the Latin nation to the once-established form of union,
or, in other words, to the continued recognition of the supremacy
of Rome, and disposed them for its sake to acquiesce in a change
of constitution for which, beyond doubt, the way had been in many
respects prepared even in the bosom of the Latin communities, nay
perhaps to submit even to an enlargement of the rights of hegemony.
Extension of Rome and Latium to the East and South
The permanently united nation was able not only to maintain, but
also to extend on all sides its power. We have already(9) mentioned
that the Etruscans remained only for a short time in possession of
supremacy over Latium, and that the relations there soon returned to
the position in which they stood during the regal period; but it was
not till more than a century after the expulsion of the kings from
Rome that any real extension of the Roman boundaries took place
in this direction.
With the Sabines who occupied the middle mountain range from the
borders of the Umbrians down to the region between the Tiber and
the Anio, and who, at the epoch when the history of Rome begins,
penetrated fighting and conquering as far as Latium itself, the
Romans notwithstanding their immediate neighbourhood subsequently came
comparatively little into contact. The feeble sympathy of the Sabines
with the desperate resistance offered by the neighbouring peoples in
the east and south, is evident even from the accounts of the annals;
and--what is of more importance--we find here no fortresses to keep
the land in subjection, such as were so numerously established
especially in the Volscian plain. Perhaps this lack of opposition
was connected with the fact that the Sabine hordes probably about
this very time poured themselves over Lower Italy. Allured by the
pleasantness of the settlements on the Tifernus and Volturnus, they
appear to have interfered but little in the conflicts of which the
region to the south of the Tiber was the arena.
At the Expense of the Aequi and Volsci--
League with the Hernici
Far more vehement and lasting was the resistance of the Aequi, who,
having their settlements to the eastward of Rome as far as the valleys
of the Turano and Salto and on the northern verge of the Fucine lake,
bordered with the Sabines and Marsi,(10) and of the Volsci, who to the
south of the Rutuli settled around Ardea, and of the Latins extending
southward as far as Cora, possessed the coast almost as far as the
river Liris along with the adjacent islands and in the interior the
whole region drained by the Liris. We do not intend to narrate the
feuds annually renewed with these two peoples--feuds which are related
in the Roman chronicles in such a way that the most insignificant
foray is scarcely distinguishable from a momentous war, and historical
connection is totally disregarded; it is sufficient to indicate the
permanent results. We plainly perceive that it was the especial aim
of the Romans and Latins to separate the Aequi from the Volsci, and
to become masters of the communications between them; in the region
between the southern slope of the Alban range, the Volscian mountains
and the Pomptine marshes, moreover, the Latins and the Volscians
appear to have come first into contact and to have even had their
settlements intermingled.(11) In this region the Latins took
the first steps beyond the bounds of their own land, and federal
fortresses on foreign soil--Latin colonies, as they were called--were
first established, namely: in the plain Velitrae (as is alleged, about
260) beneath the Alban range itself, and Suessa in the Pomptine low
lands, in the mountains Norba (as is alleged, in 262) and Signia
(alleged to have been strengthened in 259), both of which lie at
the points of connection between the Aequian and Volscian territories.
The object was attained still more fully by the accession of the
Hernici to the league of the Romans and Latins (268), an accession
which isolated the Volscians completely, and provided the league with
a bulwark against the Sabellian tribes dwelling on the south and east;
it is easy therefore to perceive why this little people obtained the
concession of full equality with the two others in counsel and in
distribution of the spoil. The feebler Aequi were thenceforth but
little formidable; it was sufficient to undertake from time to time
a plundering expedition against them. The Rutuli also, who bordered
with Latium on the south in the plain along the coast, early
succumbed; their town Ardea was converted into a Latin colony as
early as 312.(12) The Volscians opposed a more serious resistance.
The first notable success, after those mentioned above, achieved over
them by the Romans was, remarkably enough, the foundation of Circeii
in 361, which, as long as Antium and Tarracina continued free, can
only have held communication with Latium by sea. Attempts were often
made to occupy Antium, and one was temporarily successful in 287; but
in 295 the town recovered its freedom, and it was not till after the
Gallic conflagration that, in consequence of a violent war of thirteen
years (365-377), the Romans gained a decided superiority in the
Antiate and Pomptine territory. Satricum, not far from Antium, was
occupied with a Latin colony in 369, and not long afterwards probably
Antium itself as well as Tarracina.(13) The Pomptine territory was
secured by the founding of the fortress Setia (372, strengthened in
375), and was distributed into farm-allotments and burgess-districts
in the year 371 and following years. After this date the Volscians
still perhaps rose in revolt, but they waged no further wars
against Rome.
Crises within the Romano-Latin League
But the more decided the successes that the league of Romans, Latins,
and Hernici achieved against the Etruscans, Aequi, Volsci, and Rutuli,
the more that league became liable to disunion. The reason lay
partly in the increase of the hegemonic power of Rome, of which
we have already spoken as necessarily springing out of the existing
circumstances, but which nevertheless was felt as a heavy burden in
Latium; partly in particular acts of odious injustice perpetrated by
the leading community. Of this nature was especially the infamous
sentence of arbitration between the Aricini and the Rutuli in Ardea
in 308, in which the Romans, called in to be arbiters regarding a
border territory in dispute between the two communities, took it to
themselves; and when this decision occasioned in Ardea internal
dissensions in which the people wished to join the Volsci, while
the nobility adhered to Rome, these dissensions were still more
disgracefully employed as a pretext for the--already mentioned
--sending of Roman colonists into the wealthy city, amongst whom the
lands of the adherents of the party opposed to Rome were distributed
(312). The main cause however of the internal breaking up of the
league was the very subjugation of the common foe; forbearance ceased
on one side, devotedness ceased on the other, from the time when they
thought that they had no longer need of each other. The open breach
between the Latins and Hernici on the one hand and the Romans on the
other was more immediately occasioned partly by the capture of Rome
by the Celts and the momentary weakness which it produced, partly by
the definitive occupation and distribution of the Pomptine territory.
The former allies soon stood opposed in the field. Already Latin
volunteers in great numbers had taken part in the last despairing
struggle of the Antiates: now the most famous of the Latin cities,
Lanuvium (371), Praeneste (372-374, 400), Tusculum (373), Tibur (394,
400), and even several of the fortresses established in the Volscian
land by the Romano-Latin league, such as Velitrae and Circeii, had to
be subdued by force of arms, and the Tiburtines were not afraid even
to make common cause against Rome with the once more advancing hordes
of the Gauls. No concerted revolt however took place, and Rome
mastered the individual towns without much trouble.
Tusculum was even compelled (in 373) to give up its political
independence, and to enter into the burgess-union of Rome as a
subject community (-civitas sine suffragio-) so that the town
retained its walls and an--although limited--self-administration,
including magistrates and a burgess-assembly of its own, whereas
its burgesses as Romans lacked the right of electing or being elected
--the first instance of a whole burgess-body being incorporated as
a dependent community with the Roman commonwealth.
Renewal of the Treaties of Alliance
The struggle with the Hernici was more severe (392-396); the first
consular commander-in-chief belonging to the plebs, Lucius Genucius,
fell in it; but here too the Romans were victorious. The crisis
terminated with the renewal of the treaties between Rome and the Latin
and Hernican confederacies in 396. The precise contents of these
treaties are not known, but it is evident that both confederacies
submitted once more, and probably on harder terms, to the Roman
hegemony. The institution which took place in the same year of two
new tribes in the Pomptine territory shows clearly the mighty
advances made by the Roman power.
Closing of the Latin Confederation
In manifest connection with this crisis in the relations between Rome
and Latium stands the closing of the Latin confederation,(14) which
took place about the year 370, although we cannot precisely determine
whether it was the effect or, as is more probable, the cause of the
revolt of Latium against Rome which we have just described. As the
law had hitherto stood, every sovereign city founded by Rome and
Latium took its place among the communes entitled to participate
in the federal festival and federal diet, whereas every community
incorporated with another city and thereby politically annihilated
was erased from the ranks of the members of the league. At the same
time, however, according to Latin use and wont the number once fixed
of thirty confederate communities was so adhered to, that of the
participating cities never more and never less than thirty were
entitled to vote, and a number of the communities that were of later
admission, or were disqualified for their slight importance or for the
crimes they had committed, were without the right of voting. In this
way the confederacy was constituted about 370 as follows. Of old
Latin townships there were--besides some which have now fallen into
oblivion, or whose sites are unknown--still autonomous and entitled to
vote, Nomentum, between the Tiber and the Anio; Tibur, Gabii, Scaptia,
Labici,(15) Pedum, and Praeneste, between the Anio and the Alban
range; Corbio, Tusculum, Bovillae, Aricia, Corioli, and Lanuvium on
the Alban range; Cora in the Volscian mountains, and lastly, Laurentum
in the plain along the coast. To these fell to be added the colonies
instituted by Rome and the Latin league; Ardea in the former territory
of the Rutuli, and Satricum, Velitrae, Norba, Signia, Setia and
Circeii in that of the Volsci. Besides, seventeen other townships,
whose names are not known with certainty, had the privilege of
participating in the Latin festival without the right of voting.
On this footing--of forty-seven townships entitled to participate and
thirty entitled to vote--the Latin confederacy continued henceforward
unalterably fixed. The Latin communities founded subsequently, such
as Sutrium, Nepete,(16) Antium, Tarracina,(17) and Gales, were not
admitted into the confederacy, nor were the Latin communities
subsequently divested of their autonomy, such as Tusculum and
Lanuvium, erased from the list.
Fixing of the Limits of Latium
With this closing of the confederacy was connected the geographical
settlement of the limits of Latium. So long as the Latin confederacy
continued open, the bounds of Latium had advanced with the
establishment of new federal cities: but as the later Latin
colonies had no share in the Alban festival, they were not regarded
geographically as part of Latium. For this reason doubtless Ardea
and Circeii were reckoned as belonging to Latium, but not Sutrium
or Tarracina.
Isolation of the Later Latin Cities as Respected Private Rights
But not only were the places on which Latin privileges were bestowed
after 370 kept aloof from the federal association; they were isolated
also from one another as respected private rights. While each of
them was allowed to have reciprocity of commercial dealings and
probably also of marriage (-commercium et conubium-) with Rome,
no such reciprocity was permitted with the other Latin communities.
The burgess of Satrium, for example, might possess in full property
a piece of ground in Rome, but not in Praeneste; and might have
legitimate children with a Roman, but not with a Tiburtine, wife.(18)
Prevention of Special Leagues
If hitherto considerable freedom of movement had been allowed within
the confederacy, and for example the six old Latin communities,
Aricia, Tusculum, Tibur, Lanuvium, Cora, and Laurentum, and the two
new Latin, Ardea and Suessa Pometia, had been permitted to found in
common a shrine for the Aricine Diana; it is doubtless not the mere
result of accident that we find no further instance in later times
of similar separate confederations fraught with danger to the hegemony
of Rome.
Revision of the Municipal Constitutions. Police Judges
We may likewise assign to this epoch the further remodelling which
the Latin municipal constitutions underwent, and their complete
assimilation to the constitution of Rome. If in after times two
aediles, intrusted with the police-supervision of markets and highways
and the administration of justice in connection therewith, make their
appearance side by side with the two praetors as necessary elements
of the Latin magistracy, the institution of these urban police
functionaries, which evidently took place at the same time and at
the instigation of the leading power in all the federal communities,
certainly cannot have preceded the establishment of the curule
aedileship in Rome, which occurred in 387; probably it took place
about that very time. Beyond doubt this arrangement was only one
of a series of measures curtailing the liberties and modifying
the organization of the federal communities in the interest of
aristocratic policy.
Domination of the Romans; Exasperation of the Latins--
Collision between the Romans and the Samnites
After the fall of Veii and the conquest of the Pomptine territory,
Rome evidently felt herself powerful enough to tighten the reins of
her hegemony and to reduce the whole of the Latin cities to a position
so dependent that they became in fact completely subject. At this
period (406) the Carthaginians, in a commercial treaty concluded with
Rome, bound themselves to inflict no injury on the Latins who were
subject to Rome, viz. the maritime towns of Ardea, Antium, Circeii,
and Tarracina; if, however, any one of the Latin towns should fall
away from the Roman alliance, the Phoenicians were to be allowed to
attack it, but in the event of conquering it they were bound not to
raze it, but to hand it over to the Romans. This plainly shows by
what chains the Roman community bound to itself the towns protected
by it and how much a town, which dared to withdraw from the native
protectorate, sacrificed or risked by such a course.
It is true that even now the Latin confederacy at least--if not also
the Hernican--retained its formal title to a third of the gains of
war, and doubtless some other remnants of the former equality of
rights; but what was palpably lost was important enough to explain the
exasperation which at this period prevailed among the Latins against
Rome. Not only did numerous Latin volunteers fight under foreign
standards against the community at their head, wherever they found
armies in the field against Rome; but in 405 even the Latin federal
assembly resolved to refuse to the Romans its contingent. To all
appearance a renewed rising of the whole Latin confederacy might be
anticipated at no distant date; and at that very moment a collision
was imminent with another Italian nation, which was able to encounter
on equal terms the united strength of the Latin stock. After the
overthrow of the northern Volscians no considerable people in
the first instance opposed the Romans in the south; their legions
unchecked approached the Liris. As early as 397 they had contended;
successfully with the Privernates; and in 409 occupied Sora on the
upper Liris. Thus the Roman armies had reached the Samnite frontier;
and the friendly alliance, which the two bravest and most powerful
of the Italian nations concluded with each other in 400, was the
sure token of an approaching struggle for the supremacy of Italy--a
struggle which threatened to become interwoven with the crisis within
the Latin nation.
Conquests of the Samnites in the South of Italy
The Samnite nation, which, at the time of the expulsion of the
Tarquins from Rome, had doubtless already been for a considerable
period in possession of the hill-country which rises between the
Apulian and Campanian plains and commands them both, had hitherto
found its further advance impeded on the one side by the Daunians
--the power and prosperity of Arpi fall within this period--on the
other by the Greeks and Etruscans. But the fall of the Etruscan power
towards the end of the third, and the decline of the Greek colonies in
the course of the fourth century, made room for them towards the west
and south; and now one Samnite host after another marched down to,
and even moved across, the south Italian seas. They first made their
appearance in the plain adjoining the bay, with which the name of
the Campanians has been associated from the beginning of the fourth
century; the Etruscans there were suppressed, and the Greeks were
confined within narrower bounds; Capua was wrested from the former
(330), Cumae from the latter (334). About the same time, perhaps even
earlier, the Lucanians appeared in Magna Graecia: at the beginning
of the fourth century they were involved in conflict with the people
of Terina and Thurii; and a considerable time before 364 they had
established themselves in the Greek Laus. About this period their
levy amounted to 30,000 infantry and 4000 cavalry. Towards the end of
the fourth century mention first occurs of the separate confederacy of
the Bruttii,(19) who had detached themselves from the Lucanians--not,
like the other Sabellian stocks, as a colony, but through a quarrel
--and had become mixed up with many foreign elements. The Greeks of
Lower Italy tried to resist the pressure of the barbarians; the league
of the Achaean cities was reconstructed in 361; and it was determined
that, if any of the allied towns should be assailed by the Lucanians,
all should furnish contingents, and that the leaders of contingents
which failed to appear should suffer the punishment of death. But
even the union of Magna Graecia no longer availed; for the ruler of
Syracuse, Dionysius the Elder, made common cause with the Italians
against his countrymen. While Dionysius wrested from the fleets of
Magna Graecia the mastery of the Italian seas, one Greek city after
another was occupied or annihilated by the Italians. In an incredibly
short time the circle of flourishing cities was destroyed or laid
desolate. Only a few Greek settlements, such as Neapolis, succeeded
with difficulty, and more by means of treaties than by force of
arms, in preserving at least their existence and their nationality.
Tarentum alone remained thoroughly independent and powerful,
maintaining its ground in consequence of its more remote position
and its preparation for war--the result of its constant conflicts
with the Messapians. Even that city, however, had constantly to
fight for its existence with the Lucanians, and was compelled to
seek for alliances and mercenaries in the mother-country of Greece.
About the period when Veii and the Pomptine plain came into the hands
of Rome, the Samnite hordes were already in possession of all Lower
Italy, with the exception of a few unconnected Greek colonies, and
of the Apulo-Messapian coast. The Greek Periplus, composed about 418,
sets down the Samnites proper with their "five tongues" as reaching
from the one sea to the other; and specifies the Campanians as
adjoining them on the Tyrrhene sea to the north, and the Lucanians
to the south, amongst whom in this instance, as often, the Bruttii
are included, and who already had the whole coast apportioned among
them from Paestum on the Tyrrhene, to Thurii on the Ionic sea. In
fact to one who compares the achievements of the two great nations
of Italy, the Latins and the Samnites, before they came into contact,
the career of conquest on the part of the latter appears far wider
and more splendid than that of the former. But the character of their
conquests was essentially different. From the fixed urban centre
which Latium possessed in Rome the dominion of the Latin stock spread
slowly on all sides, and lay within limits comparatively narrow; but
it planted its foot firmly at every step, partly by founding fortified
towns of the Roman type with the rights of dependent allies, partly
by Romanizing the territory which it conquered. It was otherwise
with Samnium. There was in its case no single leading community and
therefore no policy of conquest. While the conquest of the Veientine
and Pomptine territories was for Rome a real enlargement of power,
Samnium was weakened rather than strengthened by the rise of the
Campanian cities and of the Lucanian and Bruttian confederacies; for
every swarm, which had sought and found new settlements, thenceforward
pursued a path of its own.