The History of Rome, Book II - Theodor Mommsen
Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25
Subject Communities
Among the subject communities the passive burgesses (-cives sine
suffragio-) apart from the privilege of electing and being elected,
stood on an equality of rights and duties with the full burgesses.
Their legal position was regulated by the decrees of the Roman comitia
and the rules issued for them by the Roman praetor, which, however,
were doubtless based essentially on the previous arrangements.
Justice was administered for them by the Roman praetor or his deputies
(-praefecti-) annually sent to the individual communities. Those of
them in a better position, such as the city of Capua,(31) retained
self-administration and along with it the continued use of the native
language, and had officials of their own who took charge of the levy
and the census. The communities of inferior rights such as Caere(32)
were deprived even of self-administration, and this was doubtless the
most oppressive among the different forms of subjection. However, as
was above remarked, there is already apparent at the close of this
period an effort to incorporate these communities, at least so far
as they were -de facto- Latinized, among the full burgesses.
Latins
Among the subject communities the most privileged and most important
class was that of the Latin towns, which obtained accessions equally
numerous and important in the autonomous communities founded by Rome
within and even beyond Italy--the Latin colonies, as they were called
--and was always increasing in consequence of new settlements of the
same nature. These new urban communities of Roman origin, but with
Latin rights, became more and more the real buttresses of the Roman
rule over Italy. These Latins, however, were by no means those with
whom the battles of the lake Regillus and Trifanum had been fought.
They were not those old members of the Alban league, who reckoned
themselves originally equal to, if not better than, the community of
Rome, and who felt the dominion of Rome to be an oppressive yoke, as
the fearfully rigorous measures of security taken against Praeneste
at the beginning of the war with Pyrrhus, and the collisions that
evidently long continued to occur with the Praenestines in particular,
show. This old Latium had essentially either perished or become
merged in Rome, and it now numbered but few communities politically
self-subsisting, and these, with the exception of Tibur and Praeneste,
throughout insignificant. The Latium of the later times of
the republic, on the contrary, consisted almost exclusively of
communities, which from the beginning had honoured Rome as their
capital and parent city; which, settled amidst regions of alien
language and of alien habits, were attached to Rome by community of
language, of law, and of manners; which, as the petty tyrants of the
surrounding districts, were obliged doubtless to lean on Rome for
their very existence, like advanced posts leaning upon the main army;
and which, in fine, in consequence of the increasing material
advantages of Roman citizenship, were ever deriving very considerable
benefit from their equality of rights with the Romans, limited though
it was. A portion of the Roman domain, for instance, was usually
assigned to them for their separate use, and participation in the
state leases and contracts was open to them as to the Roman burgess.
Certainly in their case also the consequences of the self-subsistence
granted to them did not wholly fail to appear. Venusian inscriptions
of the time of the Roman republic, and Beneventane inscriptions
recently brought to light,(33) show that Venusia as well as Rome
had its plebs and its tribunes of the people, and that the chief
magistrates of Beneventum bore the title of consul at least about
the time of the Hannibalic war. Both communities are among the most
recent of the Latin colonies with older rights: we perceive what
pretensions were stirring in them about the middle of the fifth
century. These so-called Latins, issuing from the Roman burgess-body
and feeling themselves in every respect on a level with it, already
began to view with displeasure their subordinate federal rights and to
strive after full equalization. Accordingly the senate had exerted
itself to curtail these Latin communities--however important they were
for Rome--as far as possible, in their rights and privileges, and to
convert their position from that of allies to that of subjects, so far
as this could be done without removing the wall of partition between
them and the non-Latin communities of Italy. We have already
described the abolition of the league of the Latin communities
itself as well as of their former complete equality of rights,
and the loss of the most important political privileges belonging to
them. On the complete subjugation of Italy a further step was taken,
and a beginning was made towards the restriction of the personal
rights--that had not hitherto been touched--of the individual Latin,
especially the important right of freedom of settlement. In the case
of Ariminum founded in 486 and of all the autonomous communities
constituted afterwards, the advantage enjoyed by them, as compared
with other subjects, was restricted to their equalization with
burgesses of the Roman community so far as regarded private rights
--those of traffic and barter as well as those of inheritance.(34)
Presumably about the same time the full right of free migration
allowed to the Latin communities hitherto established--the title of
every one of their burgesses to gain by transmigration to Rome full
burgess-rights there--was, for the Latin colonies of later erection,
restricted to those persons who had attained to the highest office of
the community in their native home; these alone were allowed to
exchange their colonial burgess-rights for the Roman. This clearly
shows the complete revolution in the position of Rome. So long as
Rome was still but one among the many urban communities of Italy,
although that one might be the first, admission even to the
unrestricted Roman franchise was universally regarded as a gain for
the admitting community, and the acquisition of that franchise by
non-burgesses was facilitated in every way, and was in fact often
imposed on them as a punishment. But after the Roman community became
sole sovereign and all the others were its servants, the state of
matters changed. The Roman community began jealously to guard its
franchise, and accordingly put an end in the first instance to the old
full liberty of migration; although the statesmen of that period were
wise enough still to keep admission to the Roman franchise legally
open at least to the men of eminence and of capacity in the highest
class of subject communities. The Latins were thus made to feel that
Rome, after having subjugated Italy mainly by their aid, had now no
longer need of them as before.
Non-Latin Allied Communities
Lastly, the relations of the non-Latin allied communities were
subject, as a matter of course, to very various rules, just as each
particular treaty of alliance had defined them. Several of these
perpetual alliances, such as that with the Hernican communities,(35)
passed over to a footing of complete equalization with the Latin.
Others, in which this was not the case, such as those with
Neapolis(36), Nola(37), and Heraclea(38), granted rights
comparatively comprehensive; while others, such as the Tarentine
and Samnite treaties, may have approximated to despotism.
Dissolution of National Leagues--
Furnishing of Contingents
As a general rule, it may be taken for granted that not only the
Latin and Hernican national confederations--as to which the fact is
expressly stated--but all such confederations subsisting in Italy, and
the Samnite and Lucanian leagues in particular, were legally dissolved
or at any rate reduced to insignificance, and that in general no
Italian community was allowed the right of acquiring property or of
intermarriage, or even the right of joint consultation and resolution,
with any other. Further, provision must have been made, under
different forms, for placing the military and financial resources of
all the Italian communities at the disposal of the leading community.
Although the burgess militia on the one hand, and the contingents of
the "Latin name" on the other, were still regarded as the main and
integral constituents of the Roman army, and in that way its national
character was on the whole preserved, the Roman -cives sine suffragio-
were called forth to join its ranks, and not only so, but beyond doubt
the non-Latin federate communities also were either bound to furnish
ships of war, as was the case with the Greek cities, or were placed on
the roll of contingent-furnishing Italians (-formula togatorum-),
as must have been ordained at once or gradually in the case of the
Apulians, Sabellians, and Etruscans. In general this contingent,
like that of the Latin communities, appears to have had its numbers
definitely fixed, although, in case of necessity, the leading
community was not precluded from making a larger requisition.
This at the same time involved an indirect taxation, as every
community was bound itself to equip and to pay its own contingent.
Accordingly it was not without design that the supply of the most
costly requisites for war devolved chiefly on the Latin, or non-Latin
federate communities; that the war marine was for the most part kept
up by the Greek cities; and that in the cavalry service the allies,
at least subsequently, were called upon to furnish a proportion thrice
as numerous as the Roman burgesses, while in the infantry the old
principle, that the contingent of the allies should not be more
numerous than the burgess army, still remained in force for a long
time at least as the rule.
System of Government--
Division and Classification of the Subjects
The system, on which this fabric was constructed and kept together,
can no longer be ascertained in detail from the few notices that have
reached us. Even the numerical proportions of the three classes of
subjects relatively to each other and to the full burgesses, can no
longer be determined even approximately;(39) and in like manner the
geographical distribution of the several categories over Italy is but
imperfectly known. The leading ideas on which the structure was
based, on the other hand, are so obvious that it is scarcely necessary
specially to set them forth. First of all, as we have already said,
the immediate circle of the ruling community was extended--partly
by the settlement of full burgesses, partly by the conferring of
passive burgess-rights--as far as was possible without completely
decentralizing the Roman community, which was an urban one and was
intended to remain so. When the system of incorporation was extended
up to and perhaps even beyond its natural limits, the communities that
were subsequently added had to submit to a position of subjection; for
a pure hegemony as a permanent relation was intrinsically impossible.
Thus not through any arbitrary monopolizing of sovereignty, but
through the inevitable force of circumstances, by the side of the
class of ruling burgesses a second class of subjects took its place.
It was one of the primary expedients of Roman rule to subdivide the
governed by breaking up the Italian confederacies and instituting as
large a number as possible of comparatively small communities, and
to graduate the pressure of that rule according to the different
categories of subjects. As Cato in the government of his household
took care that the slaves should not be on too good terms with one
another, and designedly fomented variances and factions among them,
so the Roman community acted on a great scale. The expedient was not
generous, but it was effectual.
Aristocratic Remodelling of the Constitutions of the Italian
Communities
It was but a wider application of the same expedient, when in each
dependent community the constitution was remodelled after the Roman
pattern and a government of the wealthy and respectable families was
installed, which was naturally more or less keenly opposed to the
multitude and was induced by its material interests and by its wish
for local power to lean on Roman support. The most remarkable
instance of this sort is furnished by the treatment of Capua, which
appears to have been from the first treated with suspicious precaution
as the only Italian city that could come into possible rivalry with
Rome. The Campanian nobility received a privileged jurisdiction,
separate places of assembly, and in every respect a distinctive
position; indeed they even obtained not inconsiderable pensions
--sixteen hundred of them at 450 -stateres- (about 30 pounds)
annually--charged on the Campanian exchequer. It was these Campanian
equites, whose refusal to take part in the great Latino-Campanian
insurrection of 414 mainly contributed to its failure, and whose brave
swords decided the day in favour of the Romans at Sentinum in 459;(40)
whereas the Campanian infantry at Rhegium was the first body of
troops that in the war with Pyrrhus revolted from Rome.(41) Another
remarkable instance of the Roman practice of turning to account for
their own interest the variances between the orders in the dependent
communities by favouring the aristocracy, is furnished by the
treatment which Volsinii met with in 489. There, just as in Rome,
the old and new burgesses must have stood opposed to one another,
and the latter must have attained by legal means equality of political
rights. In consequence of this the old burgesses of Volsinii resorted
to the Roman senate with a request for the restoration of their old
constitution--a step which the ruling party in the city naturally
viewed as high treason, and inflicted legal punishment accordingly on
the petitioners. The Roman senate, however, took part with the old
burgesses, and, when the city showed no disposition to submit, not
only destroyed by military violence the communal constitution of
Volsinii which was In recognized operation, but also, by razing the
old capital of Etruria, exhibited to the Italians a fearfully palpable
proof of the mastery of Rome.
Moderation of the Government
But the Roman senate had the wisdom not to overlook the fact, that the
only means of giving permanence to despotism is moderation on the part
of the despots. On that account there was left with, or conferred on,
the dependent communities an autonomy, which included a shadow of
independence, a special share in the military and political successes
of Rome, and above all a free communal constitution--so far as
the Italian confederacy extended, there existed no community of
Helots. On that account also Rome from the very first, with a
clear-sightedness and magnanimity perhaps unparalleled in history,
waived the most dangerous of all the rights of government, the right
of taxing her subjects. At the most tribute was perhaps imposed
on the dependent Celtic cantons: so far as the Italian confederacy
extended, there was no tributary community. On that account, lastly,
while the duty of bearing arms was partially devolved on the subjects,
the ruling burgesses were by no means exempt from it; it is probable
that the latter were proportionally far more numerous than the body
of the allies; and in that body, again, probably the Latins as a whole
were liable to far greater demands upon them than the non-Latin
allied communities. There was thus a certain reasonableness in the
appropriation by which Rome ranked first, and the Latins next to her,
in the distribution of the spoil acquired in war.
Intermediate Functionaries--
Valuation of the Empire
The central administration at Rome solved the difficult problem of
preserving its supervision and control over the mass of the Italian
communities liable to furnish contingents, partly by means of the four
Italian quaestorships, partly by the extension of the Roman censorship
over the whole of the dependent communities. The quaestors of the
fleet,(42) along with their more immediate duty, had to raise
the revenues from the newly acquired domains and to control the
contingents of the new allies; they were the first Roman functionaries
to whom a residence and district out of Rome were assigned by law, and
they formed the necessary intermediate authority between the Roman
senate and the Italian communities. Moreover, as is shown by the
later municipal constitution, the chief functionaries in every Italian
community,(43) whatever might be their title, had to undertake a
valuation every fourth or fifth year--an institution, the suggestion
of which must necessarily have emanated from Rome, and which can
only have been intended to furnish the senate with a view of the
resources in men and money of the whole of Italy, corresponding
to the census in Rome.
Italy and the Italians
Lastly, with this military administrative union of the whole peoples
dwelling to the south of the Apennines, as far as the Iapygian
promontory and the straits of Rhegium, was connected the rise of a
new name common to them all--that of "the men of the toga" (-togati-),
which was their oldest designation in Roman state law, or that of the
"Italians," which was the appellation originally in use among the
Greeks and thence became universally current. The various nations
inhabiting those lands were probably first led to feel and own their
unity, partly through their common contrast to the Greeks, partly and
mainly through their common resistance to the Celts; for, although
an Italian community may now and then have made common cause with
the Celts against Rome and employed the opportunity to recover
independence, yet in the long run sound national feeling necessarily
prevailed. As the "Gallic field" down to a late period stood
contrasted in law with the Italian, so the "men of the toga" were thus
named in contrast to the Celtic "men of the hose" (-braccati-); and it
is probable that the repelling of the Celtic invasions played an
important diplomatic part as a reason or pretext for centralizing
the military resources of Italy in the hands of the Romans. Inasmuch
as the Romans on the one hand took the lead in the great national
struggle and on the other hand compelled the Etruscans, Latins,
Sabellians, Apulians, and Hellenes (within the bounds to be
immediately described) alike to fight under their standards, that
unity, which hitherto had been undefined and latent rather than
expressed, obtained firm consolidation and recognition in state law;
and the name -Italia-, which originally and even in the Greek authors
of the fifth century--in Aristotle for instance--pertained only to the
modern Calabria, was transferred to the whole land of these wearers of
the toga.
Earliest Boundaries of the Italian Confederacy
The earliest boundaries of this great armed confederacy led by Rome,
or of the new Italy, reached on the western coast as far as the
district of Leghorn south of the Arnus,(44) on the east as far as
the Aesis north of Ancona. The townships colonized by Italians,
lying beyond these limits, such as Sena Gallica and Ariminum beyond
the Apennines, and Messana in Sicily, were reckoned geographically as
situated out of Italy--even when, like Ariminum, they were members of
the confederacy or even, like Sena, were Roman burgess communities.
Still less could the Celtic cantons beyond the Apennines be reckoned
among the -togati-, although perhaps some of them were already among
the clients of Rome.
First Steps towards the Latininzing of Italy--
New Position of Rome as a Great Power
The new Italy had thus become a political unity; it was also in
the course of becoming a national unity. Already the ruling Latin
nationality had assimilated to itself the Sabines and Volscians and
had scattered isolated Latin communities over all Italy; these germs
were merely developed, when subsequently the Latin language became
the mother-tongue of every one entitled to wear the Latin toga.
That the Romans already clearly recognized this as their aim,
is shown by the familiar extension of the Latin name to the whole body
of contingent-furnishing Italian allies.(45) Whatever can still be
recognized of this grand political structure testifies to the great
political sagacity of its nameless architects; and the singular
cohesion, which that confederation composed of so many and so
diversified ingredients subsequently exhibited under the severest
shocks, stamped their great work with the seal of success. From the
time when the threads of this net drawn as skilfully as firmly around
Italy were concentrated in the hands of the Roman community, it was a
great power, and took its place in the system of the Mediterranean
states in the room of Tarentum, Lucania, and other intermediate
and minor states erased by the last wars from the list of political
powers. Rome received, as it were, an official recognition of its new
position by means of the two solemn embassies, which in 481 were sent
from Alexandria to Rome and from Rome to Alexandria, and which, though
primarily they regulated only commercial relations, beyond doubt
prepared the way for a political alliance. As Carthage was contending
with the Egyptian government regarding Cyrene and was soon to contend
with that of Rome regarding Sicily, so Macedonia was contending with
the former for the predominant influence in Greece, with the latter
proximately for the dominion of the Adriatic coasts. The new
struggles, which were preparing on all sides, could not but influence
each other, and Rome, as mistress of Italy, could not fail to be drawn
into the wide arena which the victories and projects of Alexander the
Great had marked out as the field of conflict for his successors.
Notes for Book II Chapter VII
1. The story that the Romans also sent envoys to Alexander at Babylon
on the testimony of Clitarchus (Plin. Hist. Nat. iii. 5, 57), from
whom the other authorities who mention this fact (Aristus and
Asclepiades, ap. Arrian, vii. 15, 5; Memnon, c. 25) doubtless derived
it. Clitarchus certainly was contemporary with these events;
nevertheless, his Life of Alexander was decidedly a historical romance
rather than a history; and, looking to the silence of the trustworthy
biographers (Arrian, l. c.; Liv. ix. 18) and the utterly romantic
details of the account--which represents the Romans, for instance,
as delivering to Alexander a chaplet of gold, and the latter as
prophesying the future greatness of Rome--we cannot but set down this
story as one of the many embellishments which Clitarchus introduced
into the history.
2. II. VI. Last Struggles of Samnium
3. Near the modern Anglona; not to be confounded with the better
known town of the same name in the district of Cosenza.
4. These numbers appear credible. The Roman account assigns,
probably in dead and wounded, 15,000 to each side; a later one even
specifies 5000 as dead on the Roman, and 20,000 on the Greek side.
These accounts may be mentioned here for the purpose of exhibiting,
in one of the few instances where it is possible to check the
statement, the untrustworthiness--almost without exception--of the
reports of numbers, which are swelled by the unscrupulous invention
of the annalists with avalanche-like rapidity.
5. The later Romans, and the moderns following them, give a version
of the league, as if the Romans had designedly avoided accepting the
Carthaginian help in Italy. This would have been irrational, and the
facts pronounce against it. The circumstance that Mago did not land
at Ostia is to be explained not by any such foresight, but simply by
the fact that Latium was not at all threatened by Pyrrhus and so did
not need Carthaginian aid; and the Carthaginians certainly fought for
Rome in front of Rhegium.
6. II. IV. Victories of Salamis and Himera, and Their Effects
7. II. IV. Fruitlessness of the Celtic Victory
8. The grounds for assigning the document given in Polybius (iii. 22)
not to 245, but to 406, are set forth in my Rom. Chronologie, p. 320
f. [translated in the Appendix to this volume].
9. II. V. Domination of the Romans; Exasperation of the Latins
10. II. VII. Breach between Rome and Tarentum
11. II. V. Colonization of the Volsci
12. II. V. Colonization of the Volsci
13. II. VI. New Fortresses in Apulia and Campania
14. II. VI. Last Struggles of Samnium
15. II. VII. Construction of New Fortresses and Roads
16. II. VII. The Boii
17. II. VII. Construction of New Fortresses and Roads
18. These were Pyrgi, Ostia, Antium, Tarracina, Minturnae, Sinuessa
Sena Gallica, and Castrum Novum.
19. This statement is quite as distinct (Liv. viii. 14; -interdictum
mari Antiati populo est-) as it is intrinsically credible; for Antium
was inhabited not merely by colonists, but also by its former citizens
who had been nursed in enmity to Rome (II. V. Colonizations in The
Land Of The Volsci). This view is, no doubt, inconsistent with the
Greek accounts, which assert that Alexander the Great (431) and
Demetrius Poliorcetes (471) lodged complaints at Rome regarding
Antiate pirates. The former statement is of the same stamp, and
perhaps from the same source, with that regarding the Roman embassy to
Babylon (II. VII. Relations Between The East and West). It seems more
likely that Demetrius Poliorcetes may have tried by edict to put down
piracy in the Tyrrhene sea which he had never set eyes upon, and it is
not at all inconceivable that the Antiates may have even as Roman
citizens, in defiance of the prohibition, continued for a time their
old trade in an underhand fashion: much dependence must not however,
be placed even on the second story.