Emperor of the French Napoleon III
History of Julius Caesar Vol. 1 of 2

PREFACE

HISTORIC truth ought to be no less sacred than religion. If the precepts of faith raise our soul above the interests of this world, the lessons of history, in their turn, inspire us with the love of the beautiful and the just, and the hatred of whatever presents an obstacle to the progress of humanity. These lessons, to be profitable, require certain conditions. It is necessary that the facts be produced with a rigorous exactness, that the changes political or social be analysed philosophically, that the exciting interest of the details of the lives of public men should not divert attention from the political part they played, or cause us to forget their providential mission.

Too often the writer represents the different phases of history as spontaneous events, without seeking in preceding facts their true origin and their natural deduction; like the painter who, in re-producing the characteristics of Nature, only seizes their picturesque effect, without being able, in his picture, to give their scientific demonstration. The historian ought to be more than a painter; he ought, like the geologist, who explains the phenomena of the globe, to unfold the secret of the transformation of societies.

But, in writing history, by what means are we to arrive at truth? By following the rules of logic. Let us first take for granted that a great effect is always due to a great cause, never to a small one; in other words, an accident, insignificant in appearance, never leads to important results without a pre-existing cause, which has permitted this slight accident to produce a great effect. The spark only lights up a vast conflagration when it falls upon combustible matters previously collected. Montesquieu thus confirms this idea: “It is not fortune,” he says, “which rules the world… There are general causes, whether moral or physical, which act in every monarchy, raising, maintaining, or overthrowing it; all accidents are subject to these causes, and if the fortune of a battle – that is to say, a particular cause – has ruined a state, there was a general cause which made it necessary that that state should perish through a single battle: in a word, the principal cause drags with it all the particular accidents.”¹

If during nearly a thousand years the Romans always came triumphant out of the severest trials and greatest perils, it is because there existed a general cause which made them always superior to their enemies, and which did not permit partial defeats and misfortunes to entail the fall of the empire. If the Romans, after giving an example to the world of a people constituting itself and growing great by liberty, seemed, after Cæsar, to throw themselves blindly into slavery, it is because there existed a general reason which by fatality prevented the Republic from returning to the purity of its ancient institutions; it is because the new wants and interests of a society in labour required other means to satisfy them. Just as logic demonstrates that the reason of important events is imperious, in like manner we must recognise in the long duration of an institution the proof of its goodness, and in the incontestable influence of a man upon his age the proof of his genius.

The task, then, consists in seeking the vital element which constituted the strength of the institution, as the predominant idea which caused man to act. In following this rule, we shall avoid the errors of those historians who gather facts transmitted by preceding ages, without properly arranging them according to their philosophical importance; thus glorifying that which merits blame, and leaving in the shade that which calls for the light. It is not a minute analysis of the Roman organisation which will enable us to understand the duration of so great an empire, but the profound examination of the spirit of its institutions; no more is it the detailed recital of the most trivial actions of a superior man which will reveal the secret of his ascendency, but the attentive investigation of the elevated motives of his conduct.

When extraordinary facts attest an eminent genius, what is more contrary to good sense than to ascribe to him all the passions and sentiments of mediocrity? What more erroneous than not to recognise the pre-eminence of those privileged beings who appear in history from time to time like luminous beacons, dissipating the darkness of their epoch, and throwing light into the future? To deny this pre-eminence would, indeed, be to insult humanity, by believing it capable of submitting, long and voluntarily, to a domination which did not rest on true greatness and incontestable utility. Let us be logical, and we shall be just.

Too many historians find it easier to lower men of genius, than, with a generous inspiration, to raise them to their due height, by penetrating their vast designs. Thus, as regards Cæsar, instead of showing us Rome, torn to pieces by civil wars and corrupted by riches, trampling under foot her ancient institutions, threatened by powerful peoples, such as Gauls, Germans, and Parthians, incapable of sustaining herself without a central power stronger, more stable, and more just; instead, I say, of tracing this faithful picture, Cæsar is represented, from an early age, as already aspiring to the supreme power. If he opposes Sylla, if he disagrees with Cicero, if he allies himself with Pompey, it is the result of that far-sighted astuteness which divined everything with a view to bring everything under subjection. If he throws himself into Gaul, it is to acquire riches by pillage² or soldiers devoted to his projects; if he crosses the sea to carry the Roman eagles into an unknown country, but the conquest of which will strengthen that of Gaul,³ it is to seek there pearls which were believed to exist in the seas of Great Britain.⁴ If, after having vanquished the formidable enemies of Italy on the other side of the Alps, he meditates an expedition against the Parthians, to avenge the defeat of Crassus, it is, as certain historians say, because activity was a part of his nature, and that his health was better when he was campaigning.⁵ If he accepts from the Senate with thankfulness a crown of laurel, and wears it with pride, it is to conceal his bald head. If, lastly, he is assassinated by those whom he had loaded with benefits, it is because he sought to make himself king; as though he were to his contemporaries, as well as for posterity, the greatest of all kings. Since Suetonius and Plutarch, such are the paltry interpretations which it has pleased people to give to the noblest actions. But by what sign are we to recognise a man’s greatness? By the empire of his ideas, when his principles and his system triumph in spite of his death or defeat. Is it not, in fact, the peculiarity of genius to survive destruction, and to extend its empire over future generations? Cæsar disappeared, and his influence predominates still more than during his life. Cicero, his adversary, is compelled to exclaim: “All the acts of Cæsar, his writings, his words, his promises, his thoughts, have more force since his death, than if he were still alive.”⁶ For ages it was enough to tell the world that such was the will of Cæsar, for the world to obey it.

The preceding remarks sufficiently explain the aim I have in view in writing this history. This aim is to prove that, when Providence raises up such men as Cæsar, Charlemagne, and Napoleon, it is to trace out to peoples the path they ought to follow; to stamp with the seal of their genius a new era; and to accomplish in a few years the labour of many centuries. Happy the peoples who comprehend and follow them! woe to those who misunderstand and combat them! They do as the Jews did, they crucify their Messiah; they are blind and culpable: blind, for they do not see the impotence of their efforts to suspend the definitive triumph of good; culpable, for they only retard progress, by impeding its prompt and fruitful application.

In fact, neither the murder of Cæsar, nor the captivity of St. Helena, have been able to destroy irrevocably two popular causes overthrown by a league which disguised itself under the mask of liberty. Brutus, by slaying Cæsar, plunged Rome into the horrors of civil war; he did not prevent the reign of Augustus, but he rendered possible those of Nero and Caligula. The ostracism of Napoleon by confederated Europe has been no more successful in preventing the Empire from being resuscitated; and, nevertheless, how far are we from the great questions solved, the passions calmed, and the legitimate satisfactions given to peoples by the first Empire!

Thus every day since 1815 has verified the prophecy of the captive of St. Helena:

“How many struggles, how much blood, how many years will it not require to realise the good which I intended to do for mankind!”⁷

Palace of the Tuileries, March 20th, 1862.

Napoleon.

BOOK I.
ROMAN HISTORY BEFORE CÆSAR

CHAPTER I.
ROME UNDER THE KINGS

The Kings found the Roman Institutions.

I. “In the birth of societies,” says Montesquieu, “it is the chiefs of the republics who form the institution, and in the sequel it is the institution which forms the chiefs of the republics.” And he adds, “One of the causes of the prosperity of Rome was the fact that its kings were all great men. We find nowhere else in history an uninterrupted series of such statesmen and such military commanders.”⁸

The story, more or less fabulous, of the foundation of Rome does not come within the limits of our design; and with no intention of clearing up whatever degree of fiction these earliest ages of history may contain, we purpose only to remind our readers that the kings laid the foundations of those institutions to which Rome owed her greatness, and so many extraordinary men who astonished the world by their virtues and exploits.

The kingly power lasted a hundred and forty-four years, and at its fall Rome had become the most powerful state in Latium. The town was of vast extent, for, even at that epoch, the seven hills were nearly all inclosed within a wall protected internally and externally by a consecrated space called the Pomœrium.⁹

This line of inclosure remained long the same, although the increase of the population had led to the establishment of immense suburbs, which finally inclosed the Pomœrium itself.¹⁰

The Roman territory properly so called was circumscribed, but that of the subjects and allies of Rome was already rather considerable. Some colonies had been founded. The kings, by a skilful policy, had succeeded in drawing into their dependence a great number of neighbouring states, and, when Tarquinius Superbus assembled the Hernici, the Latins, and the Volsci, for a ceremony destined to seal his alliance with them, forty-seven different petty states took part in the inauguration of the temple of Jupiter Latialis.¹¹

The foundation of Ostia, by Ancus Martius, at the mouth of the Tiber, shows that already the political and commercial importance of facilitating communication with the sea was understood; while the treaty of commerce concluded with Carthage at the time of the fall of the kingly power, the details of which are preserved by Polybius, indicates more extensive foreign relations than we might have supposed.¹²

Social Organisation.

II. The Roman social body, which originated probably in ancient transformations of society, consisted, from the earliest ages, of a certain number of aggregations, called gentes, formed of the families of the conquerors, and bearing some resemblance to the clans of Scotland or to the Arabian tribes. The heads of families (patresfamilias) and their members (patricii) were united among themselves, not only by kindred, but also by political and religious ties. Hence arose an hereditary nobility having for distinctive marks family names, special costume,¹³ and waxen images of their ancestors (jus imaginum).

The plebeians, perhaps a race who had been conquered at an earlier period, were, in regard to the dominant race, in a situation similar to that of the Anglo-Saxons in regard to the Normans in the eleventh century of our era, after the invasion of England. They were generally agriculturists, excluded originally from all military and civil office.¹⁴

The patrician families had gathered round them, under the name of clients, either foreigners, or a great portion of the plebeians. Dionysius of Halicarnassus even pretends that Romulus had required that each of these last should choose himself a patron.¹⁵ The clients cultivated the fields and formed part of the family.¹⁶ The relation of patronage had created such reciprocal obligations as amounted almost to the ties of kindred. For the patrons, they consisted in giving assistance to their clients in affairs public and private; and for the latter, in aiding constantly the patrons with their person and purse, and in preserving towards them an inviolable fidelity: they could not cite each other reciprocally in law, or bear witness one against the other, and it would have been a scandal to see them take different sides in a political question. It was a state of things which had some analogy to feudalism; the great protected the little, and the little paid for protection by rents and services; yet there was this essential difference, that the clients were not serfs, but free men.

Slavery had long formed one of the constituent parts of society. The slaves, taken among foreigners and captives,¹⁷ and associated in all the domestic labours of the family, often received their liberty as a recompense for their conduct. They were then named freedmen, and were received among the clients of the patron, without sharing in all the rights of a citizen.¹⁸

The gens thus consisted of the reunion of patrician families having a common ancestor; around it was grouped a great number of clients, freedmen, and slaves. To give an idea of the importance of the gentes in the first ages of Rome, it is only necessary to remind the reader that towards the year 251, a certain Attus Clausus, afterwards called Appius Claudius, a Sabine of the town of Regillum, distinguished, according to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, no less for the splendour of his birth than for his great wealth, took refuge among the Romans with his kinsmen, his friends, and his clients, with all their families, to the number of five thousand men capable of bearing arms.¹⁹ When, in 275, the three hundred Fabii, forming the gens Fabia, offered alone to fight the Veians, they were followed by four thousand clients.²⁰ The high class often reckoned, by means of its numerous adherents, on carrying measures by itself. In 286, the plebeians having refused to take part in the consular comitia, the patricians, followed by their clients, elected the consuls;²¹ and in 296, a Claudius declared with pride that the nobility had no need of the plebeians to carry on war against the Volsci.²² The families of ancient origin long formed the state by themselves. To them exclusively the name of populus applied,²³ as that of plebs was given to the plebeians.²⁴ Indeed, although in the sequel the word populus took a more extensive signification, Cicero says that it is to be understood as applying, not to the universality of the inhabitants, but to a reunion of men associated by a community of rights and interests.²⁵

Political Organisation.

III. In a country where war was the principal occupation, the political organisation must naturally depend on the military organisation. A single chief had the superior direction, an assembly of men pre-eminent in importance and age formed the council, while the political rights belonged only to those who supported the fatigues of war.

The king, elected generally by the assembly of the gentes,²⁶ commanded the army. Sovereign pontiff, legislator, and judge in all sacred matters, he dispensed justice²⁷ in all criminal affairs which concerned the Republic. He had for insignia a crown of gold and a purple robe, and for escort twenty-four lictors,²⁸ some carrying axes surrounded with rods, others merely rods.²⁹ At the death of the king, a magistrate, called interrex, was appointed by the Senate to exercise the royal authority during the five days which intervened before the nomination of his successor. This office continued, with the same title, under the Consular Republic, when the absence of the consuls prevented the holding of the comitia.

The Senate, composed of the richest and most illustrious of the patricians, to the number at first of a hundred, of two hundred after the union with the Sabines, and of three hundred after the admission of the gentes minores under Tarquin, was the council of the ancients, taking under its jurisdiction the interests of the town, in which were then concentrated all the interests of the State.

The patricians occupied all offices, supported alone the burden of war, and consequently had alone the right of voting in the assemblies.

The gentes were themselves divided into three tribes. Each, commanded by a tribune,³⁰ was obliged, under Romulus, to furnish a thousand soldiers (indeed, miles comes from mille) and a hundred horsemen (celeres). The tribe was divided into ten curiæ; at the head of each curia was a curion. The three tribes, furnishing three thousand foot soldiers and three hundred horsemen, formed at first the legion. Their number was soon doubled by the adjunction of new cities.³¹

The curia, into which a certain number of gentes entered, was then the basis of the political and military organisation, and hence originated the name of Quirites to signify the Roman people.

The members of the curia were constituted into religious associations, having each its assemblies and solemn festivals which established bonds of affiliation between them. When their assemblies had a political aim, the votes were taken by head;³² they decided the question of peace or war; they nominated the magistrates of the town; and they confirmed or abrogated the laws.³³

The appeal to the people,³⁴ which might annul the judgments of the magistrates, was nothing more than the appeal to the curia; and it was by having recourse to it, after having been condemned by the decemvirs, that the survivor of the three Horatii was saved.

The policy of the kings consisted in blending together the different races and breaking down the barriers which separated the different classes. To effect the first of these objects, they divided the lower class of the people into corporations,³⁵ and augmented the number of the tribes and changed their constitution;³⁶ but to effect the second, they introduced, to the great discontent of the higher class, plebeians among the patricians,³⁷ and raised the freedmen to the rank of citizens.³⁸ In this manner, each curia became considerably increased in numbers; but, as the votes were taken by head, the poor patricians were numerically stronger than the rich.

Servius Tullius, though he preserved the curiæ, deprived them of their military organisation, that is, he no longer made it the basis of his system of recruiting. He instituted the centuries, with the double aim of giving as a principle the right of suffrage to all the citizens, and of creating an army which was more national, inasmuch as he introduced the plebeians into it; his design was indeed to throw on the richest citizens the burden of war,³⁹ which was just, each equipping and maintaining himself at his own cost. The citizens were no longer classified by castes, but according to their fortunes. Patricians and plebeians were placed in the same rank if their income was equal. The influence of the rich predominated, without doubt, but only in proportion to the sacrifices required of them.

Servius Tullius ordered a general report of the population to be made, in which every one was obliged to declare his age, his fortune, the name of his tribe and that of his father, and the number of his children and of his slaves. This operation was called census.⁴⁰ The report was inscribed on tables,⁴¹ and, once terminated, all the citizens were called together in arms in the Campus Martius. This review was called the closing of the lustrum, because it was accompanied with sacrifices and purifications named lustrations. The term lustrum was applied to the interval of five years between two censuses.⁴²

The citizens were divided into six classes,⁴³ and into a hundred and ninety-three centuries, according to the fortune of each, beginning with the richest and ending with the poorest. The first class comprised ninety-eight centuries, eighteen of which were knights; the second and fourth, twenty-two; the third, twenty; the fifth, thirty; and the sixth, although the most numerous, forming only one.⁴⁴ The first class contained a smaller number of citizens, yet, having a greater number of centuries, it was obliged to pay more than half the tax, and furnish more legionaries than any other class.

The votes continued to be taken by head, as in the curiæ, but the majority of the votes in each century counted only for one suffrage. Now, as the first class had ninety-eight centuries, while the others, taken together, had only ninety-five, it is clear that the votes of the first class were enough to carry the majority. The eighteen centuries of knights first gave their votes, and then the eighty centuries of the first class: if they were not agreed, appeal was made to the vote of the second class, and so on in succession; but, says Livy, it hardly ever happened that they were obliged to descend to the last.⁴⁵ Though, according to its original signification, the century should represent a hundred men, it already contained a considerably greater number. Each century was divided into the active part, including all the men from eighteen to forty-six years of age, and the sedentary part, charged with the guard of the town, composed of men from forty-six to sixty years old.⁴⁶

With regard to those of the sixth class, omitted altogether by many authors, they were exempt from all military service, or, at any rate, they were enrolled only in case of extreme danger.⁴⁷ The centuries of knights, who formed the cavalry, recruited among the richest citizens, tended to introduce a separate order among the nobility,⁴⁸ which shows the importance of the chief called to their command. In fact, the chief of the celeres was, after the king, the first magistrate of the city, as, at a later period, under the Republic, the magister equitum became the lieutenant of the dictator.

The first census of Servius Tullius gave a force of eighty thousand men in a condition to bear arms,⁴⁹ which is equivalent to two hundred and ninety thousand persons of the two sexes, to whom may be added, from conjectures, which, however, are rather vague, fifteen thousand artisans, merchants, or indigent people, deprived of all rights of citizenship, and fifteen thousand slaves.⁵⁰

The comitia by centuries were charged with the election of the magistrates, but the comitia by curiæ, being the primitive form of the patrician assembly, continued to decree on the most important religious and military affairs, and remained in possession of all which had not been formally given to the centuries. Solon effected, about the same epoch, in Athens, a similar revolution, so that, at the same time, the two most famous towns of the ancient world no longer took birth as the basis of the right of suffrage, but fortune.

Servius Tullius promulgated a great number of laws favourable to the people; he established the principle that the property only of the debtor, and not his person, should be responsible for his debt. He also authorised the plebeians to become the patrons of their freedmen, which allowed the richest of the former to create for themselves a clientèle resembling that of the patricians.⁵¹

Religion.

IV. Religion, regulated in great part by Numa, was at Rome an instrument of civilisation, but, above all, of government. By bringing into the acts of public or private life the intervention of the Divinity, everything was impressed with a character of sanctity. Thus the inclosure of the town with its services,⁵² the boundaries of estates, the transactions between citizens, engagements, and even the important facts of history entered in the sacred books, were placed under the safeguard of the gods.⁵³ In the interior of the house, the gods Lares protected the family; on the field of battle, the emblem placed on the standard was the protecting god of the legion.⁵⁴ The national sentiment and belief that Rome would become one day the mistress of Italy was maintained by oracles or prodigies;⁵⁵ but if, on the one hand, religion, with its very imperfections, contributed to soften manners and to elevate minds,⁵⁶ on the other it wonderfully facilitated the working of the institutions, and preserved the influence of the higher classes.

Religion also accustomed the people of Latium to the Roman supremacy; for Servius Tullius, in persuading them to contribute to the building of the Temple of Diana,⁵⁷ made them, says Livy, acknowledge Rome for their capital, a claim they had so often resisted by force of arms.

The supposed intervention of the Deity gave the power, in a multitude of cases, of reversing any troublesome decision. Thus, by interpreting the flight of birds,⁵⁸ the manner in which the sacred chickens ate, the entrails of victims, the direction taken by lightning, they annulled the elections, or eluded or retarded the deliberations either of the comitia or of the Senate. No one could enter upon office, even the king could not mount his throne, if the gods had not manifested their approval by what were reputed certain signs of their will. There were auspicious and inauspicious days; in the latter it was not permitted either to judges to hold their audience, or to the people to assemble.⁵⁹ Finally, it might be said with Camillus, that the town was founded on the faith of auspices and auguries.⁶⁰

The priests did not form an order apart, but all citizens had the power to enrol themselves in particular colleges. At the head of the sacerdotal hierarchy were the pontiffs, five in number,⁶¹ of whom the king was the chief.⁶² They decided all questions which concerned the liturgy and religious worship, watched over the sacrifices and ceremonies that they should be performed in accordance with the traditional rites,⁶³ acted as inspectors over the other minister of religion, fixed the calendar,⁶⁴ and were responsible for their actions neither to the Senate nor to the people.⁶⁵

After the pontiffs, the first place belonged to the curions, charged in each curia with the religious functions, and who had at their head a grand curion; then came the flamens, the augurs,⁶⁶ the vestals charged with the maintenance of the sacred fire; the twelve Salian priests,⁶⁷ keepers of the sacred bucklers, named ancilia; and lastly, the feciales, heralds at arms, to the number of twenty, whose charge it was to draw up treaties and secure their execution, to declare war, and to watch over the observance of all international relations.⁶⁸

There were also religious fraternities (sodalitates), instituted for the purpose of rendering a special worship to certain divinities. Such was the college of the fratres Arvales, whose prayers and processions called down the favour of Heaven upon the harvest; such also was the association having for its mission to celebrate the festival of the Lupercalia, founded in honour of the god Lupercus, the protector of cattle and destroyer of wolves. The gods Lares, tutelar genii of towns or families, had also their festival instituted by Tullus Hostilius, and celebrated at certain epochs, during which the slaves were entirely exempt from labour.⁶⁹

The kings erected a great number of temples for the purpose of deifying, some, glory,⁷⁰ others, the virtues,⁷¹ others, utility,⁷² and others, gratitude to the gods.⁷³

The Romans loved to represent everything by external signs: thus Numa, to impress better the verity of a state of peace or war, raised a temple to Janus, which was kept open during war and closed in time of peace; and, strange to say, this temple was only closed three times in seven hundred years.⁷⁴

Results obtained by Royalty.

V. The facts which precede are sufficient to convince us that the Roman Republic⁷⁵ had already acquired under the kings a strong organisation.⁷⁶ Its spirit of conquest overflowed beyond its narrow limits. The small states of Latium which surrounded it possessed, perhaps, men as enlightened and citizens equally courageous, but there certainly did not exist among them, to the same degree as at Rome, the genius of war, the love of country, faith in high destinies, the conviction of an incontestible superiority, powerful motives of activity, instilled into them perseveringly by great men during two hundred and forty-four years.

Roman society was founded upon respect for family, for religion, and for property; the government, upon election; the policy, upon conquest. At the head of the State is a powerful aristocracy, greedy of glory, but, like all aristocracies, impatient of kingly power, and disdainful towards the multitude. The kings strive to create a people side by side with the privileged caste, and introduce plebeians into the Senate, freedmen among the citizens, and the mass of citizens into the ranks of the soldiery.

Family is strongly constituted; the father reigns in it absolute master, sole judge⁷⁷ over his children, his wife, and his slaves, and that during all their lives: yet the wife’s position is not degraded as among the barbarians; she enjoys a community of goods with her husband; mistress of her house, she has the right of acquiring property, and shares equally with her brothers the paternal inheritance.⁷⁸

The basis of taxation is the basis of recruiting and of political rights; there are no soldiers but citizens; there are no citizens without property. The richer a man is, the more he has of power and dignities; but he has more charges to support, more duties to fulfil. In fighting, as well as in voting, the Romans are divided into classes according to their fortunes, and in the comitia, as on the field of battle the richest are in the first ranks.

Initiated in the apparent practice of liberty, the people is held in check by superstition and respect for the high classes. By appealing to the intervention of the Divinity in every action of life, the most vulgar things become idealised, and men are taught that above their material interests there is a Providence which directs their actions. The sentiment of right and justice enters into their conscience, the oath is a sacred thing, and virtue, that highest expression of duty, becomes the general rule of public and private life.⁷⁹ Law exercises its entire empire, and, by the institution of the feciales, international questions are discussed with a view to what is just, before seeking a solution by force of arms. The policy of the State consists in drawing by all means possible the peoples around under the dependence of Rome; and, when their resistance renders it necessary to conquer them,⁸⁰ they are, in different degrees, immediately associated with the common fortune, and maintained in obedience by colonies – advanced posts of future dominion.⁸¹

The arts, though as yet rude, find their way in with the Etruscan rites, and come to soften manners, and lend their aid to religion; everywhere temples arise, circuses are constructed,⁸² great works of public utility are erected, and Rome, by its institutions, paves the way for its pre-eminence.

Almost all the magistrates are appointed by election; once chosen, they possess an extensive power, and put in motion resolutely those two powerful levers of human actions, punishment and reward. To all citizens, for cowardice before the enemy or for an infraction of discipline,⁸³ the rod or the axe of the lictor; to all, for noble actions, crowns of honour;⁸⁴ to the generals, the ovation, the triumph,⁸⁵ the best of the spoils;⁸⁶ to the great men, apotheosis. To honour the dead, and for personal relaxation after their sanguinary struggles, the citizens crowd to the games of the circus, where the hierarchy gives his rank to each individual.⁸⁷

Thus Rome, having reached the third century of her existence, finds her constitution formed by the kings with all the germs of grandeur which will develop themselves in the sequel. Man has created her institutions: we shall see now how the institutions are going to form the men.

CHAPTER II
ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CONSULAR REPUBLIC

(From 244 to 416.)

Advantage of the Republic.

I. THE kings are expelled from Rome. They disappear because their mission is accomplished. There exists, one would say, in moral as well as physical order, a supreme law which assigns to institutions, as to certain beings, a fated limit, marked by the term of their utility. Until this providential term has arrived, no opposition prevails; conspiracies, revolts, everything fails against the irresistible force which maintains what people seek to overthrow; but if, on the contrary, a state of things immovable in appearance ceases to be useful to the progress of humanity, then neither the empire of traditions, nor courage, nor the memory of a glorious past, can retard by a day the fall which has been decided by destiny.

Civilisation appears to have been transported from Greece into Italy to create there an immense focus from which it might spread itself over the whole world. From that moment the genius of force and imagination must necessarily preside over the first times of Rome. This is what happened under the kings, and, so long as their task was not accomplished, it triumphed over all obstacles. In vain the senators attempted to obtain a share in the power by each exercising it for five days;⁸⁸ in vain men’s passions rebelled against the authority of a single chief: all was useless, and even the murder of the kings only added strength to royalty. But the moment once arrived when kings cease to be indispensable, the simplest accident hurls them down. A man outrages a woman, the throne gives way, and, in falling, it divides itself into two: the consuls succeed to all the prerogatives of the kings.⁸⁹ Nothing is changed in the Republic, except that instead of one chief, elective for life, there will be henceforward two chiefs, elected for a year. This transformation is evidently the work of the aristocracy; the senators will possess the government, and, by these annual elections, each hopes to take in his turn his share in the sovereign power. Such is the narrow calculation of man and his mean motive of action. Let us see what superior impulse he obeyed without knowing it.

That corner of land, situated on the bank of the Tiber, and predestined to hold the empire of the world, enclosed within itself, as we see, fruitful germs which demanded a rapid expansion. This could only be effected by the absolute independence of the most enlightened class, seizing for its own profit all the prerogatives of royalty. The aristocratic government has this advantage over monarchy, that it is more immutable in its duration, more constant in its designs, more faithful to traditions, and that it can dare everything, because where a great number share the responsibility, no one is individually responsible. Rome, with its narrow limits, had no longer need of the concentration of authority in a single hand, but it was in need of a new order of things, which should give to the great free access to the supreme power, and should second, by the allurement of honours, the development of the faculties of each. The grand object was to create a race of men of choice, who, succeeding each other with the same principles and the same virtues, should perpetuate, from generation to generation, the system most calculated to assure the greatness of their country. The fall of the kingly power was thus an event favourable to the development of Rome.

The patricians monopolised during a long time the civil, military, and religious employments, and, these employments being for the most part annual, there was in the Senate hardly a member who had not filled them; so that this assembly was composed of men formed to the combats of the Forum as well as to those of the field of battle, schooled in the difficulties of the administration, and indeed worthy, by an experience laboriously acquired, to preside over the destinies of the Republic.

They were not classed, as men are in our modern society, in envious and rival specialities; the warrior was not seen there despising the civilian, the lawyer or orator standing apart from the man of action, or the priest isolating himself from all the others. In order to raise himself to State dignities, and merit the suffrages of his fellow-citizens, the patrician was constrained, from his youngest age, to undergo the most varied trials. He was required to possess dexterity of body, eloquence, aptness for military exercises, the knowledge of civil and religious laws, the talent of commanding an army or directing a fleet, of administrating the town or commanding a province; and the obligation of these different apprenticeships not only gave a full flight to all capacities, but it united, in the eyes of the people, upon the magistrate invested with different dignities, the consideration attached to each of them. During a long time, he who was honoured with the confidence of his fellow-citizens, besides nobility of birth, enjoyed the triple prestige given by the function of judge, priest, and warrior.

An independence almost absolute in the exercise of command contributed further to the development of the faculties. At the present day, our constitutional habits have raised distrust towards power into a principle; at Rome, trust was the principle. In our modern societies, the depositary of any authority whatever is always under the restraint of powerful bonds; he obeys a precise law, a minutely detailed rule, a superior. The Roman, on the contrary, abandoned to his own sole responsibility, felt himself free from all shackles; he commanded as master within the sphere of his attributes. The counterpoise of this independence was the short duration of his office, and the right, given to every man, of accusing each magistrate at the end of it.

The preponderance of the high class, then, rested upon a legitimate superiority, and this class, besides, knew how to work to its advantage the popular passions. They desired liberty only for themselves, but they knew how to make the image glitter in the eyes of the multitude, and the name of the people was always associated with the decrees of the Senate. Proud of having contributed to the overthrow of the power of one individual, they took care to cherish among the masses the imaginary fear of the return of kingly power. In their hands the hate of tyrants will become a weapon to be dreaded by all who shall seek to raise themselves above their fellows, either by threatening their privileges, or by acquiring too much popularity by their acts of benevolence. Thus, under the pretext, renewed incessantly, of aspiring to kingly power, fell the consul Spurius Cassius, in 269, because he had presented the first agrarian law; Spurius Melius, in 315, because he excited the jealousy of the patricians by distributing wheat to the people during a famine;⁹⁰ in 369, Manlius, the saviour of Rome, because he had expended his fortune in relieving insolvent debtors.⁹¹ Thus will fall victims to the same accusation the reformer Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, and lastly, at a later period, the great Cæsar himself.

But if the pretended fear of the return of the ancient régime was a powerful means of government in the hands of the patricians, the real fear of seeing their privileges attacked by the plebeians restrained them within the bounds of moderation and justice.

In fact, if the numerous class, excluded from all office, had not interfered by their clamours to set limits to the privileges of the nobility, and thus compelled it to render itself worthy of power by its virtues, and re-invigorated it, in some sort, by the infusion of new blood, corruption and arbitrary spirit would, some ages earlier, have dragged it to its ruin. A caste which is not renewed by foreign elements is condemned to disappear; and absolute power, whether it belongs to one man or to a class of individuals, finishes always by being equally dangerous to him who exercises it. This concurrence of the plebeians excited in the Republic a fortunate emulation which produced great men, for, as Machiavelli says:⁹² “The fear of losing gives birth in men’s hearts to the same passions as the desire of acquiring.” Although the aristocracy had long defended with obstinacy its privileges, it made opportunely useful concessions. Skilful in repairing incessantly its defeats, it took again, under another form, what it had been constrained to abandon, losing often some of its attributes, but preserving its prestige always untouched.

Thus, the characteristic fact of the Roman institutions was to form men apt for all functions. As long as on a narrow theatre the ruling class had the wisdom to limit its ambition to promoting the veritable interests of their country, as the seduction of riches and unbounded power did not come to exalt it beyond measure, the aristocratic system maintained itself with all its advantages, and overruled the instability of institutions. It alone, indeed, was capable of supporting long, without succumbing, a régime in which the direction of the State and the command of the armies passed annually into different hands, and depended upon elections the element of which is ever fickle. Besides, the laws gave rise to antagonisms more calculated to cause anarchy than to consolidate true liberty. Let us examine, in these last relations, the constitution of the Republic.

Institutions of the Republic.

II. The two consuls were originally generals, judges, and administrators; equal in powers, they were often in disagreement, either in the Forum,⁹³ or on the field of battle.⁹⁴ Their dissensions were repeated many times until the consulate of Cæsar and Bibulus; and they were liable to become the more dangerous as the decision of one consul was annulled by the opposition of his colleague. On the other hand, the short duration of their magistracy constrained them either to hurry a battle in order to rob their successor of the glory,⁹⁵ or to interrupt a campaign in order to proceed to Rome to hold the comitia. The defeats of the Trebia and Cannæ, with that of Servilius Cæpio by the Cimbri,⁹⁶ were fatal examples of the want of unity in the direction of war.

In order to lessen the evil effects of a simultaneous exercise of their prerogatives, the consuls agreed to take in campaign the command alternately day by day, and at Rome each to have the fasces during a month; but this innovation had also vexatious consequences.⁹⁷ It was even thought necessary, nine years after the fall of the kings, to have recourse to the dictatorship; and this absolute authority, limited to six months, that is, to the longest duration of a campaign, only remedied temporarily, and under extraordinary circumstances, the want of power concentrated in a single individual.

This dualism and instability of the supreme authority were not, therefore, an element of strength; the unity and fixity of direction necessary among a people always at war had disappeared; but the evil would have been more serious if the conformity of interests and views of individuals belonging to the same caste had not been there to lessen it. The man was worth more than the institutions which had formed him.

The creation of tribunes of the people, whose part became subsequently so important, was, in 260, a new cause of discord; the plebeians, who composed the greater part of the army, claimed to have their military chiefs for magistrates;⁹⁸ the authority of the tribunes was at first limited: we may convince ourselves of this by the following terms of the law which established the office:⁹⁹—

“Nobody shall constrain a tribune of the people, like a man of the commonalty, to do anything against his will; it shall not be permitted either to strike him, or to cause him to be maltreated by another, or to slay him or cause him to be slain.”¹⁰⁰

We may judge by this the degree of inferiority to which the plebeians were reduced. The veto of the tribunes could nevertheless put a stop to the proposal of a law, prevent the decisions of the consuls and Senate, arrest the levies of troops, prorogue the convocation of the comitia, and hinder the election of magistrates.¹⁰¹ From the year 297, their number was raised to ten, that is, two for each of the five classes specially subject to the recruitment;¹⁰² but the plebeians profited little by this measure; the more the number of tribunes was augmented, the easier it became for the aristocracy to find among them an instrument for its designs. Gradually their influence increased; in 298, they laid claim to the right of convoking the Senate, and yet it was still a long time before they formed part of that body.¹⁰³

As to the comitia, the people had there only a feeble influence. In the assemblies by centuries, the vote of the first classes, composed of the richest citizens, as we have seen, prevailed over all the others; in the comitia by curiæ, the patricians were absolute masters; and when, towards the end of the third century, the plebeians obtained the comitia by tribes,¹⁰⁴ this concession did not add sensibly to their prerogatives. It was confined to the power of assembling in the public places where, divided according to tribes, they placed their votes in urns for the election of their tribunes and ediles, previously elected by the centuries;¹⁰⁵ their decisions concerned themselves only, and entailed no obligations on the patricians; so that the same town then offered the spectacle of two cities each having its own magistrates and laws.¹⁰⁶ At first the patricians would not form part of the assembly by tribes, but they soon saw the advantage of it, and, towards 305, entered it with their clients.¹⁰⁷

Transformation of the Aristocracy.

III. This political organisation, the reflex of a society composed of so many different elements, could hardly have constituted a durable order of things, if the ascendency of a privileged class had not controlled the causes of dissensions. This ascendency itself would soon have diminished if concessions, forced or voluntary, had not gradually lowered the barriers between the two orders.

In fact, the arbitrary conduct of the consuls, who were, perhaps, originally nominated by the Senate alone,¹⁰⁸ excited sharp recriminations: “the consular authority,” cried the plebeians, “was, in reality, almost as heavy as that of the kings. Instead of one master they had two, invested with absolute and unlimited power, without rule or bridle, who turned against the people all the threats of the laws, and all their punishments.”¹⁰⁹ Although after the year 283 the patricians and plebeians were subjected to the same judges,¹¹⁰ the want of fixed laws left the goods and lives of the citizens delivered to the will either of the consuls or of the tribunes. It became, therefore, indispensable to establish the legislation on a solid basis, and in 303 ten magistrates called decemvirs were chosen, invested with the double power, consular and tribunitian, which gave them the right of convoking equally the assemblies by centuries and by tribes. They were charged with the compilation of a code of laws afterwards known as the Laws of the Twelve Tables, which, engraved on brass, became the foundation of the Roman public law. Yet they persisted in making illegal the union contracted between persons of the two orders, and left the debtor at the mercy of the creditor, contrary to the decision of Servius Tullius.

The decemvirs abused their power, and, on their fall, the claims of the plebeians increased; the tribuneship, abolished during three years, was re-established; it was decided that an appeal to the people from the decision of any magistrate should be permitted, and that the laws made in the assemblies by tribes, as well as in the assemblies by centuries, should be obligatory on all.¹¹¹ There were thus, then, three sorts of comitia; the comitia by curiæ, which, conferring the imperium on the magistrates elected by the centuries, sanctioned in some sort the election of the consuls;¹¹² the comitia by centuries, over which the consuls presided; and the comitia by tribes, over which the tribunes presided; the first named the consuls, the second the plebeian magistrates, and both, composed of nearly the same citizens, had equally the power of approving or rejecting the laws; but in the former, the richest men and the nobility had all the influence, because they formed the majority of the centuries and voted first; while in the latter, on the contrary, the voters were confounded with that of the tribe to which they belonged. “If,” says an ancient author, “the suffrages are taken by gentes (ex generibus hominum), the comitia are by curiæ; if according to age and census, they are by centuries; finally, if the vote be given according to territorial circumscription (regionibus), they are by tribes.”¹¹³ In spite of these concessions, antagonism in matters of law reigned always between the powers, the assemblies, and the different classes of society.

The plebeians laid claim to all the offices of state, and especially to the consulship, refusing to enrol themselves until their demands had been satisfied; and they went so far in their claims that they insisted upon the plebeian origin of the kings. “Shall we, then,” cried the tribune Canuleius, addressing himself to the people, “have consuls who resemble the decemvirs, the vilest of mortals, all patricians, rather than the best of our kings, all new men!” that is, men without ancestors.¹¹⁴

The Senate resisted, because it had no intention of conferring upon plebeians the right which formed an attribute of the consuls, for the convocation of the comitia, of taking the great auspices, a privilege altogether of a religious character, the exclusive apanage of the nobility.¹¹⁵

In order to obviate this difficulty, the Senate, after suppressing the legal obstacles in the way of marriages between the two orders, agreed in 309 to the creation of six military tribunes invested with the consular power; but, which was an essential point, it was the interrex who convoked the comitia and took the auspices.¹¹⁶ During seventy-seven years the military tribunes were elected alternately with the consuls, and the consulship was only re-established permanently in 387, when it was opened to the plebeians. This was the result of one of the laws of Licinius Stolo. This tribune succeeded in obtaining the adoption of several measures which appeared to open a new era which would put an end to disputes. Still the patricians held with such tenacity to the privilege of alone taking the auspices, that in 398, in the absence of the patrician consul, an interrex was appointed charged with presiding over the comitia, in order not to leave this care to the dictator, and the other consul, who were both plebeians.¹¹⁷

But in permitting the popular class to arrive at the consulship, care had been taken to withdraw from that dignity a great part of its attributes, in order to confer them upon patrician magistrates. Thus they had successively taken away from the consuls, by the creation of two questors, in 307, the administration of the military chest;¹¹⁸ by the creation of the censors, in 311, the right of drawing up the list of the census, the assessment of the revenue of the State, and of watching over public morals; by the creation of the prætors, in 387, the sovereign jurisdiction in civil affairs, under the pretext that the nobility alone possessed the knowledge of the law of the Quirites; and lastly, by the creation of the curule ediles, the presidency of the games, the superintendence of buildings, the police and the provisioning of the town, the maintenance of the public roads, and the inspection of the markets.

The intention of the aristocracy had been to limit the compulsory concessions; but after the adoption of the Licinian laws, it was no longer possible to prevent the principle of the admission of plebeians to all the magistracies. In 386 they had arrived at the important charge of master of the knights (magister equitum) who was in a manner the lieutenant of the dictator (magister populi);¹¹⁹ in 387 access to the religious functions had been laid open to them;¹²⁰ in 345 they obtained the questorship; in 398, the dictatorship itself; in 403, the censorship; and lastly, in 417, the prætorship.

In 391, the people arrogated the right of appointing a part of the legionary tribunes, previously chosen by the consuls.¹²¹

In 415, the law of Q. Publilius Philo took from the Senate the power of refusing the auctoritas to the laws voted by the comitia, and obliged it to declare in advance if the proposed law were in conformity with public and religious law. Further, the obligation imposed by this law of having always one censor taken from among the plebeians, opened the doors of the Senate to the richest of them, since it was the business of the censor to fix the rank of the citizens, and pronounce on the admission or exclusion of the senators. The Publilian law thus tended to raise the aristocracy of the two orders to the same rank, and to create the nobility (nobilitas), composed of all the families rendered illustrious by the offices they had filled.

Elements of Dissolution.

IV. At the beginning of the fifth century of Rome, the bringing nearer together of the two orders had given a greater consistence to society; but, just as we have seen under the kingly rule, the principles begin to show themselves which were one day to make the greatness of Rome, so now we see the first appearance of dangers which will be renewed unceasingly. Electoral corruption, the law of perduellio, slavery, the increase of the poor class, the agrarian laws, and the question of debts, will come, under different circumstances, to threaten the existence of the Republic. Let us summarily state that these questions, so grave in the sequel, were raised at an early date.

Electoral Corruption. – Fraud found its way into the elections as soon as the number of electors increased and rendered it necessary to collect more suffrages to obtain public charges; as early as 396, indeed, a law on solicitation, proposed by the tribune of the people, C. Pœtelius, bears witness to the existence of electoral corruption.

Law of High-treason. – As early as 305 and 369, the application of the law of perduellio, or design against the Republic, furnished to arbitrary power an arm of which, at a later period, under the emperors, so deplorable a use was made under the name of the law of high-treason.¹²²

Slavery. – Slavery presented serious dangers for society, for, on the one hand, it tended, by the lower price of manual labour, to substitute itself for the labour of free men; while, on the other, discontented with their lot, the slaves were always ready to shake off the yoke and become the auxiliaries of all who were ambitious. In 253, 294, and 336, partial insurrections announced the condition already to be feared of a class disinherited of all the advantages, though intimately bound up with all the wants, of ordinary life.¹²³ The number of slaves increased rapidly. They replaced the free men torn by the continual wars from the cultivation of the land. At a later period, when these latter returned to their homes, the Senate was obliged to support them by sending as far as Sicily to seek wheat to deliver to them either gratis or at a reduced price.¹²⁴

Agrarian Laws. – As to the Agrarian laws and the question of debts, they soon became an incessant cause of agitation.

The kings, with the conquered lands, had formed a domain of the State (ager publicus), one of its principal resources,¹²⁵ and generously distributed part of it to the poor citizens.¹²⁶ Generally, they took from the conquered peoples two-thirds of their land.¹²⁷ Of these two-thirds, “the cultivated part,” says Appian, “was always adjudged to the new colonists, either as a gratuitous grant, or by sale, or by lease paying rent. As to the uncultivated part, which, as a consequence of war, was almost always the most considerable, it was not the custom to distribute it, but the enjoyment of it was left to any one willing to clear and cultivate it, with a reservation to the State of the tenth part of the harvest and a fifth part of the fruits. A similar tax was levied upon those who bred cattle, large or small (in order to prevent the pasture land from increasing in extent to the detriment of the arable land). This was done in view of the increase of the Italic population, which was judged at Rome the most laborious, and to have allies of their own race. But the measure produced a result contrary to that which was expected from it. The rich appropriated to themselves the greatest part of the undistributed lands, and reckoning that the long duration of their occupation would permit nobody to expel them, they bought when they found a seller, or took by force from their neighbouring lesser proprietors their modest heritages, and thus formed vast domains, instead of the mere fields which they had themselves cultivated before.”¹²⁸

The kings had always sought to put a curb on these usurpations,¹²⁹ and perhaps it was a similar attempt which cost Servius Tullius his life. But after the fall of the kingly power, the patricians, having become more powerful, determined to preserve the lands which they had unjustly seized.¹³⁰

And it must be acknowledged, as they supported the greatest share of the burthen of war and taxation, they had a better claim than the others to the conquered lands; they thought, moreover, that the colonies were sufficient to support an agricultural population, and they acted rather as State farmers than as proprietors of the soil. According to the public law, indeed, the ager publicus was inalienable, and we read in an ancient author: – “Lawyers deny that the soil which has once begun to belong to the Roman people, can ever, by usage or possession, become the property of anybody else in the world.”¹³¹

In spite of this principle, it would have been wisdom to give, to the poor citizens who had fought, a part of the spoils of the vanquished; for the demands were incessant, and after 268, renewed almost yearly by the tribunes or by the consuls themselves. In 275, a patrician, Fabius Cæso, taking the initiative in a partition of lands recently conquered, exclaimed: “Is it not just that the territories taken from the enemy should become the property of those who have paid for it with their sweat and with their blood?”¹³² The Senate was as inflexible for this proposition as for those which were brought forward by Q. Considius and T. Genucius in 278, by Cn. Genucius in 280, and by the tribunes of the people, with the support of the consuls Valerius and Æmilius, in 284.¹³³

Yet, after fifty years of struggles since the expulsion of the Tarquins, the tribune Icilius, in 298, obtained the partition of the lands of Mount Aventine, by indemnifying those who had usurped a certain portion of them.¹³⁴ The application of the law Icilia to other parts of the ager publicus¹³⁵ was vainly solicited in 298 and the following years; but in 330, a new tax was imposed upon the possessors of the lands for the pay of the troops. The perseverance of the tribunes was unwearied, and, during the thirty-six years following, six different propositions were unsuccessful, even that relating to the territory of the Bolani, newly taken from the enemy.¹³⁶ In 361 only, a senatus consultus granted to each father of a family and to each free man seven acres of the territory which had just been conquered from the Veii.¹³⁷ In 371, after a resistance of five years, the Senate, in order to secure the concurrence of the people in the war against the Volsci, agreed to the partition of the territory of the Pomptinum (the Pontine Marshes), taken from that people by Camillus, and already given up to the encroachments of the aristocracy.¹³⁸ But these partial concessions were not enough to satisfy the plebeians or to repair past injustices; in the Licinian law the claims of the people, which had been resisted during a hundred and thirty-six years, triumphed;¹³⁹ it did not entirely deprive the nobles of the enjoyment of the lands unjustly usurped, but it limited the possession of them to five hundred jugera. When this repartition was made, the land which remained was to be distributed among the poor. The proprietors were obliged to maintain on their lands a certain number of free men, in order to augment the class from which the legions were recruited; lastly, the number of cattle on each domain was fixed, in order to restrain the culture of the meadows, in general the most lucrative, and augment that of the arable lands, which relieved Italy from the necessity of having recourse to foreign corn.

This law of Licinius Stolo secured happy results; it restrained the encroachments of the rich and great, but only proceeded with moderation in its retrospective effects; it put a stop to the alarming extension of the private domains at the expense of the public domain, to the absorption of the good of the many by the few, to the depopulation of Italy, and consequently to the diminution of the strength of the armies.¹⁴⁰

The numerous condemnations for trespasses against the law Licinia prove that it was carried into execution, and for the space of two hundred years it contributed, with the establishment of new colonies,¹⁴¹ to maintain this class of agriculturists – the principal sinews of the State. We see indeed that, from this moment, the Senate itself took the initiative of new distributions of land to the people.¹⁴²

Debts. – The question of debts and the diminution of the rate of interest had long been the subject of strong prejudices and of passionate debates.

As the citizens made war at their own expense, the less rich, while they were under arms, could not take care of their fields or farms, but borrowed money to provide for their wants and for those of their families. The debt had, in this case, a noble origin, the service of their country.¹⁴³ Public opinion must, therefore, be favourable to the debtors and hostile to those who, speculating on the pecuniary difficulties of the defenders of the State, extorted heavy interest for the money they lent. The patricians also took advantage of their position and their knowledge of legal forms to exact heavy sums from the plebeians whose causes they defended.¹⁴⁴

The kings, listening to the demands of the citizens who were overwhelmed with debts, often showed their readiness to help them;¹⁴⁵ but, after their expulsion, the rich classes, more independent, became more untractable, and men, ruined on account of their military service, were sold publicly, as slaves,¹⁴⁶ by their creditors. Thus, when war was imminent, the poor often refused to serve,¹⁴⁷ crying out, “What use will it be to us to conquer the enemies without, if our creditors put us in bonds for the debts we have contracted? What advantage shall we have in strengthening the empire of Rome, if we cannot preserve our personal liberty?”¹⁴⁸ Yet the patricians, who contributed more than the others to the costs of the war, demanded of their debtors, not without reason, the payment of the money they had advanced; and hence arose perpetual dissensions.¹⁴⁹

In 305, the laws of the Twelve Tables decided that the rate of interest should be reduced to ten per cent. a year; but a law of Licinius Stolo alone resolved, in an equitable manner, this grave question. It enacted that the interests previously paid should be deducted from the principal, and that the principal should be repaid by equal portions during an interval of three years. This measure was advantageous to all, for, in the state of insolvency in which the debtors were involved, the creditors could not obtain the interest of their money, and even risked the loss of the principal; the new law guaranteed the debts; the debtors in their turn, having become landed proprietors, found the means of freeing themselves by means of the lands they had received and the delay which had been given them. The agreement established in 387 was of slight duration, and in the midst of disagreements more or less violent, things were carried so far, in 412, that the entire abolition of debts and the prohibition to exact any interest were decreed mere revolutionary and transitory measures.

Résumé.

V. This rapid sketch of the evils already perceptible which tormented Roman society leads us to this reflection: it is the lot of all governments, whatever be their form, to contain within themselves germs of life, which make their strength, and germs of dissolution, which must some day lead to their ruin; and accordingly, as the Republic was in progress or in decline, the first or the second became developed and dominant in turn; that is, so long as the aristocracy preserved its virtues and its patriotism, the elements of prosperity predominated; but no sooner did it begin to degenerate, than the causes of disturbance gained the upper hand, and shook the edifice which had been erected so laboriously.

If the fall of the kingly power, in giving more vitality and independence to the aristocracy, rendered the constitution of the State more solid and durable, the democracy had at first no reason for congratulation. Two hundred years passed away before the plebeians could obtain, not equality of political rights, but even a share in the ager publicus and an act of lenity in favour of debtors, overwhelmed with liabilities through incessant wars. About the same length of time was required by the Republic to re-conquer the supremacy over the neighbouring peoples which she had exercised under the last kings,¹⁵⁰ so many years a country requires to recover from the shocks and enfeebling influence of even the most legitimate revolutions.

Yet Roman society had been vigorously enough constituted to resist at the same time external attacks and internal troubles. Neither the invasions of Porsenna, nor those of the Gauls, nor the conspiracies of the neighbouring peoples, were able to compromise its existence. Already eminent men, such as Valerius Publicola, A. Postumius, Coriolanus, Spurius Cassius, Cincinnatus, and Camillus, had distinguished themselves as legislators and warriors, and Rome could put on foot ten legions, or forty-five thousand men. At home, important advantages had been obtained, and notable concessions had been made to effect a reconciliation between the two orders; written laws had been adopted, and the attributes of the different magistracies had been better defined, but the constitution of society remained the same. The facility granted to the plebeians of arriving at all the State employments only increased the strength of the aristocracy, which recovered its vigour of youth without modifying itself, diminished the number of its adversaries, and increased that of its adherents. The rich and important plebeian families soon began to mingle with the ancient patrician families, to share their ideas, their interests, and even their prejudices; and a learned German historian remarks with justice that after the abolition of the kingly power there was, perhaps, a greater number of plebeians in the Senate, but that personal merit, without birth and fortune, experienced greater difficulty than ever in reaching preferment.¹⁵¹

It is not indeed sufficient, for the application of the state of society, to study thoroughly its laws, but we must also take into consideration the influence exercised by the manners of the people. The laws proclaimed equality and liberty, but the manners left the honours and preponderance to the upper class. The admission to place was no longer forbidden to the plebeians, but the election almost always kept them from it. During fifty-nine years, two hundred and sixty-four military tribunes replaced the consuls, and of this number only eighteen were plebeians; although these latter might be candidates for the consulship, the choice fell generally upon patricians.¹⁵² Marriage between the two orders had been long placed on a footing of equality, and yet, in 456, the prejudices of caste were far from being destroyed, as we learn from the history of the patrician Virginia, married to the plebeian Volumnius, whom the matrons drove away from the temple of Pudicitia patricia.¹⁵³

The laws protected liberty, but they were rarely executed, as is shown by the continual renewal of the same regulations. Thus it had been decided in 305 that the plebiscita should have the force of law, yet in spite of that it was found necessary to re-enact the same regulation by the laws Hortensia, in 466, and Mænia, in 468. This last sanctioned also anew the law Publilia of 415. It was the same with the law of Valerius Publicola (of the year 246), which authorised an appeal to the people from the judgments of the magistrates. It appears to have been restored to vigour by Valerius and Horatius in 305, and again by Valerius Corvus in 454. And, on this occasion, the great Roman historian exclaims, “I can only explain this frequent renewal of the same law by supposing that the power of some of the great ones always succeeded in triumphing over the liberty of the people.”¹⁵⁴ The right of admission to the Senate was acknowledged in principle, yet no one could enter it without having obtained a decree of the censor, or exercised a curule magistracy – favours almost always reserved to the aristocracy. The law which required a plebeian among the censors remained almost always in abeyance, and, to become censor, it was generally necessary to have been consul.

All offices ought to be annual, and yet the tribunes, as well as the consuls, obtained their re-election several times at short intervals – as in the instance of Licinius Stolo, re-elected tribune during nine consecutive years; of Sulpicius Peticus, five times consul (from 390 to 403); of Popilius Lænas and Marcius Rutilus, both four times, the first from 395 to 406, the second from 397 to 412. The law of 412 came in vain to require an interval of ten years before becoming again a candidate for the same magistracy. Several personages were none the less re-elected before the time required, such as Valerius Corvus, six times consul (from 406 to 455), and consecutively during the last three years; and Papirius Cursor, five times (from 421 to 441).

The lives of the citizens were protected by the laws, but public opinion remained powerless at the assassination of those who had incurred the hatred of the Senate; and, in spite of the law of the consul Valerius Publicola, the violent death of the tribune Genucius, or of the rich plebeian Spurius Melius, was a subject of applause.

The comitia were free, but the Senate had at its disposal either the veto of the tribunes or the religious scruples of the people. A consul could prevent the meeting of these assemblies, or cut short all their deliberations, either by declaring that he was observing the sky, or that a clap of thunder or some other celestial manifestation had occurred;¹⁵⁵ and it depended upon the declaration of the augurs to annul the elections. Moreover, the people in reality were satisfied with naming the persons on whom they wished to confer the magisterial offices, for, to enter upon their functions, the consuls and the prætors had to submit their powers to the sanction of the curiæ (lex curiata de imperio).¹⁵⁶ It was thus in the power of the nobility to reverse the elections which displeased them, a fact which Cicero explains in the following terms, while presenting this measure in a light favourable to the people: “Your ancestors required the suffrages twice for all magistracies, for, when a curiate law was proposed in favour of the patrician magistrates, they voted in reality a second time for the same persons, so that the people, if they repented of their choice, had the power of abandoning it.”¹⁵⁷

The dictatorship was also a lever left in the hands of the nobility to overthrow oppositions and influence the comitia. The dictator was never elected, but appointed by a consul.¹⁵⁸ In the space of only twenty-six years, from 390 to 416, there were eighteen dictators.

The Senate remained, therefore, all powerful in spite of the victory of the plebeians, for, independently of the means placed at its disposal, it was in its power to elude the plebiscita, the execution of which was entrusted to it. If the influence of a predominant class sobered the use of political liberty, the laws presented a still greater curb on individual liberty. Thus, not only all the members of the family were subjected to the absolute authority of the head, but each citizen was obliged further to obey a multitude of rigorous obligations.¹⁵⁹ The censor watched over the purity of marriages, the education of children, the treatment of slaves and clients, and the cultivation of the lands.¹⁶⁰ “The Romans did not believe,” says Plutarch, “that each individual ought to be allowed the liberty to marry, to have children, to choose his walk in life, to give festivities, or even to follow his desires and tastes, without undergoing a previous inspection and judgment.”¹⁶¹

The condition of Rome then bore a great resemblance to that of England before its electoral reform. For several centuries, the English Constitution was vaunted as the palladium of liberty, although then, as at Rome, birth and fortune were the unique source of honours and power. In both countries the aristocracy, master of the elections by solicitation, money, or rotten boroughs, caused, as the patricians at Rome, the members of the nobility to be elected to parliament, and no one was citizen in either of the two countries without the possession of wealth. Nevertheless, if the people, in England, had no part in the direction of affairs, they boasted justly, before 1789, a liberty which shone brightly in the middle of the silentious atmosphere of the Continental states. The disinterested observer does not examine if the scene where grave political questions are discussed is more or less vast, or if the actors are more or less numerous: he is only struck by the grandeur of the spectacle. Thus, far be from us the intention of blaming the nobility, any more in Rome than in England, for having preserved its preponderance by all the means which laws and habits placed at its disposal. The power was destined to remain with the patricians as long as they showed themselves worthy of it; and, it cannot but be acknowledged, without their perseverance in the same policy, without that elevation of views, without that severe and inflexible virtue, the distinguishing character of the aristocracy, the work of Roman civilisation would not have been accomplished.

At the beginning of the fifth century, the Republic, consolidated, is going to gather the fruit of the many efforts it has sustained. More united henceforward, in the interior, the Romans will turn all their energy towards the conquest of Italy, but it will require nearly a century to realise it. Always stimulated by their institutions, always restrained by an intelligent aristocracy, they will furnish the astonishing example of a people preserving, in the name of liberty and in the midst of agitation, the immobility of a system which will render them masters of the world.

CHAPTER III.
CONQUEST OF ITALY

(From 416 to 488.)

Description of Italy.

I. ANCIENT Italy did not comprise all the territory which has for its natural limits the Alps and the sea. What is called the continental part, or the great plain traversed by the Po, which extends between the Alps, the Apennines, and the Adriatic, was separated from it. This plain, and part of the mountains on the coasts of the Mediterranean, formed Liguria, Cisalpine Gaul, and Venetia. The peninsula, or Italy proper, was bounded, on the north, by the Rubicon, and, probably, by the lower course of the Arno;¹⁶² on the west, by the Mediterranean; on the east, by the Adriatic; on the south, by the Ionian Sea. (See the Maps, No. 1 and No. 2.)

The Apennines traverse Italy in its whole length. They begin where the Alps end, near Savona, and their chain proceeds, continually rising in elevation, as far as the centre of the peninsula. Mount Velino is their culminating point, and from thence the Apennines continue decreasing in height, until they reach the extremity of the kingdom of Naples. In the northern region they approach the Adriatic; but, in the centre, they cut the peninsula into two parts nearly equal; then, at Mount Caruso (Vultur), near the source of the Bradano (Bradanus), they separate into two branches, one of which penetrates into Calabria, the other into the Terra di Bari as far as Otranto.

The two slopes of the Apennines give birth to various streams which flow some into the Adriatic and others into the Mediterranean. On the eastern side the principal are – the Rubicon, the Pisaurus (Foglia), the Metaurus (Metauro), the Æsis (Esino), the Truentus (Tronto), the Aternus (Pescara), the Sangrus (Sangro), the Trinius (Trigno), the Frento (Fortore), and the Aufidus (Ofanto), which follow generally a direction perpendicular to the chain of mountains. On the western side, the Arnus (Arno), the Ombrus (Ombrone), the Tiber, the Amasenus (Amaseno), the Liris (Garigliano), the Vulturnus (Volturno), and the Silarus (Silaro or Sile), run parallel to the Apennines; but towards their mouths they take a direction nearly perpendicular to the coast. The Bradanus (Bradano), the Casuentus (Basiento), and the Aciris (Agri), flow into the Gulf of Tarentum.

We may admit into ancient Italy the following great divisions and subdivisions: —

To the north, the Senones, a people of Gallic origin, occupying the shores of the Adriatic Sea, from the Rubicon to the neighbourhood of Ancona; Umbria, situated between the Senones and the course of the Tiber; Etruria, between the Tiber and the Mediterranean Sea.

In the centre the territory of Picenum, between Ancona and Hadria, in the Abruzzo Ulteriore; Latium, in the part between the Apennines and the Mediterranean, from the Tiber to the Liris; to the south of Latium, the Volsci, and the Aurunci, the débris of the ancient Ausones, retired between the Liris and the Amasenus, and bordering upon another people of the same race, the Sidicines, established between the Liris and the Vulturnus; the country of the Sabines, between Picenum and Latium; to the east of Latium, in the mountains, the Æqui; the Hernici, backed by the populations of Sabellian stock, namely, the Marsi, the Peligni, the Vestini, the Marrucini, and the Frentani, distributed in the valleys through which run the rivers received by the Adriatic from the extremity of Picenum to the River Fortore.

The territory of Samnium, answering to the great part of the Abruzzi and the province of Molisa, advanced towards the west as far as the upper arm of the Vulturnus, on the north to the banks of the Fortore, and to the south to Mount Vultur. Beyond the Vulturnus extended Campania (Terra di Lavoro and part of the principality of Salerno), from Sinuessa to the Gulf of Pæstum.

Southern Italy, or Magna Græcia, comprised on the Adriatic: first, Apulia (the Capitanata and Terra di Bari) and Messapia (Terra di Otranto); this last terminated in the Iapygian Promontory, and its central part was occupied by the Salentini and divers other Messapian populations, while there existed on the seaboard a great number of Greek colonies; secondly, Lucania, which answered nearly to the modern province of Basilicata, and was washed by the waters of the Gulf of Tarentum; thirdly, Bruttium (now the Calabrias), forming the most advanced point of Italy, and terminating in the Promontory of Hercules.

Dispositions of the People of Italy in regard to Rome.

II. In 416, Rome had finally subdued the Latins, and possessed part of Campania. Her supremacy extended from the present territory of Viterbo to the Gulf of Naples, from Antium (Porto di Anzo) to Sora.

The frontiers of the Republic were difficult to defend, her limits ill determined, and her neighbours the most warlike people of the peninsula.

To the north only, the mountains of Viterbo, covered with a thick forest (silva Ciminia), formed a rampart against Etruria. The southern part of this country had been long half Roman; the Latin colonies of Sutrium (Sutri) and Nepete (Nepi) served as posts of observation. But the Etruscans, animated for ages with hostile feeling towards Rome, attempted continually to recover the lost territory. The Gaulish Senones, who, in 364, had taken and burnt Rome, and often renewed their invasions, had come again to try their fortune. In spite of their defeats in 404 and 405, they were always ready to join the Umbrians and Etruscans in attacking the Republic.

The Sabines, though entertaining from time immemorial tolerably amicable relations with the Romans, offered but a doubtful alliance. Picenum, a fertile and populous country, was peaceful, and the greater part of the mountain tribes of Sabellic race, in spite of their bravery and energy, inspired as yet no fear. Nearer Rome, the Æqui and the Hernici had been reduced to inaction; but the Senate kept in mind their hostilities and nourished projects of vengeance.

On the southern coast, among the Greek towns devoted to commerce, Tarentum passed for the most powerful; but these colonies, already in decline, were obliged to have recourse to mercenary troops, to resist the native inhabitants. They disputed with the Samnites and the Romans the preponderance over the people of Magna Græcia. The Samnites, indeed, a manly and independent race, aimed at seizing the whole of Southern Italy; their cities formed a confederacy, redoubtable on account of its close union in time of war. The mountain tribes gave themselves up to brigandage, and it is worthy of attention that recent events show that in our days manners have not much changed in that country. The Samnites had amassed considerable riches; their arms displayed excessive extravagance, and, if we believe Cæsar,¹⁶³ they served as models for those of the Romans.

A jealous rivalry had long prevailed between the Romans and the Samnites. The moment these two peoples found themselves in presence of each other, it was evident that they would be at war; the struggle was long and terrible, and, during the fifth century, it was round Samnium that they disputed the empire of Italy. The position of the Samnites was very advantageous. Entrenched in their mountains, they could, at their will, either descend into the valley of the Liris, thence reach the country of the Aurunci, always ready to revolt, and cut off the communications of Rome with Campania; or follow the course of the upper Liris into the country of the Marsi, raise these latter, and hold out the hand to the Etruscans, turning Rome; or, lastly, penetrate into Campania by the valley of the Vulturnus, and fall upon the Sidicini, whose territory they coveted.

In the midst of so many hostile peoples, for a little state to succeed in raising itself above the others, and in subjugating them, it must have possessed peculiar elements of superiority. The peoples who surrounded Rome, warlike and proud of their independence, had neither the same unity, nor the same incentives to action, nor the same powerful aristocratic organisation, nor the same blind confidence in their destinies. They displayed more selfishness than ambition. When they fought, it was much more to increase their riches by pillage than to augment the number of their subjects. Rome triumphed, because alone, in prospect of a future, she made war not to destroy, but to conserve, and, after the material conquest, always set herself to accomplish the moral conquest of the vanquished.

During four hundred years her institutions had formed a race animated with the love of country and with the sentiment of duty; but, in their turn, the men, incessantly re-tempered in intestine struggles, had successively introduced manners and traditions stronger even than the institutions themselves. During three centuries, in fact, Rome presented, in spite of the annual renewal of powers, such a perseverance in the same policy, such a practice of the same virtues, that it might have been supposed that the government had but a single head, a single thought, and one might have believed that all its generals were great warriors, all its senators experienced statesmen, and all its citizens valiant soldiers.

The geographical position of Rome contributed no less to the rapid increase of its power. Situated in the middle of the only great fertile plain of Latium, on the banks of the only important river of Central Italy, which united it with the sea, it could be at the same time agricultural and maritime, conditions then indispensable for the capital of a new empire. The rich countries which bordered the coasts of the Mediterranean were sure to fall easily under her dominion; and as for the countries which surrounded her, it was possible to become mistress of them by occupying gradually the openings from all the valleys. The town of the seven hills, favoured by her natural situation as well as by her political constitution, carried thus in herself the germs of her future greatness.

Treatment of the Vanquished Peoples.

III. From the commencement of the fifth century Rome prepares with energy to subject and assimilate to herself the peoples who dwelt from the Rubicon to the Strait of Messina. Nothing will prevent her from surmounting all obstacles, neither the coalition of her neighbours conspiring against her, nor the new incursions of the Gauls, nor the invasion of Pyrrhus. She will know how to raise herself from her partial defeats, and establish the unity of Italy, not by subduing at once all these peoples to the same laws and the same rule, but by causing them to enter, by little and little and in different degrees, into the great Roman family. “Of one city she makes her ally; on another she confers the honour of living under the Quiritary law, to this one with the right of suffrage, to that with the permission to retain its own government. Municipia of different degrees, maritime colonies, Latin colonies, Roman colonies, prefectures, allied towns, free towns, all isolated by the difference of their condition, all united by their equal dependence on the Senate, they will form, as it were, a vast network which will entangle the Italian peoples, until the day when, without new struggles, they will awake subjects of Rome.”¹⁶⁴

Let us examine the conditions of these various categories:

The right of city, in its plenitude (jus civitatis optimo jure), comprised the political privileges peculiar to the Romans, and assured for civil life certain advantages, of which the concession might be made separately and by degrees. First came the commercium, that is, the right of possessing and transmitting according to the Roman law; next the connubium, or the right of contracting marriage with the advantages established by Roman legislation.¹⁶⁵ The commercium and connubium united formed the Quiritary law (jus quiritium).

There were three sorts of municipia:¹⁶⁶ first, the municipia of which the inhabitants, inscribed in the tribes, exercised all the rights and were subjected to all the obligations of the Roman citizens; secondly, the municipia sine suffragio, the inhabitants of which enjoyed in totality or in part the Quiritary law, and might obtain the complete right of Roman citizens on certain conditions;¹⁶⁷ it is what constituted the jus Latii; these first two categories preserved their autonomy and their magistrates; third, the towns which had lost all independence in exchange for the civil laws of Rome, but without enjoyment, for the inhabitants, of the most important political rights; it was the law of the Cærites, because Cære was the first town which had been thus treated.¹⁶⁸

Below the municipia, which had their own magistrates, came, in this social hierarchy, the prefectures,¹⁶⁹ so called because a prefect was sent there every year to administer justice.

The dediticii were still worse treated. Delivered by victory to the discretion of the Senate, they had been obliged to surrender their arms and give hostages, to throw down their walls or receive a garrison within them, to pay a tax, and to furnish a determinate contingent. With the exclusion of these last, the towns which had not obtained for their inhabitants the complete rights of Roman citizens belonged to the class of allies (fœderati socii). Their condition differed according to the nature of their engagements. Simple treaties of friendship,¹⁷⁰ or of commerce,¹⁷¹ or of offensive alliance, or offensive and defensive,¹⁷² concluded on the footing of equality, were called fœdera æqua. On the contrary, when one of the contracting parties (and it was never the Romans) submitted to onerous obligations from which the other was exempted, these treaties were called fœdera non æqua. They consisted almost always in the cession of a part of the territory of the vanquished, and in the obligation to undertake no war of their own. A certain independence, it is true, was left to them; they received the right of exchange and free establishment in the capital, but they were bound to the interests of Rome by an alliance offensive and defensive. The only clause establishing the preponderance of Rome was conceived in these terms: Majestatem populi Romani comiter conservanto;¹⁷³ that is, “They shall loyally acknowledge the supremacy of the Roman people.” It is a remarkable circumstance that, dating from the reign of Augustus, the freedmen were divided in categories similar to those which existed for the inhabitants of Italy.¹⁷⁴

As to the colonies, they were established for the purpose of preserving the possessions acquired, of securing the new frontiers, and of guarding the important passes; and even for the sake of getting rid of the turbulent class.¹⁷⁵ They were of two sorts: the Roman colonies and the Latin colonies. The former differed little from the municipia of the first degree, the others from the municipia of the second degree. The first were formed of Roman citizens, taken with their families from the classes subjected to military service, and even, in their origin, solely among the patricians. The coloni preserved the privileges attached to the title of citizen,¹⁷⁶ and were bound by the same obligations, and the interior administration of the colony was an image of that of Rome.¹⁷⁷

The Latin colonies differed from the others in having been founded by the confederacy of the Latins on different points of Latium. Emanating from a league of independent cities, they were not, like the Roman colonies, tied by close bonds to the metropolis.¹⁷⁸ But the confederacy once dissolved, these colonies were placed in the rank of allied towns (socii Latini). The act (formula) which instituted them was a sort of treaty guaranteeing their franchise.¹⁷⁹

Peopled at first by Latins, it was not long before these colonies received Roman citizens who were induced by their poverty to exchange their title and rights for the advantages assured to the colonists. These did not figure on the lists of the censors. The formula fixed simply the tribute to pay and the number of soldiers to furnish. What the colony lost in privileges it gained in independence.¹⁸⁰

The isolation of the Latin colonies, placed in the middle of the enemy’s territory, obliged them to remain faithful to Rome, and to keep watch on the neighbouring peoples. Their military importance was at least equal to that of the Roman colonies; they merited as well as these latter the name of propugnacula imperii and of specula,¹⁸¹ that is, bulwarks and watch-towers of the conquest. In a political point of view they rendered services of a similar kind. If the Roman colonies announced to the conquered people the majesty of the Roman name, their Latin sisters gave an ever-increasing extension to the nomen Latinum,¹⁸² that is, to the language, manners, and whole civilisation of that race of which Rome was but the first representative. The Latin colonies were ordinarily founded to economise the colonies of Roman citizens, which were charged principally with the defence of the coasts and the maintenance of commercial relations with foreign people.

In making the privileges of the Roman citizen an advantage which every one was happy and proud to acquire, the Senate held out a bait to all ambitions; and this general desire, not to destroy the privilege, but to gain a place among the privileged, is a characteristic trait of the manners of antiquity. In the city not less than in the State, the insurgents or discontented did not seek, as in our modern societies, to overthrow, but to attain to. So every one, according to his position, aspired to a legitimate object: the plebeians to enter into the aristocracy, not to destroy it; the Italic peoples, to have a part in the sovereignty of Rome, not to contest it; the Roman provinces to be declared allies and friends of Rome, and not to recover their independence.

The peoples could judge, according to their conduct, what lot was reserved for them. The paltry interests of city were replaced by an effectual protection, and by new rights often more precious, in the eyes of the vanquished, than independence itself. This explains the facility with which the Roman domination was established. In fact, that only is destroyed entirely which may be replaced advantageously.

A rapid glance at the wars which effected the conquest of Italy will show how the Senate made application of the principles stated above; how it was skilful in profiting by the divisions of its adversaries, in collecting its whole strength to overwhelm one of them; after the victory in making it an ally; in using the aims and resources of that ally to subjugate another people; in crushing the confederacies which united the vanquished against it; in attaching them to Rome by new bonds; in establishing military posts on all the points of strategic importance; and, lastly, in spreading everywhere the Latin race by distributing to Roman citizens a part of the lands taken from the enemy.

But, before entering upon the recital of events, we must cast a glance upon the years which immediately preceded the pacification of Latium.

Submission of Latium after the first Samnite War.

IV. During a hundred and sixty-seven years, Rome had been satisfied with struggling against her neighbours to re-conquer a supremacy lost since the fall of her kings. She held herself almost always on the defensive; but, with the fifth century, she took the offensive, and inaugurated the system of conquests continued to the moment when she herself succumbed.

In 411, she had, in concert with the Latins, combated the Samnites for the first time, and commenced against that redoubtable people a struggle which lasted seventy-two years, and which brought twenty-four triumphs to the Roman generals.¹⁸³ Proud of having contributed to the two great victories of Mount Gaurus and Suessula, the Latins, with an exaggerated belief in their own strength and a pretension to equality with Rome, went so far as to require that one of the two consuls, and half of the senators, should be chosen from their nation. War was immediately declared. The Senate was willing enough to have allies and subjects, but it could not suffer equals; it accepted without scruple the services of those who had just been enemies, and the Romans, united with the Samnites, the Hernici, and the Sabellian peoples, were seen in the fields of the Veseris and Trifanum, fighting against the Latins and Volsci. Latium once reduced, it remained to determine the lot of the vanquished. Livy reports a speech of Camillus which explains clearly the policy recommended by that great citizen. “Will you,” he exclaims, addressing the members of the assembly, “use the utmost rigour of the rights of victory? You are masters to destroy all Latium, and to make a vast desert of it, after having often drawn from it powerful succours. Will you, on the contrary, after the example of your fathers, augment the resources of Rome? Admit the vanquished among the number of your citizens; it is a fruitful means of increasing at the same time your power and your glory.”¹⁸⁴ This last counsel prevailed.

The first step was to break the bonds which made of the Latin people a sort of confederacy. All political communalty, all war on their own account, all rights of commercium and connubium, between the different cities, were taken from them.¹⁸⁵

The towns nearest Rome received the rights of city and suffrage.¹⁸⁶ Others received the title of allies and the privilege of preserving their own institutions, but they lost a part of their territory.¹⁸⁷ As to the Latin colonies founded before in the old country of the Volsci, they formed the nucleus of the Latin allies (socii nominis Latini). Velitræ, alone, having already revolted several times, was treated with great rigour; Antium was compelled to surrender its ships, and become a maritime colony.

These severe, but equitable measures, had pacified Latium; applied to the rest of Italy, and even to foreign countries, they will facilitate everywhere the progress of Roman domination.

The momentary alliance with the Samnites had permitted Rome to reduce the Latins; nevertheless the Senate, without hesitation, turned against the former again as soon as the moment appeared convenient. It concluded, in 422, a treaty with the Gauls and Alexander Molossus, who, having landed near Pæstum, attacked the Lucanians and the Samnites. This King of Epirus, the uncle of Alexander the Great, had been called into Italy by the Tarentines; but his premature death disappointed the hopes to which his co-operation had given rise, and the Samnites recommenced their incursions on the lands of their neighbours. The intervention of Rome put a stop to the war. All the forces of the Republic were employed in reducing the revolt of the Volscian towns of Fundi and Privernum.¹⁸⁸ In 425, Anxur (Terracina) was declared a Roman colony, and, in 426, Fregellæ (Ceprano?), a Latin colony.

The establishment of these fortresses, and of those of Cales and Antium, secured the communications with Campania; the Liris and the Vulturnus became in that direction the principal lines of defence of the Romans. The cities situated on the shores of that magnificent gulf called Crater by the ancients, and in our days the Gulf of Naples, perceived then the dangers which threatened them. They turned their eyes towards the population of the interior, who were no less alarmed for their independence.

Second Samnite War.

V. The fertile countries which bordered the western shore of the peninsula were destined to excite the covetousness of the Romans and the Samnites, and become the prey of the conqueror. “Campania, indeed,” says Florus,¹⁸⁹ “is the finest country of Italy, and even of the whole world. There is nothing milder than its climate. Spring flourishes there twice every year. There can be nothing more fertile than its soil. It is called the garden of Ceres and Bacchus. There is not a more hospitable sea than that which bathes its shores.” In 427, the two peoples disputed the possession of it, as they had done in 411. The inhabitants of Palæopolis having attacked the Roman colonists of the ager Campanus, the consuls marched against that place, which soon received succour from the Samnites and the inhabitants of Nola, while Rome formed an alliance with the Apulians and the Lucanians. The siege dragged on, and the necessity of continuing the campaign beyond the ordinary limit led to the prolongation of the command of Publilius Philo with the title of proconsul, which appeared for the first time in the military annals. The Samnites were soon driven from Campania; the Palæopolitans submitted; their town was demolished; but they formed close to it a new establishment, at Naples (Neapolis), where a new treaty guaranteed them an almost absolute independence, on the condition of furnishing a certain number of vessels to Rome. After that, nearly all the Greek towns, reduced one after another, obtained the same favourable conditions, and formed the class of the socii navales.¹⁹⁰

Yet the war was protracted in the mountains of the Apennine. Tarentum united with the Samnites, the only people who were still to be feared,¹⁹¹ and the Lucanians abandoned the alliance of the Romans; but, in 429, the two most celebrated captains of the time, Q. Fabius Rullianus and Papirius Cursor, penetrated into the country of Samnium, and compelled the enemy to pay an indemnity for the war and accept a year’s truce.

At this epoch, an unforeseen event, which changed the destinies of the world, came to demonstrate the difference between the rapid creation of a man of genius and the patient work of an intelligent aristocracy. Alexander the Great, after having shone like a meteor, and brought into subjection the most powerful kingdoms of Asia, died at Babylon. His fruitful and decisive influence, which carried the civilization of Greece into the East, survived him, but at his death, the empire he founded became in a few years dismembered (431); the Roman aristocracy, on the contrary, perpetuating itself from age to age, pursued more slowly, but without interruption, the system which, binding again the peoples about a common centre, was destined by little and little to secure her domination over Italy first, and then over the universe.

The defection of a part of the Apulians, in 431, encouraged the Samnites to take arms again; defeated in the following years, they asked for the restoration of friendly relations, but the haughty refusal of Rome led, in 433, to the famous defeat of the Furcæ Caudinæ. The generosity of the Samnite general, Pontus Herennius, who granted their lives to so many thousands of prisoners on condition of restoring to force the old treaties, had no effect upon the Senate. Four legions had passed under the yoke – a circumstance in which the Senate only saw a new affront to revenge. The treaty of Caudium was not ratified, and subterfuges little excusable, although approved at a later period by Cicero,¹⁹² gave to the refusal an appearance of justice.

Meanwhile the Senate exerted itself vigorously to repair this check, and soon Publilius Philo defeated the enemies in Samnium, and, in Apulia, Papirius, in his turn, caused seven thousand Samnites to pass under the yoke. The vanquished solicited peace, but in vain; they only obtained a truce for two years (436), and it had hardly expired, when, penetrating into the country of the Volsci, as far as the neighbourhood of Terracina, and taking a position at Lautulæ, they defeated a Roman army raised hastily and commanded by Q. Fabius (439). Capua deserted, and Nola, Nuceria, the Aurunci, and the Volsci of the Liris took part openly with the Samnites. The spirit of rebellion spread as far as Præneste. Rome was in danger. The Senate required its utmost energy to restrain populations whose fidelity was always doubtful. Fortune seconded its efforts, and the allies, who had proved traitors, received a cruel chastisement, explained by the terror they had inspired. In 440,¹⁹³ not far from Caudium, a numerous army encountered the Samnites, who lost 30,000 men, and were driven back into the Apennine territory. The Roman legions proceeded to encamp before their capital, Bovianum, and there took up their winter quarters.

The year following (441), Rome, less occupied in fighting, profited by this circumstance to seize upon advantageous positions, establishing in Campania and Apulia colonies which surrounded the territory of Samnium. At the same epoch, Appius Claudius transformed into a regular causeway the road which has preserved his name.¹⁹⁴ The Romans turned their attention to the defence of the coasts and communication by sea; a colony was sent to the isle of Pontia,¹⁹⁵ opposite Tarracina, and the armament of a fleet was commenced, which was placed under the command of duumviri navales.¹⁹⁶ The war had lasted fifteen years, and, although Rome had only succeeded in driving back the Samnites into their own territory, she had conquered two provinces, Apulia and Campania.

Third Samnite war. Coalition of Samnites, Etruscans, Umbrians, and Hernici (443-449).

VI. A struggle so desperate had produced its effect even in Etruria, and the old league was formed again. Inured to war by their daily combats with the Gauls, and emboldened by the reports of the defeat of Lautulæ, the Etruscans believed that the moment had arrived for recovering their ancient territory to the south of the Ciminian forest; they were further encouraged by the attitude of the peoples of Central Italy, who were weary of the continual passing of legions. From 443 to 449, the armies of the Republic were obliged to face different enemies at the same time. In Etruria, Fabius Rullianus relieved Sutrium, a rampart of Rome on the north;¹⁹⁷ he passed through the Ciminian forest, and by the victories of Lake Vadimo (445)¹⁹⁸ and Perusia compelled all the Etruscan towns to ask for peace. At the same time, an army laid waste the country of the Samnites; and a Roman fleet, composed of vessels furnished by the maritime allies, took the offensive for the first time. Its attempt near Nuceria Alfaterna (Nocera, a town of Campania) was unfortunate.

War next breaks out again in Apulia, Samnium, and Etruria, where the aged Papirius Cursor, named dictator anew, gains a brilliant victory at Langula (445). The year following Fabius penetrates again into Samnium, and the other consul, Decius, maintains Etruria. Suddenly the Umbrians conceive the project of seizing Rome by surprise. The consuls are recalled for the defence of the town. Fabius meets the Etruscans at Mevania (on the confines of Etruria and Umbria), and, the year following, at Allifæ (447). Among the prisoners were some Æqui and Hernici. Their towns, feeling themselves thus compromised, declared open war against the Romans (448). The Samnites recovered courage; but the prompt reduction of the Hernici allowed the Senate to concentrate its forces. Two armies, penetrating into Samnium by way of Apulia and Campania, re-established the old frontiers. Bovianum was taken for the third time, and during six months the country was delivered up to devastation. In vain Tarentum tried to raise new quarrels for the Republic, and to force the Lucanians to embrace the cause of the Samnites. The successes of the Roman arms led to the conclusion of treaties of peace with all the peoples of Southern Italy, constrained thenceforward to acknowledge the majesty of the Roman people. The Æqui remained alone exposed to the wrath of Rome; the Senate did not forget that at Allifæ they had fought in the ranks of the enemy, and, once freed from its more serious embarrassments, it inflicted on this people a terrible chastisement: forty-one places were taken and burnt in fifty days. This period of six years thus terminated with the submission of the Hernici and Æqui.

Five years less agitated left Rome time to regulate the position of its new subjects, and to establish colonies and ways of communication.

The Hernici were treated in the same manner as the Latins, in 416, and deprived of commercium and connubium. Prefects and the law of the Cærites were imposed on Anagnia, Frusino, and other towns guilty of desertion. The cities which had remained faithful preserved their independence and the title of allies (448);¹⁹⁹ the Æqui lost a part of their territory and received the right of city without suffrage (450). The Samnites, sufficiently humiliated, obtained at last the renewal of their ancient conventions (450).²⁰⁰ Fœdera non æqua were concluded with the Marsi, the Peligni, the Marrucini, the Frentani (450), the Vestini (452), and the Picentini (455).²⁰¹ Rome treated with Tarentum on a footing of equality, and engaged not to let her fleet pass the Lacinian Promontory to the south of the Gulf of Tarentum.²⁰²

Thus, on the one hand, the territories shared among the Roman citizens; on the other, the number of the municipia were considerably augmented. Further, the Republic had acquired new allies; she possessed at length the passages of the Apennines and commanded both seas.²⁰³ A girdle of Latin fortresses protected Rome and broke the communications between the north and south of Italy; among the Marsi and the Æqui, there were Alba and Carseoli; Sora, towards the sources of the Liris; and Narnia, in Umbria. Military roads connected the colonies with the metropolis.

Fourth Samnite War. Second coalition of the Samnites, Etruscans, Umbrians, and Gauls (456-464).

VII. Peace could not last long: between Rome and the Samnites it was a duel to death. In 456, these latter had already sufficiently recovered from their disasters to attempt once more the fortune of arms.²⁰⁴ Rome sends to the succour of the Lucanians, suddenly attacked, two consular armies. Vanquished at Tifernum by Fabius, at Maleventum by Decius, the Samnites witness the devastation of their whole country. Still they do not lose courage; their chief, Gellius Egnatius, conceives a plan which places Rome in great danger. He divides the Samnite army into three bodies: the first remains to defend the country; the second takes the offensive in Campania; the third, which he commands in person, throws itself into Etruria, and, increased by the junction of the Etruscans, the Gauls, and the Umbrians, soon forms a numerous army.²⁰⁵ The storm roared on all sides, and, while the Roman generals were occupied some in Samnium and others in Campania, despatches arrived from Appius, placed at the head of the army of Etruria, announcing a terrible coalition formed in silence by the peoples of the north, who were concentrating all their forces in Umbria for the purpose of marching upon Rome.

The terror was extreme, but the energy of the Romans was equal to the danger. All able men, even to the freedmen, were enrolled, and ninety thousand soldiers were raised. Under these grave circumstances (458), Fabius and Decius were, once again, raised to the supreme magistracy, and gained, under the walls of Sentinum, a brilliant victory, long disputed. During the battle, Decius devoted himself, as his father had done before. The coalition once dissolved, Fabius defeated another army which had issued from Perusia, and then came to receive the honour of a triumph in Rome. Etruria was subdued (460), and obtained a truce of forty years.²⁰⁶

The Samnites still maintained an obstinate struggle of mingled successes and reverses. In 461, after having taken an oath to conquer or die, thirty thousand of them were left on the field of battle of Aquilonia. A few months later, the celebrated Pontius, the hero of Furcæ Caudinæ, re-appeared, at the end of twenty-nine years, at the head of his fellow-citizens, and inflicted upon the son of Fabius a check, which the latter soon retrieved with the assistance of his father.²⁰⁷ Finally, in 464, two Roman armies re-commenced, in Samnium, a war of extermination, which led for the fourth time to the renewal of the ancient treaties and the cession of a certain extent of territory. At the same epoch, an insurrection which broke out in the Sabine territory was put down by Curius Dentatus. Central Italy was conquered.

The peace with the Samnites lasted five years (464-469). Rome extended her frontiers, and fortified those of the peoples placed under her protectorate; and at the same time established new military forts.

The right of city without suffrage was accorded to the Sabines, and prefects were given to some of the towns of the valley of the Vulturnus (Venafrum and Allifæ).²⁰⁸ A Latin colony, of twenty thousand men, was sent to Venusia to watch over Southern Italy.²⁰⁹ It commanded at the same time Samnium, Apulia, and Lucania. If, owing to the treaty concluded with the Greek towns, the Roman supremacy extended over the south of the peninsula, to the north the Etruscans could not be reckoned as allies, since nothing more than truces had been concluded with them. In Umbria, the small tribe of the Sarsinates remained independent, and all the coast district from the Rubicon to the Æsis was in the power of the Senones; on their southern frontier the Roman colony of Sena Gallica (Sinigaglia) was founded; the coast of Picenum was watched by that of Castrum Novum and by the Latin fortress of Hatria (465).²¹⁰

Third coalition of the Etruscans, Gauls, Lucanians, and Tarentines (469-474).

VIII. The power of Rome had increased considerably. The Samnites, who hitherto had played the first part, were no longer in a condition to plan further coalitions, and one people alone could hardly be rash enough to provoke the Republic. Yet the Lucanians, always hesitating, gave this time the signal for a general revolt.

The attack on Thurium, by the Lucanians and Bruttians, became the occasion of a new league, into which entered successively the Tarentines, the Samnites, the Etruscans, and even the Gauls. The north was soon in flames, and Etruria again became the battle-field. A Roman army, which had hastened to relieve Arretium, was put to rout by the Etruscans united with Gaulish mercenaries. The Senones, to whom these belonged, having massacred the Roman ambassadors sent to expostulate on their violation of the treaty with the Republic, the Senate sent against them two legions who drove them back beyond the Rubicon. The Gaulish tribe of the Boians, alarmed by the fate of the Senones, descended immediately into Umbria, and, rallying the Etruscans, prepared to march to renew the sack of Rome; but their march was arrested, and two successive victories, at Lake Vadimo, (471) and Populonia (472), enabled the Senate to conclude a convention which drove back the Boians into their old territory. Hostilities continued with the Etruscans during two years, after which their submission completed the conquest of Northern Italy.

Pyrrhus in Italy. Submission of Tarentum (474-488).

IX. Free to the north, the Romans turned their efforts against the south of Italy; war was declared against Tarentum, the people of which had attacked a Roman flotilla. While the consul Æmilius invested the town, the first troops of Pyrrhus, called in by the Tarentines, disembarked in the port (474).

This epoch marks a new phase in the destinies of Rome, who is going, for the first time, to measure herself with Greece. Hitherto the legions have never had to combat really regular armies, but they have become disciplined in war by incessant struggles in the mountains of Samnium and Etruria; henceforth they will have to face old soldiers disciplined in skilful tactics and commanded by an experienced warrior. The King of Epirus, after having already twice lost and recovered his kingdom, and invaded and abandoned Macedonia, dreamt of conquering the West. On the news of his arrival at the head of twenty-five thousand soldiers and twenty elephants,²¹¹ the Romans enrolled all citizens capable of bearing arms, even the proletaries; but, admirable example of courage! they rejected the support of the Carthaginian fleet with this proud declaration: “The Republic only entertains wars which it can sustain with its own forces.”²¹² While fifty thousand men, under the orders of the consul Lævinus, march against the King of Epirus, to prevent his junction with the Samnites, another army enters Lucania. The consul Tiberius Coruncanius holds Etruria, again in agitation. Lastly, an army of reserve guards the capital.

Lævinus encountered the King of Epirus near Heraclea, a colony of Tarentum (474). Seven times in succession the legions charged the phalanx, which was on the point of giving way, when the elephants, animals unknown to the Romans, decided the victory in favour of the enemy. A single battle had delivered to Pyrrhus all the south of the Peninsula, where the Greek towns received him with enthusiasm.

But, though victor, he had sustained considerable losses, and learned at the same time the effeminacy of the Greeks of Italy, and the energy of a people of soldiers. He offered peace, and asked of the Senate liberty for the Samnites, the Lucanians, and especially for the Greek towns. Old Appius Claudius declared it impossible so long as Pyrrhus occupied Italian soil, and peace was refused. The king then resolved to march upon Rome through Campania, where his troops made great booty.

Lævinus, made prudent by his defeat, satisfied himself with watching the enemy’s army, and succeeded in covering Capua; whence he followed Pyrrhus from place to place, looking out for a favourable opportunity. This prince, advancing by the Latin Way, had reached Præneste without obstacle,²¹³ when, surrounded by three Roman armies, he found himself under the necessity of falling back and retiring into Lucania. Next year, reckoning on finding new auxiliaries among the peoples of the east, he attacked Apulia; but the fidelity of the allies in Central Italy was not shaken. Victorious at Asculum (Ascoli di Satriano) (475), but without a decisive success, and encountering always the same resistance, he seized the first opportunity of quitting Italy to conquer Sicily (476-78). During this time, the Senate re-established the Roman domination in Southern Italy, and even seized upon some of the Greek towns, among the rest Locri and Heraclea.²¹⁴ Samnium, Lucania, and Bruttium were again given up to the power of the legions, and forced to surrender lands and renew treaties of alliance; on the coast, Tarentum and Rhegium alone remained independent. The Samnites still resisted, and the Roman army encamped in their country in 478 and 479. Meanwhile Pyrrhus returns to Italy, reckoning on arriving in time to deliver Samnium; but he is defeated at Beneventum by Curius Dentatus, and returns to his country. The invasion of Pyrrhus, cousin of Alexander the Great; and one of his successors, appears as one of the last efforts of Grecian civilisation expiring at the feet of the rising grandeur of Roman civilisation.

The war against the King of Epirus produced two remarkable results: it improved the Romans in military tactics, and introduced between the combatants those mutual regards of civilised nations which teach men to honour their adversaries, to spare the vanquished, and to lay aside wrath when the struggle is ended. The King of Epirus treated his Roman prisoners with great generosity. Cineas, sent to the Senate at Rome, and Fabricius, envoy to Pyrrhus, carried back from their mission a profound respect for those whom they had combated.

In the following years Rome took Tarentum (482),²¹⁵ finally pacified Samnium, and took possession of Rhegium (483-485). Since the battle of Mount Gaurus, seventy-two years had passed, and several generations had succeeded each other, without seeing the end of this long and sanguinary quarrel. The Samnites had been nearly exterminated, and yet the spirit of independence and liberty remained deeply rooted in their mountains. When, at the end of two centuries and a half, the war of the allies shall come, it is there still that the cause of equality of rights will find its strongest support.

The other peoples underwent quickly the laws of the conqueror. The inhabitants of Picenum, as a punishment for their revolt, were despoiled of a part of their territory, and a certain number among them received new lands in the south of Campania, near the Gulf of Salernum (Picentini)(486). In 487, the submission of the Salentines allowed the Romans to seize Brundusium, the most important port of the Adriatic.²¹⁶ The Sarsinates were reduced the years following.²¹⁷ Finally, Volsinium, a town of Etruria, was again numbered among the allies of the Republic. The Sabines received the right of suffrage. Italy, become henceforth Roman, extended from the Rubicon to the Straits of Messina.

Preponderance of Rome.

X. During this period, the conquest of the subjugated countries was ensured by the foundation of colonies. Rome became thus encircled by a girdle of fortresses commanding all the passages which led to Latium, and closing the roads to Campania, Samnium, Etruria, and Gaul.²¹⁸

At the opening of the struggle which ended in the conquest of Italy, there were only twenty-seven tribes of Roman citizens; the creation of eight new tribes (the two last in 513) raised finally the number to thirty-five, of which twenty-one were reserved to the old Roman people and fourteen to the new citizens. Of these the Etruscans had four; the Latins, the Volsci, the Ausones, the Æqui, and the Sabines, each two; but, these tribes being at a considerable distance from the capital, the new citizens could hardly take part in the comitia, and the majority, with its influence, remained with those who dwelt at Rome.²¹⁹ After 513, no more tribes were created; those who received the rights of citizens were only placed in the previously existing tribes; so that the members of one individual tribe were scattered in the provinces, and the number of those inscribed went on increasing continually by individual additions, and by the tendency more and more apparent to raise the municipia of the second order to the rank of the first order. Thus, towards the middle of the sixth century, the towns of the Æqui, the Hernici, the Volsci, and a part of those of Campania, including the ancient Samnite cities of Venafrum and Allifæ, obtained the right of city with suffrage.

Rome, towards the end of the fifth century, thus ruled, though in different degrees, the peoples of Italy proper. The Italian State, if we may give it that name, was composed of a reigning class, the citizens; of a class protected, or held in guardianship, the allies; and of a third class, the subjects. Allies or subjects were all obliged to furnish military contingents. The maritime Greek towns furnished sailors to the fleet. Even the cities, which preserved their independence for their interior affairs, obeyed, so far as the military administration was concerned, special functionaries appointed by the metropolis.²²⁰ The consuls had the right of raising in the countries bordering on the theatre of war all men capable of bearing arms. The equipment and pay of the troops remained at the charge of the cities; Rome provided for their maintenance during war. The auxiliary infantry was ordinarily equal in number to that of the Romans, the cavalry double or triple.

In exchange for this military assistance, the allies had a right to a part of the conquered territory, and, in return for an annual rent, to the usufruct of the domains of the State. These domains, considerable in the peninsula,²²¹ formed the sole source of income which the treasury derived from the allies, free in other respects from tribute. Four questors (quæstores classici) were established to watch over the execution of the orders of the Senate, the equipment of the fleet, and the collection of the farm-rents.

Rome reserved to herself exclusively the direction of the affairs of the exterior, and presided alone over the destinies of the Republic. The allies never interfered in the decisions of the Forum, and each town kept within the narrow limits of its communal administration. The Italian nationality was thus gradually constituted by means of this political centralisation, without which the different peoples would have mutually weakened each other by intestine wars, more ruinous than foreign wars, and Italy would not have been in a condition to resist the double pressure of the Gauls and the Carthaginians.

The form adopted by Rome to rule Italy was the best possible, but only as a transition form. The object to be aimed at was, in fact, the complete assimilation of all the inhabitants of the peninsula, and this was evidently the aim of the wise policy of the Camilli and the Fabii. When we consider that the colonies of citizens presented the faithful image of Rome; that the Latin colonies had analogous institutions and laws; and that a great number of Roman citizens and Latin allies were dispersed, in the different countries of the peninsula, over the vast territories ceded as the consequence of war, we may judge how rapid must have been the diffusion of Roman manners and the Latin language.

If Rome, in later times, had not the wisdom to seize the favourable moment in which assimilation, already effected in people’s minds, might have passed into the domain of facts, the reason of it was the abandonment of the principles of equity which had guided the Senate in the first ages of the Republic, and, above all, the corruption of the magnates, interested in maintaining the inferior condition of the allies. The right of city extended to all the peoples of Italy, time enough to be useful, would have given to the Republic a new force; but an obstinate refusal became the cause of the revolution commenced by the Gracchi, continued by Marius, extinguished for a moment by Sylla, and completed by Cæsar.

Strength of the Institutions.

XI. At the epoch with which we are occupied, the Republic is in all its splendour.

The institutions form remarkable men; the annual elections carry into power those who are most worthy, and recall them to it after a short interval. The sphere of action for the military chiefs does not extend beyond the natural frontiers of the peninsula, and their ambition, restrained in their duty by public opinion, does not exceed a legitimate object, the union of all Italy under one dominion. The members of the aristocracy seem to inherit the exploits as well as the virtues of their ancestors, and neither poverty nor obscurity of birth prevent merit from reaching it. Curius Dentatus, Fabricius, and Coruncanius, can show neither riches nor the images of their ancestors, and yet they attain to the highest dignities; in fact, the plebeian nobility walks on a footing of equality with the patrician. Both, in separating from the multitude, tend more and more to amalgamate together;²²² but they remain rivals in patriotism and disinterestedness.

In spite of the taste for riches introduced by the war of the Sabines,²²³ the magistrates maintained their simplicity of manners, and protected the public domain against the encroachments of the rich by the rigorous execution of the law, which limited to five hundred acres the property which an individual was allowed to possess.²²⁴

The first citizens presented the most remarkable examples of integrity and self-denial. Marcus Valerius Corvus, after occupying twenty-one curule offices, returns to his fields without fortune, though not without glory (419). Fabius Rullianus, in the midst of his victories and triumphs, forgets his resentment towards Papirius Cursor, and names him dictator, sacrificing thus his private feelings to the interests of his country (429). Marcus Curius Dentatus keeps for himself no part of the rich spoils taken from the Sabines, and, after having vanquished Pyrrhus, resumes the simplicity of country life (479).²²⁵ Fabricius rejects the money which the Samnites offer him for his generous behaviour towards them, and disdains the presents of Pyrrhus (476). Coruncanius furnishes an example of all the virtues.²²⁶ Fabius Gurges, Fabius Pictor, and Ogulnius, pour into the treasury the magnificent gifts they had brought back from their embassy to Alexandria.²²⁷ M. Rutilius Censorinus, struck with the danger of entrusting twice in succession the censorship in the same hands, refuses to be re-elected to that office (488).

The names of many others might be cited, who, then and in later ages, did honour to the Roman Republic; but let us add, that if the ruling class knew how to call to it all the men of eminence, it forgot not to recompense brilliantly those especially who favoured its interests: Fabius Rullianus, for instance, the victor in so many battles, received the name of “most great” (Maximus) only for having, at the time of his censorship, annulled in the comitia the influence of the poor class, composed of freedmen, whom he distributed among the urban tribes (454), where their votes were lost in the multitude of others.²²⁸

The popular party, on its own side, ceased not to demand new concessions, or to claim the revival of those which had fallen out of use. Thus, it obtained, in 428, the re-establishment of the law of Servius Tullius, which decided that the goods only of the debtor, and not his body, should be responsible for his debt.²²⁹ In 450, Flavius, the son of a freedman, made public the calendar and the formulæ of proceedings, which deprived the patricians of the exclusive knowledge of civil and religious law.²³⁰ But the lawyers found means of weakening the effects of the measure of Flavius by inventing new formulæ, which were almost unintelligible to the public.²³¹ The plebeians, in 454, were admitted into the college of the pontiffs, and into that of the augurs; the same year, it was found necessary to renew for the third time the law Valeria, de provocatione.

In 468, the people again withdrew to the Janiculum, demanding the remission of debts, and crying out against usury.²³² Concord was restored only when they had obtained, first, by the law Hortensia, that the plebiscita should be obligatory on all; and next, by the law Marcia, that the orders obtained through Publilius Philo in 415 should be restored to vigour. These orders, as we have seen above, obliged the Senate to declare in advance whether or not the laws presented to the comitia were contrary to public and religious law.²³³

The ambition of Rome seemed to be without bounds; yet all her wars had for reason or pretext the defence of the weak and the protection of her allies. Indeed, the cause of the wars against the Samnites was sometimes the defence of the inhabitants of Capua, sometimes that of the inhabitants of Palæopolis, sometimes that of the Lucanians. The war against Pyrrhus had its origin in the assistance claimed by the inhabitants of Thurium; and the support claimed by the Mamertines will soon lead to the first Punic war.

The Senate, we have seen, put in practice the principles which found empires and the virtues to which war gives birth. Thus, for all the citizens, equality of rights; in face of danger to their country, equality of duties and even suspension of liberty. To the most worthy, honours and the command. No magisterial charge for him who has not served in the ranks of the army. The example is furnished by the most illustrious and richest families: at the battle of Lake Regillus (258), the principal senators were mingled in the ranks of the legions;²³⁴ at the combat near the Cremera, the three hundred and six Fabii, who all, according to Titus Livius, were capable of filling the highest offices, perished fighting. Later, at Cannæ, eighty senators, who had enrolled themselves as mere soldiers, fell on the field of battle.²³⁵ The triumph is accorded for victories which enlarged the territory, but not for those which only recovered lost ground. No triumph in civil wars:²³⁶ in such case, success, be what it may, is always a subject for public mourning. The consuls or proconsuls seek to be useful to their country without false susceptibility; to-day in the first rank, to-morrow in the second, they serve with the same devotion under the orders of him whom they commanded the previous day. Servilius, consul in 281, becomes, the year following, the lieutenant of Valerius. Fabius, after so many triumphs, consents to be only lieutenant to his son. At a later period, Flamininus, who had vanquished the King of Macedonia, descends again through patriotism, after the victory of Cynoscephalæ, to the grade of tribune of the soldiers;²³⁷ the great Scipio himself, after the defeat of Hannibal, serves as lieutenant under his brother in the war against Antiochus.

To sacrifice everything to patriotism is the first duty. By devoting themselves to the gods of Hades, like Curtius and the two Decii, people believed they bought, at the price of their lives, the safety of the others or victory.²³⁸ Discipline is enforced even to cruelty: Manlius Torquatus, after the example of Postumius Tubertus, punishes with death the disobedience of his son, though he had gained a victory. The soldiers who have fled are decimated; those who abandon their ranks or the field of battle are devoted, some to execution, others to dishonour; and those who have allowed themselves to be made prisoners by the enemy are disdained as unworthy of the price of freedom.²³⁹

Surrounded by warlike neighbours, Rome must either triumph or cease to exist; hence her superiority in the art of war, for, as Montesquieu says, in transient wars most of the examples are lost; peace brings other ideas, and its faults and even its virtues are forgotten; hence that contempt of treason and that disdain for the advantages it promises: Camillus sends home to their parents the children of the first families of Falerii, delivered up to him by their schoolmaster; the Senate rejects with indignation the offer of the physician of Pyrrhus, who proposes to poison that prince; – hence that religious observance of oaths and that respect for engagements which have been contracted: the Roman prisoners to whom Pyrrhus had given permission to repair to Rome for the festival of Saturn, all return to him faithful to their word; and Regulus leaves the most memorable example of faithfulness to his oath! – hence that skilful and inflexible policy which refuses peace after a defeat, or a treaty with the enemy so long as he is on the soil of their country; which makes use of war to divert people from domestic troubles;²⁴⁰ gains the vanquished by benefits if they submit, and admits them by degrees into the great Roman family; and, if they resist, strikes them without pity and reduces them to slavery;²⁴¹– hence that anxious provision for multiplying upon the conquered territories the race of agriculturists and soldiers; – hence, lastly, the improving spectacle of a town which becomes a people, and of a people which embraces the world.

CHAPTER IV.
PROSPERITY OF THE BASIN OF THE MEDITERRANEAN BEFORE THE PUNIC WARS

Commerce of the Mediterranean.

I. ROME had required two hundred and forty-four years to form her constitution under the kings, a hundred and seventy-two to establish and consolidate the consular Republic, seventy-two to complete the conquest of Italy, and now it will cost her nearly a century and a half to obtain the domination of the world – that is, of Northern Africa, Spain, the south of Gaul, Illyria, Epirus, Greece, Macedonia, Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt. Before undertaking the recital of these conquests, let us halt an instant to consider the condition of the basin of the Mediterranean at this period, of that sea round which were successively unfolded all the great dramas of ancient history. In this examination we shall see, not without a feeling of regret, vast countries where formerly produce, monuments, riches, numerous armies and fleets – all, indeed, revealed an advanced state of civilisation – now deserts or in a state of barbarism.

The Mediterranean had seen grow and prosper in turn on its coasts Sidon, and Tyre, and then Greece.

Sidon, already a flourishing city before the time of Homer, is soon eclipsed by the supremacy of Tyre; then Greece comes to carry on, in competition with her, the commerce of the interior sea; an age of pacific greatness and fruitful rivalries. To the Phœnicians chiefly, the South, the East, Africa, Asia beyond Mount Taurus, the Erythrean Sea (the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf), the ocean, and the distant voyages. To the Greeks, all the northern coasts, which they covered with their thousand settlements. Phœnicia devotes herself to adventurous enterprises and lucrative speculations. Greece, artistic before becoming a trader, propagates by her colonies her mind and her ideas.

This fortunate emulation soon disappears before the creation of two new colonies sprung from their bosom. The splendour of Carthage replaces that of Tyre. Alexandria is substituted for Greece. Thus a Western or Spanish Phœnicia shares the commerce of the world with an Eastern and Egyptian Greece, the fruit of the intellectual conquests of Alexander.

Northern Africa.

II. Rich in the spoils of twenty different peoples, Carthage was the proud capital of a vast empire. Its ports, hollowed out by the hand of man, were capable of containing a great number of ships.²⁴² Her citadel, Byrsa, was two miles in circuit. On the land side the town was defended by a triple enclosure twenty-five stadia in length, thirty cubits high, and supported by towers of four storeys, capable of giving shelter to 4,000 horse, 300 elephants, and 20,000 foot soldiers;²⁴³ it enclosed an immense population, since, in the last years of its resistance, after a struggle of a century, it still counted 700,000 inhabitants.²⁴⁴ Its monuments were worthy of its greatness: among its remarkable buildings was the temple of the god Aschmoun, assimilated by the Greeks to Æsculapius;²⁴⁵ that of the sun, covered with plates of gold valued at a thousand talents;²⁴⁶ and the mantle or peplum, destined for the image of their great goddess, which cost a hundred and twenty.²⁴⁷ The empire of Carthage extended from the frontiers of Cyrenaica (the country of Barca, in the regency of Tripoli) into Spain; she was the metropolis of all the north of Africa, and, in Libya alone, possessed three hundred towns.²⁴⁸ Nearly all the isles of the Mediterranean, to the west and south of Italy, had received her factories. Carthage had imposed her sovereignty upon all the ancient Phœnician establishments in this part of the world, and had levied upon them an annual contingent of soldiers and tribute. In the interior of Africa, she sent caravans to seek elephants, ivory, gold, and black slaves, which she afterwards exported²⁴⁹ to the trading places on the Mediterranean. In Sicily, she gathered oil and wine; in the isle of Elba, she mined for iron; from Malta, she drew valuable tissues; from Corsica, wax and honey; from Sardinia, corn, metals, and slaves; from the Baleares, mules and fruits; from Spain, gold, silver, and lead; from Mauritania, the hides of animals; she sent as far as the extremity of Britain, to the Cassiterides (the Scilly Islands), ships to purchase tin.²⁵⁰ Within her walls industry flourished greatly, and tissues of great celebrity were fabricated.²⁵¹

No market of the ancient world could be compared with that of Carthage, to which men of all nations crowded. Greeks, Gauls, Ligurians, Spaniards, Libyans, came in multitudes to serve under her standard;²⁵² the Numidians lent her a redoubtable cavalry.²⁵³ Her fleet was formidable; it amounted at this epoch to five hundred vessels. Carthage possessed a considerable arsenal;²⁵⁴ we may appreciate its importance from the fact, that, after her conquest by Scipio, she delivered to him two hundred thousand suits of armour, and three thousand machines of war.²⁵⁵ So many troops and stores imply immense revenues. Even after the battle of Zama, Polybius could still call her the richest town in the world. Yet she had already paid heavy contributions to the Romans.²⁵⁶ An excellent system of agriculture contributed no less than her commerce to her prosperity. A great number of agricultural colonies²⁵⁷ had been established, which, in the time of Agathocles, amounted to more than two hundred. They were ruined by the war (440 of Rome).²⁵⁸ Byzacena (the southern part of the regency of Tunis) was the granary of Carthage.²⁵⁹

This province, surnamed Emporia, as being the trading country par excellence, vaunted by the geographer Scylax²⁶⁰ as the most magnificent and fertile part of Libya. It had, in the time of Strabo, numerous towns, so many magazines of the merchandise of the interior of Africa. Polybius²⁶¹ speaks of its horses, oxen, sheep, and goats, as forming innumerable herds, such as he had never seen elsewhere. The small town of Leptis alone paid to the Carthaginians the enormous contribution of a talent a day (5,821 francs [£232 16s.]).²⁶²

This fertility of Africa explains the importance of the towns on the coast of the Syrtes, an importance, it is true, revealed by later testimonies, because they date from the decline of Carthage, but which must apply still more forcibly to the flourishing condition which preceded it. In 537, the vast port of the isle Cercina (Kirkeni, in the regency of Tunis, opposite Sfax) had paid ten talents to Servilius.²⁶³ More to the west, Hippo Regius (Bona) was still a considerable maritime town in the time of Jugurtha.²⁶⁴ Tingis (Tangiers), in Mauritania, which boasted of a very ancient origin, carried on a great trade with Bætica. Three African peoples in these countries lay under the influence and often the sovereignty of Carthage: the Massylian Numidians, who afterwards had Cirta (Constantine) for their capital; the Massæsylian Numidians, who occupied the provinces of Algiers and Oran; and the Mauri, or Moors, spread over Morocco. These nomadic peoples maintained rich droves of cattle, and grew great quantities of corn.

Hanno, a Carthaginian sea-captain, sent, towards 245, to explore the extreme parts of the African coast beyond the Straits of Gades, had founded a great number of settlements, no traces of which remained in the time of Pliny.²⁶⁵ These colonies introduced commerce among the Mauritanian and Numidian tribes, the peoples of Morocco, and perhaps even those of Senegal. But it was not only in Africa that the possessions of the Carthaginians extended; they embraced Spain, Sicily, and Sardinia.

Spain.

III. Iberia or Spain, with its six great rivers, navigable to the ancients, its long chains of mountains, its dense woods, and the fertile valleys of Bætica (Andalusia), appears to have nourished a population numerous, warlike, rich by its mines, its harvests, and its commerce. The centre of the peninsula was occupied by the Iberian and Celtiberian races; on the coasts, the Carthaginians and the Greeks had settlements; through contact with the Phœnician merchants, the populations of the coast districts attained a certain degree of civilisation, and from the mixture of the natives with the foreign colonists sprang a mongrel population, which, while it preserved the Iberic character, had adopted the mercantile habits of the Phœnicians and Carthaginians.

Once established in Spain, the Carthaginians and Greeks turned to useful purpose the timber which covered the mountains. Gades (Cadiz), a sort of factory founded at the extremity of Bætica by the Carthaginians, became one of their principal maritime arsenals. It was there that the ships were fitted out which ventured on the ocean in search of the products of Armorica, or Britain, and even of the Canaries. Although Gades had lost some of its importance by the foundation of Carthagena (New Carthage), in 526, it had still, in the time of Strabo, so numerous a population that it was in this respect inferior only to Rome. The tables of the census showed five hundred citizens of the equestrian order, a number equalled by none of the Italian cities, except Patavium (Padua).²⁶⁶ To Gades, celebrated for its temple of Hercules, flowed the riches of all Spain. The sheep and horses of Bætica rivalled in renown those of the Asturias. Corduba (Cordova), Hispalis (Seville), where, at a later period, the Romans founded colonies, were already great places of commerce, and had ports for the vessels which ascended the Bætis (Guadalquivir).²⁶⁷

Spain was rich in precious metals; gold, silver, iron, were there the object of industrial activity.²⁶⁸ At Osca (Huesca), they worked mines of silver; at Sisapo (Almaden), silver and mercury.²⁶⁹ At Cotinæ, copper was found along with gold. Among the Oretani, at Castulo (Cazlona, on the Guadalimar), the silver mines, in the time of Polybius, gave employment to 40,000 persons, and produced daily 25,000 drachmas.²⁷⁰ In thirty-two years, the Roman generals carried home from the peninsula considerable sums.²⁷¹ The abundance of metals in Spain explains how so great a number of vessels of gold and silver was found among many of the chiefs or petty kings of the Iberian nations. Polybius compares one of them, for his luxury, with the king of the fabulous Phæaces.²⁷²

To the north, and in the centre of the peninsula, agriculture and the breeding of cattle were the principal sources of wealth. It was there that were made the says (vests of flannel or goats’ hair), which were exported in great numbers to Italy.²⁷³ In the Tarraconese, the cultivation of flax was very productive; the inhabitants had been the first to weave those fine cloths called carbasa, which were objects greatly prized as far as Greece.²⁷⁴ Leather, honey, and salt were brought by cargoes to the principal ports along the coast; at Emporiæ (Ampurias), a settlement of the Phocæans in Catalonia; at Saguntum,²⁷⁵ founded by Greeks from the island of Zacynthus; at Tarraco (Tarragona), one of the most ancient of the Phœnician settlements in Spain; and at Malaca (Malaga), whence were exported all sorts of salt fish.²⁷⁶ Lusitania, neglected by the Phœnician or Carthaginian ships, was less favoured. Yet we see, by the passage of Polybius²⁷⁷ which enumerates the mercantile exports of this province with their prices, that its agricultural products were very abundant.²⁷⁸

The prosperity of Spain appears also from the vast amount of its population. According to some authors, Tiberius Gracchus took from the Celtiberians three hundred oppida. In Turdetania (part of Andalusia), according to Strabo, there were counted no less than two hundred towns.²⁷⁹ Appian, the historian of the Spanish wars, points out the multitude of petty tribes which the Romans had to reduce,²⁸⁰ and during the campaign of Cn. Scipio, more than a hundred and twenty submitted.²⁸¹

Thus the Iberian peninsula was at that time reckoned among the most populous and richest regions of Europe.

Southern Gaul.

IV. The part of Gaul which is bathed by the Mediterranean offers a spectacle no less satisfactory. Numerous migrations, arriving from the East, had pushed back the population of the Seine and the Loire towards the mouths of the Rhône, and already, in the middle of the fourth century before our era, the Gauls found themselves straitened in their frontiers. More civilised than the Iberians, but not less energetic, they combined gentle and hospitable manners with great activity, which was further developed by their contact with the Greek colonies spread from the maritime Alps to the Pyrenees. The cultivation of the fields and the breeding of cattle furnished their principal wealth, and their industry found support in the products of the soil and in its herds. Their manufacture consisted of says, not less in repute than those of the Celtiberians, and exported in great quantities to Italy. Good sailors, the Gauls transported by water, on the Seine, the Rhine, the Saône, the Rhône, and Loire, the merchandise and timber which, even from the coasts of the Channel, were accumulated in the Phocæan trading places on the Mediterranean.²⁸² Agde (Agatha), Antibes (Antipolis), Nice (Nicæa), the isles of Hyères (Stœchades), Monaco (Portus Herculis Monœcei), were so many naval stations which maintained relations with Spain and Italy.²⁸³

Marseilles possessed but a very circumscribed territory, but its influence reached far into the interior of Gaul. It is to this town we owe the acclimatisation of the vine and the olive. Thousands of oxen came every year to feed on the thyme in the neighbourhood of Marseilles.²⁸⁴ The Massilian merchants traversed Gaul in all directions to sell their wines and the produce of their manufactures.²⁸⁵ Without rising to the rank of a great maritime power, still the small Phocæan republic possessed sufficient resources to make itself respected by Carthage; it formed an early alliance with the Romans. Massilian houses had, as early as the fifth century of Rome, established at Syracuse, as they did subsequently at Alexandria, factories which show a great commercial activity.²⁸⁶

Liguria, Cisalpine Gaul, Venetia, and Illyria.

V. Alone in the Tyrrhene Sea, the Ligures had not yet risen out of that almost savage life which the Iberians, sprung from the same stock, had originally led. If some towns on the Ligurian coast, and especially Genoa (Genua), carried on a maritime commerce, they supported themselves by piracy²⁸⁷ rather than by regular traffic.²⁸⁸

On the contrary, Cisalpine Gaul, properly so called, supported, as early as the time of Polybius, a numerous population. We may form some idea of it from the losses this province sustained during a period of twenty-seven years, from 554 to 582; Livy gives a total of 257,400 men killed, taken, or transported.²⁸⁹ The Gaulish tribes settled in the Cisalpine, though preserving their original manners, had, through their contact with the Etruscans, arrived at a certain degree of civilisation. The number of towns in this country was not very considerable, but it contained a great abundance of villages.²⁹⁰ Addicted to agriculture like the other Gauls, the Cisalpines bred in their forests droves of swine in such numbers, that they would have been sufficient, in the time of Strabo, to provision all Rome.²⁹¹ The coins of pure gold, which in recent times have been found in Cisalpine Gaul, especially between the Po and the Adda, and which were struck by the Boii and some of the Ligurian populations, furnish evidence of the abundance of that metal, which was collected in the form of gold sand in the waters of the rivers.²⁹² Moreover, certain towns of Etruscan origin, such as Mantua (Mantua) and Padua (Patavium), preserved vestiges of the prosperity they had reached at the time when the peoples of Tuscany extended their dominion beyond the Po. At once a maritime town and a place of commerce, Padua, at a remote epoch, possessed a vast territory, and could raise an army of 120,000 men.²⁹³ The transport of goods was facilitated by means of canals crossing Venetia, partly dug by the Etruscans. Such were those especially which united Ravenna with Altinum (Altino), which became at a later period the grand store-house of the Cisalpine territory.²⁹⁴

The commercial relations entertained by Venetia with Germany, Illyria, and Rhætia, go back far beyond the Roman epoch, and, at a remote antiquity, it was Venetia which received the amber from the shores of the Baltic.²⁹⁵ All the traffic which was afterwards concentrated at Aquileia, founded by the Romans after the submission of the Veneti, had then for its centre the towns of Venetia; and the numerous colonies established by the Romans in this part of the peninsula are proofs of its immense resources. Moreover, the Veneti, occupied in cultivating their lands and breeding horses, had peaceful manners which facilitated commercial relations, and contrasted with the piratical habits of the populations spread over the north and north-eastern coasts of the Adriatic.

The Istrians, the Liburni, and the Illyrians were the nations most formidable, both by their corsairs and by their armies; their light and rapid barques covered the Adriatic, and troubled the navigation between Italy and Greece. In the year 524, the Illyrians sent to sea a hundred lembi,²⁹⁶ while their land army counted hardly more than 5,000 men.²⁹⁷ Illyria was poor, and offered few resources to the Romans, notwithstanding the fertility of its soil. Agriculture was neglected, even in the time of Strabo. Istria contained a population much more considerable, in proportion to its extent.²⁹⁸ Yet she had, no more than Dalmatia and the rest of Illyria, attained, at the epoch of which we are speaking, that high degree of prosperity which she acquired afterwards by the foundation of Tergeste (Trieste) and Pola. The Roman conquest delivered the Adriatic from the pirates who infested it,²⁹⁹ and then only, the ports of Dyrrhachium and Apollonia obtained a veritable importance.

Epirus.

VI. Epirus, a country of pastures and shepherds, intersected by picturesque mountains, was a sort of Helvetia. Ambracia (now Arta), which Pyrrhus had chosen for his residence, had become a very fine town, and possessed two theatres. The palace of the king (Pyrrheum) formed a veritable museum for it furnished for the triumph of M. Fulvius Nobilior, in 565, two hundred and eighty-five statues in bronze, two hundred and thirty in marble,³⁰⁰ and paintings by Zeuxis, mentioned in Pliny.³⁰¹ The town paid also, on this occasion, five hundred talents (2,900,000 francs, [£116,000]), and offered the consul a crown of gold weighing a hundred and fifty thousand talents (nearly 4,000 kilogrammes).³⁰² It appears that before the war of Paulus Æmilius, this country contained a rather numerous population, and counted seventy towns, most of them situated in the country of the Molossi.³⁰³. After the battle of Pydna, the Roman general made so considerable a booty, that, without reckoning the treasury’s share, each foot-soldier received 200 denarii (about 200 francs [£8]), and each horse-soldier 400; in addition to which the sale of slaves arose to the enormous number of 150,000.

Greece.

VII. At the beginning of the first Punic War, Greece proper was divided into four principal powers: Macedonia, Ætolia, Achaia, and Sparta. All the continental part, which extends northward of the Gulf of Corinth as far as the mountains of Pindus, was under the dependence of Philip; the western part belonged to the Ætolians. The Peloponnesus was shared between the Achæans, the tyrant of Sparta, and independent towns. Greece had been declining during about a century, and seen her warlike spirit weaken and her population diminish; and yet Plutarch, comprising under this name the peoples of the Hellenic race, pretends that their country furnished King Philip with the money, food, and provisions of his army.³⁰⁴ The Greek navy had almost disappeared. The Achæan league, which comprised Argolis, Corinth, Sicyon, and the maritime cities of Achæa, had few ships. On land the Hellenic forces were less insignificant. The Ætolian league possessed an army of 10,000 men, and, in the war against Philip, pretended to have contributed more than the Romans to the victory of Cynoscephalæ. Greece was still rich in objects of art of all descriptions. When, in 535, the King of Macedonia captured the town of Thermæ, in Ætolia, he found in it more than two thousand statues.³⁰⁵

Athens, in spite of the loss of her maritime supremacy, preserved the remains of a civilization which had already attained the highest degree of splendour,³⁰⁶ and those incomparable buildings of the age of Pericles, the mere name of which reminds us of all that the arts have produced in greatest perfection. Among the most remarkable were the Acropolis, with its Parthenon and its Propylæa, masterpieces of Phidias, the statue of Minerva in gold and ivory, and another in bronze, the casque and spear of which were seen afar off at sea.³⁰⁷ The arsenal of the Piræus, built by the architect Philo, was, according to Plutarch, an admirable work.³⁰⁸

Sparta, although greatly fallen, was distinguished by its monuments and by its manufactures; the famous portico of the Persians,³⁰⁹ built after the Median wars – the columns of which, in white marble, represented the illustrious persons among the vanquished – was the principal ornament of the market. Iron, obtained in abundance from Mount Taygetus, was marvellously worked at Sparta, which was celebrated for the manufacture of arms and agricultural instruments.³¹⁰ The coasts of Laconia abounded in shells, from which was obtained the purple, most valued after that of Phœnicia.³¹¹ The port of Gytheum, very populous, and very active in 559, still possessed great arsenals.³¹²

In the centre of the peninsula, Arcadia, although its population was composed of shepherds, had the same love for the arts as the rest of Greece. It possessed two celebrated temples: that of Minerva at Tegæa, built by the architect Scopas,³¹³ in which were united the three orders of architecture, and that of Apollo, at Phigalea,³¹⁴ situated at an elevation of 3,000 feet above the level of the sea, and the remains of which still excite the wonder of travellers.

Elis, protected by its neutrality, was devoted to the arts of peace. There agriculture flourished; its fisheries were productive; it had manufactories of tissues of byssus which rivalled the muslins of Cos, and were sold for their weight in gold.³¹⁵ The town of Elis possessed the finest gymnasium in Greece; people came to it to prepare themselves (sometimes a year in advance) for competition in the Olympic games.³¹⁶

Olympia was the holy city, celebrated for its sanctuary and its consecrated garden, where stood, among a multitude of masterpieces of art, one of the wonders of the world, the statue of Jupiter, the work of Phidias,³¹⁷ the majesty of which was such, that Paulus Æmilius, when he first saw it, believed he was in the presence of the divinity himself.

Argos, the country of several celebrated artists, possessed temples, fountains, a gymnasium, and a theatre; and its public place had served for a field of battle to the armies of Pyrrhus and Antigonus. It remained, until the subjugation by the Romans, one of the finest cities of Greece. Within its territory were the superb temple of Juno, the ancient sanctuary of the Argives, with the statue of the goddess in gold and silver – the work of Polycletus, and the vale of Nemæa, where one of the four national festivals of Greece was celebrated.³¹⁸ Argolis also possessed Epidaurus, with its hot springs; its temple of Æsculapius, enriched with the offerings of those who came to be cured of their diseases;³¹⁹ and its theatre, one of the largest in the country.³²⁰

Corinth, admirably situated upon the narrow isthmus which separates the Ægean Sea from the gulf which has preserved its name,³²¹ with its dye-houses, its celebrated manufactories of carpets and of bronze, bore witness also to the ancient prosperity of the Hellenic race. Its population must have been considerable, since there were reckoned in it 460,000 slaves;³²² marble palaces rose on all sides, adorned with statues and valuable vases. Corinth had the reputation of being the most voluptuous of towns. Among its numerous temples, that of Venus had in its service more than a thousand courtezans.³²³ In the sale of the booty made by Mummius, a painting by Aristides, representing Bacchus, was sold for 600,000 sestertii.³²⁴ There was seen in the triumph of Metellus surnamed Macedonicus, a group, the work of Lysippus, representing Alexander the Great, twenty-five horsemen, and nine foot-soldiers slain at the battle of the Granicus; this group, taken at Corinth, came from Dium in Macedonia.³²⁵

Other towns of Greece were no less rich in works of art.³²⁶ The Romans carried away from the little town of Eretria, at the time of the Macedonian war, a great number of paintings and precious statues.³²⁷ We know, from the traveller Pausanias, how prodigious was the quantity of offerings brought from the most diverse countries into the sanctuary of Delphi. This town, which, by its reputation for sanctity and its solemn games, the Pythian, was the rival of Olympia, gathered in its temple during ages immense treasures; and when it was plundered by the Phocæans, they found in it gold and silver enough to coin ten thousand talents of money (about 58 millions of francs [£2,320,000]). The ancient opulence of the Greeks had, nevertheless, passed into their colonies; and, from the extremity of the Black Sea to Cyrene, numerous establishments arose remarkable for their sumptuousness.

Macedonia.

VIII. Macedonia drew to herself, since the time of Alexander, the riches and resources of Asia. Dominant over a great part of Greece and Thrace, occupying Thessaly, and extending her sovereignty over Epirus, this kingdom concentrated in herself the vital strength of those cities formerly independent, which, two centuries before, were her rivals in power and courage. Under an economical administration, the public revenues rising from the royal domains,³²⁸ from the silver mines in Mount Pangeum, and from the taxes, were sufficient for the wants of the country.³²⁹ In 527, Antigonus sent to Rhodes considerable succours, which furnish the measure of the resources of Macedonia.³³⁰

Towards the year 563 of Rome, Philip had, by wise measures, raised again the importance of Macedonia. He collected in his arsenals materials for equipping three armies and provisions for ten years. Under Perseus, Macedonia was no less flourishing. That prince gave Cotys, for a service of six months with 1,000 cavalry, the large sum of 200 talents.³³¹ At the battle of Pydna, which completed his ruin, nearly 20,000 men remained on the field, and 11,000 were made prisoners.³³² In richness of equipment, the Macedonian troops far surpassed other armies. The Leucaspidan phalanx was dressed in scarlet, and carried gilt armour; the Chalcaspidan phalanx had shields of the finest brass.³³³ The prodigious splendour of the court of Perseus and that of his favourites reveal still more the degree of opulence at which Macedonia had arrived. All exhibited in their dresses and in their feasts a pomp equal to that of kings.³³⁴ Among the booty made by Paulus Æmilius were paintings, statues, rich tapestries, vases of gold, silver, bronze, and ivory, which were so many masterpieces.³³⁵ His triumph was unequalled by any other.³³⁶

Valerius of Antium estimates at more than 120 millions of sestertii (about 30 millions of francs [£1,200,000]) the gold and silver exhibited on this occasion.³³⁷ Macedonia, as we see, had absorbed the ancient riches of Greece. Thrace, long barbarous, began also to rise out of the condition of inferiority in which it had so long languished. Numerous Greek colonies, founded on the shores of the Pontus Euxinus, introduced there civilisation and prosperity; and among these colonies, Byzantium, though often harassed by the neighbouring barbarians, had already an importance and prosperity which presaged its future destinies.³³⁸ Foreigners, resorting to it from all parts, had introduced a degree of licentiousness which became proverbial.³³⁹ Its commerce was, above all, nourished by the ships of Athens, which went there to fetch the wheat of Tauris and the fish of the Euxine.³⁴⁰ When Athens, in her decline, became a prey to anarchy, Byzantium, where arts and letters flourished, served as a refuge to her exiles.

Asia Minor.

IX. Asia Minor comprised a great number of provinces, of which several became, after the dismemberment of the empire of Alexander, independent states. Of these, the principal formed into four groups, composing so many kingdoms, namely, Pontus, Bithynia, Cappadocia, and Pergamus. We must except from them some Greek cities on the coast, which kept their autonomy or were placed under the sovereignty of Rhodes. Their extent and limits varied often until the time of the Roman conquest, and several of them passed from one domination to another. All these kingdoms participated in different degrees in the prosperity of Macedonia.

“Asia,” says Cicero, “is so rich and fertile, that the fecundity of its plains, the variety of its products, the extent of its pastures, the multiplicity of the objects of commerce exported from it, give it an incontestible superiority over all other countries of the earth.³⁴¹”

The wealth of Asia Minor appears from the amount of impositions paid by it to the different Roman generals. Without speaking of the spoils carried away by Scipio, in his campaign against Antiochus, and by Manlius Volso in 565, Sylla, and afterwards Lucullus and Pompey, each drew from this country about 20,000 talents,³⁴² besides an equal sum distributed by them to their soldiers: which gives the enormous total of nearly seven hundred millions of francs [or twenty-eight millions sterling], received in a period of twenty-five years.

Kingdom of Pontus.

X. The most northern of the four groups named above formed a great part of the kingdom of Pontus. This province, the ancient Cappadocia Pontica, formerly a Persian satrapy, reduced to subjection by Alexander and his successor, recovered itself after the battle of Ipsus (453). Mithridates III. enlarged his territory by adding to it Paphlagonia, and afterwards Sinope and Galatia. Pontus soon extended from Colchis on the north-east to Lesser Armenia on the south-east, and had Bithynia for its boundary on the west. Thus, touching upon the Caucasus, and master of the Pontus Euxinus, this kingdom, composed of divers peoples, presented, under varied climates, a variety of different productions. It received wines and oils from the Ægean Sea, and wheat from the Bosphorus; it exported salt fish in great quantity,³⁴³ dolphin oil,³⁴⁴ and, as produce of the interior, the wools of the Gadilonitis,³⁴⁵ the fleeces of Ancyra, the horses of Armenia, Media, and Paphlagonia,³⁴⁶ the iron of the Chalybes, a population of miners to the south of Trapezus, already celebrated in the time of Homer, and mentioned by Xenophon.³⁴⁷ There also were found mines of silver, abandoned in the time of Strabo,³⁴⁸ but which have been re-opened in modern times. Important ports on the Black Sea facilitated the exportation of these products. It was at Sinope that Lucullus found a part of the treasures which he displayed at his triumph, and which gives us a lofty idea of the kingdom of Mithridates.³⁴⁹ An object of admiration at Sinope was the statue of Autolycus, one of the protecting heroes of the town, the work of the statuary Sthenis.³⁵⁰

Trapezus (Trebizonde), which before the time of Mithridates the Great preserved a sort of autonomy under the kings of Pontus, had an extensive commerce; which was the case also with another Greek colony, Amisus (Samsoun),³⁵¹ regarded in the time of Lucullus as one of the most flourishing and richest towns in the country.³⁵² In the interior, Amasia, which became afterwards one of the great fortresses of Asia Minor, and the metropolis of Pontus, had already probably, at the time of the Punic wars, a certain renown. Cabira, called afterwards Sebaste, and then Neocæsarea, the central point of the resistance of Mithridates the Great to Lucullus, owed its ancient celebrity to its magnificent Temple of the Moon. From the country of Cabira, there was, according to the statement of Lucullus,³⁵³ only the distance of a few days’ march into Armenia, a country the riches of which may be estimated by the treasures gathered by Tigranes.³⁵⁴

We can hence understand how Mithridates the Great was able, two centuries later, to oppose the Romans with considerable armies and fleets. He possessed in the Black Sea 400 ships,³⁵⁵ and his army amounted to 250,000 men and 40,000 horse.³⁵⁶ He received, it is true, succours from Armenia and Scythia, from the Palus Mæotis, and even from Thrace.

Bithynia.

XI. Bithynia, a province of Asia Minor, comprised between the Propontis, the Sangarius, and Paphlagonia, formed a kingdom, which, at the beginning of the sixth century of Rome, was adjacent to Pontus, and comprised several parts of the provinces contiguous to Mysia and Phrygia. In it were found several towns, the commerce of which rivalled that of the maritime towns of Pontus, and especially Nicæa and Nicomedia. This last, founded in 475 by Nicomedes I., took a rapid extension.³⁵⁷ Heraclea Pontica, a Milesian colony situated between the Sangarius and the Parthenius, preserved its extensive commerce, and an independence which Mithridates the Great himself could not entirely destroy; it possessed a vast port, safe and skilfully disposed, which sheltered a numerous fleet.³⁵⁸ The power of the Bithynians was not insignificant, since they sent into the field, in the war of Nicomedes against Mithridates, 56,000 men.³⁵⁹ If the traffic was considerable on the coasts of Bithynia, thanks to the Greek colonies, the interior was not less prosperous by its agriculture, and Bithynia was still, in the time of Strabo, renowned for its herds.³⁶⁰

One of the provinces of Bithynia fell into the hands of the Gauls (A.U.C. 478). Three peoples of Celtic origin shared it, and exercised in it a sort of feudal dominion. It was called Galatia from the name of the conquerors. Its places of commerce were: Ancyra, the point of arrival of the caravans coming from Asia, and Pessinus, one of the chief seats of the old Phrygian worship, where pilgrims repaired in great number to adore Cybele.³⁶¹ The population of Galatia was certainly rather considerable, since in the famous campaign of Cneius Manlius Volso,³⁶² in 565, the Galatians lost 40,000 men. The two tribes united of the Tectosagi and Trocmi raised at that period, in spite of many defeats, an army of 50,000 foot and 10,000 horse.³⁶³

Cappadocia.

XII. To the east of Galatia, Cappadocia comprised between the Halys and Armenia, distant from the sea, and crossed by numerous chains of mountains, formed a kingdom which escaped the conquests of Alexander, and which, a few years after his death, opposed Perdiccas with an army of 30,000 footmen and 15,000 horsemen.³⁶⁴ In the time of Strabo, wheat and cattle formed the riches of this country.³⁶⁵ In 566, King Ariarathes paid 600 talents for the alliance of the Romans.³⁶⁶ Mazaca (afterwards Cæsarea), capital of Cappadocia, a town of an entirely Asiatic origin, had been, from a very early period, renowned for its pastures.³⁶⁷

Kingdom of Pergamus.

XIII. The western part of Asia Minor is better known. It had seen, after the battle of Ipsus, the formation of the kingdom of Pergamus, which, thanks to the interested liberality of the Romans towards Eumenes II., increased continually until the moment when it fell under their sovereignty. To this kingdom belonged Mysia, the two Phrygias, Lycaonia, and Lydia. This last province, crossed by the Pactolus, had for its capital Ephesus, the metropolis of the Ionian confederation, at the same time the mart of the commerce of Asia Minor and one of the localities where the fine arts were cultivated with most distinction. This town had two ports: one penetrated into the heart of the town, while the other formed a basin in the very middle of the public market.³⁶⁸ The theatre of Ephesus, the largest ever built, was 660 feet in diameter, and was capable of holding 60,000 spectators. The most celebrated artists, Scopas, Praxiteles, etc., worked at Ephesus upon the great Temple of Diana. This monument, the building of which lasted two hundred and twenty years, was surrounded by 128 columns, each 60 feet high, presented by so many kings. Pergamus, the capital of the kingdom, passed for one of the finest cities in Asia, longe clarissimum Asiæ Pergamum, says Pliny;³⁶⁹ the port of Elæa contained maritime arsenals, and could arm numerous vessels.³⁷⁰ The acropolis of Pergamus, an inaccessible citadel, defended by two torrents, was the residence of the Attalides; these princes, zealous protectors of the sciences and arts, had founded in their capital a library of 200,000 volumes.³⁷¹ Pergamus carried on a vast traffic; its cereals were exported in great quantities to most places in Greece.³⁷² Cyzicus, situated on an island of the Propontis, with two closed ports forming a station for about two hundred ships,³⁷³ rivalled the richest cities of Asia. Like Adramyttium, it carried on a great commerce in perfumery,³⁷⁴ it worked the inexhaustible marble-quarries of the island of Proconnesus,³⁷⁵ and its commercial relations were so extensive that its gold coins were current in all the Asiatic factories.³⁷⁶ The town of Abydos possessed gold mines.³⁷⁷ The wheat of Assus was reputed the best in the world, and was reserved for the table of the kings of Persia.³⁷⁸

We may estimate the population and resources of this part of Asia from the armies and fleets which the kings had at their command at the time of the conquest of Greece by the Romans. In 555, Attalus II., and, ten years later, Eumenes II., sent them numerous galleys of five ranks of oars.³⁷⁹ The land forces of the kings of Pergamus were much less considerable.³⁸⁰ Their direct authority did not extend over a great territory, yet they had many tributary towns; hence their great wealth and small army. The Romans drew from this country, now nearly barren and unpeopled, immense contributions both in gold and wheat.³⁸¹ The magnificence of the triumph of Manlius and the reflections of Livy, compared with the testimony of Herodotus, reveal all the splendour of the kingdom of Pergamus. It was after the war against Antiochus and the expedition of Manlius that extravagance began to display itself at Rome.³⁸² Soldiers and generals enriched themselves prodigiously in Asia.³⁸³

The ancient colonies of Ionia and Æolis, such as Clazomenæ, Colophon, and many others, which were dependent for the most part on the kingdom of Pergamus, were fallen from their ancient grandeur. Smyrna, rebuilt by Alexander, was still an object of admiration for the beauty of its monuments. The exportation of wines, as celebrated on the coast of Ionia as in the neighbouring islands, formed alone an important support of the commerce of the ports of the Ægean Sea.

The treasures of the temple of Samothrace were so considerable, that we are induced to mention here a circumstance relating to this little island, though distant from Asia, and near the coast of Thrace: Sylla’s soldiers took in the sanctuary the Cabiri, an ornament of the value of 1,000 talents (5,820,000 francs [£232,800]).³⁸⁴

Caria, Lycia, and Cilicia.

XIV. On the southern coast of Asia Minor, some towns still sustained the rank they had attained one or two centuries before. The capital of Caria was Halicarnassus, a very strong town, defended by two citadels,³⁸⁵ and celebrated for one of the finest works of Greek art, the Mausoleum. In spite of the extraordinary fertility of the country, the Carians were accustomed, like the people of Crete, to engage as mercenaries in the Greek armies.³⁸⁶ On their territory stood the Ionian town of Miletus, with its four ports.³⁸⁷ The Milesians alone had civilised the shores of the Black Sea by the foundation of about eighty colonies.³⁸⁸

In turn independent, or placed under foreign dominion, Lycia, a province comprised between Caria and Cilicia, possessed some rich commercial towns. One especially, renowned for its ancient oracle of Apollo, no less celebrated than that of Delphi, was remarkable for its spacious port;³⁸⁹ this was Patara, which was large enough to contain the whole fleet of Antiochus, burnt by Fabius in 565.³⁹⁰ Xanthus, the largest town of the province, to which place ships ascended, only lost its importance after having been pillaged by Brutus.³⁹¹ Its riches had at an earlier period drawn upon it the same fate from the Persians.³⁹² Under the Roman dominion, Lycia beheld its population decline gradually; and of the seventy towns which it had possessed, no more than thirty-six remained in the eighth century of Rome.³⁹³

More to the east, the coasts of Cilicia were less favoured; subjugated in turn by the Macedonians, Egyptians, and Syrians, they had become receptacles of pirates, who were encouraged by the kings of Egypt in their hostility to the Seleucidæ.³⁹⁴ From the heights of the mountains which cross a part of the province, robbers descended to plunder the fertile plains situated on the eastern side (Cilicia Campestris).³⁹⁵ Still, the part watered by the Cydnus and the Pyramus was more prosperous, owing to the manufacture of coarse linen and to the export of saffron. There stood ancient Tarsus, formerly the residence of a satrap, the commerce of which had sprung up along with that of Tyre;³⁹⁶ and Soli, on which Alexander levied an imposition of a hundred talents as a punishment for its fidelity to the Persians,³⁹⁷ and which, by its maritime position, excited the envy of the Rhodians.³⁹⁸ These towns and other ports entered, after the battle of Ipsus, into the great commercial movement of which the provinces of Syria became the seat.

Syria.

XV. By the foundation of the empire of the Seleucidæ, Greek civilisation was carried into the interior of Asia, where the immobility of Eastern society was succeeded by the activity of Western life. Greek letters and arts flourished from the Sea of Phœnicia to the banks of the Euphrates. Numerous towns were built in Syria and Assyria, with all the richness and elegance of the edifices of Greece;³⁹⁹ some were almost in ruins in the time of Pliny.⁴⁰⁰ Seleucia, founded by Seleucus Nicator, at the mouth of the Orontes, and which received, with five other towns built by the same monarch, the name of the head of the Græco-Syrian dynasty, became a greatly frequented port. Antioch, built on the same river, rivalled the finest towns of Egypt and Greece by the number of its edifices, the extent of its places, and the beauty of its temples and statues.⁴⁰¹ Its walls, built by the architect Xenæos, passed for a wonder, and in the Middle Ages their ruins excited the admiration of travellers.⁴⁰² Antioch consisted of four quarters, having each its own enclosure;⁴⁰³ and the common enclosure which surrounded them all appears to have embraced an extent of six leagues in circumference. Not far from the town was the delightful abode of Daphne, where the wood, consecrated to Apollo and Diana, was an object of public veneration, and the place where sumptuous festivals were celebrated.⁴⁰⁴ Apamea was renowned for its pastures. Seleucus had formed there a stud of 30,000 mares, 300 stallions, and 500 elephants.⁴⁰⁵ The Temple of the Sun at Heliopolis (now Baalbek) was the most colossal work of architecture that had ever existed.⁴⁰⁶

The power of the empire of the Seleucidæ went on increasing until the time when the Romans seized upon it. Extending from the Mediterranean to the Oxus and Caucasus, this empire was composed of nearly all the provinces of the ancient kingdom of the Persians, and included peoples of different origins.⁴⁰⁷ Media was fertile, and its capital, Ecbatana, which Polybius represents as excelling in riches and the incredible luxury of its palaces the other cities of Asia, had not yet been despoiled by Antiochus III.;⁴⁰⁸ Babylonia, once the seat of a powerful empire, and Phœnicia, long the most commercial country in the world, made part of Syria, and touched upon the frontiers of the Parthians. Caravans, following a route which has remained the same during many centuries, placed Syria in communication with Arabia,⁴⁰⁹ whence came ebony, ivory, perfumes, resins, and spices; the Syrian ports were the intermediate marts for the merchants who proceeded as far as India, where Seleucus I. went to conclude a treaty with Sandrocottus. The merchandise of this country ascended the Euphrates as far as Thapsacus, and thence it was exported to all the provinces.⁴¹⁰ Communications so distant and multiplied explain the prosperity of the empire of the Seleucidæ. Babylonia competed with Phrygia in embroidered tissues; purple and the tissues of Tyre, the glass, goldsmiths’ work, and dyes of Sidon, were exported far. Commerce had penetrated to the extremities of Asia. Silk stuffs were sent from the frontiers of China to Caspiæ Portæ, and thence conveyed by caravans at once towards the Tyrian Sea, Mesopotamia, and Pontus.⁴¹¹ Subsequently, the invasion of the Parthians, by intercepting the routes, prevented the Greeks from penetrating into the heart of Asia. Hence Seleucus Nicator formed the project of opening a way of direct communication between Greece and Bactriana, by constructing a canal from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea.⁴¹² Mines of precious metals were rather rare in Syria; but there was abundance of gold and silver, introduced by the Phœnicians, or imported from Arabia or Central Asia. We may judge of the abundance of money possessed by Seleucia, on the Tigris, by the amount of the contribution which was extorted from it by Antiochus III. (a thousand talents).⁴¹³ The sums which the Syrian monarchs engaged to pay to the Romans were immense.⁴¹⁴ The soil gave produce equal in importance with that of industry.⁴¹⁵ Susiana, one of the provinces of Persia which had fallen under the dominion of the Seleucidæ, had so great a reputation for its corn, that Egypt alone could compete with it.⁴¹⁶ Cœle-Syria was, like the north of Mesopotamia, in repute for its cattle.⁴¹⁷ Palestine furnished abundance of wheat, oil, and wine. The condition of Syria was still so prosperous in the seventh century of Rome, that the philosopher Posidonius represents its inhabitants as indulging in continual festivals, and dividing their time between the labours of the field, banquets, and the exercises of the gymnasium.⁴¹⁸ The festivals of Antiochus IV., in the town of Daphne,⁴¹⁹ give a notion of the extravagance displayed by the grandees of that country.

The military forces assembled at different epochs by the kings of Syria enable us to estimate the population of their empire. In 537, at the battle of Raphia, Antiochus had under his command 68,000 men;⁴²⁰ in 564, at Magnesia, 62,000 infantry, and more than 12,000 horsemen.⁴²¹ These armies, it is true, comprised auxiliaries of different nations. The Jews of the district of Carmel alone could raise 40,000 men.⁴²²

The fleet was no less imposing. Phœnicia counted numerous ports and well-stored arsenals; such were Aradus (Ruad), Berytus (Beyrout), Tyre (Sour). This latter town raised itself gradually from its decline. It was the same with Sidon (Saïde), which Antiochus III., in his war with Ptolemy, did not venture to attack on account of its soldiers, its stores, and its population.⁴²³ Moreover, the greater part of the Phœnician towns enjoyed, under the Seleucidæ, a certain autonomy favourable to their industry. In Syria, Seleucia, which Antiochus the Great recovered from the Egyptians, had become the first port in the kingdom on the Mediterranean.⁴²⁴ Laodicea carried on an active commerce with Alexandria.⁴²⁵ Masters of the coasts of Cilicia and Pamphylia, the kings of Syria obtained from them great quantities of timber for ship-building, which was floated down the rivers from the mountains.⁴²⁶ Thus uniting their vessels with those of the Phœnicians, the Seleucidæ launched upon the Mediterranean considerable armies.⁴²⁷

Distant commerce also employed numerous merchant vessels; the Mediterranean, like the Euphrates, was furrowed by barques which brought or carried merchandise of every description. Vessels sailing on the Erythræan Sea were in communication, by means of canals, with the shores of the Mediterranean. The great trade of Phœnicia with Spain and the West had ceased, but the navigation of the Euphrates and the Tigris replaced it for the transport of products, whether foreign or fabricated in Syria itself, and sent into Asia Minor, Greece, or Egypt. The empire of the Seleucidæ offered the spectacle of the ancient civilisation and luxury of Nineveh and Babylon, transformed by the genius of Greece.

Egypt.

XVI. Egypt, which Herodotus calls a present from the Nile, did not equal in surface a quarter of the empire of the Seleucidæ, but it formed a power much more compact. Its civilisation reached back more than three thousand years. The sciences and arts already flourished there, when Asia Minor, Greece, and Italy were still in a state of barbarism. The fertility of the valley of the Nile had permitted a numerous population to develop itself there to such a point, that under Amasis II., contemporary with Servius Tullius, twenty thousand cities were reckoned in it.⁴²⁸ The skilful administration of the first of the Lagides increased considerably the resources of the country. Under Ptolemy II., the annual revenues amounted to 14,800 talents (86,150,800 francs [£3,446,032]), and a million and a half of artabi⁴²⁹ of wheat.⁴³⁰ Besides the Egyptian revenues, the taxes levied in the foreign possessions reached the amount of about 10,000 talents a year. Cœle-Syria, Phœnicia, and Judea, with the province of Samaria, yielded annually to Ptolemy Euergetes 8,000 talents (46 millions and a half [£1,860,000]).⁴³¹ A single feast cost Philadelphia 2,240 talents (more than 13 millions [more than half a million sterling]).⁴³² The sums accumulated in the treasury amounted to the sum, perhaps exaggerated, of 740,000 talents (about 4 milliards 300 millions of francs [172 millions sterling]).⁴³³ In 527, Ptolemy Euergetes was able, without diminishing his resources too much, to send to the Rhodians 3,300 talents of silver, a thousand talents of copper, and ten millions of measures of wheat.⁴³⁴ The precious metals abounded in the empire of the Pharaohs, as is attested by the traces of mining operations now exhausted, and by the multitude of objects in gold contained in their tombs. Masters for some time of the Libanus, the kings of Egypt obtained from it timber for ship-building. These riches had accumulated especially at Alexandria, which became, after Carthage, towards the commencement of the seventh century of Rome, the first commercial city in the world.⁴³⁵ It was fifteen miles in circumference, had three spacious and commodious ports, which allowed the largest ships to anchor along the quay.⁴³⁶ There arrived the merchandises of India, Arabia, Ethiopia, and of the coast of Africa; some brought on the backs of camels, from Myos Hormos (to the north of Cosseïr), and then transported down the Nile; others came by canals from the bottom of the Gulf of Suez, or brought from the port of Berenice, on the Red Sea.⁴³⁷ The occupation of this sea by the Egyptians had put a stop to the piracies of the Arabs,⁴³⁸ and led to the establishment of numerous factories. India furnished spices, muslins, and dyes; Ethiopia, gold, ivory, and ebony; Arabia, perfumes.⁴³⁹ All these products were exchanged against those which came from the Pontus Euxinus and the Western Sea. The native manufacture of printed and embroidered tissues, and that of glass, assumed under the Ptolemies a new development. The objects exhumed from the tombs of this period, the paintings with which they are decorated, the allusions contained in the hieroglyphic texts and Greek papyrus, prove that the most varied descriptions of industry were exercised in the kingdom of the Pharaohs, and had attained a high degree of perfection. The excellence of the products and the delicacy of the work prove the intelligence of the workmen. Under Ptolemy II., the army was composed of 200,000 footmen, 40,000 cavalry, 300 elephants, and 200 chariots; the arsenals were capable of furnishing arms for 300,000 men.⁴⁴⁰ The Egyptian fleet, properly so called, consisted of a hundred and twelve vessels of the first class (from five to thirty ranges of oars), and two hundred and twenty-four of the second class, together with light craft; the king had, besides these, more than four thousand ships in the ports placed in subjection to him.⁴⁴¹ It was especially after Alexander that the Egyptian navy became greatly extended.

Cyrenaica.

XVII. Separating Egypt from the possessions of Carthage, Cyrenaica (the regency of Tripoli), formerly colonised by the Greeks and independent, had fallen into the hands of the first of the Ptolemies. It possessed commercial and rich towns, and fertile plains; its cultivation extended even into the mountains;⁴⁴² wine, oil, dates, saffron and different plants, such as the silphium (laserpitium),⁴⁴³ were the object of considerable traffic.⁴⁴⁴ The horses of Cyrenaica, which had all the lightness of the Arabian horses, were objects of research even in Greece,⁴⁴⁵ and the natives of Cyrene could make no more handsome present to Alexander than to send him three hundred of their coursers.⁴⁴⁶ Nevertheless, political revolutions had already struck at the ancient prosperity of the country,⁴⁴⁷ which previously formed, by its navigation, its commerce, and its arts, probably the finest of the colonies founded by the Greeks.

Cyprus.

XVIII. The numerous islands of the Mediterranean enjoyed equal prosperity. Cyprus, colonised by the Phœnicians, and subsequently by the Greeks, passing afterwards under the dominion of the Egyptians, had a population which preserved, from its native country, the love of commerce and distant voyages. Almost all its towns were situated on the sea-coast, and furnished with excellent ports. Ptolemy Soter maintained in it an army of 30,000 Egyptians.⁴⁴⁸ No country was richer in timber. Its fertility passed for being superior to that of Egypt.⁴⁴⁹ To its agricultural produce were added precious stones, mines of copper worked from an early period,⁴⁵⁰ and so rich, that this metal took its name from the island itself (Cuprum). In Cyprus were seen numerous sanctuaries, and especially the temple of Venus at Paphos, which contained a hundred altars.⁴⁵¹

Crete.

XIX. Crete, peopled by different races, had attained even in the heroic age a great celebrity; Homer sang its hundred cities; but during several centuries it had been on the decline. Without commerce, without a regular navy, without agriculture, it possessed little else than its fruits and woods, and the sterility which characterises it now had already commenced. Nevertheless, there is every reason to believe that at the time of the Roman conquest, the island was still well peopled.⁴⁵² Devoted to piracy,⁴⁵³ and reduced to sell their services, the Cretans, celebrated as archers, fought as mercenaries in the armies of Syria, Macedonia, and Egypt.⁴⁵⁴

Rhodes.

XX. If Crete was in decline, Rhodes, on the contrary, was extending its commerce, which took gradually the place of that of the maritime towns of Ionia and Caria. Already inhabited, in the time of Homer, by a numerous population, and containing three important towns, Lindos, Ialysus, and Camirus,⁴⁵⁵ the isle was, in the fifth century of Rome, the first maritime power after Carthage. The town of Rhodes, built during the war of the Peloponnesus (346), had, like the Punic city, two ports, one for merchant vessels, the other for ships of war. The right of anchorage produced a revenue of a million of drachmas a year.⁴⁵⁶ The Rhodians had founded colonies on different points of the Mediterranean shore,⁴⁵⁷ and entertained friendly relations with a great number of towns from which they received more than once succours and presents.⁴⁵⁸ They possessed upon the neighbouring Asiatic continent tributary towns, such as Caunus and Stratonicea, which paid them 120 talents (700,000 francs [£28,000]). The navigation of the Bosphorus, of which they strove to maintain the passage free, soon belonged to them almost exclusively.⁴⁵⁹ All the maritime commerce from the Nile to the Palus Mæotis thus fell into their hands. Laden with slaves, cattle, honey, wax, and salt meats,⁴⁶⁰ their ships went to fetch on the coast of the Cimmerian Bosphorus (Sea of Azof) the wheat then very celebrated,⁴⁶¹ and to carry wines and oils to the northern coast of Asia Minor. By means of its fleets, though its land army was composed wholly of foreigners,⁴⁶² Rhodes several times made war with success. She contended with Athens, especially from 397 to 399; she resisted victoriously, in 450, Demetrius Poliorcetes, and owed her safety to the respect of this prince for a magnificent painting of Ialysus, the work of Protogenes.⁴⁶³ During the campaigns of the Romans in Macedonia and Asia, she furnished them with considerable fleets.⁴⁶⁴ Her naval force was maintained until the civil war which followed the death of Cæsar, but was then annihilated.

The celebrity of Rhodes was no less great in arts and letters than in commerce. After the reign of Alexander, it became the seat of a famous school of sculpture and painting, from which issued Protogenes and the authors of the Laocoon and the Farnese Bull. The town contained three thousand statues,⁴⁶⁵ and a hundred and six colossi, among others the famous Statue of the Sun, one of the seven wonders of the world, a hundred and five feet high, the cost of which had been three thousand talents (17,400,000 francs [£696,000]).⁴⁶⁶ The school of rhetoric at Rhodes was frequented by students who repaired thither from all parts of Greece, and Cæsar, as well as Cicero, went there to perfect themselves in the art of oratory.

The other islands of the Ægean Sea had nearly all lost their political importance, and their commercial life was absorbed by the new states of Asia Minor, Macedonia, and Rhodes. It was not so with the Archipelago of the Ionian Sea, the prosperity of which continued until the moment when it fell into the power of the Romans. Corcyra, which received into its port the Roman forces, owed to its fertility and favourable position an extensive commerce. The rival of Corinth since the fourth century, she became corrupted like Byzantium and Zacynthus (Zante), which Agatharchides, towards 640, represents as grown effeminate by excess of luxury.⁴⁶⁷

Sardinia.

XXI. The flourishing condition of Sardinia arose especially from the colonies which Carthage had planted in it. The population of this island rendered itself formidable to the Romans by its spirit of independence.⁴⁶⁸ From 541⁴⁶⁹ to 580, 130,000 men were slain, taken, or sold.⁴⁷⁰ The number of these last was so considerable, that the expression Sardinians to sell (Sardi venales) became proverbial.⁴⁷¹ Sardinia, which now counts not more than 544,000 inhabitants, then possessed at least a million. Its quantity of corn, and numerous herds of cattle, made of this island the second granary of Carthage.⁴⁷² The avidity of the Romans soon exhausted it. Yet, in 552, the harvests were still so abundant, that there were merchants who were obliged to abandon the wheat to the sailors for the price of the freight.⁴⁷³ The working of the mines and the trade in wool of a superior quality⁴⁷⁴ occupied thousands of hands.

Corsica.

XXII. Corsica was much less populous. Diodorus Siculus gives it hardly more than 30,000 inhabitants,⁴⁷⁵ and Strabo represents them as savages, and living in the mountains.⁴⁷⁶ According to Pliny, however, it had thirty towns.⁴⁷⁷ Resin, wax, honey,⁴⁷⁸ exported from factories founded by the Etruscans and Phocæans on the coasts, were almost the only products of the island.

Sicily.

XXIII. Sicily, called by the ancients the favourite abode of Ceres, owed its name to the Sicani or Siculi, a race which had once peopled a part of Italy; Phœnician colonies, and afterwards Greek colonies, had established themselves in it. In 371, the Greeks occupied the eastern part, about two-thirds of the island; the Carthaginians, the western part. Sicily, on account of its prodigious fertility, was, as may be supposed, coveted by both peoples; it was soon the same in regard to the Romans, and, after the conquest, it became the granary of Italy.⁴⁷⁹ The orations of Cicero against Verres show the prodigious quantities of wheat which it sent, and to what a great sum the tenths or taxes amounted, which procured immense profits to the farmers of the revenues.⁴⁸⁰

The towns which, under Roman rule, declined, were possessed of considerable importance at the time of which we are speaking. The first among them, Syracuse, the capital of Hiero’s kingdom, contained 600,000 souls; it was composed of six quarters, comprised in a circumference of 180 stadia (36 kilometres); it furnished, when it was conquered, a booty equal to that of Carthage.⁴⁸¹ Other cities rivalled Syracuse in extent and power. Agrigentum, in the time of the first Punic war, contained 50,000 soldiers;⁴⁸² it was one of the principal garrisons in Sicily.⁴⁸³ Panormus (Palermo), Drepana (Trapani), and Lilybæum (Marsala), possessed arsenals, docks for ship-building, and vast ports. The roadstead of Messina was capable of holding 600 vessels.⁴⁸⁴ Sicily is still the richest country in ancient monuments; our admiration is excited by the ruins of twenty-one temples and of eleven theatres, among others that of Taormina, which contained 40,000 spectators.⁴⁸⁵

This concise description of the countries bordering on the Mediterranean, two or three hundred years before our era, shows sufficiently the state of prosperity of the different peoples who inhabited them. The remembrance of such greatness inspires a very natural wish, namely, that henceforth the jealousy of the great powers may no longer prevent the East from shaking off the dust of twenty centuries, and from being born again to life and civilisation!

CHAPTER V.
PUNIC WARS AND WARS OF MACEDONIA AND ASIA

(From 488 to 621.)

Comparison between Rome and Carthage.

I. ROME, having extended her dominion to the southern extremity of Italy, found herself in face of a power which, by the force of circumstances, was to become her rival.

Carthage, situated on the part of the African coast nearest to Sicily, was only separated from it by the channel of Malta, which divides the great basin of the Mediterranean in two. She had, during more than two centuries, concluded, from time to time, treaties with Rome, and, with a want of foresight of the future, congratulated the Senate every time it had gained great advantages over the Etruscans or the Samnites.

The superiority of Carthage at the beginning of the Punic wars was evident; yet the constitution of the two cities might have led any one to foresee which in the end must be the master. A powerful aristocracy reigned in both; but at Rome the nobles, identified continually with the people, set an example of patriotism and of all civic virtues, while at Carthage the leading families, enriched by commerce, made effeminate by an unbridled luxury, formed a selfish and greedy caste, distinct from the rest of the citizens. At Rome, the sole motive of action was glory, the principal occupation war, and the first duty military service. At Carthage, everything was sacrificed to interest and commerce; and the defence of the fatherland was, as an insupportable burden, abandoned to mercenaries. Hence, after a defeat, at Carthage the army was recruited with difficulty; at Rome it immediately recruited itself, because the populace was subject to the recruitment. If the poverty of the treasury caused the pay of the troops to be delayed, the Carthaginian soldiers mutinied, and placed the State in danger; the Romans supported privations and suffering without a murmur, out of mere love for their country.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.

1

Montesquieu, Grandeur et Décadence des Romains, xviii.

Back

2

Suetonius, Cæsar, 22.

Back

3

“Cæsar resolved to pass into Britain, the people of which had, in nearly all wars, assisted the Gauls.” (Cæsar, Gallic War, IV. 20.)

Back

4

Suetonius, Cæsar, 47.

Back

5

Appian, Civil Wars, I. 110, 326, edit. Schweighæuser.

Back

6

Cicero, Epistolæ ad Atticum, XIV. 10.

Back

7

In fact, how many disturbances, civil wars, and revolutions in Europe since 1815! in France, Spain, Italy, Poland, Belgium, Hungary, Greece, and Germany!

Back

8

Grandeur et Décadence des Romains.

Back

9

Titus Livius I. 44. – Dionysius of Halicarnassus, speaking of the portion of the rampart between the Porta Æsquilina and the Porta Collina, says, “Rome is fortified by a fosse thirty feet deep and a hundred or more wide in the narrowest part. Above this fosse rises a wall supported internally by a lofty and wide terrace, so that it cannot be shaken by battering rams, or overthrown by undermining.” (Antiq. Roman., IX. 68.)

Back

10

“Since that time (the time of Servius Tullius) Rome has been no farther enlarged … and if, in face of this spectacle, any one would form a notion of the magnitude of Rome, he would certainly fall into error, for he would not be able to distinguish where the town ends and where it is limited, so close the suburbs come up to the town… The Aventine, till the reign of Claudius, remained outside the Pomœrium, notwithstanding its numerous inhabitants.” (Aulus Gellius, XIII. 14. – Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IV. 13.)

Back

11

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IV. 49.

Back

12

“By this treaty, the Romans and their allies engage not to navigate beyond the Bonum Promontorium (a cape situated to the north and opposite Carthage, and now called by navigators the Cape of Porto-Farino)… The Carthaginians undertake to respect the Ardeates, the Antiates, the Laurentes, the Circeii, the Tarracinians, and indeed all the Latin peoples subject to Rome.” (Polybius, III. 22.)

Back

13

“When Tarquinius Priscus regulated, with the foresight of a skilful prince, the state of the citizens, he attached great importance to the dress of children of condition; and he decreed that the sons of patricians should wear the bulla with the robe hemmed with purple: but even this privilege was restricted to the children of those fathers who had exercised a curule dignity; the sons of other patricians had merely the prætexta, and it was necessary that even their fathers should have served the prescribed time in the cavalry.” (Macrobius, Saturnalia, I. 6.)

Back

14

“The plebeians were excluded from all offices, and put only to agriculture, the breeding of cattle, and mercantile occupations.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, II. 9.) – “Numa encouraged the agriculturists; they were excused from service in war, and discharged from the care of municipal affairs.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, II. 76.)

Back

15

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, II. 9. – Plutarch, Romulus, 13.

Back

16

“Agrorum partes attribuerant tenuioribus.” (Festus, under the word Patres, p. 246, edit. O. Müller.)

Back

17

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IV. 24.

Back

18

These questions have been the object of learned researches; but, after an attentive perusal of the works of Beaufort, Niebuhr, Gœttling, Duruy, Marquardt, Mommsen, Lange, &c., the difference of opinions is discouraging: we have adopted those which appeared most probable.

Back

19

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, V. 40. – Titus Livius, II. 16.

Back

20

Titus Livius, II. 48. – Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IX. 15.

Back

21

Titus Livius, II. 64.

Back

22

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, X. 15.

Back

23

“They called a decree of the people (scitum populi) the measure which the order of patricians had voted, on the proposal of a patrician, without the participation of the plebs.” (See Festus, under the words Scitum populi, p. 330.) – Titus Livius, speaking of the tribunes, puts the following words into the mouth of Appius Claudius: “Non enim populi, sed plebis, eum magistratum esse.” (Titus Livius, II. 56.)

Back

24

“The plebs was composed of all the mass of the people which was neither senator nor patrician.” (See Festus, under the words Scitum populi.)

Back

25

“Populus autem non omnis hominum cœtus quoquo modo congregatus, sed cœtus multitudinis juris consensu et utilitatis communione sociatus.” – (Cicero, De Republica, I. 25.)

Back

26

“Populus curiatis eum (Numam) comitiis regem esse jusserat. Tullum Hostilium populus regem, interrege rogante, comitiis curiatis creavit. Servius, Tarquinio sepulto, populum de se ipse consuluit jussusque regnare legem de imperio suo curiatam tulit.” (Cicero, De Republica, II. 13-21.)

Back

27

“The predecessors of Servius Tullius brought all causes before their tribunal, and pronounced judgment themselves in all disputes which regarded the State or individuals. He separated these two things, and, reserving to himself the cognizance of affairs which concerned the State, abandoned to other judges the causes of individuals, with injunctions, nevertheless, to regulate their judgments according to the laws which he had passed.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IV. 25.)

Back

28

“The consuls, like the ancient kings, have twelve lictors carrying axes and twelve lictors carrying rods.” (Appian, Syrian Wars, 15.)

Back

29

“From that time Tarquinius Superbus carried, during the rest of his life, a crown of gold, a toga of embroidered purple, and a sceptre of ivory, and his throne was also of ivory; when he administered justice, or walked abroad in the town, he was preceded by twelve lictors, who carried axes surrounded with rods. (Dionysius overlooks the twelve other lictors who carried rods only.) After the kings had been expelled from Rome, the annual consuls continued to use all these insignia, except the crown and the robe with purple embroidery. These two only were withdrawn, because they were odious and disagreeable to the people. But even these were not entirely abolished, since they still used ornaments of gold and dress of embroidered purple, when, after a victory, the Senate decreed them the honours of the triumph.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, III. 62.)

Back

30

“The soldiers of Romulus, to the number of three thousand, were divided into three bodies, called ‘tribes.’” (Dio Cassius, Fragm., XIV., edit. Gros. – Dionysius of Halicarnassus, II. 7. – Plutarch, Romulus, 25.) – “The name of tribune of the soldiers is derived from the circumstance that the three tribes of the Ramnes, the Luceres, and the Tatiens each sent three to the army.” (Varro, De Lingua Latina, V. § 81, p. 32, edit. O. Müller.)

Back

31

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, II. 35. Attempts have been made to explain in different ways the origin of the word curia. Some have derived it from the word curare, or from the name of the town of Cures, or from κὑριος, “a lord:” it seems more natural to trace it to quiris (curis), which had the signification of a lance (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, II. 48. – Plutarch, Romulus, for thus we obtain a term analogous with that of the Middle Ages, where spear signified a man-at-arms, accompanied by six or eight armed followers. And as the principal aim of the formation of the curia was to furnish a certain number of armed citizens, it is possible that they may have given to the whole the name of a part. We read in Ovid, Fasti, II. lines 477-480: —

“Sive quod hasta curis priscis est dicta Sabinis,
Bellicus a telo venit in astra deus:
Sive suo regi nomen posuere Quirites,
Seu quis Romanis junxerat ille Cures.”

Back

32

Titus Livius, 1. 43.

Back

33

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, II. 14, and IV. 20.

Back

34

“The appeal to the people existed even under the kings, as the books of the pontiffs show.” (Cicero, De Republica, II. 31.)

Back

35

Plutarch, Numa, 17. – Pliny, Natural History, XXXIV. 1.

Back

36

“Servius Tullius conformed no longer as aforetime to the ancient order of three tribes, distinguished by origin, but to the four new tribes which he had established by quarters.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IV. 14.)

Back

37

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, III. 61. – Titus Livius, I. 35.

Back

38

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IV. 22.

Back

39

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IV. 19. “Servius Tullius, by these means, threw back upon the richest all the costs and dangers of war.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IV. 20.)

Back

40

“If Numa was the legislator of the religious institutions, posterity proclaims Servius as the founder of the order which distinguishes in the Republic the difference of rank, dignity, and fortune. It was he who established the census, the most salutary of all institutions for a people destined to so much greatness. Fortunes, and not individuals, were called upon to support the burdens of the State. The census established the classes, the centuries, and that order which constitutes the ornament of Rome during peace and its strength daring war.” (Titus Livius, I. 42.)

Back

41

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IV. 16.

Back

42

“When Servius Tullius had completed the taking of the census, he ordered all the citizens to assemble in arms in the greatest of the fields situated near the town, and, having arranged the horsemen in squadrons, the footmen in phalanx, and the light-armed men in respective orders, he submitted them to a lustration, by the immolation of a bull, a ram, and a he-goat. He ordered that the victims should be led thrice round about the army, after which he sacrificed to Mars, to whom this field was dedicated. From that epoch to the present time the Romans have continued to have the same ceremony performed, by the most holy of magistracies, at the completion of each census; it is what they call a lustrum. The total number of all the Romans enumerated, according to the writing of the tables of the census, gave 300 men less than 85,000.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IV. 22.)

Back

43

“This good order of government (under Servius Tullius) was sustained among the Romans during several centuries, but in our days it has been changed, and, by force of circumstances, has given place to a more democratic system. It is not that the centuries have been abolished, but the voters were no longer called together with the ancient regularity, and their judgments have no longer the same equity, as I have observed in my frequent attendance at the comitia.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IV. 21.)

Back

44

“The poorest citizens, in spite of their great number, were the last to give their vote, and made but one century.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IV. 21.)

Back

45

Titus Livius, I. 43.

Back

46

“From the age of seventeen years, they were called to be soldiers. Youth began with that age, and continued to the age of forty-six. At that date old age began.” (Aulus Gellius, X. 28. – Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IV. 16.)

Back

47

Titus Livius speaks only of a hundred and ninety-two centuries; Dionysius of Halicarnassus reckons a hundred and ninety-three. “In the Roman plebs, the poorest citizens, those who reported to the census not more than fifteen hundred ases, were called proletarii; those who were not worth more than three hundred and seventy-five ases, and who thus possessed hardly anything, were called capite censi. Now, the fortune and patrimony of the citizen being for the State a sort of guarantee, the pledge and foundation of his love for his country, the men of the two last classes were only enrolled in case of extreme danger. Yet the position of the proletarii was a little more honourable than that of the capite censi; in times of difficulty, when there was want of young men, they were incorporated in the hastily-formed militia, and equipped at the cost of the State; their name contained no allusion to the mere poll-tax to which they were subjected; less humiliating, it reminded one only of their destination to give children to their country. The scantiness of their patrimony preventing them from contributing to the aid of the State, they at least contributed to the population of the city.” (Aulus Gellius, XVI. 10.)

Back

48

“Tarquinius Priscus afterwards gave to the knights the organisation which they have preserved to the present time.” (Cicero, De Republica, II. 20.)

Back

49

“It is said that the number of citizens inscribed under this title was 80,000. Fabius Pictor, the most ancient of our historians, adds that this number only includes the citizens in condition to bear arms.” (Titus Livius, I. 44.)

Back

50

The different censuses of the people furnished by the ancient historians have been explained in different manners. Did the numbers given designate all the citizens, or only the heads of families, or those who had attained the age of puberty? In my opinion, these numbers in Livy, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, and Plutarch, applied to all the men in a condition to carry arms, that is, according to the organisation of Servius Tullius, to those from seventeen to sixty years old. This category formed, in fact, the true Roman citizens. Under seventeen, they were too young to count in the State; above sixty, they were too old.

We know that the aged sexagenarians were called depontani, because they were forbidden the bridges over which they must go to the place of voting. (Festus, under the word sexagenarius, p. 834. – Cicero, Pro S. Roscio Amerino, 35.)

80,000 men in condition to carry arms represent, according to the statistics of the present time, fifty-five hundredths of the male part of the population, say 145,000 men, and for the two sexes, supposing them equal in number, 290,000 souls. In fact, in France, in a hundred inhabitants, there are 35 who have not passed the age of seventeen, 55 aged from seventeen to sixty years, and 10 of more than sixty.

In support of the above calculation, Dionysius of Halicarnassus relates that in the year 247 of Rome a subscription was made in honour of Horatius Cocles: 300,000 persons, men and women, gave the value of what each might expend in one day for his food. (V. 25.)

As to the number of slaves, we find in another passage of Dionysius of Halicarnassus (IX. 25) that the women, children, slaves, merchants, and artisans amounted to a number triple of that of the citizens.

If, then, the number of citizens in condition to carry arms was 80,000, and the rest of the population equalled three times that number, we should have for the total 4 x 80,000 = 320,000 souls. And, subtracting from this number the 290,000 obtained above, there would remain 30,000 for the slaves and artisans.

Whatever proportion we admit between these two last classes, the result will be that the slaves were at that period not numerous.

Back

51

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IV. 9, 23.

Back

52

“Within the town, the buildings were not allowed to approach the ramparts, which they now ordinarily touch, and outside a space extended which it was forbidden to cultivate. To all this space, which it was not permitted to inhabit or cultivate, the Romans gave the name of Pomœrium. When, in consequence of the increase of the town, the rampart was carried farther out, this consecrated zone on each side was still preserved.” (Titus Livius, I. 44.)

Back

53

“Founded on the testimony of the sacred books which are preserved with great care in the temples.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, XI. 62.)

Back

54

“These precious pledges, which they regard as so many images of the gods.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, VI. 45.)

Back

55

“Hence is explained the origin of the name given to the Capitol: in digging the foundation of the temple, they found a human head; and the augurs declared that Rome would become the head of all Italy.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IV. 61.)

Back

56

“This recourse to the opinions of the priests and the observations of religious worship made the people forget their habits of violence and their taste for arms. Their minds, incessantly occupied with religious ideas, acknowledged the intervention of Providence in human affairs, and all hearts were penetrated with a piety so lively that good faith and fidelity to an oath reigned in Rome more than fear of laws or punishments.” (Titus Livius, I. 21.)

Back

57

Titus Livius, I. 45.

Back

58

“Assemblies of people, levies of troops – indeed, the most important operations – were abandoned, if the birds did not approve them.” (Titus Livius, I. 36.)

Back

59

“Numa established also the auspicious and inauspicious days, for with the people an adjournment might sometimes be useful.” (Titus Livius, I. 19.)

Back

60

“We have a town, founded on the faith of auspices and auguries; not a spot within these walls which is not full of gods and their worshippers; our solemn sacrifices have their days fixed as well as the place where they are to be made.” (Titus Livius, V. 52, Speech of Camillus, VI. &c.)

Back

61

Cicero, De Republica, II. 14.

Back

62

“All religious acts, public and private, were submitted to the decision of the pontiff; thus the people knew to whom to address themselves, and disorders were prevented which might have brought into religion the neglect of the national rites or the introduction of foreign ones. It was the same pontiff’s duty also to regulate what concerned funerals, and the means of appeasing the Manes, and to distinguish, among prodigies announced by thunder and other phenomena, those which required an expiation.” (Titus Livius, I. 20.)

Back

63

“The grand pontiff exercises the functions of interpreter and diviner, or rather of hierophant. He not only presides at the public sacrifices, but he also inspects those which are made in private, and takes care that the ordinances of religious worship are not transgressed. Lastly, it is he who teaches what each individual ought to do to honour the gods and to appease them.” (Plutarch, Numa, 12.)

Back

64

“Numa divided the year into twelve months, according to the moon’s courses; he added January and February to the year.” (Titus Livius, I. 19. – Plutarch, Numa, 18.)

Back

65

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, II. 73.

Back

66

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, II. 64.

Back

67

Salian is derived from salire (to leap, to dance). (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, II. 70.) – It was their duty, on certain occasions, to execute sacred dances, and to chant hymns in honour of the god of war.

Back

68

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, II. 72. – “The name of feciales is derived from the circumstance that they presided over the public faith between peoples; for it was by their intervention that war when undertaken assumed the character of a just war, and, that once terminated, peace was guaranteed by a treaty. Before war was undertaken, some of the feciales were sent to make whatever demands had to be made.” (Varro, De Lingua Latina, V. § 86.) – “If allies complained that the Romans had done them wrong, and demanded reparation for it, it was the business of the feciales to examine if there were any violation of treaty.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, II. 72.) – Those fecial priests had been instituted by Numa, the mildest and most just of kings, to be guardians of peace, and the judges and arbiters of the legitimate motives for undertaking war. (Plutarch, Camillus, 20.)

Back

69

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IV. 14. – Pliny, Natural History, XXI. 8.

Back

70

Numa raised a temple to Romulus, whom he deified under the name of Quirinus. (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, II. 63)

Back

71

“Temple of Vesta, emblem of chastity; temple to Public Faith; raised by Numa.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, II. 65 and 75.)

Back

72

“The god Terminus; the festival in honour of Pales, the goddess of shepherds; Saturn, the god of agriculture; the god of fallow-grounds, pasture,” &c. (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, II. 74.)

Back

73

“After having done these things in peace and war, Servius Tullius erected two temples to Fortune, who appeared to have been favourable to him all his life, one in the oxen-market, the other on the banks of the Tiber, and he gave her the surname of Virilis, which she has preserved to the present day among the Romans.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IV. 27.)

Back

74

“The Temple of Janus had been closed twice since the reign of Numa: the first time by the consul Titus Manlius, at the end of the first Punic war; the second, when the gods granted to our age to see, after the battle of Actium, Cæsar Augustus Imperator give peace to the universe.” (Titus Livius, I. 19.) – And Plutarch says, in his Life of Numa, XX., “Nevertheless, this temple was closed after the victory of Cæsar Augustus over Antony, and it had previously been closed under the consulate of Marcus Atilius and of Titus Manlius, for a short time, it is true; it was almost immediately opened again, for a new war broke out. But, during the reign of Numa, it was not seen open a single day.”

Back

75

We employ intentionally the word republic, because all the ancient authors give this name to the State, under the kings as well as under the emperors. It is only by translating faithfully these denominations that we can form an exact idea of ancient societies.

Back

76

“We acknowledge how many good and useful institutions the Republic owed to each of our kings.” (Cicero, De Republica, II. 21.)

Back

77

“Among the Romans, the children possess nothing of their own during their father’s life. He can dispose not only of all the goods, but even of the lives of his children.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, VIII. 79; II. 25.)

Back

78

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, II., 25, 26. – “From the beginning,” says Mommsen, “the Roman family presented, in the moral order which reigned among its members, and their mutual subordination, the conditions of a superior civilisation.” (Roman History, 2nd edit., I., p. 54.)

Back

79

“Morals were so pure that, during two hundred and thirty years, no husband was known to repudiate his wife, nor any woman to separate from her husband.” (Plutarch, Parallel of Theseus and Romulus.)

Back

80

Cicero admires the profound wisdom of the first kings in admitting the conquered enemies to the number of the citizens. “Their example,” he says, “has become an authority, and our ancestors have never ceased granting the rights of citizens to conquered enemies.” (Oration for Balbus, xxxi.)

Back

81

Roman colonies (coloniæ civium cum jure suffragii et honorum). – First period: 1-244 (under the kings).

Cænina (Sabine). Unknown.

Antemnæ (Sabine). Unknown.

Cameria (Sabine). Destroyed in 252. Unknown.

Medullia (Sabine). Sant’-Angelo. – See Gell., Topogr. of Rome, 100.

Crustumeria (Sabine). Unknown.

Fidenæ (Sabine). Ruins near Giubileo and Serpentina. Re-colonised in 326. Destroyed, according to an hypothesis of M. Madvig.

Collatia.

Ostia (the mouth of the Tiber). Ruins between Torre Bovacciano and Ostia.

Latin colonies (coloniæ Latinæ). – First period: 1-244 (under the kings).

We cannot mention with certainty any Latin colony founded at this epoch, from ancient authorities. The colonies of Signia and Circeii were both re-colonized in the following period, and we shall place them there.

Back

82

“Tarquin embellished also the great circus between the Aventine and Palatine hills; he was the first who caused the covered seats to be made round this circus.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, III. 68.)

Back

83

Titus Livius, I. 44. – “Immediately the centurions, whose centuries had taken flight, and the antesignani who had lost their standard, were condemned to death: some had their heads cut off; others were beaten to death. As to the rest of the troops, the consul caused them to be decimated; in every ten soldiers, he upon whom the lot fell was conducted to the place of execution, and suffered for the others. It is the usual punishment among the Romans for those who have quitted their ranks or abandoned their standards.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IX. 1.)

Back

84

“Romulus placed upon their hair a crown of laurels.” (Plutarch, Romulus, XX.)

Back

85

“The Senate and the people decreed to King Tarquin the honours of the triumph.” (Combat of the Romans and Etruscans, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, III. 60.) – “An ovation differs from a triumph, first, because he who receives the honours of it enters on foot at the head of the army, and not mounted in a car; secondly, that he has neither the crown of gold, nor the toga embroidered with gold and of different colours, but he carries only a white trabea bordered with purple, the ordinary costume of the generals and consuls. Besides having only a crown of laurel, he does not carry a sceptre. This is what the little triumph has less than the great; in all other respects there is no difference.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, V. 47.)

Back

86

Romulus kills Acron, routs the enemies, and returns to offer to Jupiter Feretrius the opima spolia taken from that prince.

“After Romulus, Cornelius Cossus was the first who consecrated to the same gods similar spoils, having slain with his own hand, in a combat where he commanded the cavalry, the general of the Fidenates.

“We must not separate the example of M. Marcellus from the two preceding. He had the courage and intrepidity to attack on the banks of the Pô, at the head of a handful of horsemen, the king of the Gauls, though protected by a numerous army; he struck off his head, and carried off his armour, of which he made an offering to Jupiter Feretrius. (Year of Rome 531.)

“The same kind of bravery and combat signalised T. Manilius Torquatus, Valerius Corvus, and Scipio Æmilianus. These warriors, challenged by the chieftains of the enemies, made them bite the dust; but, as they had fought under the auspices of a superior chief, they did not offer their spoils to Jupiter.” (Year of Rome 392, 404, 602.) (Valerius Maximus, III. 2, §§ 3, 4, 5, 6.)

Back

87

“Tarquin divided the seats (of the great circus) among the thirty curiæ, assigning to each the place which belonged to him.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, III. 68.) – “It was then (after the war against the Latins) that the site was chosen which is now called the great circus. They marked out in it the particular places for the senators and for the knights.” (Titus Livius, I. 35.)

Back

88

“The hundred senators were divided into ten decaries, and each chose one of its members to exercise this authority. The power was collective: one alone carried the insignia of it, and walked preceded by the lictors. The duration of this power was for five days, and each exercised it in turn … The plebs was not long before it began to murmur. Its servitude had only been aggravated; instead of one master, it had a hundred. It appeared disposed to suffer only one king, and to choose him itself.” (Titus Livius, I. 17.)

Back

89

“For the rest, this liberty consisted at first rather in the annual election of the consuls than in the weakening of the royal power. The first consuls assumed all its prerogatives and all its insignia; only it was feared that, if both possessed the fasciæ, this solemnity might inspire too much terror, and Brutus owed to the deference of his colleague the circumstance of possessing them first.” (Titus Livius, II. 1.)

Back

90

“The death of Melius was justified,” said Quinctius, “to appease the people, although he might be innocent of the crime of aspiring to the kingly power.” (Titus Livius, IV. 15.)

Back

91

“From these inflexible hearts came a sentence of death, which was odious to the judges themselves.” (Titus Livius, VI. 20.)

Back

92

Discourse on Titus Livius, I. 5.

Back

93

Proofs of the disagreement of the two consuls: “Cassius brought secretly as many Latins and Hernici as he possibly could to have their suffrages; there arrived in Rome such a great number, that in a short time the town was full of strangers. Virginius, who was informed of it, caused a herald to proclaim in all the public places that all those who had no domicile in Rome should withdraw immediately; but Cassius gave orders contrary to those of his colleague, forbidding any one who had the right of Roman freedom to quit the town until the law was confirmed and received.” (Year of Rome 268.) (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, VIII. 72.) – “Quinctius, more indulgent than his colleague, willed the concession to the people of all their just and reasonable demands; Appius, on the contrary, was willing to die rather than to yield.” (Year of Rome 283.) (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IX. 48.)

Back

94

“The two consuls were of the most opposite tempers, and were always in discord (dissimiles discordesque).” (Titus Livius, XXII. 41.) – “While they lost their time in quarrels rather than in deliberations.” (Titus Livius, XXII. 45.)

Back

95

Titus Livius, XXI. 52. – Dio Cassius, Fragments, CCLXXI. edit. Gros.

Back

96

Titus Livius, XXI. 52.

Back

97

“In the Roman army the two consuls enjoyed an equal power; but the deference of Agrippa in concentrating the authority in the hands of his colleague, established the unity so necessary for the success of great enterprises.” (Titus Livius, III. 70.) – “The two consuls commanded often both in the day of battle.” (Titus Livius, Battle of Mount Vesuvius, VIII. 9; Battle of Sentinum, X. 27.) – “A fatal innovation; from that time each had in view his personal interest, and not the general interest, preferring to see the Republic experience a check than his colleague covered with glory, and evils without number afflicted the fatherland.” (Dio Cassius, Fragments, LI. edit. Gros.)

Back

98

“They called tribunes of the people those who, from tribunes of the soldiers, which they were first, were charged with the defence of the people during its retreat at Crustumerium.” (Varro, De Lingua Latina, V. 81, edition of O. Müller.)

Back

99

“The discontented obtained from the patricians the confirmation of their magistrates; afterwards they demanded of the Senate the permission to elect annually two plebeians (ediles) to second the tribunes in all things in which they might have need of aid, to judge the causes which these might entrust into their hands, to have care of the sacred and public edifices, and to ensure the supplying of the market with provisions.” (Year of Rome 260.) (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, VI. 90.)

Back

100

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, VI. 89.

Back

101

The tribunes oppose the enrolment of troops. (Year of Rome 269.) (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, VIII. 81.) – “Licinius and Sextius re-elected tribunes of the people, allowed no curule magistrate to be elected; and, as the people continued to re-appoint the two tribunes, who always threw out the elections of the military tribunes, the town remained five years deprived of magistrates.” (Year of Rome 378.) (Titus Livius, VI. 35.) – “Each time the consuls convoked the people to confer the consulship on the candidates, the tribunes, in virtue of their powers, prevented the holding of the assemblies. So also, when these assembled the people to make the election, the consuls opposed it, pretending that the right of convoking the people and collecting the suffrages belonged to them alone.” (Year of Rome 271.) (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, VIII. 90.) – “Sometimes the tribunes prevented the patricians from assembling for the election of the interrex, sometimes they forbade the interrex himself making the senatus consultus for the consular comitia.” (Year of Rome 333.) (Titus Livius, IV. 43.)

Back

102

Titus Livius, III. 30.

Back

103

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, X. 31.

Back

104

“The most remarkable event of this year (the year of Rome 282), in which military successes were so nearly balanced, and in which discord broke out in the camp and in the town with so much fury, was the establishment of the comitia by tribes, an innovation which gave to the plebeians the honour of the victory, but little real advantage. In fact, the exclusion of the patricians deprived the comitia of all their pomp, without augmenting the power of the people or diminishing that of the Senate.” (Titus Livius, II. 60.)

Back

105

Assembly of the people both of the town and country; the suffrages were given in it, not by centuries, but by tribes: – “The day of the third market, from an early hour in the morning, the public place was occupied by so great a crowd of country people as had never been seen before. The tribunes assembled the people by tribes, and, dividing the Forum by ropes stretched across, formed as many distinct spaces as there were tribes. Then, for the first time, the Roman people gave its suffrages by tribes, in spite of the opposition of the patricians, who tried to prevent it, and demanded that they should assemble by centuries, according to the ancient custom.” (Year of Rome 263.) (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, VII. 59.) – “From that period (the year 283, consulate of Appius) to our days, the comitia by tribes have elected the tribunes and ediles, without auspices or observation of other auguries. Thus ended the troubles which agitated Rome.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IX. 49.) – “The Roman people, more irritated than ever, demanded that for each tribe a third urn should be added for the town of Rome, in order to put the suffrages in it.” (Year of Rome 308.) (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, XI. 52.)

Back

106

“Duas civitates ex una factas: suos cuique parti magistratus, suas leges esse.” (Titus Livius, II. 44.) – “In fact, we are, as you see yourselves, divided into two towns, one of which is governed by poverty and necessity, and the other by abundance of all things and by pride and insolence.” (Year of Rome 260). (Speech of Titus Larcius to the envoys of the Volsci, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, VI. 36,)

Back

107

The clients began to vote in the comitia by tribes after the law Valeria Horatia; we see, by the account of Titus Livius (V. 30, 32), that in the time of Camillus the clients and the patricians had already entered the comitia by tribes.

Back

108

Appian, Civil Wars, I. 1.

Back

109

Titus Livius, III. 9.

Back

110

Lectorius, the most aged of the tribunes of the people, spoke of laws which had not been long made. “By the first, which concerned the translation of judgments, the Senate granted to the people the power of judging any one of the patricians.” (Year of Rome 283.) (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IX. 46.)

Back

111

“The laws voted by the people in the comitia by tribes were to be obligatory on all Romans, and have the same force as those which were made in the comitia by centuries. The pain of death and confiscation was even pronounced against any one who should be convicted of having in anything abrogated or violated this regulation. This new ordinance cut short the old quarrels between the plebeians and the patricians, who refused to obey the laws made by the people, under the pretext that what was decided in the assemblies by tribes was not obligatory on all the town, but only on the plebeians; and that, on the contrary, what was decided in the comitia by centuries became law as well for themselves as for the other citizens.” (Year of Rome 305.) (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, XI. 45.) – “One point always contested between the two orders was to know if the patricians were subjected to the plebiscita. The first care of the consuls was to propose to the comitia assembled by centuries a law to the effect that the decrees of the people assembled by tribes should be laws of the State.” (Year of Rome 305.) (Titus Livius, III. 55.) – “The patricians pretended that they alone had the power of giving laws.” (Titus Livius, III. 31.)

Back

112

“The comitia by curiæ for everything which concerns military affairs; the comitia by centuries for the election of your consuls and of your military tribunes, &c.” (Titus Livius, V. 52.)

Back

113

Aulus Gellius, XV. 27. – Festus, under the words Scitum populi.

Back

114

Titus Livius, IV. 3.

Back

115

“The indignation of the people was extreme, on account of the refusal to take the auspices, as if it had been an object for the reprobation of the immortal gods.” – “The tribune demanded for what reason a plebeian could not be consul, and was told in reply that the plebeians had not the auspices, and that the decemvirs had interdicted marriage between the two orders only to hinder the auspices from being troubled by men of equivocal birth.” (Titus Livius, IV. 6.) – “Now in what hands are the auspices according to the custom of our ancestors? In the hands of the patricians, I think; for the auspices are never taken for the nomination of a plebeian magistrate.” – “Is it not then the same thing as to annihilate the auspices in this city, to take them, in electing plebeian consuls, from the patricians, who alone can observe them?” (Year of Rome 386.) (Titus Livius, VI. 41.)

To the consul, the prætor, and the censor was reserved the right of taking the great auspices; to the less elevated magistracies that of taking the lesser ones. The great auspices appear, in fact, to have been those of which the exercise was of most importance to the rights of the aristocracy. The ancients have not left us a precise definition of the two classes of auspices; but it appears to result from what Cicero says of them (De Legibus, II. 12), that by the great auspices were understood those for which the intervention of the augurs was indispensable; the little auspices, on the contrary, were those which were taken without them. (See Aulus Gellius, XIII. 15.)

As to the auspices taken in the comitia where the consular tribunes were elected, passages of Titus Livius (V. 14, 52; VI. 11) prove that they were the same as for the election of the consuls, and consequently that they were the great auspices; for we know from Cicero (De Divinatione, I. 17; II. 35 – compare Titus Livius, IV. 7) that it was the duty of the magistrate who held the comitia to bring there an augur, of whom he demanded what the presages announced. The privileges of the nobility were maintained by causing the comitia for the election of the consular tribunes to be held by an interrex chosen by the aristocracy.

Back

116

Titus Livius, VI. 5.

Back

117

Titus Livius, VII. 17.

Back

118

In 333, the number was increased to four. Two, overseers for the guard of the treasury and the disposition of the public money, were appointed by the consuls; the two others, charged with the administration of the military chest, were appointed by the tribes.

Back

119

“The master of the knights was so called because he exercised the supreme power over the knights and the accensi, as the dictator exercised it over the whole Roman people; whence the name of master of the people, which was also given to him.” (Varro, De Lingua Latina, V. 82, edit. Müller.)

Back

120

“The duumvirs charged with the sacred rites were replaced by the decemvirs, half plebeians, half patricians.” (Titus Livius, VI. 37.)

Back

121

Titus Livius, VII. 5.

Back

122

“Appius convokes an assembly, accuses Valerius and Horatius of the crime of perduellio, calculating entirely on the tribunian power with which he was invested.” (Year of Rome 305.) (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, XI. 39.)

Back

123

“In the interim, there was at Rome a conspiracy of several slaves, who formed together the design of seizing the forts and setting fire to the different quarters of the town.” (Year of Rome 253.) (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, V. 51.) – “From the summit of the Capitol, Herdonius called the slaves to liberty. He had taken up the cause of misfortune; he had just restored to their country those whom injustice had banished, and delivered the slaves from a heavy yoke; it is to the Roman people that he wishes to give the honour of this enterprise.” (Year of Rome 294.) (Titus Livius, III. 15.) – “The slaves who had entered into the conspiracy were, at different points, to set fire to the town, and, while the people were occupied in carrying assistance to the houses which were in flames, to seize by force of arms the citadel and the Capitol. Jupiter baffled these criminal designs. On the denunciation of two slaves, the guilty were arrested and punished.” (Year of Rome 336.) (Titus Livius, IV. 45.)

Back

124

“Finally, under the consulship of M. Minucius and A. Sempronius, wheat arrived in abundance from Sicily, and the Senate deliberated on the price at which it must be delivered to the citizens.” (Year of Rome 263.) (Titus Livius, II. 34.) – “As the want of cultivators gave rise to the fear of a famine, people were sent to search for wheat in Etruria, in the Pomptinum, at Cumæ, and even as far as Sicily.” (Year of Rome 321.) (Titus Livius, IV. 25.)

Back

125

“When Romulus had distributed all the people in tribes and curiæ, he also divided the lands into thirty equal portions, of which he gave one to each curia, reserving, nevertheless, what was necessary for the temples and the sacrifices, and a certain portion for the domain of the Republic.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, II. 7.)

Back

126

“Numa distributed to the poorest of the plebeians the lands which Romulus had conquered and a small portion of the lands of the public domain.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, II. 62.) – “ Similar measures are attributed to Tullius Hostilius and Ancus Martius.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, III. 1, 48.) – “As soon as he was mounted on the throne, Servius Tullius distributed the lands of the public domain to the thetes (mercenaries) of the Romans.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IV. 13.)

Back

127

Romulus, according to Dionysus of Halicarnassus, sent two colonies to Cænina and Antemnæ, having taken from those two towns the third of their lands. (II. 35.) – In the year 252, the Sabines lost ten thousand acres (jugera) of arable land. (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, V. 49.) – A treaty concluded with the Hernici, in 268, deprived them of two-thirds of their territory. (Titus Livius, II. 41.) – “In 413, the Privernates lost two-thirds of their territory; in 416, the Tiburtines and Prenestines lost a part of their territory.” (Titus Livius, VIII. I, 14.) – “In 563, P. Cornelius Scipio Nasica took from the Boians nearly half their territory.” (Titus Livius, XXXVI. 39.)

Back

128

Appian, Civil Wars, I. vii. – This citation, though belonging to a posterior date, applies nevertheless to the epoch of which we are speaking.

Back

129

“Servius published an edict to oblige all who had appropriated, under the title of usufructuaries or proprietors, the lands of the public domain, to restore them within a certain time, and, by the same edict, the citizens who possessed no heritage were ordered to bring him their names.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IV. 10.)

Back

130

“We need not be astonished if the poor prefer the lands of the domain to be distributed (to all the citizens) than to suffer that a small number of the most shameless should remain sole possessors. But if they see that they are taken from those who gather their revenues, and that the public is restored to the possession of its domain, they will cease to be jealous of us, and the desire to see them distributed to each citizen would diminish, when it shall be demonstrated to them that these lands will be of greater utility when possessed in common by the Republic.” (Year of Rome 268.) (Speech of Appius, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, VIII. 73.)

Back

131

Agannius Urbicus, De Controversiiss agrorum, in the Gromatici veteres, ed. Lachmann, vol. I, p. 82.

Back

132

Titus Livius, II. 48.

Back

133

“Lucius Æmilius said that it was just that the common goods should be shared among all the citizens, rather than leave the enjoyment of them to a small number of individuals; that in regard to those who had seized upon the public lands, they ought to be sufficiently satisfied that they had been left to enjoy them during so long a time without being disturbed in their possession, and that if afterwards they were deprived of them, it ill became them to be obstinate in retaining them. He added that, besides the public law acknowledged by general opinion, and according to which the public goods are common to all the citizens, just as the goods of individuals belong to those who have acquired them legitimately, the Senate was obliged, by a special reason, to distribute the lands to the people, since it had passed an ordinance for that purpose already seventeen years ago.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IX. 51.)

Back

134

Titus Livius, III. 31. – Dionysius of Halicarnassus, X. 33 et seq.

Back

135

“The plebeians complain loudly that their conquests have been taken from them; that it is disgraceful that, having conquered so many lands from the enemy, not the least portion of it remains to them; that the ager publicus is possessed by rich and influential men who take the revenue unjustly, without other title than their power and unexampled acts of violence. They demand finally that, sharing with the patricians all the dangers, they may also have their share in the advantages and profit derived from them.” (Year of Rome 298.) (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, X. 36.)

Back

136

“The moment would have been well chosen, after having taken vengeance on the seditious, to propose, in order to soothe people’s minds, the partition of the territory of the Bolani; they would thus have weakened the desire for an agrarian law which would expel the patricians from the public estates they had unjustly usurped. For it was an indignity which cut the people to the heart, this rage of the nobility to retain the public lands they occupied by force, and, above all, their refusal to distribute to the people even the vacant lands recently taken from the enemy, which, indeed, would soon become, like the rest, the prey of some of the nobles,” (Year of Rome 341.) (Titus Livius, IV. 51.)

Back

137

Titus Livius, V. 30.

Back

138

Titus Livius, VI. 21. – It appears that the Pontine Marshes were then very fertile, since Pliny relates, after Licinius Mucianus, that they included upwards of twenty-four flourishing towns. (Natural History, III. v. 56, edit. Sillig.)

Back

139

Titus Livius, VI. 35-42. – Appian, Civil Wars, I. 8.

Back

140

See the remarkable work of M. A. Mace, Sur les Lois Agraires, Paris, 1846.

Back

141

Roman Colonies. – Second period: 244-416

Lavici (Labicum) (336). Latium. (Via Lavicana.) La Colonna.

Vitellia (359). The Volscians. (Via Prænestina.) Uncertain. Civitella or Valmontone.

Satricum (370). The Volscians. Banks of the Astura. Casale di Conca, between Anzo and Velletri.

Latin Colonies. – Second period: 244-416.

Antium (287). Volscians. Torre d’Anzio or Porto d’Anzio.

Suessa Pometia (287). Near the Pontine Marshes. Disappeared at an early period.

Cora. Volscians (287). Cori.

Signia (259). Volscians. Segni.

Velitræ (260). Volscians. Velletri.

Norba (262). Volscians. Near the modern village of Norma.

Ardea (312). Rutuli. Ardea.

Circeii (361). Aurunces. Monte Circello: San Felice or Porto di Paolo.

Satricum (369). Volscians. Casale di Conca.

Sutrium (371). Etruria. (Via Cassia.) Sutri.

Setia (372) Volscians. Sezze.

Nepete (381). Etruria. Nepi.

Back

142

It is thus that we see, in 416, each poor citizen receiving two jugera, taken from the land of the Latins and their allies. In 479, after the departure of Pyrrhus, the Senate caused lands to be distributed to those who had fought against the King of Epirus. In 531, the Flaminian law, which Polybius accuses wrongly of having introduced corruption into Rome, distributed by head the Roman territory situated between Rimini and the Picenum; in 554, after the capture of Carthage, the Senate made a distribution of land to the soldiers of Scipio. For each year of service in Spain or Africa, each soldier received two jugera, and the distribution was made by decemvirs. (Titus Livius, XXXI. 49.)

Back

143

“Marcus Valerius demonstrated to them that prudence did not permit them to refuse a thing of small importance to citizens who, under the government of the kings, had distinguished themselves in so many battles for the defence of the Republic.” (Year of Rome 256.) (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, V. 65.) – “On one hand, the plebeians pretended not to be in a condition to pay their debts; they complained that, during so many years of war, their lands had produced nothing, that their cattle had perished, that their slaves had escaped or had been carried away in the different incursions of the enemies, and that all they possessed at Rome was expended for the cost of the war. On the other hand, the creditors said that the losses were common to everybody; that they had suffered no less than their debtors; that they could not consent to lose what they had lent in time of peace to some indigent citizens in addition to what the enemies had taken from them in time of war.” (Year of Rome 258.) (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, VI. 22.)

Back

144

Those who pleaded the causes of individuals were nearly all senators, and exacted for this service very heavy sums under the title of fees. (Titus Livius, XXXIV. 4.)

Back

145

“The days following, Servius Tullius caused a report to be drawn up of the insolvent debtors, of their creditors, and of the respective amount of their debts. When this was prepared, he caused counters to be established in the Forum, and, in public view, repaid the lenders whatever was due to them.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IV. 10.)

Back

146

“Servilius caused a herald to proclaim that all persons were forbidden to seize, sell, or retain in pledge the goods of Romans who served against the Volsci, or to take away their children, or any one of their family, for any contract whatever.” – “An old man complains that his creditor has reduced him to slavery: he declares loudly that he was born free, that he had served in all the campaigns as long as his age permitted, that he was in twenty-eight battles, where he had several times gained the prize of valour; but that, since the times had become bad, and the Republic was reduced to the last extremity, he had been constrained to borrow money to pay the taxes. After that, he added, having no longer wherewith to pay my debts, my merciless creditor has reduced me to slavery with my two children, and, because I expostulated slightly when he ordered me to do things which were too difficult, caused me to be disgracefully beaten with several blows.” (Year of Rome 259.) (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, VI. 29.) – “The creditors contributed to the insurrection of the populace, they cast aside all moderation, but threw their debtors into prison, and treated them like the slaves whom they would have bought for money.” (Year of Rome 254.) (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, V. 53.)

Back

147

“The poor, especially those who were not in condition to pay their debts, who formed the greatest number, refused to take arms, and would hold no communication with the patricians, until the Senate should pass a law for the abolition of debts.” (Year of Rome 256.) (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, V. 63.)

Back

148

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, V. 64.

Back

149

Appius Claudius Sabinus expressed an opinion quite contrary to that of Marcus Valerius: he said that “there could be no doubt that the rich, who were not less citizens than the poor, and who held the first rank in the Republic, occupied the public offices, and had served in all the wars, would take it very ill if they discharged their debtors from the obligation of paying what was due.” (Year of Rome 256.) (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, V. 66.)

Back

150

It results from the testimony of Polybius, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Livy, Florus, and Eutropius, that at the moment of the fall of Tarquinius Superbus, the domination of Rome extended over all Latium, over the greater part of the country of the Sabines, and even as far as Ocriculum (Otricoli) in Umbria; that Etruria, the country of the Hernici, and the territory of Cære (Cervetri), were united with the Romans by alliances which placed them, with regard to these, in a state of subjection.

The establishment of the consular government was, for the peoples subject to Rome, the signal of revolt. In 253, all the peoples of Latium were leagued against Rome; with the victory of Lake Regillus, in 258, that is, fourteen years after the overthrow of the Tarquins, the submission of Latium began, and it was finished by the treaty concluded by Spurius Cassius with the Latins in the year of Rome 268. The Sabines were only finally reduced by the consul Horatius in 305. Fidenæ, which had acknowledged the supremacy of Tarquin, was taken in the year 319, then taken again, after an insurrection, in 328. Anxur (Terracina) was only finally subjected after the defeat of the Volsci; and Veii and Falerium only fell under the power of the Romans in the year 358 and 359. Circci, where a Latin colony had been established in the times of the kings, only received a new one in the year 360. Cære was reunited to the Roman territory in the year 364, and it was only at the time of the Gallic invasion that Antium and Ecetra were finally annexed to the Roman territory. In 408, the capture of Satricum, at the entrance of the country of the Volscians, prevented that people from supporting an insurrection which had already begun among the Latins. In 411, the whole plain of Latium was occupied by Roman citizens or allies, but in the mountains there remained Volscian and Latin cities which were independent and secretly enemies. Nevertheless it may be said that, towards that period, the Republic had re-conquered the territory which it possessed under the kings, although Rome had again, in 416, to suppress a last insurrection of the Latins.

Back

151

Mommsen, Roman History, I., p. 241, 2nd edit.

Back

152

In fourteen years, from 399 to 412, the patricians allowed only six plebeians to arrive at the consulship.

Back

153

Titus Livius, X. 23.

Back

154

Titus Livius, X. 9.

Back

155

“Who does not see clearly that the vice of the dictator (Marcellus) in the eyes of the augurs was that he was a plebeian?” (Titus Livius, VIII. 23. – Cicero, De Divinatione, II. 35, 37; De Legibus, II. 13.)

Back

156

The consuls and prætors could only assemble the comitia, command the armies, or give final judgment in civil affairs, after having been invested with the imperium and with the right of taking the auspices (jus auspiciorum) by a curiate law.

Back

157

Second Oration on the Agrarian Law, 9.

Back

158

Titus Livius, IV. 3.

Back

159

If a citizen refused to give his name for the recruitment, his goods were confiscated; if he did not pay his creditors, he was sold for a slave. Women were forbidden the use of wine. (Polybius, VI. 2.) – The number of guests who could be admitted to feasts was limited. (Athenæus, VI. p. 274.) – The magistrates also, on entering on office, could not accept invitations to dinner, except from certain persons who were named. (Aulus Gellius, II. 24. – Macrobius, II. 13.) – “Marriage with a plebeian or a stranger was surrounded with restrictive measures; it was forbidden with a slave or with a freedman. Celibacy, at a certain age, was punished with a fine.” (Valerius Maximus, II. ix. 1.) – There were regulations also for mourning and funerals. (Cicero, De Legibus, II. 24.)

Back

160

Aulus Gellius, IV. 12.

Back

161

Plutarch, Cato the Censor, 23.

Back

162

Historians have always assigned as the northern frontier of Italy, under the Republic, the River Macra, in Etruria; but that the limit was farther south is proved by the fact that Cæsar went to Lucca to take his winter quarters; this town, therefore, must have been in his command and made part of Cisalpine Gaul. Under Augustus, the northern frontier of Italy extended to the Macra.

Back

163

Speech of Cæsar to the Senate, reported by Sallust. (Conspiracy of Catilina, li.)

Back

164

This paragraph, expressing with great clearness the policy of the Roman Senate, is extracted from the excellent Hist. Romaine of M. Duruy, t. I., c. xi.

Back

165

As, for example, to put the wife in complete obedience to her husband; to give the father absolute authority over his children, etc.

Back

166

In the origin, the municipia were the allied towns preserving their autonomy, but engaging to render to Rome certain services (munus); whence the name of municipia. (Aulus Gellius, XVI. 13.)

Back

167

To be able to enjoy the right of city, it was necessary to be domiciliated at Rome, to have left a son in his majority in the municipium, or to have exercised there a magistracy.

Back

168

Aul. Gellius, XVI. xiii. – Paulus Diaconus, on the word Municipium, p. 127.

Back

169

In this category were sometimes found municipia of the third degree, such as Cære. (See Festus, under the word Præfecturæ, p. 233.) – Several of these towns, such as Fundi, Formiæ, and Arpinum, obtained in the sequel the right of suffrage; they continued, however, by an ancient usage, to be called by the name of præfecturæ, which was also applied by abuse to the colonies.

Back

170

Socius et amicus (Titus Livius, XXXI. 11). – Compare Dionysius of Halicarnassus, VI. 95; X. 21.

Back

171

With Carthage, for example. (Polybius, III. 22. – Titus Livius, VII. 27; IX. 19, 43.)

Back

172

Thus with the Latins. “Ut eosdem quos populus Romanus amicos atque hostes habeant.” (Titus Livius, XXXVIII. 8.)

Back

173

Cicero, Oration for Balbus, xvi.

Back

174

The freedmen were, in fact, either Roman citizens, or Latins, or ranged in the number of the dediticii; slaves who had, while they were in servitude, undergone a grave chastisement, if they arrived at freedom, obtained only the assimilation to the dediticii. If, on the contrary, the slave had undergone no punishment, if he was more than thirty years of age, if, at the same time, he belonged to his master according to the law of the quirites, and if the formalities of manumission or affranchisement exacted by the Roman law had been observed, he was a Roman citizen. He was only Latin if one of these circumstances failed. (Institutes of Gaius, I. § 12, 13, 15, 16, 17.)

Back

175

“Valerius sent upon the lands conquered from the Volsci a colony of a certain number of citizens chosen from among the poor, both to serve as a garrison against the enemies, and to diminish at Rome the party of the seditious.” (Year of Rome 260.) (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, VI. 43.) – This great number of colonies, by clearing the population of Rome of a multitude of indigent citizens, had maintained tranquillity (452). (Titus Livius, X. 6.)

Back

176

Modern authors are not agreed on this point, which would require a long discussion; but we may consider the question as solved in the sense of our text by Madvig, Opuscula, I. pp. 244-254.

Back

177

“There the people (populus) named their magistrates; the duumviri performed the functions of consuls or prætors, whose title they sometimes took (Corpus Inscriptionum Latin., passim); the quinquennales corresponded to the censors. Finally, there were questors and ediles. The Senate, as at Rome, was composed of members, elected for life, to the number of a hundred; the number was filled up every five years (lectio senatus).” (Tabula Heracleensis, cap. x. et seq.)

Back

178

A certain number of colonies figure in the list given by Dionysius of Halicarnassus of the members of the confederacy (V. 61).

Back

179

Pliny, Natural History, III. iv. § 7.

Back

180

Because it named its magistrates, struck money (Mommsen, Münzwesen, p. 317), privileges refused to the Roman colonies, and preserved its own peculiar laws according to the principle: “Nulla populi Romani lege adstricti, nisi in quam populus eorum fundus factus est.” (Aulus Gellius, XVI. xiii. 6. – Compare Cicero, Oration for Balbus, viii. 21.)

Back

181

Cicero, Oration on the Agrarian Law, ii. 27.

Back

182

Titus Livius, XXVII. 9.

Back

183

Florus, I. 16.

Back

184

Titus Livius, VIII. 13, 14.

Back

185

Titus Livius, VIII. 14. These towns had the right of city without suffrage; of this number were Capua (in consideration of its knights, who had refused to take part in the revolt), Cumæ, Fundi, and Formiæ.

Back

186

Velleius Paterculus, I. 15.

Back

187

Titus Livius, VIII. 14.

Back

188

Titus Livius, VIII. 14, et seq.– Valerius Maximus, VI. ii. 1.

Back

189

Florus, I. 16.

Back

190

Titus Livius, VIII. 26; XXI. 49; XXII. 11.

Back

191

“Eam solam gentem restare.” (Titus Livius, VIII. 27.)

Back

192

Cicero, de Officiis, iii. 30.

Back

193

Titus Livius, IX. 24, 28.

Back

194

Diodorus Siculus, XX. 36. – Titus Livius, IX. 29.

Back

195

Diodorus Siculus, XIX. 101.

Back

196

Titus Livius, IX. 31.

Back

197

Diodorus Siculus, XX. 35.

Back

198

Now Lago di Vadimone or Bagnaccio, situated on the right bank and three miles from the Tiber, between that river and the Lake Ciminius, about the latitude of Narni.

Back

199

Titus Livius, IX. 43. – Cicero, Oration for Balbus, 13. – Festus, under the word Præfecturæ, p. 233.

Back

200

Titus Livius, IX. 45. – Diodorus Siculus, XX. 101.

Back

201

Titus Livius, IX. 45; X. 3, 10.

Back

202

Appian, Samnite Wars, § vii., p. 56, edit. Schweighæuser.

Back

203

Diodorus Siculus, XIX. 10.

Back

204

Titus Livius, X. 11, et seq.

Back

205

Titus Livius, X. 22, et seq.– Polybius, II. 19. – Florus, I. 17.

Back

206

Volsiniæ, Perusia, and Arretium. (Titus Livius, X. 37.)

Back

207

Orosius, III. 22. – Zonaras, VII. 2. – Eutropius, II. 9.

Back

208

Velleius Paterculus, I. 14. – Festus, under the word Præfecturæ, p. 233.

Back

209

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Excerpta, p. 2335, edit. Schweighæuser.

Back

210

Polybius, II. 19, 24.

Back

211

Titus Livius, Epitome, XII., XIII., XIV. – Plutarch, Pyrrhus, et seq.– Florus, I. 18. – Eutropius, II. 11, et seq.– Zonaras, VIII. 2.

Back

212

Valerius Maximus, III. vii. 10.

Back

213

Appian (Samnite Wars, X. iii., p. 65) says that Pyrrhus advanced as far as Anagnia.

Back

214

Cicero, Oration for Balbus, xxii.

Back

215

Titus Livius, Epitome, XIV. – Orosius, IV. 3.

Back

216

Florus, I. 20.

Back

217

Titus Livius, Epitome, XV. —Fasti Capitolini, an. 487.

Back

218

Roman Colonies. – Third period: 416-488.

Antium (416). A maritime colony (Volsci). Torre d’Anzo or Porto d’Anzo.

Terracina (425). A maritime colony (Aurunci). (Via Appia.) Terracina.

Minturnæ (459). A maritime colony (Aurunci). (Via Appia.) Ruins near Trajetta.

Sinuessa (459). A maritime colony (Campania). (Via Appia.) Near Rocca di Mondragone.

Sena Gallica (465). A maritime colony (Umbria, in agro Gallico). (Via Valeria.) Sinigaglia.

Castrum Novum (465). A maritime colony (Picenum). (Via Valeria.) Giulia Nuova.

Latin Colonies.

Cales (420). Campania. (Via Appia.) Calvi.

Fregellæ (426). Volsci. In the valley of the Liris. Ceprano(?). Destroyed in 629.

Luceria (440). Apulia. Lucera.

Suessa Aurunca (441). Aurunci. (Via Appia.) Sessa.

Pontiæ (441). Island opposite Circeii. Ponza.

Saticula (441). On the boundary between Samnium and Campania. Prestia, near Santa Agata de’ Goti. Disappeared early.

Interamna (Lirinas) (442). Volsci. Terame. Not inhabited.

Sora (451). On the boundary between the Volsci and the Samnites. Sora. Already colonised in a previous period.

Alba Fucensis (451). Marsi. (Via Valeria.) Alba, a village near Avezzano.

Narnia (455). Umbria. (Via Flaminia.) Narni. Strengthened in 555.

Carseoli (456). Æqui. (Via Valeria.) Cerita, Osteria del Cavaliere, near Carsoli.

Venusia (463). Frontier between Lucania and Apulia. (Via Appia.) Venosa. Re-fortified in 554.

Adria (or Hatria) (465). Picenum. (Via Valeria and Salaria). Adri.

Cosa (481). Etruria or Campania. Ansedonia(?), near Orbitello. Re-fortified in 557.

Pæstum (481). Lucania, Pesto. Ruins.

Ariminum (486). Umbria, in agro Gallico. (Via Flaminia.) Rimini.

Beneventum (486). Samnium. (Via Appia.) Benevento.

Back

219

Campanians: Stellatina. Etruscans: Tromentina, Sabatina, Arniensis, in 367 (Titus Livius, VI. 5). Latins: Mœcia, and Scaptia, in 422 (Titus Livius, VIII. 17). Volsci: Pomptina, and Publilia, in 396 (Titus Livius, VII. 15). Ausones: Ufentina and Falerna, in 436 (Titus Livius, IX. 20). Æqui: Aniensis and Terentina, in 455 (Titus Livius, X. 9). Sabines: Velina and Quirina, in 513 (Titus Livius, Epitome, XIX.).

Back

220

At the beginning of each consular year, the magistrates or deputies of the towns were obliged to repair to Rome, and the consuls there fixed the contingent which each of them was to furnish according to the list of the census. These lists were drawn up by the local magistrates, who sent them to the Senate, and were renewed every five years, except in the Latin colonies, where they seem to have taken for a constant basis the number of primitive colonists.

Back

221

The country of the Samnites, among others, was completely cut up by these domains.

Back

222

Titus Livius places in the mouth of the consul Decius, in 452, these remarkable words: “Jam ne nobilitatis quidem suæ plebeios pœnitere” (Titus Livius, X. 7); and later still, towards 538, a tribune expresses himself thus: “Nam plebeios nobiles jam eisdem initiatos esse sacris, et contemnere plebem, ex quo contemni desierint a patribus, cœpisse.” (Titus Livius, XXII. 34.)

Back

223

Titus Livius, XIV. 48.

Back

224

We have the proof of this in the condemnation of those who transgressed the law of Stolo. (Titus Livius, X. 13.)

Back

225

Valerius Maximus, IV. iii. 5. – Plutarch, Cato, iii.

Back

226

Valerius Maximus, IV. iii. 6.

Back

227

Valerius Maximus, IV. iii. 9.

Back

228

Titus Livius, IX. 46.

Back

229

“The goods of the debtor, not his body, should be responsible for the debt. Thus all the captured citizens were free, and it was forbidden for ever to put in bonds a debtor.” (Titus Livius, VIII. 28.)

Back

230

Ignorance of the calendar, and of the method of fixing the festivals, left to the pontiffs alone the knowledge of the days when it was permitted to plead.

Back

231

“The lawyers, for fear that their services might become useless in judicial proceedings, invented certain formulæ, in order to make themselves necessary.” (Cicero, Pro Murena, xi.)

Back

232

Titus Livius, Epitome, XI. – Pliny, XVI. x. 37.

Back

233

Cicero, Brutus, C. xiv. – Zonaras, Annales, VIII. 2.

Back

234

“You see here all the principal senators who set you the example. They will partake with you the fatigues and perils of war, although the laws and their age exempt them from carrying arms.” (Speech of the Dictator Postumius to his troops; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, VI. 9.)

Back

235

Titus Livius, X., XII. 49.

Back

236

Valerius Maximus, II. viii. 4, 7.

Back

237

Plutarch, Flamininus, xxviii.

Back

238

Aur. Victor, Ill. Men, xxxvi. and xxvii.

Back

239

Titus Livius, IX. 10

Back

240

“A sedition was already rising between the patricians and the people, and the terror of so sudden a war (with the Tiburtini) stifled it.” (Titus Livius, VII. 12.) – “Appius Sabinus, to prevent the evils which are an inevitable consequence of idleness, joined with want, determined to occupy the people in external wars, in order that, gaining their living for themselves, by finding on the lands of the enemy abundant provisions which were not to be had in Rome, they might render at the same time some service to the State, instead of troubling at an unseasonable moment the senators in the administration of affairs. He said that a town which, like Rome, disputed empire with all others, and was hated by them, could not want a decent pretext for making war; that, if they would judge the future by the past, they would see clearly that all the seditions which had hitherto torn the Republic had never arrived except in time of peace, when people no longer feared anything from without.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IX. 43.)

Back

241

Claudius made war thus in Umbria, and took the town of Camerinum, the inhabitants of which he sold for slaves. (See Valerius Maximus, VI. v. § 1. – Titus Livius, Epitome, XV.) – Camillus, after the capture of Veii, caused the free men to be sold by auction. (Titus Livius, V. 22.) – In 365, the prisoners, the greater part Etruscans, were sold in the same manner. (Titus Livius, VI. 4.) – The auxiliaries of the Samnites, after the battle of Allifæ (447), were sold as slaves to the number of 7,000. (Titus Livius, IX. 42.)

Back

242

“The military port alone contained two hundred and twenty vessels.” (Appian, Punic Wars, VIII. 96, p. 437, ed. Schweighæuser.)

Back

243

Appian, Punic Wars, VIII. 95, p. 436.

Back

244

Strabo, XVII. iii. § 15.

Back

245

Appian, Punic Wars, VIII. 130, p. 490.

Back

246

5,820,000 francs [£232,800]. (Appian, Punic Wars, CXXVII. 486.) Following the labours of MM. Letronne, Böckh, Mommsen, &c., we have admitted for the sums indicated in the course of the present work the following reckonings: —

The as of copper = 1/10 deniers = 5 centimes.

The sestertius = 0.975 grammes = 19 centimes.

The denarius = 3.898 grammes = 75 centimes.

The great sestertius = 100,000 sestertii = 19,000 francs [£760].

The Attic or Euboic talent, of 26 kilogrammes, 196 grammes = 5,821 francs [£232 16s.].

The mina, of 436 grammes = 97 francs.

The drachma, of 4.37 grammes = 97 centimes.

The obolus, of 0.73 grammes = 16 centimes.

The Æginetic talent was equivalent to 8,500 Attic drachmas (37 kilogrammes, 2 gr.) = 8,270 francs [£330 16s.]. The Babylonic silver talent is of 33 kilogrammes, 42 = 7,426 francs [£297]. (See, for details, Mommsen, Römisches Münzwesen, pp. 24-26, 55. Hultsch, Griechische und Römische Metrologie, pp. 135-137.)

Back

247

Nearly 700,000 francs [£28,000]. (Athenæus, XII. lviii. 509, ed. Schweighæuser.)

Back

248

Strabo, XVII. iii. § 15.

Back

249

Scylax of Caryanda, Periplus, p. 51 et seq., ed. Hudson.

Back

250

See the work of Heeren, Ideen über die Politik, den Verkehr, und den Handel der vornehmsten Völker der alten Welt, Part I., Vol. II., secs. v. and vi., p. 163 et seq., 188 et seq. 3rd edit.

Back

251

Athenæus informs us that Polemon had composed an entire treatise on the mantles of the divinities of Carthage. (XII. lviii. 541.)

Back

252

Herodotus, VII. 145. – Polybius, I. 67. – Titus Livius, XXVIII. 41.

Back

253

Reckoning, after Titus Livius, her troops at the time of the second Punic War, we find a force of 291,000 foot and 9,500 horse. (Titus Livius, Books XXI. to XXIX.)

Back

254

Carthage, under certain circumstances, could make daily a hundred and forty shields, three hundred swords, five hundred lances, and a thousand darts for catapults. (Strabo, XVII. iii. § 15.)

Back

255

Strabo, XVII. iii. § 15.

Back

256

In 513, 3,200 Euboic talents (18,627,200 francs [£745,088]); in 516, 1,200 talents (6,985,200 francs [£279,408]); in 552, 10,000 talents (58,210,000 francs [£2,328,400]). Scipio, the first Africanus, brought, besides this, 123,000 pounds weight of gold from this town. (Polybius, I. 62, 63, 88; XV. 18. – Titus Livius, XXX. 37, 45.)

Back

257

Aristotle, Politics, VII. iii. § 5. – Polybius, I. 72.

Back

258

Diodorus Siculus, XX. 17.

Back

259

Pliny, Natural History, V. iii. 24.

Back

260

Scylax of Caryanda, Periplus, p. 49. edit. Hudson.

Back

261

Polybius, XII. 3.

Back

262

Titus Livius, XXXIV. 62.

Back

263

58,200 francs (£2,328). (Titus Livius, XXII. 31.)

Back

264

Sallust, Jugurtha, xix.

Back

265

Pliny, citing this fact, throws doubt upon it. (Natural History, V. i. 8.) – See the Periplus of Hanno, in the collection of the minor Greek geographers.

Back

266

Strabo, III. v. § 3.

Back

267

Strabo, III. ii. § 1.

Back

268

Pliny, Natural History, III. iii. 30. – Strabo, III. ii. § 8.

Back

269

Strabo, III. ii. § 3. – Pliny, III. i. 3; XXXIII. vii. 40.

Back

270

Above 25,000 francs [£1,000]. (Strabo, III. ii. § 10.)

Back

271

767,695 pounds of silver and 10,918 pounds of gold, without reckoning what was furnished by certain partial impositions, sometimes very heavy, such as those of Marcolica, one million of sestertii (230,000 francs [£9,200]), and of Certima, 2,400,000 sestertii (550,000 francs [£22,000]). (See Books XXVIII. to XLVI. of Titus Livius.) Such were the resources of Spain, even in the smallest localities, that in 602, C. Marcellus imposed on a little town of the Celtiberians (Ocilis) a contribution of thirty talents of silver (about 174,600 francs [£6,984]); and this contribution was regarded by the neighbouring cities as most moderate. (Appian, Wars of Spain, VI. xlviii. 158, ed. Schweighæuser.) Posidonius, cited by Strabo (III. iv., p. 135), relates that M. Marcellus extorted from the Celtiberians a tribute of six hundred talents (about 3,492,600 francs [£139,704]).

Back

272

A fabulous people, spoken of by Homer. (Athenæus, I. xxviii. 60, edit. Schweighæuser.)

Back

273

Diodorus Siculus, V. 34, 35.

Back

274

Pliny, Natural History, XIX. i. 10.

Back

275

In the time of Hannibal, this town was one of the richest in the peninsula. (Appian, Wars of Spain, xii. 113.)

Back

276

Strabo, III. iv. § 2.

Back

277

Polybius, XXXIV., Fragm., 8.

Back

278

The medimnus of barley (52 litres) sold for one drachma (97 centimes); the medimnus of wheat, 9 oboli (about 1 franc 45 centimes). (The medium value of 52 litres in France is 10 francs.) A metretes of wine (39 litres) was worth one drachma (97 centimes); a hare, one obolus (16 centimes); a goat, one obolus (16 centimes); a lamb, from 3 to 4 oboli (50 to 60 centimes); a pig of a hundred pounds weight, 5 drachmas (4 francs 85 centimes); a sheep, 2 drachmas (1 franc 95 centimes); an ox for drawing, 10 drachmas (9 francs 70 centimes); a calf, 5 drachmas (4 francs 85 centimes); a talent (26 kilogrammes) of figs, 3 oboli (45 centimes).

Back

279

Strabo, III. ii. § 1.

Back

280

Appian, Wars of Spain, i. 102. – Pompey, in the trophies which he raised to himself on the coast of Catalonia, affirmed that he had received the submission of eight hundred and seventy-seven oppida. (Pliny, Natural History, III. iii. 18.) – Pliny reckoned two hundred and ninety-three in Hispania Citerior, and a hundred and seventy-nine in Bætica. (Natural History, III. iii. 18.) – We may, moreover, form an idea of the number of inhabitants by the amount of troops raised to resist the Scipios. In adding together the numbers furnished by the historians, we arrive at the fearful total of 317,700 men killed or made prisoners. (Titus Livius, XXX. et. seq.) – In 548, we see two nations of Spain, the Ilergetes and the Ausetani, joined with some other petty tribes, put on foot an army of 30,000 infantry and 4,000 cavalry. (Titus Livius, XXIX. 1.) – We remark fifteen to twenty others whose forces are equal or superior. After the battle of Zama, Spain furnished Hasdrubal with 50,000 footmen and 4,500 horsemen. (Titus Livius, XXVIII. 12, 13.) – Cato has no sooner appeared with his fleet before Emporiæ, than an army of 40,000 Spaniards, who could only have been collected in the surrounding country, is ready prepared to resist him. (Appian, Wars of Spain, 40, p. 147.) – In Lusitania itself, a country of which the population was much less, we see Servius Galba and Lucullus killing 12,500 men. (Appian, Wars of Spain, 58, 59, p. 170 et. seq.) – Although laid waste and depopulated by these two generals, the country, at the end of a few years, furnished again to Viriathus considerable forces.

Back

281

Titus Livius, XXII. 20.

Back

282

Strabo, IV. i. § 11; ii. § 14; iii. § 3.

Back

283

See what M. Amedée Thierry says, Hist. des Gaul., II. 134 et seq. 3d edit.

Back

284

Pliny, XXI. 31.

Back

285

Diodorus Siculus, V. 26. – Athenæus, IV. xxxvi. 94.

Back

286

Demosthenes, Thirty-second Oration against Zenothemis, 980, edit. Bekker.

Back

287

Strabo, IV. vi. § 2, 3.

Back

288

Diodorus Siculus, V. xxxix.

Back

289

See Titus Livius, XXXII. to XLII.

Back

290

See Strabo, V. i. § 10, 11.

Back

291

Strabo, V. i. § 12.

Back

292

Gold was originally very abundant in Gaul; but the mines whence it was extracted, and the rivers which carried it, must have been soon exhausted, for the quality of the Gaulish gold coins becomes more and more abased as the date of their fabrication approaches that of the Roman conquest.

Back

293

Strabo, V. i. § 7. – Titus Livius, X. 2.

Back

294

Pliny, Natural History, III. xvi. 119. – Martial, Epigr., IV. xxv. —Antonine Itinerary, 126.

Back

295

Pliny, Natural History, XXXVII. iii. § 11.

Back

296

Small vessels, quick sailers, and rapid in their movements, excellent for piracy; also called liburnæ, from the name of the people who employed them.

Back

297

Polybius, II. 5.

Back

298

Titus Livius, XLI. 2, 4, 11.

Back

299

Polybius, II. 8.

Back

300

Titus Livius, XXXIX. 5.

Back

301

Pliny, XXXV. 60.

Back

302

Polybius, XXII. 13.

Back

303

Polybius, XXX. xv. § 5. – Titus Livius, XLV. 34.

Back

304

Plutarch, Flamininus, 2.

Back

305

Polybius, V. 9.

Back

306

Aristides, Panathen., p. 149.

Back

307

Pausanias, Attica, xxviii.

Back

308

Plutarch, Sylla, 20.

Back

309

Pausanias, Laconia, xi. We must further mention the famous temple of bronze of Minerva, the two gymnasia, and the Platanistum, a spacious place where the competitions of the youths took place, (Pausanias, Laconia, xiv.)

Back

310

Stephanus of Byzantium, under the word Λακεδαἱμων, p. 413.

Back

311

Pausanias, Laconia, xxi.

Back

312

Titus Livius, XXXIV. 29.

Back

313

Pausanias, Arcadia, xlv.

Back

314

Pausanias, Arcadia, xli. Thirty-six columns out of thirty-eight are still standing.

Back

315

Pliny, Natural History, XIX. i. 4.

Back

316

Pausanias, Elis, II. 23 and 24.

Back

317

Pausanias, Elis, I. ii.

Back

318

Strabo, VIII. § 10, 19.

Back

319

Pausanias, Corinth, xxviii. 1.

Back

320

Pausanias, Corinth, xxvii.

Back

321

“Goods were not obliged to make the circuit by Corinth; a direct road crossed the isthmus in the narrowest part, and they had even established there a system of rollers on which vessels of small tonnage were transported from one sea to the other.” (Strabo, VIII. ii. § 3. – Polybius, IV. 19.)

Back

322

Pausanias, Attica, ii.

Back

323

Cicero, De Republica, II. 4. – Strabo, VIII. vi. § 20.

Back

324

Strabo, VIII. vi. § 23. – Pliny, Natural History, XXXV. x. § 36.

Back

325

Arrian, Expedition of Alexander, I. xvi. 4. – Velleius Paterculus, I. 40. – Plutarch, Alexander, 16.

Back

326

Athenæus, VI. 272.

Back

327

Titus Livius, XXXII. 16.

Back

328

Titus Livius, XLV. 18, 29.

Back

329

Titus Livius, XLII. 12.

Back

330

“These were, in money, 100 talents (582,000 francs [£23,280]), and in wheat, 100,000 artabæ (52,500 hectolitres); and also considerable quantities of ship-building timber, tar, lead, and iron.” (Polybius, V. 89.)

Back

331

About 1,164,000 francs [£46,560]. Perseus had promised him twice as much. (Titus Livius, XLII. 67.)

Back

332

Titus Livius, XLIV. 42.

Back

333

Titus Livius, XLIV. 41.

Back

334

Titus Livius, XLV. 82.

Back

335

Titus Livius, XLV. 33.

Back

336

It lasted three days: the first was hardly sufficient to pass in review the 250 chariots laden with statues and paintings; the second day, it was the turn of the arms, placed on cars, which were followed by 3,000 warriors carrying 750 urns full of money; each, borne by four men, contained three talents (the whole amounting to more than 13 millions of francs [£520,000]). After them came those who carried vessels of silver, chased and wrought. On the third day appeared in the triumphal procession those who carried the gold coins, with 77 urns, each of which contained three talents (the total about 17 millions [£680,000]); next came a consecrated cup, of the weight of ten talents, and enriched with precious stones, made by order of the Roman general. All this preceded the prisoners, Perseus and his household; and, lastly, came the car of the triumphant general. (Plutarch, Paulus Æmilius, 32, 33.)

Back

337

Titus Livius, XLV. 40.

Back

338

Polybius, IV. 38, 44, 45.

Back

339

Aristotle, Politics, VI. 4, § 1. – Ælian, Various Histories, III. 14.

Back

340

Strabo, VII. vi. § 2; XII. iii. § 11.

Back

341

Cicero, Oration for the Law Manilia, vi.

Back

342

Plutarch, Sylla, xxv.

Back

343

Especially the fish called pelamydes, objects of research throughout Greece. (Strabo, VII. vi. § 2; XII. iii. § 11, § 19.)

Back

344

Strabo, XII. iii. § 19.

Back

345

Strabo, XII. iii. § 13. Gadilonitis extended to the south-west of Amisus (Samsoun).

Back

346

Polybius, V. 44, 55. – Ezekiel xxvii. 13, 14.

Back

347

Xenophon, Retreat of the Ten Thousand, V. v. 34. – Homer, Iliad, II. 857.

Back

348

Strabo, XII. iii. § 19.

Back

349

There passed in the procession a statue of gold of the King of Pontus, six feet high, with his shield set with precious stones, twenty stands covered with vases of silver, thirty-two others full of vases of gold, with arms of the same metal, and with gold coinage; these stands were carried by men followed by eight mules loaded with golden beds, and after whom came fifty-six others carrying ingots of silver, and a hundred and seven carrying all the silver money, amounting to 2,700,000 drachmas (2,619,000 francs [£104,760]). (Plutarch, Lucullus, xxxvii.)

Back

350

Plutarch, Lucullus, xxiii.

Back

351

Strabo, XII. iii. § 13, 14.

Back

352

Appian, War against Mithridates, lxxviii.

Back

353

Plutarch, Lucullus, xiv.

Back

354

See what is reported by Plutarch (Lucullus, xxix.) of the riches and objects of art of every species with which Tigranocerta was crammed.

Back

355

Appian, Wars of Mithridates, xiii. p. 658; xv. p. 662; xvii. p. 664.

Back

356

Appian, Wars of Mithridates, xvii. 664. Lesser Armenia furnished 1,000 horsemen. Mithridates had a hundred and thirty chariots armed with scythes.

Back

357

Strabo, XII. iv. § 2. – Stephanus Byzantinus, under the word Νικομἡδειον. – Pliny, Natural History, V. xxxii. 149.

Back

358

Strabo, XII. iii. § 6.

Back

359

Appian, Wars of Mithridates, xvii.

Back

360

Strabo, XII. v. § 7.

Back

361

Strabo (XII. v. § 3) tells us that Pessinus was the greatest mart of the province.

Back

362

Titus Livius, XXXVIII. 23.

Back

363

Titus Livius, XXXVIII. 26.

Back

364

Diodorus Siculus, XVIII. 16.

Back

365

Strabo, XII. ii. § 10.

Back

366

About 3,500,000 francs [£140,000]. (Titus Livius, XXXVIII. 37.) See Appian, Wars of Syria, xlii. – “Demetrius obtained soon afterwards a thousand talents (5,821,000 francs [£232,840]) from Olophernes for having established him on the throne of Cappadocia.” (Appian, Wars of Syria, xlvii.)

Back

367

Strabo, XII. ii. 7, 8.

Back

368

Falkener, Ephesus: London, 1862.

Back

369

Natural History, V. xxx. 126.

Back

370

It was thence that the fleets of the kings of Pergamus put to sea. (Titus Livius, XXXVIII. 40; XLIV. 28.)

Back

371

The name of Pergamus is preserved in our modern languages in the word “parchment” (pergamena), which was used to designate the skin which was prepared in that town to serve as paper, after the Ptolemies had prohibited the exportation of Egyptian papyrus.

Back

372

Attalus I., King of Pergamus, gave to the Sicyonians 11,000 medimni of wheat. (Titus Livius, XXXII. 40.) – Eumenius II. lent 80,000 to the Rhodians. (Polybius, XXXI. xvii. 2.)

Back

373

Strabo, XII. viii. § 11.

Back

374

Athenæus, XV. xxxviii. 513, ed. Schweighæuser.

Back

375

The Sea of Marmora took its name from these quarries of marble.

Back

376

Κυξικηνοἱ στατἡρες, whence the word sequins.

Back

377

Strabo, XIII. i. § 23.

Back

378

Strabo, XV. iii. § 22.

Back

379

Titus Livius, XXXII. 16; XXXVI. 43.

Back

380

Titus Livius, XXXVII. 8.

Back

381

The petty king Moagetes, who reigned at Cibyra, in Phrygia, gave a hundred talents and 10,000 medimni of corn (Polybius, XXII. 17. – Titus Livius, XXXVIII. 14 and 15); Termessus, fifty talents; Aspendus, Sagalassus, and all the cities of Pamphylia, paid the same (Polybius, XXII. 18 and 19); and the towns of this part of Asia contributed, at the first summons of the Roman general, for about 600 talents (3,500,000 francs [£140,000]); they also delivered to him about 60,000 medimni of corn.

Back

382

Titus Livius, XXXIX. 6.

Back

383

Manlius, although he had been despoiled on his way home of a part of his immense booty by the mountaineers of Thrace, displayed, at his triumph, crowns of gold to the weight of 212 pounds, 220,000 pounds of silver, 2,103 pounds of gold, more than 127,000 Attic tetradrachms, 250,000 cistophori, and 16,320 gold coins of Philip. (Titus Livius, XXXIX. 7.)

Back

384

Appian, Wars of Mithridates, lxiii.

Back

385

Arrian, Campaigns of Alexander, I. xx. § 3. – Diodorus, XVII. 23.

Back

386

Strabo, XIV. ii. 565.

Back

387

Strabo, XIV. i. § 6.

Back

388

Pliny, Natural History, V. 31.

Back

389

Strabo, XIV. iii. § 6.

Back

390

Titus Livius, XXXVIII. 39.

Back

391

Scylax, Periplus, 39, ed. Hudson. – Dio Cassius, XLVII. 34.

Back

392

Herodotus, I. 176.

Back

393

Pliny, Natural History, V. 28.

Back

394

Strabo, XIV. v. § 2.

Back

395

Strabo, XIV. v. § 2.

Back

396

Tarsus had still naval arsenals in the time of Strabo (XIV. v. § 12 et seq.).

Back

397

Arrian, Anabasis, II. 5.

Back

398

Polybius, XXII. 7.

Back

399

Seleucus founded sixteen towns of the name of Antiochia, five of the name of Laodicea, nine of the name of Seleucia, three of the name of Apamea, one of the name of Stratonicea, and a great number of others which equally received Greek names. (Appian, Wars of Syria, lvii. 622.) – Pliny (Natural History, VI. xxvi. 117) informs us that it was the Seleucides who collected into towns the inhabitants of Babylonia, who before only inhabited villages (vici), and had no other cities than Nineveh and Babylon.

Back

400

Pliny (Natural History, VI. 26, 119) mentions one of these towns which was 70 stadia in circuit, and in his time was reduced to a mere fortress.

Back

401

Strabo, XVI. ii. § 5. – Pausanias, VI. ii. § 7.

Back

402

John Malalas, Chronicle, VIII. 200 and 202, ed. Dindorf.

Back

403

Strabo, XVI. ii. § 4.

Back

404

Strabo, XVI. ii. § 6.

Back

405

Strabo, XVI. ii. § 10.

Back

406

It was raised on a terrace a thousand feet long by three hundred feet broad, and was built with stones 70 feet long.

Back

407

The empire of Seleucus comprised seventy-two satrapies. (Appian, Wars of Syria, lxii. 630.)

Back

408

Polybius, X. 27. Ecbatana paid to Antiochus III. a tribute of 4,000 talents (Attic talents = 23,284,000 francs [£931,360]), the produce of the casting of silver tiles which roofed one of its temples. Alexander the Great had already carried away those of the roof of the palace of the kings.

Back

409

The country of Gerra, among the Arabians, paid 500 talents to Antiochus (Attic talents = 2,910,500 francs [£116,420]). (Polybius, XIII. 9.) – There was formerly a great quantity of gold in Arabia. (Job xxviii. 1, 2. – Diodorus Siculus, II. 50.)

Back

410

Strabo, XVI. iii. § 3.

Back

411

Strabo, XI. ii. 426 et seq.

Back

412

Pliny, Natural History, VI. 11.

Back

413

Polybius, V. 54. If, as is probable, Babylonian talents are intended, this would make about 7,426,000 francs [£297,040], Seleucia, on the Tigris, was very populous. Pliny (Natural History, VI. 26) estimates the number of its inhabitants at 600,000. Strabo (XVI. ii. § 5) tells us that Seleucia was even greater than Antioch. This town, which had succeeded Babylon, appears to have inherited a part of its population.

Back

414

In 565, Antiochus III. gives 15,000 talents (Euboic talents = 87,315,000 francs [£3,492,600]). (Polybius, XXI. 14. – Titus Livius, XXXVIII. 37.) In the treaty of the following year, the Romans stipulated for a tribute of 12,000 Attic talents of the purest gold, payable in twelve years, each talent of 80 pounds Roman (69,852,000 francs [£2,794,080]). (Polybius, XXII. 26, § 19.) In addition to this, Eumenes was to receive 359 talents (2,089,739 francs [£83,589]), payable in five years (Polybius, XXII. 26, § 20). – Titus Livius (XXXVIII. 38) says only 350 talents.

Back

415

The father of Antiochus, Seleucus Callinicus, sent to the Rhodians 200,000 medimni of wheat (104,000 hectolitres). (Polybius, V. 89.) In 556, Antiochus gave 540,000 measures of wheat to the Romans. (Polybius, XXII. 26, § 19.)

Back

416

According to Strabo (XV. 3), wheat and barley produced there a hundredfold, and even twice as much, which is hardly probable.

Back

417

Strabo, XVI. 2.

Back

418

Athenæus, XII. 35, p. 460, ed. Schweighæuser.

Back

419

Polybius, XXXI. 3. – There were seen in these festivals a thousand slaves carrying silver vases, the least of which weighed 1,000 drachmas; a thousand slaves carrying golden vases and a profusion of plate of extraordinary richness. Antiochus received every day at his table a crowd of guests whom he allowed to carry away with them in chariots innumerable provisions of all sorts. (Athenæus, V. 46, p. 311, ed. Schweighæuser.)

Back

420

Polybius, V. 79.

Back

421

Titus Livius, XXXVII. 37.

Back

422

Strabo, XVI. 2.

Back

423

Polybius, V. 70.

Back

424

Titus Livius, XXXIII. 41. – Polybius, V. 59. – Strabo, XVI. 2.

Back

425

Strabo, XVI. 2.

Back

426

Strabo, XIV. 5.

Back

427

In 558, Antiochus sent to sea a hundred covered vessels and two hundred light ships. (Titus Livius, XXXIII. 19.) – It is the greatest Syrian fleet mentioned in these wars. At the battle of Myonnesus, the fleet commanded by Polyxenus was composed of ninety decked ships (574). (Appian, Wars of Syria, 27.) – In 563, before the final struggle against the Romans, that prince had forty decked vessels, sixty without decks, and two hundred transport ships. (Titus Livius, XXXV. 43.) – Finally, the next year, a little before the battle of Magnesia, Antiochus possessed, not including the Phœnician fleet, a hundred vessels of moderate size, of which seventy had decks. (Titus Livius, XXXVI. 43; XXXVII. 8.) – This navy was destroyed by the Romans.

Back

428

Herodotus, II. 177. – Diodorus Siculus, I. 31.

Back

429

A measure great enough to make thirty loaves. (Franz, Corpus Inscript. Græcarum, III. 303. – Polybius, V. 79.)

Back

430

Böckh, Staatshaushaltung der Athener, I. xiv. 15.

Back

431

Flavius Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, XII. 4.

Back

432

Athenæus, V. p. 203.

Back

433

Appian (Preface, § 10). – We may, nevertheless, judge from the following data of the enormity of the sums accumulated in the treasuries of the kings of Persia. Cyrus had gained, by the conquest of Asia, 34,000 pounds weight of gold coined, and 500,000 of silver. (Pliny, XXXIII. 15.) – Under Darius, son of Hystaspes, 7,600 Babylonian talents of silver (the Babylonian talent = 7,426 francs [£297]) were poured annually into the royal treasury, besides 140 talents devoted to the pay of the Cilician cavalry, and 360 talents of gold (14,680 talents of silver), paid by the Indies. (Herodotus, III. 94.) – This king had thus an annual revenue of 14,500 talents (108 millions of francs [£4,320,000]). Darius carried with him in campaign two hundred camels loaded with gold and precious objects. (Demosthenes, On the Symmories, p. 185, xv. p. 622, ed. Müller.) – Thus, according to Strabo, Alexander the Great found in the four great treasuries of that king (at Susa, Persia, Pasargades, and Persepolis) 180,000 talents (about 1,337 millions of francs [£53,480,000]).

Back

434

Polybius, V. 89.

Back

435

Strabo, XVII. 1.

Back

436

Strabo, XVII. 1.

Back

437

Strabo, XVI. 4; XVII.

Back

438

Strabo, XVII. 1.

Back

439

Diodorus Siculus, III. 43.

Back

440

Appian, Preface, § 10. – In 537, at Raphia, the Egyptian army amounted to 70,000 foot, 5,000 cavalry, and 73 elephants. (Polybius, V. 79; see also V. 65.) – Polybius, who gives us these details, adds that the pay of the officers was one mina (97 francs [£3 17s. 7d.]) a day. (XIII. ii.)

Back

441

Theocritus, Idylls, XVII. lines 90-102. – Athenæus (V. 36, p. 284) and Appian, Preface, § 10, give the details of this fleet. – Ptolemy IV. Philopator went so far as to construct a ship of forty ranges of rowers, which was 280 cubits long and 30 broad. (Athenæus, V. 37, p. 285.)

Back

442

Herodotus, IV. 199. The plateau of Barca, now desert, was then cultivated and well watered.

Back

443

The most important object of commerce of the Cyrenaica was the silphium, a plant the root of which sold for its weight in silver. A kind of milky gum was extracted from it, which served as a panacea with the apothecaries and as a seasoning in the kitchen. When, in 658, Cyrenaica was incorporated with the Roman Republic, the province paid an annual tribute in silphium. Thirty pounds of this juice, brought to Rome in 667, were regarded as a miracle; and when Cæsar, at the beginning of the civil war, seized upon the public treasury, he found in the treasury chest 1,500 pounds of silphium locked up with the gold and silver. (Pliny, XIX. 3.)

Back

444

Diodorus Siculus, III. 49. – Herodotus, IV. 169. – Athenæus, XV. 22, p. 487; 38, p. 514. – Strabo, XVII. iii. 712. – Pliny, Natural History, XVI. 33; XIX. 3.

Back

445

Pindar, Pythian Odes, IV. 2. – Athenæus, III. 58, p. 392.

Back

446

Diodorus Siculus, XVII. 49.

Back

447

Aristotle, Politics, VII. 2, § 10.

Back

448

Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, XIII. 12, § 2, 3.

Back

449

Ælian, History of Animals, V. lvi. – Eustathius, Comment. on Dionysius Periegetes, 508, 198, edit. Bernhardy.

Back

450

Strabo, XIV. 6. – Pliny, Natural History, XXXIV. 2.

Back

451

Virgil, Æneid, I. 415. – Statius, Thebais, V. 61.

Back

452

Strabo, X. 4.

Back

453

Polybius, XIII. 8.

Back

454

Cretan mercenaries are found in the service of Flamininus in 557 (Titus Livius, XXXIII. 3), in that of Antiochus in 564 (Titus Livius, XXXVII. 40), in that of Perseus in 583 (Titus Livius, XLII. 51), and in the service of Rome in 633.

Back

455

Iliad, II. 656.

Back

456

Polybius, XXX. 7, year of Rome 590.

Back

457

Strabo, XIV. 2. The town of Rhoda in Spain, establishments in the Baleares, Gela in Sicily, Sybaris and Palæopolis in Italy, were Rhodian colonies.

Back

458

This happened especially at the epoch when the famous Colossus of Rhodes fell, and when the town was violently shaken by an earthquake. Hiero, tyrant of Syracuse, Ptolemy, king of Egypt, Antigonus Doson, king of Macedonia, and Seleucus, king of Syria, sent succours to the Rhodians. (Polybius, V. 88, 89.)

Back

459

We see, in fact, with what care the Rhodians spared their allies on the coast of the Pontus Euxinus. (Polybius, XXVII. 6.)

Back

460

Polybius, IV. 38.

Back

461

Strabo, VII. 4.

Back

462

Titus Livius, XXXIII. 18.

Back

463

During the siege of Rhodes, Demetrius had formed the design of delivering to the flames all the public buildings, one of which contained the famous painting of Ialysus, by Protogenes. The Rhodians sent a deputation to Demetrius to ask him to spare this masterpiece. After this interview, Demetrius raised the siege, sparing thus at the same time the town and the picture. (Aulus Gellius, XV. 31.)

Back

464

In 555, twenty ships; in 556, twenty vessels with decks; in 563, twenty-five ships with decks, and thirty-six vessels. This last fleet of thirty-six vessels was destroyed, and yet the Rhodians were able to send to sea again, the same year, twenty vessels. In 584 they had forty vessels. (Titus Livius, XXXI. 46; XXXII. 16; XXXVI. 45; XXXVII. 9, 11, 12; XLII. 45.)

Back

465

Pliny, XXXIV. 17.

Back

466

Strabo, XIV. 2.

Back

467

Athenæus, XII. 35, p. 461.

Back

468

Titus Livius, XXIII. 34.

Back

469

Titus Livius, XXIII. 40.

Back

470

Titus Livius, XLI. 12, 17, 28. – The number of 80,000 men whom the Sardinians lost in the campaign of T. Gracchus, in 578 and 579, was given by the official inscription which was seen at Rome in the temple of the goddess Matuta. (Titus Livius, XLI. 28.)

Back

471

Festus, p. 322, edit. O. Müller. – Titus Livius, XLI. 21.

Back

472

See Heeren, vol. IV. sect. I. chap. ii. – Polybius, I. 79. – Strabo, V. ii. 187. – Diodorus Siculus, V. 15. – Titus Livius, XXIX. 36.

Back

473

Titus Livius, XXX. 38.

Back

474

Strabo, V. 2.

Back

475

Diodorus Siculus, V. 14. – The Corsicans having revolted, in 573, had 2,000 slain. (Titus Livius, XL. 34.) – In 581, they lost 7,000 men, and had more than 1,700 prisoners. (Titus Livius, XLII. 7.)

Back

476

Strabo, V. 2.

Back

477

Pliny, Natural History, III. 6.

Back

478

Diodorus Siculus, V. 13. – In 573, the Corsicans were taxed by the Romans at 1,000,000 pounds of wax, and at 200,000 in 581. (Titus Livius, XL. 34; XLII. 7.)

Back

479

Cicero, Second Oration against Verres, II. ii. 74. – The oxen furnished hides, employed especially for the tents; the sheep, an excellent wool for clothing.

Back

480

Cicero, Second Oration against Verres, II. III. 70.

Back

481

Titus Livius, XXV. 31.

Back

482

Polybius, I. 17, 18.

Back

483

Polybius, IX. 27. – Strabo, VI. 2.

Back

484

See what is said by Titus Livius (XXIX. 26) and Polybius (I. 41, 43, 46). – Florus, II. 2.

Back

485

See the work of the Duke of Serra di Falco, Antichità della Sicilia.

Back