Niebuhr's lectures on Roman history, Vol. 1 (of 3)

by Barthold Georg Niebuhr

LEX HORATIA VALERIA. FURTHER CHANGES IN THE CONSTITUTION. MILITARY TRIBUNATE. CENSORSHIP. SP. MÆLIUS. VICTORY OF A. POSTUMIUS TUBERTUS OVER THE VOLSCIANS AND ÆQUIANS. CONQUEST OF FIDENÆ AND VEII.

At first the patricians were in great dismay, and they confirmed all the laws proposed. Among them is that which gave the plebiscita general validity (ut quod tributim plebes jussisset populum teneret). This law is one of the greatest riddles in Roman history; and it cannot be solved with any historical certainty, although I have formed for myself an hypothesis on the subject, of the truth of which I am perfectly convinced. The law is thus given in Livy; afterwards in the eighth book he says of the second Publilian law, ut plebiscita omnes Quirites tenerent; and in like manner, Pliny and Lælius Felix in Gellius quote the law of Hortensius which is to be placed a hundred and sixty years later; Gaius says concerning the latter, ut plebiscita populum tenerent. When we now consider these three laws,—as to the Publilian, Livy alone mentions it,—they seem all of them to say the same thing. Is this really the case; or was the enactment only revived from time to time, because of its having fallen into oblivion? If we investigate the character of these laws according to their several ages, we see that the meaning of each was a distinct one, and that the import of the plebiscita was differently interpreted at different periods. The result of my researches is this, that Livy in his mention of the lex Valeria Horatia, was certainly not accurate, because he did not himself clearly see his way, and the generally known Hortensian law was present to his mind. The law may have been something to this effect,—quæ plebs tributim jusserit, QUARUM RERUM PATRES AUCTORES FACTI SINT, ut populum tenerent; for, from that time the course of the legislation was frequently this, that when the tribunes had gotten a proposition adopted by the commonalty, they laid it before the curies, who immediately put it to the vote; which was an abridgment of the proper order of business, according to which the laws approved by the senate had first to go to the centuries, and then only to the curies. In the new system, the asking the leave of the senate and the passing through the centuries were done away with. This was a great change, as now the discussion might originate with the Plebes itself. That, however, the plebiscita without the approval of the curies had no legal force, is evident, especially from the struggle on the occasion of the Licinian laws; wherefore at that time already, leges may be spoken of with reference to the resolutions of the Plebes, for as soon as the curies had sanctioned them, they were leges. Whenever the Plebes and the curies were not kept asunder by class-interests, every matter was carried. It is also to be borne in mind, that this law was enacted, not by a tribunician, but by a consular rogation. The lex Publilia had been rendered superfluous by the decemviral legislation, as in this there were no comitia tributa.

The later Publilian law of the dictator Q. Publilius Philo, has quite a different intention. By it the sanction of the curies to a resolution which had been carried in the tribes, was declared superfluous, as this course was too circuitous, and the senate after all had the right of proposing. His law, ut plebiscita omnem populum tenerent, must on the other hand run thus,—ut plebiscita QUÆ SENATU AUCTORE FACTA SINT, omnes Quirites tenerent; for from henceforth it happens with regard to many enactments concerning the administration, that the senate commissions the consuls to arrange with the tribunes about making proposals to the tribes which they were to approve of; yet this was only with reference to administrative ordinances (ψηφίσματα), (for instance, whether an extraordinary imperium should be given to any one), and not to legislative ones (νόμοι). This was a useful simplification: on certain days only, from religious reasons, might the curies and centuries be convoked; the tribes on the contrary might assemble, and did assemble, every day, they were not restricted by the dies nefasti. People saw more and more that the form of general assemblies was a mere semblance, and too much depending on accident: it is but fancy to think of votes being the expression of personal will; impulse, the force of example, does every thing. Clearer and clearer became the conviction, that the more the state increased, the more necessary it was to have a settled government; and thus what the Romans had to do, was to find out forms, which might check the arbitrary sway of the men in power, and secure publicity. In this especially the Romans differ from the Greeks, that they confidently gave themselves up to the personal guidance of individuals, which was never the case at Athens.

Lastly, the Hortensian law again has quite a different object. It establishes a true democracy, inasmuch as it lays down the rule that in legislative measures,—for with regard to administrative ones, the second Publilian law remained in force,—a previous resolution of the senate was not necessary, but the Plebes could pass any decree: at the same time, the power of the curies was taken away. This is a decided victory of the democracy. The administrative measures were decrees for particular cases, nor could any thing of this kind be brought before the Plebes without a previous resolution of the senate, even so late as the end of the sixth century (570); but for actual laws the resolution of the Plebes was sufficient. By this means, the older body of citizens lost its power of regeneration, the equilibrium was destroyed, and the scale was turned in favour of the democratic side. The curies were bound already by the lex Publilia of the year 417, before a convocation of the centuries to declare after a certain form that they sanctioned whatever was going to be decreed. It was a misfortune for the state that the curies did not regenerate themselves; yet as long as the resolutions were still made in the centuries, this mattered nothing. But by the lex Hortensia, by which the whole weight was given to the tribes, all the wholesome relations between the different elements of the state were broken, and the balance utterly destroyed. In the first stage therefore, the plebiscita are mere bye-laws which have no reference to general affairs; for instance, resolutions at the death of a person of consequence concerning his burial, &c., or a poll tax. In the second, by virtue of the older Publilian law, the Plebes declared itself competent to pass resolutions on general affairs, which were, however, to be taken into consideration by the consul, to be laid before the senate, and by the latter to be brought before the centuries and curies. In the third stage, according to the Valerian law, a plebiscitum was just as valid as a resolution of the centuries: it went at once to the curies, and received their sanction. And fourthly, by the later Publilian law, the plebiscita could do for the confirmation of resolutions of the senate which, in pressing circumstances, when one could not wait for the next dies comitialis, were brought by the consul to the tribunes. It was sufficient that the tribunes proclaimed a concilium: the dies nefasti only affected curule magistrates and the Populus. For instance, let us suppose that an army was in the field at the conclusion of the year, and that a decree of the senate had first to be brought to the centuries, and then to be ratified by the curies; in such a case a shorter course was taken. The consuls were ordered ut cum tribunis plebis agerent, quam primum fieri posset ad plebem ferrent. This does not occur before the Publilian law. Lastly and fifthly, by the lex Hortensia the Plebes took upon itself the authority for an independent and inherent legislation.

The consuls now took the field against the Æquians and Sabines, and returned after splendid victories, having also probably concluded a lasting peace with the Sabines. The patricians had in the meanwhile again taken courage, and those men of their order, who in the general confusion had sincerely wished for the best, were now the object of their hatred; and therefore the senate refused them a triumph on their return. Now for the first time the paramount power of the tribunes was displayed. They stepped in, and granted the triumph on their own responsibility: their legal authority for doing so may fairly be called in question. The consuls accepted the triumph; if they had been disturbed in it the tribunes would have assisted them. This incident shows what exasperation then filled men’s minds. In the following year, it rose to such a height that, as we are told by Livy, the heads of the patricians assembled and discussed the proposal to rid themselves of their antagonists by a massacre: but this mad design was not carried out.

The events which now take place are shrouded in darkness; the piety of posterity has thrown a veil over them. People had emerged from the irksome tranquillity of the decemvirate; but the constitution had not yet recovered its equilibrium, and there was still a contest for the possession of the government. The plebeians either wished the consulship to be divided between the two orders, or the form of the decemviral rule to be restored. The next year, the patricians showed themselves somewhat more yielding. The criminal judges, until then a patrician magistracy, were for the first time elected by the centuries; the choice fell upon the two consuls of the last year, Valerius and Horatius, which was certainly not accidental. Many of the ancients are mistaken with regard to this point; for instance, Tacitus, Plutarch, even Ulpian, but not so Gaius. There were in fact two kinds of quæstors, the public accusers (Quæstores parricidii), who impeached political offenders before the curies, and the six Quæstores Classici, who in works on antiquities are all along confounded with the former: Tacitus refers to the latter what ought to be referred to the former. He says that the quæstors had formerly been chosen by the kings, and then by the consuls, as was evident from a lex curiata of Brutus. But this law Tacitus cannot possibly have seen; for the Quæstores parricidii are synonymous with the Duumviri perduellionis, and it is these who were always elected by the curies, or rather by the Ramnes and Tities whom they represented. That Poplicola caused also the Treasurers to be elected, is possible; but the two, who were formerly elected by the curies, and now, as Tacitus says, sixty-three years after the expulsion of the kings, and consequently in the second year after the abolition of the decemvirate, by the centuries, were the old Quæstores parricidii, who continued until they were changed into the Ædiles Curules. Nine tribunes then made the proposal to leave the offices of censor and quæstor to the patricians, and, either to divide the consulship, or to introduce military tribunes with consular power; one only of their colleagues was of a different opinion. Perhaps to this is to be referred the incident mentioned before, that the Populus had once condemned nine tribunes to be burned alive, and that a traitor among the tribunes, P. Mucius, had ensured the carrying out of this sentence. Without doubt the Populus means the curies, who had again usurped this power. Among the nine tribunes was probably a son or grandson of Sp. Cassius, who had renounced his order, and perished in the attempt to revenge his father.

It was the general wish to re-elect the consuls and tribunes; the consuls declined it, and Duilius, who had been delegated by his colleagues to represent them, refused in the name of the tribunate also to accept any votes. This had evil consequences. A division was caused, and the tribunes who wished to remain in office, had indeed so much influence upon their partisans, that they abstained from voting; so that five tribunes only were elected, who had themselves to elect their colleagues. It is stated that they likewise elected two patricians, which is a proof in favour of our assertion that the tribes had acquired a double character, that is, that they also become a general national division.

A remarkable change which dates from this time, is the repeal of the prohibition of intermarriage between patricians and plebeians. This prohibition, as we know, had been sanctioned by usage since the very earliest times, and had been first made an enactment in the twelve tables only; such a custom generally first becomes galling by being received among the written laws; and thus the storm was raised from which the plebiscitum Canuleium sprang. This is usually considered as a great victory of the plebeians: the patricians, so it is said, at last yielded it in compensation for other rights which they reserved to themselves; Livy looks upon it as a degradation of the ruling order. If we take the matter as it really was, it is evident that the existence of such a prohibition did harm to no one more than to the patricians themselves. Mixed marriages from both orders must surely have been common at all times, and they were binding in conscience; yet the son of a patrician-plebeian marriage never had any gentilician rights, and was counted among the plebeians; the consequence of which was that the patricians were fast dwindling away. Wherever the nobles are limited to marriages within their own class, their order becomes quite powerless in the course of time. Rehberg mentions, that of the members of the States of the duchy of Bremen, in whose case sixteen quarters were required, one-third had become extinct within fifty years. If the plebeians had meant mischief against the patricians, they ought to have insisted with all their might upon the prohibition of intermarriage being kept up: but for the Canuleian law, the patricians would have lost their position in the state a hundred years sooner. We do not know, whether the thing was granted as a favour to the patricians or the plebeians; this is one of those cases in which no probable hypothesis can be formed; even absurdity is sometimes quite possible.

Afterwards there appear for once three military tribunes instead of the consuls. Dionysius says that it had been resolved to satisfy the Plebes by the institution of military tribunes, three of whom were to be patricians and three plebeians. But there were only three, one of whom was a plebeian. Livy foolishly takes them all for patricians; he thinks that the plebeians had wanted indeed to possess the right, yet that afterwards they had looked upon themselves as unworthy of exercising it, and had elected patricians only. He speaks of the plebeians as if they had been unutterably stupid. This is the confused notion of a man who with all his genius was, after all, no more than a rhetorician. What is most likely, is that it was agreed upon to drop the name of consul altogether, as the two orders were indeed no longer distinct, and to leave the elections free and open to both parties; but that in the meanwhile all sorts of artifices were nevertheless employed to turn the scale in favour of the patricians. In the earlier times, for instance, the clients of the patricians were not in the tribes; like the patricians, they had to withdraw when the voting began; and whoever was not in the tribes, was either not in the centuries at all, or voted in them only with the craftsmen and the capite censi. Yet from henceforth every mention of cases in which Plebes and clients were opposed, entirely ceases; and this ought to lead us to observe how trustworthy our accounts are. Could a forger of a later age have so accurately discriminated between the positions as implied by the law? A fabulist is always an unlearned man, and even a learned one would have made here some mistake. The clients now appear in the tribes, and therefore in the centuries likewise, as is expressly mentioned, and as we may also partly see from the circumstances themselves. The discussions of the Plebes now take quite a different character; they lose all their violence, the struggle of two hostile masses against each other, is at once entirely at an end. The checks which the plebeians meet with in the elections, &c., arise no more from any resistance from without, but they are from within the body itself. Whilst formerly the boards of the tribunes showed themselves unanimous, they are now divided; some of the members are even in the interest of the senate, and only single tribunes yet make such motions as those which formerly proceeded from the whole college. These are proofs of the fusion of the orders having been completed.

The military tribunate had been considered as a sort of compromise. Among the first were, according to Livy, L. Atilius Longus and T. Cæcilius.[107] For the latter, Dionysius in the eleventh book has Clœlius. We cannot decide in this question, the readings in the eleventh book being all of them of very recent date. If it is Cæcilius, there were two plebeians among their number; and this would account for the violence with which the patricians insisted upon doing away with the military tribunate.

In the same year as the military tribunate (311), the censorship seems to have been instituted. There must have been therefore a common motive for both, which Livy does not see: and the circumstance that the first censors are not found as consuls either in the Fasti or in the libri magistratum, but only in one of the libri lintei, may be accounted for by supposing that the censors were already elected in conformity with the laws of the twelve tables; and that when the patricians by their violent commotions were carrying every thing with a high hand, these magistrates who were neither consuls nor military tribunes,—a fact of which we have only a trace,—acted as consuls, and thus concluded the peace with the Ardeates. Livy could not explain this to himself, nor could Macer have done it. Strange indeed is what Livy mentions, that the military tribunes had been obliged to abdicate because of the tabernaculum vitio captum; and that T. Quinctius as Interrex (or rather, perhaps, as dictator) had chosen the two consuls, L. Papirius Magillanus and L. Sempronius Atratinus, whose names were not, however, recorded in the Fasti. Nevertheless he relates the thing as certain. It is still more strange that in the following year he says of these first censors, that in order to indemnify those quorum de consulatu dubitabatur, ut eo magistratu parum solidum magistratum explerent, they had been elected censors; as if in 312 there could have been any doubt as to what had happened in 311. In the very same way, Livy in the second Punic war mistakes a certain Heraclitus for the philosopher of that name.

As to the nature of these military tribunes, their magistracy is for us a subject of considerable obscurity.[108] Livy says of them, eos juribus et insignibus consularibus usos esse, and they are also called tribuni militares consulari potestate; but Dio Cassius, that acute observer, who himself had sat in the curule chair, says that the military tribunes were inferior to the consuls, and that not one of them had ever been granted a triumph, though many had performed deeds which were worthy of it. This is in perfect accordance with history. We also find that a consul was never appointed Magister Equitum, but that the military tribunes certainly were. From this it seems to be evident that the military tribunes were no magistratus curules, that is to say, none of those magistrates, as Gellius explains it, who were allowed to make use of a carriage (thus we have Juno Curulis, whose image was carried on a car). The consuls drove in carriages to the Curia; the full triumph was termed triumphus curulis, according to the Monumentum Ancyranum on which the number of the triumphi curules of Augustus is given; different from this is the Ovatio.[109]—Moreover, the military tribunes never had any jurisdiction; but originally the censors, and afterwards the Præfectus Urbi had one, the latter probably holding likewise the presidency in the senate. This magistracy also had been abolished by the decemviral legislation; but it now again makes its appearance. The consular power was weakened in this manner, and so it was afterwards by the Licinian law; for when at that time the consulship was divided between patricians and plebeians, the prætorship was separated from it, and established as a distinct magistracy. We may understand how it was, that the plebeians preferred the election of military tribunes, even when they were not taken from their own order: their power was at all events less. According to Livy’s account, it was the senate which decided in every instance, whether consuls or military tribunes were to be elected: it is more probable that it was the curies which determined it. The mistake may have been occasioned by the ambiguous word patres. The military tribunate is also of a wonderfully variable character. Sometimes, but seldom, we find three tribunes; more frequently, four; but from 347 or 348, regularly whenever they occur, six; once, as many as eight, among whom, however, the two censors are included. Of the four, one is generally Præfectus Urbi: so that in reality there are after all only three. The claim of the plebeians to be chosen among the military tribunes is never disputed; but after the first election it is almost always eluded. How this could be done is inconceivable; Livy’s explanation of it is silly. On the one hand, it is quite possible that a compromise was made, and that the patricians said, we consent to the weaker magistracy’s being established, but then it must be filled up from our ranks only; or else in the earlier times the preceding magistrate had the right of not accepting any votes (nomina non accipere) in favour of those who from different reasons were to be rejected; or again, if six military tribunes were elected, the curies afterwards gave the imperium to the patricians only, and denied it to the plebeians. Yet it is incomprehensible in this last case how the plebeians could have allowed it. Unfortunately Dionysius fails us here, who, though he did not himself understand these relations, nevertheless faithfully recorded the facts as he found them: if we had him, the whole of this period would undoubtedly be clearer to us. After the last change, when six military tribunes always occur, we several times find the plebeians in a majority among them; and it is evident that it was then a settled rule that the number of six should always be full, and that without any further distinction between the two orders. This looks very much as if in the change the election had been transferred from the centuries to the tribes. It now depended only upon the honesty of the president whether he received the votes or not. That policy by which Italy became great in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, that wretched ideal of states-craft, is now displayed in the Roman history, especially in the division in the college of tribunes. This is one of the causes, which for some time checked the progress of Rome.

Times in which successful wars are carried on, as was now the case with Rome until the Gallic invasion, are exceedingly apt to lead subjects to acquiesce in what they otherwise would never have borne with. The name of the state was surrounded with a halo of glory; a great deal of booty was gained, and also many conquests; plebeians as well as patricians felt comfortable; and although the power was not much liked, matters were yet allowed to go on as they were. Rome recovered from the decline into which she had fallen since the Regifugium. Moreover the intermarriage allowed between the two orders, must have exercised a powerful influence: the families on both sides became more closely related; the patrician who, born of a plebeian mother, was in the senate, stood on an equal footing with the plebeians.

A greater, a lasting magistracy, and according to all appearance the first, the lustre of which far outshone that of the military tribunes, was the censorship. If we admit that it was instituted by the twelve tables, we can understand why Cicero also made the censors the first magistrates. He may have copied this from the laws of the twelve tables; only he must have left out something, as there they had yet a greater number of attributes. The consuls are said to have formerly had the functions of the censors; which is very probable from the almost kingly power of the consuls, and it is only to be wondered how they could have got through this immense amount of work. The Greek states also had τιμηταί, Athens alone excepted, and the Siceliote and Italiote towns had them as well; yet nowhere in Greece was their power so extensive as at Rome. According to the Roman law, the censors had to value and assess; accurate lists were kept of properties, of births and deaths, of newly admitted citizens. Yet we are to distinguish between two kinds of lists. The one was of persons, and was arranged according to names; Q. Mucius, for instance, with all his family and rateable property, stood under his name among the Tribus Romilia: his sons wearing the toga virilis may perhaps have had each a distinct caput. The other list was topographical; in it the landed estates were registered according to the districts, for instance, the Tribus Romilia in all its divisions. The ancients wrote on the whole much more than is generally imagined; this was done with a prolixity which was part of the forms of the state. In London, I saw a register of lands belonging to an Indian province,—in the translation, of course, as I do not understand a word of the Indian language,—which had a copiousness of detail of which we can scarcely form an idea. And it was the same among the ancients: the registers of mortgages at Athens were very prolix; and so, even in later ages, were the contracts before the curies at Rome. In the registers of the Roman censors, the division of the hides was very accurately marked down; under the caput of every individual, his descent, tribe, station, property, &c. were entered. Now the censors had also the power of transferring people from one class to the other, as an honour or a disgrace; yet what were the qualities for which they pronounced the ignominia, as it is termed? Every one in Rome was to correspond to the definition of his station; a plebeian was necessarily an agriculturist, either a land-owner or a free day labourer. This rule was laid down positively; and still more strictly in its negative bearing, as no one who carried on a trade or business could be a plebeian. Whoever did so, was forthwith struck out of the list of the tribe; consequently this was not so much a personal ignominia, as a declaration that he had passed from one side to the other. But he who badly cultivated his field was likewise put out of the tribe, that is to say, he was declared to be de facto no husbandman; and so was the eques who kept his horse badly: this is the notatio censoria. Such a person was placed among the burghers of the pale (ærarii), because he was not worthy of holding his property. The ærarian, on the other hand, who distinguished himself, who acquired landed property, was placed as a mark of honour among the plebeians; the plebeian who distinguished himself, was transferred into the centuries of the plebeian knights. Foreigners, however, they could certainly not make citizens: for this there were fixed rules, or else the popular assembly conferred the right of citizenship by means of an extraordinary act. In a state, the changeable elements of which were widely different,—where the Plebes was not an exclusive order, but was allowed to recruit itself; and where there existed among its ranks an aristocratic order of honour, that of the knights, which was not bound to the census; there must be some authority which assigns to every individual his station: for such an order of honour cannot be exclusive and unchangeable, owing to its very nature as an order of honour. One might say, that the decision about it ought to have been left to the people; yet this was not only a circuitous, but also a preposterous arrangement, as in all probability the censors,—who were chosen from the most distinguished persons, and who held their office under the fullest responsibility, whilst moreover one colleague might even impugn the acts of the other,—would be much fairer than the whole people, had it been called upon to make the selection. The senate also needed a careful supervision to fill up its vacancies, and to secure its respectability. It was indeed originally an assembly of the clans, every one of which had its representative senator; but when the clans began to dwindle away, there were taken from the whole order three hundred,—an hundred from each tribe; so that in consequence of the extinction of the clans, one clan might often number several votes, and another become altogether weak or degenerate. Afterwards the lex Ovinia Tribunicia[110] was passed, in which it is enacted that from the whole order, without regard to the gentes, the most worthy should be chosen. If it dates from the first times of the censorship, it proves that in those days the senate still consisted only of patricians, and that from all the three tribes the most worthy were taken. The statement that by Brutus, or Valerius Poplicola, plebeians had, under the name of conscripti, been already introduced into the senate, is either a fable, or it must be considered as quite a temporary arrangement. About the time of the migration of the commonalty, and likewise at the actual period itself, not a single plebeian could have been in the senate: towards the middle of the fourth century we can trace it for the first time. The senate now became a number of men chosen by the people, inasmuch as the magistrates were granted the privilege of voting in the senate, and the right of being elected into it on the publication of the new list; a right which also extended to the quæstors. Now, when in the year 346 the quæstorship was thrown open to both orders, I see in this the first occasion on which plebeians were admitted into the senate; and as from henceforth eight quæstors were appointed every year, the arbitrary sway of the censors must have been entirely put an end to. They might indeed exclude the plebeians; but as the senate consisted of no more than three hundred, and the censors, at the end of every lustrum, always saw forty men before them who had a claim to be elected into the senate, it is manifest that the senate could soon have become rather a plebeian than a patrician assembly. The power of the censors therefore declined in the course of time, like that of all the magistrates, with the exception of the tribunes: at first, only a censor could check the resolutions of his colleague; afterwards, the tribunes also took upon themselves to interfere with the determinations of the censors. It was formerly thought impossible that the censors should have had such a power as was granted them by the Lex Ovinia, or it was deemed detestable; yet they really had in the beginning an immense discretionary power. But, as in after times it was no more the two orders exclusively, but government and people who stood opposed against each other, the people set limits to the government, and the censors were also deprived of their arbitrary sway. To the patricians the censorial power had no reference; nor, with the then existing notions of the auspices, could any body become a patrician by adoption, though indeed this was done in after times.

Here the question now arises, were the censors authorized to exercise their power also with regard to morals? were they allowed to strike a bad man from the lists with a nota censoria? This I formerly denied, except it were perhaps in cases of downright infamy; yet in the newly discovered excerpta from Dionysius of Halicarnassus, a passage was found, which undeniably speaks of the right of the censor to take cognisance of any moral turpitude which could not be reached by the law; as for instance, heartlessness to parents, wives, or children, harshness towards slaves or neighbours. In fact, Dionysius in his time no more knew the censorship in its ancient state; yet he certainly gives us reason to believe that when he describes it, he rather sets before us the censorship of bygone times, than that of his own, which was generally known. It is therefore probable that the power of the censor had this great extent, the limits of which are still to be traced from the existing materials. The censorship of Gellius and Lentulus in Cicero’s days, was somewhat irregular.[111] Whether at that period already some tribes were minus honestæ, and others honestiores, cannot be decided. That afterwards the tribus urbanæ, particularly the Esquilina, were looked down upon, while the Crustumina stood high, is certain; yet it would be silly to suppose that this was also the case in the earlier ages.

The censors were at first elected for five years (a lustrum); and thus, in the true spirit of its system, it seems to have been the object of the decemviral legislation with regard to all the magistrates, to apply cooling remedies against the political fever, as elections always excite the passions most. Whether Mam. Æmilius really limited the censorial power to eighteen months, and was therefore branded by his successor with the ignominia; or whether this is an account contained in the books of the censors, which refers an existing law to one particular person, cannot be decided: certain it is, that such books of the censors existed.

In the year 315, a famine and terrible scarcity broke out in Rome. Many Romans drowned themselves in the Tiber not to perish by hunger. On the whole, the price of corn in those times was endlessly fluctuating, just as in the middle ages; which gave rise to forestalling and regrating, especially as in Italy grain may be kept for such a long time under ground. The distress came quite unexpectedly, and therefore a præfectura annonæ was established, which seems to have been a temporary magistracy. L. Minucius Augurinus was invested with this office. He did all he could to bring down the prices; he ordered the existing stores to be thrown open for sale at a compulsory rate, and had purchases made among the neighbouring people; yet his purveyances not only went on too slowly, but also the means which he employed did not answer: real help was only afforded by a rich plebeian knight, Sp. Mælius. This man had great quantities of grain bought up on his own account in Etruria and the country of the Volscians, and distributed it all among the poor. Any one who had done so much good, might in the ancient republics easily be suspected of having been actuated by questionable motives. Mælius therefore was charged with having attempted to gain over the people, that by their aid he might establish a tyranny. Minucius is said to have reported to the senate that many plebeians assembled in Mælius’ house, and that arms were conveyed thither. No one can now presume to decide whether this charge was well founded or not; at all events, such a conspiracy would have been madness in a man who was distinguished for nothing but his wealth, and who must have had the tribunes against him as well as the patricians. However this may be, he was looked upon as the head of a party; and in order to crush him, the senate and the curies appointed L. Quinctius Cincinnatus as dictator, who took Servilius Ahala for his master of horse. Cincinnatus, having occupied during the night the Capitol and the other strongholds, on the following morning set up his curule throne in the Forum, and summoned Mælius by Ahala before his tribunal. Mælius foresaw his fate: as no tribune could protect him against the dictator, he refused to appear, and mingled with the crowd of the plebeians. Then Servilius Ahala seized hold of him and stabbed him. This act is much admired by the ancients; but its merit is very problematical, as it may have been mere murder. The Præfectus Annonæ, according to a very plausible account, is said to have separated himself from the Patres, gone over to the Plebes, and to have been appointed as the eleventh tribune; and then within a few weeks to have entirely succeeded in bringing down the prices; which is a proof that the distress was rather an artificial one. The corn from the magazines of Sp. Mælius was confiscated, and distributed among the people. Servilius Ahala, as we are told by Cicero, was impeached by the Plebes as a murderer, and withdrew into exile: whether he was recalled afterwards, is unknown to us. This gives the whole affair an ugly look. Mælius’ house was pulled down; the Æquimælium, the place where it had stood, was under the walls of the Capitol, and is now entirely buried in the rubbish which forms a mound at the foot of the hill. This is a point of some importance for the understanding of Roman topography.[112]

When the Valerian laws, as we have seen before, so far limited the old right of the consuls to enforce obedience, that any one sentenced by them to receive corporal punishment might appeal to his community, they were yet to be allowed a certain sphere of jurisdiction without appeal: otherwise their authority would have been reduced to a mere nothing. That power extended to fines, the fixing of which is also ascribed to Valerius. Yet this is not likely, as there is too positive an evidence in the law of the consuls Tarpeius and Aternius, passed by the centuries, in which the multa was estimated in heads of cattle, as Cicero de Republica expressly tells us. This would not have been possible, if the Valerian law had already fixed the limitation; or else the rulers must afterwards again have seized upon the absolute authority. On the whole, all that is mentioned of the Valerii is not to be trusted, as Valerius Antias, who reckoned himself of the Valerian house, invented a good deal about it, and the Valerii moreover were rather vain of their popularity. That law fixed two sheep and thirty oxen as the highest multa, with regard to which Gellius makes a very heedless statement; for he says that sheep were at that time so rare, that two of them were estimated as equal to thirty beeves, though he himself immediately afterwards informs us that a sheep was worth ten, and an ox a hundred asses. The explanation of the fact is simply this,—that the consuls were obliged to increase the amount of the fine only by degrees, that the way might always be left open for a return to obedience: he who did not make his appearance on the first day, was mulcted of a sheep; on the following day, of two; then of an ox; and so on. We know from Cicero of another circumstance besides, which proves to us how little other accounts are to be relied on. Only twenty-five years later, the value of these payments was fixed in money, and that at a moderate estimation. Cicero justly looks upon this as denoting a progress of individual liberty.

The number of the treasurers or masters of the exchequer, whose election was indeed formerly made by the king or the curies, but afterwards assigned by Poplicola to the centuries, was raised from two to four, to be taken alike from patricians and plebeians. At first the patricians still hinder the carrying out of this clause; but at a later period the plebeians make good their right. This progress was not a mere point of honour, but it was a reality; it was closely connected with the dearest interests of the Plebes, as they now shared in the administration of the common exchequer, which was no more Publicum but Ærarium. By this means, as we have already remarked, the senate was now opened to the plebeians also, and they could be degraded from it by the power of the censors only.

A further advance to freedom was this, that about twenty years after the legislation of the decemvirs, the right of declaring war and peace passed from the curies to the centuries. That the curies originally had this right, we know from Dionysius; yet as the plebeians alone were bound to serve on foot, and the patricians withheld the booty from them, it was natural that the tribunes should have claimed for their order the right of deciding whether they would have war or not; and consequently the veto of the tribunes to a declaration of war is nothing else but a reservation of the rights of the Plebes. If the centuries had carried the resolution, the curies were of course obliged to confirm it; yet this was certainly not always the case, as the proposal originated with the senate, and it is not at all likely that the senate and the curies should not have agreed.

The existence of plebeian senators is now as clear as daylight, and it is expressly stated that P. Licinius Calvus sat in the senate. Whenever therefore an interrex was to be elected, it was no longer the decem primi who met together,—for, they had lost their importance by the admission of the plebeians,—but all the patricians in the whole of the senate. This is what is meant by Patricii coeunt ad Interregem prodendum, and it might have been based even on the laws of the Twelve Tables. One can quite understand that the ancients might have known the laws of the Twelve Tables by heart, and yet not have perceived, that something different was written in them from what was afterwards the rule.

Thus then we have seen, how from the legislation of the decemvirs down to the conquest of the city by the Gauls, the development of free institutions at home steadily kept pace with the expansion of the state abroad; and hence it is manifest that the two were necessarily linked together.

The history of the Italian nations we know almost exclusively through the Romans; and yet that history would in fact be the only means for correctly understanding the foreign relations of Rome, as the account of these is very often not only defective, but altered moreover in a lying spirit. The decline of the state after the expulsion of the kings may have partly arisen from the fermentations at home, and partly from the quarrel with the Latins. Afterwards, however, the spread of the Etruscans in the prime of their strength from the North, and at the same time that of the Sabines and their colonies, exercise their influence. The Romans call the latter Sabellians; for Sabellus is the general adjective-termination corresponding with Sabinus, like Hispanus and Hispellus, Græcus and Græculus, Pœnus and Pœnulus, Romus and Romulus; at a later period only the ending in -lus had a diminutive meaning given it. Sabellus is quite synonymous with Sabinus, except that according to usage, the name of Sabellians is given to the whole nation, and that of Sabines to the inhabitants of the small district. The spread of those nations was therefore the chief cause of the decline of Rome; otherwise the wars of Porsena would not have happened. If the Etruscans had spread in any other direction, and had not the Sabellians, inasmuch as they were pushed on themselves, been obliged to push on others, the Ausonian people also, particularly the Æquians, would not have been driven, as they were, to make conquests.

The period of the greatness of the Etruscans coincides with the middle of the third century of the city, according to a statement bearing the authority of Cato, that the Etruscan colony of Capua or Vulturnum was founded about the year 260, which falls within the time of that war in which the Romans were so hard pressed by the Veientines. At that time, the Etruscans, who by the Greeks are called Tyrrhenians, were the most formidable conquerors; yet a reverse came upon them when the people of Cumæ with the help of Hiero, towards the close of the third century (280), destroyed their naval power. The general fact only of that change can be asserted with certainty; the details of it are, alas! entirely lost to us; a considerable event in the world’s history here lies buried in darkness. About the same period also, their power on the banks of the Tiber is broken. On the other hand, the Sabines in the last half of the third century are often seen as enemies of the Romans; the earlier accounts of victories gained over them by Valerius are utterly apocryphal. Whether they were dangerous to the Romans, we will not decide here: yet undoubtedly wars took place with the Sabines, as well as with all the other people of the neighbourhood, though all the details about them are either fiction or poetry. Towards the end of the third century, however, the history becomes clearer and clearer, and we may discern the traces of the old annals. The last Sabine war is that which Valerius and Horatius victoriously carried on in the first year of the restoration of the consulship; it is told too circumstantially to be credited in all its parts; but certain it is, that from that time, for nearly a hundred and fifty years until Curius, the Sabines waged no war with the Romans. There must have been some very particular reason for this, and I find one in a treaty of which no other trace whatever is left, and in which isopolity was established between the two peoples: that isopolity existed between them, is attested by Servius on Virgil. About the year 310, we find a notice that the people of the Campanians was formed; that is to say, that at Vulturnum or Capua, the Etruscans received Samnites as ἔποικοι among them, and shared with them their territory. This is to us a proof of the advance of the Sabines in those parts, as the Samnites are a Sabine people. The Æquians and Volscians relax in their attacks on Rome; the Sabine wars are at an end; consequently we behold the period when the emigration of the Sabines towards the South leaves off, and the Ausonian mountaineers no more push forward. The Etruscans now at once stand still, which is natural in an oligarchically governed nation: when such a people has once settled down to rest, there is no example of its ever having been aroused again and gained fresh life. Thus we may link together all the facts which are confusedly told by the Romans.

During the time from 306 to 323, wars had almost entirely ceased. The account of the insurrection at Ardea in which the Romans had been called in, has something in it so strange, that we cannot build any thing upon it: it is nothing but a repetition of the story of the enemy’s army being surrounded by Cincinnatus. In the year 323, the war first breaks out again in good earnest. With regard to the Antiates, we do not know whether they took any share in it; as to the Ecetrans, we cannot doubt but that they did. The latter at that time joined the Æquians on the Algidus. Between Velitræ (which was Volscian), Tusculum, and the Alban Mount, the Roman armies, sent against them, lost a battle. A. Postumius Tubertus was therefore appointed dictator. This war is now described in a perfectly historical and accurate manner. Whether there be any truth in the tradition that A. Postumius heightened the power of his imperium on the minds of those who were under his command by his ruthless treatment of his own son, we may leave undiscussed. The more general opinion is this, that Manlius followed his example; From the phrase imperia Manliana no conclusion can be drawn; Livy’s argument against it is at all events worth nothing. Postumius led thither all the forces of the republic and the allies, he gave one army to the consul, and took the other himself: the former was posted on the road to Lanuvium, the latter, on that to Tusculum, below the point at which the two highways crossed each other. The Volscians and Æquians occupied separate camps: to the one the consul, to the other the dictator was opposed, the two hosts being, however, very near each other. The enemy during the night attacked the camp of the consul; in the meanwhile, the dictator, who was prepared for this, sent a detachment to seize the almost abandoned camp of the Volscians, and he himself led the greater part of his army to the help of the consul, and fell upon the enemy’s rear. These last were completely routed, all but one body, which cut its way through under the lead of the brave Vettius Messius.

This battle is one of those which are of importance in the world’s history. It broke the power of the Volscians of Ecetræ, and of the Æquians; the slaughter must have been frightful. The Æquians sued at once for peace, and were granted it for eight years; from that time, they were no more to be dreaded. After this, the Romans spread more and more; the places also which had been taken from them in the former wars by the Volscians and Æquians, were now recovered. Of these there are expressly mentioned, Lavici,[113] formerly one of the great Latin towns, Bolæ or Bola; Velitræ, Circeii, Anxur, Ferentinum, which had formerly been Hernican, and must now have been restored to the Hernicans, as it is always again met with among their places. Thus the Romans had advanced to the frontiers of Latium proper, even as far as under the kings. Moreover, at that time also, Setia, Norba, Cora, Signia, must have been retaken; and, as the Romans and Latins were now no more on an equal footing, they must likewise have come under the rule of the Romans alone. In the country of the Æquians, the Romans advanced as far as the lake Fucinus. The subjugation of the Volscians made it possible for them to carry on the terrible Veientine war. As in consequence of these conquests many indigent persons were provided for, Roman colonies were founded at Lavici and Velitræ, and restored at Circeii: in the latter place it was perhaps a Latin colony.

After a long interval, the agrarian law begins again to give rise to serious discussions in the year 345; before that, in the years between 30 and 40, it is once spoken of, but only slightly. The cause of this silence during the preceding years is not sufficiently explained. Some assignments of colonies indeed take place; but always in common with the Latins and Hernicans, and without any consequences for those who did not wish to give up their Roman home and their rights as citizens. The times of contentedness and discontent in history do not by any means correspond with the growth of political rights, but rather indeed with the stages of general prosperity: when things are decidedly flourishing, man enjoys life without troubling himself much about the state of political affairs. In Germany there was such a period just before the thirty years’ war; every kind of property improved in value, and matters at home went on very quietly: this was also the case in France under Henry IV. Such on the whole was then the condition of Rome; and hence we may perhaps best explain, why it was that for so long a time no violent internal commotions took place there. Yet when in such a state of things new energies have developed themselves, new claims also spring up, which then at once are fiercely urged. And thus it was now with the agrarian law. Hitherto the patricians had with great cunning kept the plebeians out of those honourable offices to which they had a right; often were consuls elected instead of the military tribunes, and these last again with less than their full number. But now decided claims began to be insisted upon. Rome’s humiliation abroad, owing to the wars of the Etruscans and Volscians, had ceased, the city had quickly risen by its conquests to a very high position, and under these circumstances the tribunes raised their voices for the men of their own order. The first occasion for this, the consequences of which must have been much more violent than Livy represents them, was afforded by the conquest of Lavici: a colony was demanded there, but the Roman senate refused it. The question is now no more about the Lex Cassia, but there is a special lex tribunicia agraria brought by the tribunes before the tribes: it was demanded that a division of the ager publicus should be made, and a tax again imposed on the patrician demesne. The latter clause was originally in all the agrarian laws; but the patricians had succeeded in evading their obligations. These warnings had directly no effect beyond this, that colonies of citizens were several times founded: these were exclusively Roman, and therefore called coloniæ Romanæ. After the conquest of Bolæ, an ill-fated military tribune, M. Postumius, had caused all the booty to be sold by auction for the benefit of the publicum (in publicum redigere, for publicum is the separate exchequer of the curies). This excited such an outburst of rage, that the soldiers rose against the quæstor and slew him. The military tribune, who had to judge the case, drove them to such despair, that they mutinied also against him, and stained their hands with his blood; which is the only instance of the kind before the times of Sylla. The senate chose to connive at a deed of which the guilt was but too evident. The consequences of this outbreak must have been very great, though Livy says nothing on the subject; for from that time only it never happens that there are less than six military tribunes, and the election seems to have been now transferred from the centuries to the tribes, as otherwise it would have been very thoughtless in Livy to have spoken of a tribus prærogativa. The curies conferred, as usual, the imperium, after the election had been made.

Rome now turned her arms against Veii, which was about two German miles and a half distant, and nearly one German mile in circumference: its boundary must have reached as far as the Janiculum. This city was a thorn in the side of Rome, and until she had overthrown this rival, she could never be great. Fidenæ, which is called an Etruscan town, but was a Tyrrhenian one, is represented from the earliest times, even under Romulus already, as being involved in war with Rome: it lay one German mile above Rome on the Tiber. It was either in 320 or 329, that the Fidenates rose against the Roman coloni and expelled them. Two wars are related here, according to all appearances put in the wrong place: the detailed account occurs at least once too much; probably it belongs to the year 329. In 320, hostilities may likewise have taken place; this is at all events the time fixed upon by Diodorus, whom we may follow. We must look upon these coloni as a garrison of settlers who had their own hides of land. Three Roman ambassadors appeared at Fidenæ; and the inhabitants were called upon to justify themselves, and to reinstate the coloni. This seemed to them so unreasonable, that they slew the ambassadors, and threw themselves into the arms of the king of Veii, Lars Tolumnius; for all the Etruscan towns had a regal government, the king being elected for life. Tolumnius came across the Tiber to their assistance; and since the Romans, as the conquerors of the Æquians and Volscians, were now formidable to the neighbours, the Capenates and Faliscans, Oscan tribes, who had maintained themselves in those parts against the Tyrrhenians, hastened likewise to help the Fidenates. This host struck terror into the Romans; it lay one mile from Rome, being separated from it by the Anio only. A dictator was appointed, and he chose the military tribune A. Cornelius Cossus as Magister Equitum. The battle was a lucky one, and Cornelius Cossus slew the Veientine king Tolumnius, to whose charge, no doubt unjustly, the murder of the ambassadors was laid. The emperor Augustus with regard to it made the remark to Livy, that Cossus, on the strength of these spolia opima, had taken upon himself consular dignity; for on the armour he had called himself consul. This is a later addition in Livy, which, however, is left quite detached, or otherwise he must have placed the event seven years later. After this victory, Fidenæ was taken and razed to the ground; the ager Fidenas became ager publicus. With the Veientines a truce was made, which was quite seasonable for the Romans, as it enabled them to begin by completely crushing the Æquians and Volscians. Towards the end of the armistice, the Veientines sent to the other Etruscan peoples for aid against the Romans. Yet it was refused them, inasmuch as from another side, on the Apennines, a far more dangerous enemy had appeared, which like a horde of invading Turks destroyed every thing before it, namely the Gauls. The Etruscans advised the Veientines to try by all means to maintain the peace with the Romans: the demands of the latter may, however, have been too high,—perhaps they wanted the sovereignty over Veii, so that the Veientines were obliged to choose war as unavoidable. If we compare the account of the first Veientine war, seventy years before, the Veientines were then supported by the whole power of the Etruscans; but now their only remaining champions are the Capenates[114] and the Faliscans: in one single campaign indeed the people of Tarquinii come to their help. The Cærites were friends with the Romans, and therefore kept neutral: the Etruscans, it is true, were in the ascendant there; yet in the main the population may still have been Tyrrhenian. Rome was obliged to make the strongest efforts when arming herself for this struggle, and was supported in it by the Latins and Hernicans.

The derision with which Florus speaks of the bella suburbana, when saying, De Verulis et Bovillis pudet dicere, sed triumphavimus, is the sneer of a rhetorician, and we cannot find fault with him for finding these events rather uninteresting. Wars indeed which were fought within a narrow field, have not the same claims to our interest as one like that of Hannibal; still it was in these that the powers of Rome developed themselves. We will not treat this Veientine war with contempt, nor yet will we describe it with as much prolixity as Livy does; but we shall give a sketch of it in very brief outlines. To us, the spirit is of importance with which the Romans began it; inasmuch as they undertook it amid difficulties, which under the circumstances were not less than those of the first Punic war, for instance, and it was only by long perseverance that they could hope to bring matters to an issue. A city like Veii, which lay so near, and was so strong, could not be taken but by a blockade or a siege: when the Veientines were too weak in the field, they withdrew within their walls, against which the Romans could do nothing. One was now obliged, either to invest the town and force it to yield by hunger, or if needs be, by works, by mines; or else to try and reduce it by distress, fortifying a place in the neighbourhood (ἐπιτείχισις), as Decelea near Athens, and from thence devastating the country far and wide, and preventing its cultivation, so that the enemy are brought into such a strait of misery that they must strive by every possible means to get out of it. But to do this, inasmuch as they had to fear the neighbouring places, as Capena, Falerii, the Romans had to change their former mode of war. They had until then only undertaken short expeditions during a few of the summer months,—not unseldom but ten to twelve, nay even five to six days, especially in the times of the republic: under the kings it must have been different. There were from the earliest ages certain months of war, in which they mutually ravaged each other’s fields; thus it was among the Greeks, and so it is to this day among the people of Asia. On the frontiers of Georgia, Russia and Persia make war against each other for a couple of months every year; in the laws of Charlemagne the period is fixed during which the people are bound to service. During the intervals, the intercourse was more or less free; the time of the festivals especially was quite free, as, for instance, the common festivals of the Etruscans near the temple of the Voltumna, or that of the Ausonian people near the temple of Feronia. It was only for the stated period that the soldiers could be kept in the field, and as soon as it was over, they dispersed. The means of Rome for keeping up a large force were very much lessened since the Etruscan and Volscian wars: in former times the army was paid from the tithes which the possessors of the ager publicus had to give. But since the ager publicus was lost, every one marched out to war οἰκόσιτος, the men brought their stock of provisions from home, and what they wanted besides they tried to get by foraging: if this could not be done, the army had to return home again. It was owing to this that so very few sieges took place. But as it was now intended to carry on the war in right earnest, and not to lay down their arms until Veii were conquered, the army was to receive pay. This decree was perhaps connected also with a proposition for levying the tithes again from the ager publicus, and thence defraying the expense of the pay. There is some ground for the supposition, that in the earliest times already a stipendium was very generally paid, in a statement that in the census of Servius Tullius the equites received two thousand asses; without doubt, therefore, the pedites also got something. I suppose that it was a hundred asses, whether the war lasted a longer or a shorter time; and that for this sum, the soldier had to find himself in arms and provisions. With such a system wars of conquest were incompatible, as in these the soldier must be entirely kept by the state; and this is the arrangement which was intended, when it is said that the Roman soldiers now first received a stipendium. It would be incorrect to take it for granted that formerly they had nothing given them; but there is a very great difference, between their receiving a small sum at once and their being paid by the day. It may be assumed, that the ærarians, as they were not obliged to serve in war, had always had to pay a war tax for the pedites, as the orbi orbæque had for the equites; for, the plebeian could not have been loaded with the double burthen of serving with his body and with his goods.

The pay of the Romans was from of old a hundred asses per month for one man, which was in a fair proportion to his wants. Such a pay is to be met with among the Athenians since Pericles’ days, but scarcely ever before. The pay of a hoplite at Athens was immense; in Rome, where the allies paid no contributions, it could not but be much less. The sum of one hundred asses continued to be paid also in later times; when the asses were made too light, they were calculated in silver at the rate of ten to one. Every third day, the soldier got a denarius (as much as one drachma), which is two obols daily. The stipendium was considered as a unit; yet it was multiplied afterwards (multiplex stipendium: Domitian added a quartum stipendium). But this is always to be understood of one month only. The excellent Radbod Hermann Schele makes the mistake here of drawing from authorities which are not worth any thing, the impossible conclusion that the stipendia were annua, which would have been to no purpose whatever: his practical turn of mind failed him in this instance. The pay was only for the time when one was really in the field; if the war lasted for one year, a year’s pay was, of course, allowed. When Appius Claudius says in Livy, annua æra habes, annuam operam ede, this is likewise an incorrect opinion of Livy.

This innovation was of the utmost importance for the republic, as without a national army Rome could never have become great. If the money for the purpose could be supplied without entailing any fresh tax, it answered perfectly; but if the patrician did not pay the tithe from the ager publicus, or the revenue of the state was otherwise insufficient, the war was exceedingly burthensome for the plebeian, as the pay had to be defrayed by a property tax, and the service might last for an unusually long period. This injustice was an unavoidable necessity. That the plebeians had not been taxed before, was, very likely, owing to their inability to pay; but for twenty years Rome had been increasing in welfare, so that it now became possible, although new distress was thus created, and prosperity blighted, until there was even a return of the old system of oppression for debt. But, on the other hand, it also became possible, to keep an army in the field throughout the whole of the year.

About the same time, there was a change in the art of war. Postquam stipendiarii facti sunt, says Livy, scuta pro clupeis habebant; he seems to take it for granted that this alteration in the arms was called forth by the introduction of pay. The first step towards it may indeed have been already taken before the Gallic invasion.

The Romans entered upon the last Veientine war with the determination to conquer Veii. The republic, which had extended itself as far as Anxur, began to feel its own strength, as with the Sabines it was at least on friendly terms, and it had conquered the Æquians. How far the Latins took part in this war, is uncertain; their co-operation may not perhaps have reached beyond the Tiber. According to a statement which bears the appearance of truth, Circeii also was retaken by the Romans soon after Anxur: on the outskirts of the mountains, however, Privernum still maintained itself as a Volscian town. The weakness of the Ausonian peoples arose from the spread of the Samnites, and must have inclined them to make peace with the Romans. Thus Rome had leisure for permanently enlarging its territory, which in all probability it had no more to share with the Latins.

The last Veientine war had been followed by a twenty years’ truce. The Etruscans, like very many other nations of antiquity, had the custom of ending their wars only by armistices for a certain number of years, which were years of ten months. This may be proved by the fact, that in almost every instance hostilities break out again earlier than might be expected from the fixed number of years of twelve months, and never sooner than after the same number of years calculated at ten months. The truce between Rome and Veii was concluded in 330, and in 347 it had already run out (induciæ exierant, is the literal expression). The use of these years of ten months is on the whole very common among the Romans; such a year was reckoned for mourning, and for all matters connected with money and interest. In sales of corn a credit of ten months was an understood thing. Loans for a long term of years there were none; but all business was done for short periods, and on the security of personal credit, as debts on bills of exchange. The Veientines, quite contrary to what they did in former times, try to evade the war in every possible manner. Without doubt, Veii had formerly been the chief of many Etrurian towns; probably from its situation, as in the earlier wars the power of that city appears to have been very great. Yet the irruption of the Gauls had this effect with regard to the towns southward of the Apennines, as Arretium, Fæsulæ, &c., that they were summoned to assist their countrymen on the other side of the mountains. This assistance was fruitless. The loss was great, and Etruria shed its lifeblood in the plains of Lombardy. Tarquinii and Capena alone came to the help of Veii; and also the Æqui Falisci, not indeed as an Etruscan people, but because they considered Veii as their bulwark.

At first, the Romans thought that the war could be quickly brought to an end; they built strong forts in the Ager Veientanus, (which the Greeks call ἐπιτειχίζειν) as Agis did in the second half of the Peloponnesian war; and from thence they hindered the Veientines from tilling their fields, or they set fire to the ripe corn, so that famine and distress soon made their appearance in the town. This system of warfare is designated here by the term obsessio. Once only the Romans undertook a siege in the simple fashion of that age. Between two redoubts, and parallel with the wall of the town, a line of rubbish, sand bags, and fascines was thrown up; wooden scaffoldings (plutei) were then erected on both sides, in order to give the rubbish firmness; and, what was the chief difficulty, they were pushed further and further in advance. These wooden works were raised to about the height of the wall; bridges and scaling ladders were laid on it (aggerem muro injungebant); and then the machines were brought up, first the battering rams, in aftertimes the catapults and ballistæ,—for these, which in that age were yet unknown at Rome, were invented at Syracuse for Dionysius. The people of the town tried on their side to countermine. Yet the neighbouring nations defeated the Romans, and destroyed their works. Since then, several years passed without any camp being again pitched before Veii.

The war of Veii was for the ancients a parallel to that of Troy. They pictured to themselves another ten years’ siege, and a conquest quite as marvellous as that of Troy by the wooden horse. Yet not the whole of the war is poetical fiction; but the old lays were linked to detached historical points which they embellished, differing in this from the epics of the earliest history. By the side of these, there is an old annalistic narrative which is by no means incredible. The defeat of the tribunes Virginius and Sergius is historical; but the particulars concerning the Alban lake, and such like things, belong to the old poem. Whether this was written in prose or in verse is all the same to me. The account given was as follows.

After Rome had already for eight years worn herself out against Veii, and the most perfect tranquility reigned with the Æquians and Volscians, a prodigium came to pass. The waters of the Alban lake, which otherwise stood always below the brink of the old crater, now began to swell, and threatened to overflow. This is the general tenor of the old tradition: with regard to the details the accounts differ. According to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, and Dio Cassius in Zonaras, the stream ran straight from the lake into the sea; according to others, it merely threatened to overflow its banks. The Romans did not know what to do. They had stationed outposts before Veii, but when there was no actual fighting, a sort of armistice was kept. On this, an Etruscan haruspex laughed at the Romans for giving themselves so much trouble to conquer Veii, saying, that, so long as they were not masters of the Alban lake, they would not be able to take the town. A Roman, bearing this in mind, sent for the haruspex under the pretext of a procuratio rei domesticæ, who was then seized by the enemy, and compelled to tell them, what was to be done. He answered that they ought to drain the waters of the Alban lake, so that a stream from thence might reach the sea by a neighbouring river. The same thing was told by the Delphian god. The Romans now undertook the work and executed it. When it was all but finished, the Veientines sent an embassy to Rome, adjuring the Romans to receive them in deditionem. But the Romans would not listen to any such prayer; for they knew that the spell was broken. The Veientines said that this was true; yet that it was also stated in their books, that, if Veii were destroyed, Rome would likewise soon be taken by barbarians, and this the haruspex had forborne to tell them. The Romans now ran this risk, and appointed Camillus as dictator, who called upon all the people to share the booty, and undertook the assault. The sacred matters having been attended to, human wisdom was in requisition. He ran a gallery under the Arx of Veii, and led from thence a passage to the temple of Juno; as the fates had decreed, that he who made the offering in the Arx of Veii should be victorious. The Romans rushed in by that passage, slew the Etruscan king, and made the offering. Then the wall was scaled on all sides.

If we now reflect upon the historical absurdity of this account, we cannot doubt for one moment, the existence of a poetical fiction. There are traces of the citadel of Veii to this very day. It is situated on the Aqua rossa, is almost wholly surrounded by water, and rises to a considerable height: it is a rock of tufa. The Romans must then have had to dig a passage under the bed of the river, and to make the gallery with such consummate art, that no one could observe any thing; so that when all was done, they would only have quietly to raise the last stone in the temple and to climb out, as from a trap door.

In all probability, this is what really happened. There were two sorts of sieges. One was that described above, which only consisted in heaping up rubbish against the wall. Or else, with huge toil they undermined its foundations, and shoring it up with a framework of strong beams, set fire to the timber, and burned it, so that the masonry might come down with a crash. A positive mention of battering rams does not occur before the Peloponnesian war; and among the Romans even somewhat later. If Veii was really taken by means of a cuniculus, it is to be explained by the second mode.

The draining of the Alban lake must surely belong to this period. We cannot gainsay it, nor is there any reason for putting in here a work of earlier date. It is likely that owing to some stoppage in the channels by which it was drained, there was danger of the lake’s overflowing the whole of Latium; and possibly they may have taken advantage of the credulity of the people to stir them to this immense undertaking, though I believe that, if the senate decided upon this necessary work, it readily found obedience. It is to be supposed that the Alban lake had a subterraneous outlet through clefts, like the Fucinus and all lakes which have been formed in the craters of volcanoes: these chasms may have been filled up by an earthquake. Livy, somewhat further on, speaks of a severe winter when the Tiber was covered with ice, and of a sickly summer which followed it. The newly discovered excerpta of Dionysius place the construction of the tunnel in the year after that severe winter. Livy says that during that winter the snow lay seven feet deep, and that the trees were killed by the frost; a statement quite in the style of the annals, which, although the old annals were lost at the Gallic invasion, is yet very credible, as that winter must have survived in the memory of all. Just as severe was the winter of 483, when the snow lay for forty days on the Forum. The earlier Roman history shows traces of the average height of the thermometer having been at that time much less than it is now.[115] In Roman and Greek history, the periods of extraordinary appearances in the weather are almost always the precursors of frightful earthquakes: thus an eruption of Ætna happens at this time (354). Vesuvius was then quiet; yet the earthquakes were awful. By one of these, the outlets of the Alban lake may have been stopped: generally speaking, all lakes which have no emissarius, exhibit wonderful periods of rise and fall. The lake Copais even had artificial drains, which, however, were afterwards choked up, and Bœotia during the Macedonian era was not able to pay the cost of clearing them; the consequence of this was, that the lake began to swell, and overflowed the country all about. On the whole, as Aristotle has already remarked, Greece may have lost in the supply of water. The lake Copais is at present merely a marsh, which one cannot indeed any more call a lake, with stagnant pools, as in our “turf-moors.”

The work which the Romans executed is wonderful. The tunnel is entire to this day, and is in length 2,700 paces, half a German league:[116] the water of the lake is diminished to an appropriate level. This alone is a considerable advantage, although the country about is now uncultivated, and has nothing but brushwood growing upon it. More important, however, is the fact that drinkable water was gained by it; as the campagna of Rome was much in want of water, and although that of the lake is by no means good, yet it is better than what is found in the wells thereabouts. The work is equal to the greatest Etruscan ones: the entrance from the lake is a vault, executed in the grandest style like the hall of a temple, and we see that Rome now built again on as vast a scale as under the kings. This is characteristic of the time of Camillus. The tunnel is most of it cut through a hard mass of lava, a small portion only through peperino, which is more easily worked; it is a gallery nine palms high, and five palms broad. By this means the lake is kept, probably for ever, to a fixed level: moreover, the emissarius never needs to be repaired. The lake was at that time about a hundred feet above the level to which it was let off. How such a work was accomplished, is a very interesting question. If we consider the imperfect state of the instruments of those days when the use of the compass was not yet known, the task of finding the correct level at a distance of half a mile is indeed immense; nay it would even now be fraught with considerable difficulty, as one must know to a line, how high one ought to build in order to have a gradually inclined way for the water. It is known in the country, and stated in some books, that from the lake to the lower point to which the water was to be led, open shafts are everywhere seen to this day by which people even now go down to clean the emissarius: these did not serve merely to carry off the mud,—the lake is not muddy,—but also to calculate the depth, and to allow the air to come in. By the salt-water of the shafts, they were able accurately to calculate the line to its extremity. Now-a-days people are so little practised in levelling, that to a very recent period it was not known that the lake of Nemi lies higher than that of Alba. By sinking shafts, it was also possible for a greater number of people to work, and to bring the whole to a speedy completion: from each of them two parties might proceed till they mutually met. In this manner the tunnel was finished to the edge of the lake. The entrance was no doubt effected by a stone bore of the size of the tube of a tobacco pipe; for a wall of basalt needs not to be thicker than two ells for it sufficiently to withstand the whole pressure of the lake. An opening was made by which the lake sank gradually, so that the workmen had still time to be raised by a windlass from the shafts; when the water had discharged itself, the wall was pulled down, and the break was built to keep off trees, &c.; then it was embellished, and the magnificent portico and the entrance, similar to that of a temple, were erected. This shames all the Egyptian works, which are strange and useless; this, on the contrary, is purely rational.

That Veii was taken by storm, is certain. The nation was annihilated, and the sack was carried on quite methodically. It is said that the whole population of Rome was summoned thither to assist in the plundering. This may have applied to all those who were bound to military service; partly owing to the short distance of Rome from Veii, and partly because in that long war all had actually served. The fate of the inhabitants of the conquered town is the same which befell so many of the nations of antiquity: those who did not fall by the sword, were led away into bondage. The Romans took possession of an empty town: it was, as we may well believe, finer than their own. Rome has a magnificent situation; yet its picturesque character is fraught with many disadvantages. The country about the city is liable to frequent inundations; the communication within its walls, owing to the many hills and valleys, was very inconvenient for carriages: Veii, on the contrary, with the exception of its Arx, lay on a plain, and in all likelihood had fine broad streets. It was therefore no wonder that the Romans were loath to destroy such a beautiful town. Immediately after its conquest, quarrels arose between the government and the Plebes; for the latter demanded the division of the fields, and the former claimed the whole for itself. But this was now no longer possible. Another difficulty arose from the beauty of the town: it was thought a pity that it should be left desolate. It is conceivable, that when the proposal was made to divide the territory, it was also wished that to those who were in want of dwellings, the houses of Veii might be assigned. A tribune of the people proposed, that if the patricians deemed the plebeians too vile, to have their abode in the same place with them, the Plebes with its magistrates might emigrate to Veii:—that the proposal was, as Livy has it, that half of the senate and people should settle at Veii, would be too absurd for belief. Yet even the former one is very questionable: the plan would have been most injudicious. The reasons which Livy adduces against any such splitting of the population, are very weighty: a complete separation would have been inevitable. And if the project was only to transplant a numerous colony with a local government to Veii, even this was likewise very dangerous. A compromise took place. Whilst the patricians received a great part of the occupied land, the Plebes also got a share; and indeed not only were the seven jugera forensia assigned to each as his own lot, but the children were also taken into consideration. According to Diodorus’ statement, every family gets twenty-eight jugera; but in that case the size of the Veientine territory must have been enormous. This assignation did not extend to the ærarii. Those among them who were clients of patricians, got places on the estates of their patrons.

The sequel shows that at that time in the territory of Veii and Capena, as well as that of most of the Etruscan cities, there were great rural districts with subjected towns which during the war threw themselves into the arms of the Romans: these were no doubt the old inhabitants, who looked upon them as their liberators.

The conquest of Veii was one of the leading events in history: it freed Rome from the counterpoise which checked its progress. Now that the east was entirely pacified, the Romans advanced with irresistible might into Etruria; as the Etruscans had to concentrate the whole of their force in the Apennines, in order to keep off the Gauls. The war was, however, waged against the Faliscans also. These, to judge from their name, were Volscians, and therefore Virgil calls them Æqui Falisci; according to Strabo, they had ἰδίαν γλῶσσαν, and were ἕτερον ἔθνος from the Etruscans. The war of Camillus against the Faliscans is known to us from our earliest childhood, and how he moved them so strongly by his magnanimity, that they embraced the friendly alliance of the Romans. In this there is much which is improbable in itself. The story of the schoolmaster, I will not discuss. Moreover, there was war against the Vulsinians also: the Romans made conquests in their territory, and concluded an advantageous peace. By that time, Rome had already advanced beyond the boundary of the silva Ciminia, which afterwards, in the great war of Fabius, appears to have been fraught with such dreadful horrors. The line of demarcation then, does not yet seem to have been very distinct: afterwards, the district may have been purposely allowed to run wild, in order to form a boundary, just as there is also a forest between Austrian and Turkish Dalmatia. Of Capena there is no more mention; it disappears entirely. It was, therefore, either destroyed by the Romans after the conquest of Veii, or by the Gauls: certain it is, that after the invasion of the Gauls, all the Capenates who were left became citizens.

After these victories, Camillus stood forth as the greatest general of his age. But at this period it happened, that he was accused of having appropriated to himself out of the spoils of Veii many articles of great value, particularly the brazen doors of the temple of Juno; and of having announced too late, that he had made a vow to offer the tenth part of the booty to the Pythian Apollo. It would be a vain disquisition to speculate here upon the guilt or innocence of Camillus; only we must not forget, that every Roman general was justified in selecting a portion of the booty for himself.[117] Whether Camillus in this case took more than his share, we cannot decide; where one man goes by a smaller scale, another employs a greater one. We must not believe that Camillus did this in secret: he certainly had the gates put on his own house; if he had intended to use them as metal, they would long since have been melted down. The reason of the hatred against Camillus was a political one. He stood at the head of the most obstinate patrician party, even to the time of his death. The plebeians were becoming more and more energetic and powerful; owing to the tranquillity of prosperity, a certain taste for agitation had sprung up. Camillus was impeached, because he had an influential party against him; and he was fined the sum of fifteen thousand, according to others, one hundred thousand, or even five hundred thousand asses. He then went into exile, to Ardea. Livy says that, previous to his trial, he had entreated his clients and fellow-tribesmen to make every exertion to have him acquitted; which would prove, that he was proceeded against before the centuries, as in this instance there cannot be any question of the tribes;—that they had, however, declared, that they would pay his fine, but not acquit him. This clearly proves his guilt. According to Dionysius, his clansmen and clients really paid it, and he withdrew from sheer disgust. I believe that the curies condemned him, as, when he was recalled, they had again to be summoned to the Capitol, to repeal the decree of banishment; for, it was only in Rome that the curies could assemble. This would likewise prove that he was found guilty, a thing not at all unusual in those times with regard to great men.