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

by Barthold Georg Niebuhr

THE FIRST WAR WITH THE SAMNITES. PROGRESS OF LEGISLATION.

Majora hinc bella narranda sunt, says Livy. We now arrive at a period in which great masses come into collision; when Rome struggles with a great people, which displayed heroic stedfastness, which possessed great generals and an excellent system of arms (which the Romans even adopted from them), and which had all the political virtues that give greatness to a nation in the eyes of posterity. The war for life and death lasted seventy years, interrupted only by treaties of peace, or rather, armistices. In the Samnites we have a proof how much is gained for future generations by heroic perseverance, even though one be overpowered in the strife; for, their lot was always much more tolerable than that of many other nations conquered by Rome. Had their descendants brought down their wishes to the standard of things as they were; had they not aimed, though in a high and noble spirit, at impossibilities; had they not intoxicated themselves with feelings, the season for which was long since gone by; they would not have perished in the days of Sylla. And indeed, theirs was then a terrible fate, because they had no longer regard to the circumstances in which they were placed.

The great event by which Rome emerged from childhood, is the reception of Capua under her protection. It is involved, however, in obscurity, and is falsified besides by the Romans.

When we read in the ancients of a colony which turns in hostility against its mother state, we always think of disloyalty and ingratitude: the ancients themselves, that is to say, our authors, look upon such a defection as a domestic feud of the daughter against the mother. In some detached cases, this may be true; but in most instances, especially in Italian history, the relation is quite a different one. We must bear in mind the origin of the colonies; how a portion of the territory was set apart, and allotted to the coloni, while the rest remained to the old inhabitants; and how the colony then became, either the representative of the sovereign state, or, should it get emancipated, itself a sovereign power. The Romans always bound their colonies closely to themselves; the same appears to have been done by the Latins. There is scarcely anything similar to this in the Greek colonies. The Greeks almost always sent their colonies into waste countries, and built themselves new towns in which they afterwards would receive burghers of the pale and foreign residents; but they remained utter strangers to the nations among which they settled. Thus it was in Libya, on the Black Sea, Asia Minor, Thrace, Gaul, Spain. The only peoples akin to them were the Pelasgian nations in Italy and Sicily, and thence arose the rapid increase of the Greek colonies in those parts. Their colonies generally went out from political reasons, from discontent, perhaps also from over-population; and as they immediately emancipated themselves, they owed to the mother state no other feeling than that of reverence. The Roman colonies, on the contrary, stood always in patria potestate, and were bound to the discharge of certain duties.

A different system we meet with among the Samnites, perhaps everywhere among the Sabine states. Just as they had quite a different religion, different fundamental types of division, a different military equipment, so had they likewise a different system of rights in the colonies.—From Strabo we know the tradition of the Samnites concerning their descent; that sprung from the Sabines, they had found the Oscans in the country which they occupied. The Oscans inhabited the whole of that neighbourhood, whilst on the coast there were Pelasgians, who once upon a time, we do not know when, had also spread over the midland country. Probably the Pelasgians dwelt at first from the Tiber to the Garganus: the Oscans from the mountains of Abruzzo, pushed on by the Sabines, overran these districts; and after these the Sabines, the stock from which the Samnites sprang, took possession of them, and advanced into the most southern part of Italy, the most ancient population perishing before them. Their colonisation therefore, unlike that of the Romans, was not undertaken with the view of extending their dominion; but it was merely the overflow of too crowded a state, whence it happens that there is nowhere a trace of connexion between the Sabine colonies and the original race. Thus it was likewise with the Picentines; with the four nations, the Marsians, Marrucinians, Pelignians, and Vestinians; thus also among the Samnites. These consisted of four peoples, which formed a confederation, the Pentrians, Caudinians, Hirpinians, and in all probability, the Frentanians. The Frentanians were afterwards separated from them; and in their place another canton, between Surrentum and the Silarus, was introduced, the inhabitants of which were perhaps called Alfaterians. From the Samnites other tribes came forth; the Lucanians, and by a cross of Lucanians, Oscan-Sabellian adventurers, and freedmen, the Bruttians. When the Sabines had now settled in the middle valley of the Vulturnus, they also spread into Campania, the most favoured land in Italy: here there had existed since 280 an Etruscan colony. The oldest inhabitants of the country were most likely Tyrrhenians, which is the reason why Capua, like Rome, was derived from Troy. The Tyrrhenians were subdued by the Oscans, and these in their turn by the Etruscans: among the latter, Capua is said to have been called Vulturnum. The Oscans must have been a very great mass; for they quite changed the whole of the population. But the greatness of the Etruscans lasted only for a little while: as early as in 320, they began to decline at the Tiber; how much more therefore in Campania? Now it is natural that Capua, which was a mere settlement of an oligarchic nation, should not have been able to hold out against a conquering people: the subjugated Oscans were not very zealous in the defence of their masters. On this account, the Tuscans at Capua agreed to a compromise by which they received ἔποικοι of their enemy, in fact a Samnite colony,—a foolish arrangement which is so often to be met with in ancient history. Thus the Amphipolitans received the Chalcidians, and these drove out the old Athenian colony: Aristotle brings forward many similar examples. Such towns, in which the ruling community was formed of two distinct races, had seldom the good fortune, like Rome, of having them well united. The Samnites conspired against the Tuscans; and with that faithlessness and cruelty for which all the Sabellians and Oscans are so remarkable, they murdered them after some time, and kept the city for themselves. Three years afterwards, the Samnites spread as far as Cumæ, and conquered that town, which had long been one of the most splendid in Italy. And thus at Capua, the ruling class were first Etruscans; then Samnites, and with them a numerous Oscan commonalty. For according to this system of colonisation, the sovereignty in the colony was given to an offshoot of the conquering people: part of the old inhabitants in the towns became clients; another part remained free; while those in the country, on the other hand, were bondmen or serfs, as in the conquests of the Franks and Lombards. Similar also is the condition of the Spanish colonies in Mexico, in which the original population has likewise continued. This was the state of things in Capua. We now find it mentioned in Roman history, that the Campanians asked for the help of the Romans and Latins against the Samnites. But how could the colony have fallen out with the people from which it came? This is only to be thus explained. The commonalty of the Oscans, which had been kept in dependance by the Samnites, gained strength, increased in number, and recovered itself; and whereas the Roman Plebes gradually united with the patricians, these broke out into a revolution, and overthrew the Samnite patricians, Owing to this, Capua and Samnium became enemies; yet the Samnites seem not to have been destroyed at Capua, but only to have lost the rule: it is the equites Campani, mentioned by Livy, to whom the whole body of the citizens pays yearly contributions, either as an indemnity for the Ager Falernus, or because they remained faithful to the Romans. Rome liked oligarchy for dependent peoples.

The Samnites reached at that time from the Adriatic to the Lower Sea. No ancient author gives a distinct account of their constitution; and it is only by analogies, and by conclusions from detached circumstances, that the following facts may be surmised as probable. They consisted of four cantons, which formed a confederation, perhaps with subjects and affiliated towns, and were probably quite equal among themselves. Each of these cantons was sovereign, but united to the others by a perpetual league. In what rotation the federal administration went round among them, is more than we know. The weakness of the Samnites with regard to the Romans, was their not forming a compact state, as did these from the time that the Latins were subjected to their sway. They only assembled together in case of war; yet they must have had a permanent congress: what was the nature of it, is quite uncertain. Livy never speaks of a Samnite senate; Dionysius in his fragments makes mention of πρόβουλοι. These were very likely the delegates of each people, similar to the ἀποκλητοῖς of the Ætolians; but whether they were fully empowered to decide on peace and war, or whether, as among the Greek nations, a popular assembly was convoked for such a decision, is uncertain. If this were the case, each people had a vote; as the ancients never voted according to the accidental poll number of those present.[130]

Latium took those who did not belong to it into its league. In the same manner, Rome had formed from the allied Volscians two tribes, which dwelt near the Pontine marshes. Rome and Latium therefore agreed to receive each a portion of the Volscians, and to keep the Hernicans apart. If now Rome, Latium, and the Hernicans had been allied without supremacy, and they had had common assemblies, the relation of the Samnites would have been a similar one. Each of their peoples formed a sovereign state combining with the others against the foreigner only. Nations which are threatened with destruction from without, can scarcely attain to the sound conviction, that they must sacrifice their individual will to preserve their nationality: the only example to the contrary is that of the nations of Greece joining the Achæan league. In the beginning, the Romans and Samnites fought on equal terms; but the Samnites were never aware of the fundamental defect of their constitution. Had they remodelled it, and instituted but one senate with a popular assembly, I have not the least doubt that the whole war would have taken a different turn. But as it was, now one canton, now another had the ascendency; sometimes Bovianum and the Pentrians, then perhaps the Caudinians, carried the decisions; now one people, now another was attacked, and the chief command changed hands; for in all likelihood the people which was most threatened at the moment always had it for the protection of its own frontiers. The highest magistrate of the confederation was called Embratur (Imperator): he is often mentioned on monuments. It is also not unlikely that each people had its Imperator, and that the general of the one which happened to hold the chief command, became Imperator, or perhaps Prætor of the whole of the army. As far as we can judge, their constitutions were thoroughly democratical, as might be expected from mountaineers like these. Moreover, they must have received the whole of the old population among themselves; for even after the most dreadful defeats, numerous as they were, they seem to have been quite unanimous.

The cause which in 412 first engaged the Romans and Samnites in a war with each other, was the spreading of the Samnites towards the Liris. As to the Volscians, they were not much thought of any more: their power was broken, and they were most of them united with the Latins, or connected with them. The Samnites held the whole of the country to Casinum, and had subjugated the Volscians as far as Sora and Fregellæ: sometimes, however, they had to evacuate these districts. Lucania was not in their league; it was an emancipated colony. But the Samnites had likewise reached Apulia, and had conquered a great part of it, as for instance, Luceria. Thus we see that the Samnites were greater than the Romans and Latins together: their country was equal in extent to half of Switzerland. Their league with the Romans in the beginning of the fifth century, we know already; but unhappily, such treaties are only kept so long as the cravings of ambition, or the lust of conquest, are not strongly roused. I have no doubt, but that an agreement had been entered into with Samnium, that neither people should spread beyond the Liris; yet the Romans might repent of having put to themselves such narrow limits. Had the Samnites conquered Teanum, they would have been masters of all the country between the rivers, and have subjected to themselves the whole district to the Liris. That the Romans were not warranted in receiving the Campanians into their alliance, is acknowledged by Livy himself.

It is said that the Campanians had got into a war with the Samnites, in consequence of their having attacked the Sidicines of Teanum.[131] The Sidicines probably sprang from the same stock as the Volscians; they inhabited Teanum, but they may not have been limited to that town. The Sidicines had betaken themselves at first to the Campanians, as these were no longer allies of the Samnites, and the Campanian Plebs must have deemed it an advantage to gain this people as a bulwark against the Samnites on the north. Capua ruled over a number of places which are said, but without any probability, to have been all of them Etruscan. This region is called Campania,[132] and is different from that which is so called on the map; it extends but a little beyond the Vulturnus, as far as Casilinum to the south, and Calatia and Saticula to the north.[133] Nola, Neapolis, Pompeii, and Herculanum did not belong to it: it is therefore quite a little district, and is nothing more than the townland of the citizens of Capua. The Campanians, owing to the fruitfulness of their soil, were wealthy and unwarlike. They wished to ward off the attack; but they could do nothing against mountaineers, and were defeated. The Samnites took a position on the hill of Tifata above Capua, and wasted all the country around. In Capua, it was the old Oscan population which carried on the war in spite of the Samnite colony; and great troubles now arose, as the Samnites probably wanted to restore the oligarchic colonial constitution. The Campanians therefore applied to Rome, or, more likely, to the federal assembly of the Romans, Latins, and Hernicans. This is clearly shown by what is stated from L. Cincius; in Livy we see evident traces of an intentional obliteration of the Roman tradition respecting it. Alone, the Romans must have been exceedingly embarrassed by this application: they had pleaded in objection their alliance with the Samnites, and therefore the Campanians placed themselves under the protection of the whole league. This deditio must not be taken for that of a conquered people; it is here to be understood merely of seeking and receiving protection. In such affairs, the Romans always hypocritically stuck to the letter of the law, even when they acted in direct opposition to the spirit of the ordinances of Numa and Ancus. There was at least that good in it, that they always wished to have the appearance of right on their side. Yet for all that, we must not deem the old Roman fides to have been downright hypocrisy: their respect for the laws certainly kept them from doing many dishonourable things against the weaker party. They may be excused on the plea that the Samnites to all appearance became too great for them, and that it was to be foreseen that the league would sooner or later be broken up; so that the favourable opportunity ought not to be thrown away. The Romans were too strongly tempted by the hope of gaining over the Campanians and all the peoples of that country, by a defensive alliance. There is no question, but that they were not impelled by the wish to befriend those who were in need of help; they yielded to the spirit of evil, and the Samnites were perfectly justified in their hatred against them. The Romans sent an embassy to the Samnites, and called upon them to make peace with the Sidicines, and not to devastate the Campanian territory, as the Campanians had placed themselves upon their protection. The Samnites proudly spurned these proffers; and now began their giant struggle against the Romans, Latins, and Hernicans.

This Samnite war is the first great campaign which deserves to be related, since Rome had a history. However much may be deducted from the numbers which are given in Livy,—and this may be done the more safely as it is one of the Valerii of whom these achievements are told, and Valerias Antias was a client of that family,—the difference between these battles and the earlier ones is quite evident. In the year 412, three were fought, the first great battles, besides that of A. Postumius Tubertus on the Algidus, which are recorded in history.

In this year, the Licinian law was violated for the last time, there being two patrician consuls, A. Cornelius Cossus, of whom we know but little, and M. Valerius Corvus, a man in whose favour an exception might be made at any time. He was one of the greatest and most successful of men; and it is a just remark of Pliny’s, that even Solon would have called him such. He is one of the historical heroes of Rome, although the account of the origin of his surname still belongs to poetry: Livy himself does not treat it as history. Yet it is a proof that even in those times heroes were still the subjects of lays. No one will believe, that in 406, a Gaul had challenged the bravest of the Romans to a single combat, and that Valerius when no more than twenty-three years old, had conquered him; for a raven, flying against the enemy, had pecked and lacerated him, so that the youth had gained an easy victory. His first consulship falls in his twenty-third year. (after he had slain the Gaul,) and probably he was consul for the sixth time, forty-six years later: he nearly reached the age of a hundred, and lived to see the complete conquest of Italy. As in those days it often happened that one who had been consul held also the other curule offices, to these he was repeatedly elected until the latest years of his life, and he filled them yet in the full vigour of his mind. He is the man who may give his name to his age; he was the idol of the soldiers, and not only one of the first generals, but he also ruled over the hearts of his men by his amiability and brotherly-kindness, in which notwithstanding he never compromised his authority; the soldiers saw in him the most able of their equals. If we place ourselves at his deathbed, and review with him his life so rich in achievements, we have before us a colossal age, of which we are far from able to give any adequate image.

Rome sent two consular armies, half of them Romans, and the other half Latins, to Campania, which was quite open on the side of Samnium, Nola being even a Samnite colony and Neapolis allied with that people. The two armies appear in very different positions. That of M. Valerius in Campania beyond the Vulturnus, was evidently on the defensive; whilst, on the contrary, the army of Cornelius Cossus was intended for a diversion in Samnium, Capua very likely being the base of it, in which enterprise he at that time advanced by the usual road on the north side of the Vulturnus, from Calatia to Beneventum in Samnium. Unfortunately we cannot get a distinct view of the events of the war, and we can only surmise their general course from single facts. We find Valerius on Mount Gaurus, probably near Nuceria; so that the Romans enter Samnium from that point, in order to protect Campania. There was another mount Gaurus, not far from Cumæ and the promontory of Misenum. If this one be meant, the Romans were pushed back by the Samnites into this corner, with the sea and the Vulturnus behind them, and their victory was the result of despair.[134] This would clearly prove, that at first the Romans suffered some losses, which Livy or his annalists passed over in silence; but the battle at all events set matters right again. It was evidently the greatest that had hitherto been known: all the previous ones had indeed been bloody, but not of any duration; for if the Gauls had for some hours striven in vain, they would give up fighting, and the Æquians, Volscians, and Hernicans were insignificant in number. The Samnites, on the contrary, stood against the Romans with equal numbers, and most resolutely; and thus they held on during the whole of the day, without anything being decided, until nightfall, when the Roman knights, as the principes juventutis (the Samnites had no cavalry, and the Roman one was very weak as a mounted force), got off their horses, placed themselves before the ranks, and fought with noble spirit. The true nobility of the nation put all the rest to the blush; they followed them, and were irresistible. The slaughter was tremendous on both sides; the Samnites retreated, but merely retreated without flight, as was done near Grossgörschen and Bautzen; the victors followed, but with the greatest caution. Near Suessula, a few miles off, the Samnites took again a position: the camp and the wounded fell, of course, into the hands of the Romans. To these, victory gave more hope than gain; yet the chief point was this, that the battle was an auspicious omen for the whole of the war, which in all likelihood they had entered upon, having before them the chance of a termination which would have utterly ruined them.

The expedition of A. Cornelius Cossus to Samnium certainly took place in the beginning of the campaign. There he seems to have been opposed by a general levy of the militia of the Samnites; as on the whole it was customary with them, to act on the offensive with the regular army, and to leave the defence of the country to the people. Thus the invading Roman hosts had mostly to encounter the levies of the peasantry. Samnium was at that time in its full freshness and vigour. The Roman general rashly entered the hostile country, though it was unknown to him and of most difficult access. No army withstood him: he marched over the ridge of mountains which runs from the North to the South, crossing it from the west to its eastern side, where there are nothing but narrow defiles. The first column had already reached the valley, whilst the last still found itself on the crest of the hill; for this is what, from the nature of the ground, we must gather from Livy’s confused account. He most likely wished to get to the road from Beneventum and the fertile valley of the Calore, so as to keep the northern and the southern Samnites asunder. In this position, the Romans remarked that the opposite hill was occupied. They halted. To retreat in the defile was difficult, and now the Samnites were advancing in order to occupy a height which commanded the road. The Romans were nearly surrounded; as the Samnites were already taking possession of the road in their rear. At this crisis, the tribune P. Decius Mus, a descendant of one of the most energetic plebeian families, proposed to the consul, rapidly to ascend the mountain-steep with a cohort, and to occupy that eminence which the Samnites had incautiously abandoned; so that he could attack them in the rear, and there withstand the assaults of the enemy, until the army, keeping the defile, should have reascended the mountain. This was executed. Decius reached the height which commanded the pass before the Samnites, who had now to try to dislodge him. Here he and his men fought, like the Spartans at Thermopylæ, convinced that they must die, and with such stedfastness, that the Samnites for that evening desisted from the attack; but, whilst the Romans retired to the road which had been abandoned, these took up a position with the resolution of storming the hill the next morning. The band of Decius was entirely surrounded; but during the night he ventured upon a sally down the hill, and cut his way through the enemy, so that with the remainder of his men he returned to the consul. The Romans, now, are said to have again on the following morning won a great victory; yet we cannot believe it. The army of Cossus is no longer spoken of: probably he had got aware of the dangerous character of his expedition; or a loss had been in the meanwhile sustained in Campania, and he been called to give help. At the mount Gaurus, Valerius was alone; but near Suessula the two consuls are together, and likewise the Samnites had been joined by those who had followed in the track of Cossus. The two armies were encamped over against each other; but the Samnites, who were superior in numbers, felt too sure of success: their general must have been of indifferent ability. They spread about, plundering the country; especially as Valerius, entrenched in his camp, gave himself the appearance of being afraid. When now the Samnites were thus scattered, Valerius suddenly attacked their camp and took it; then he quickly turned against the detached bands, and routed them one after the other; so that he and his colleague had a brilliant victory, and both were allowed to triumph.

The Romans now learned by experience, that in the midst of splendour and prosperity the pressure of the times may be very grievous. Since the passing of the Licinian law, there had been continual misery in Rome; new commissions were appointed to make arrangements concerning the debts: this was also done after the victory over the Samnites. The wars rendered a heavy taxation necessary; the plebeians, while they were serving with the army, had also to provide for the maintenance of their families; not one half of all those who were able to bear arms may at that time have remained at home, and so bloody a campaign must surely have caused the deepest affliction to many families. In the second year of the war, when either the Latins held the chief command, or perhaps a truce existed between the Romans and Samnites, a fermentation took place, which very nearly broke out into an explosion. Livy is obscure here; much clearer is an extract of Constantinus from Appian, in which we may distinctly trace Dionysius. The insurrection of the year 413 was occasioned by the debtors. Livy passes this over in silence: he says that the Roman army lay in cantonments in Campania,—probably in consequence of the truce, and that the temptation had come upon them to seize Capua. The Roman consul, who, on taking the command, found the army in a state of open mutiny, tried to get rid of the ringleaders, by sending them off singly on different errands, and at the same time giving orders to secure every one of them. This sending off seems to them suspicious; and a cohort which was sent to Rome, halts near Lautulæ, between Terracina and Fundi; four or five Italian miles from the former place, on a lonely road between the hills and the sea, which had ever been a haunt of robbers and bandits. The mountains there approach the sea almost as close as at Thermopylæ; but they are not as steep. It is quite a narrow defile, connecting Latium and Campania, and there appear to have been warm springs in it; so that in its name also the place resembles Thermopylæ. The country is now a wilderness. I could not find the springs, and at Terracina I forgot to inquire for them. In the second Samnite war, there was fought near Lautulæ one of the greatest battles recorded in history. Here the cohort mutinied, and was joined by great numbers; the communication between Rome and the head quarters was cut off, the messengers of the consuls were intercepted, and the whole of the army must have refused their obedience. A crowd of bondmen for debt flocked in to side with them, and now happened that dreadful state of things which had never before been known: the common people marched against Rome, without, however, offering any personal violence to the consul. It was no more the Plebs on the Mons Sacer; but proletarians against the rich, very much like the workmen in manufactories against their masters. But most fortunately for Rome, poor indeed as they had become, they still looked upon themselves as plebeians, and the leading plebeians as their chiefs; so that these last were able to make use of them to reform the constitution. It is remarkable that they drew forth an old lame patrician, T. Quinctius, of the Alban district, from his country seat, and chose him for their captain, as the peasants, in the Peasants’ War, did Götz Von Berlichingen; on which they advanced against the city. The distress was very great. The government knew no longer on whom to rely: all who were in the town, armed as well as they could; but the city legions would hardly have been able to make head against the army. Valerius Corvus felt his heart bleed at the thought of a civil war. Fortunately the Plebes also was not yet become quite savage; so he held out his hand for reconciliation. The soldiers were likewise moved, when they saw their kinsmen in the army of the town: they alleged great grievances, and were ready to listen to terms of accommodation. On either side, all were unwilling to shed the blood of their brethren. The consequence of this moderation in both parties was a reconciliation: peace was concluded, and the debts, according to Appian (that is to say, Dionysius), were remitted.

The cause of all this, as it is stated in this account, is a most unlikely one. The sending away of individuals could surely have lasted only a very short time; but that a whole cohort should have been thus despatched, is not to be thought of. The other story makes no mention whatever of a military insurrection, or of the intention to take Capua; but it speaks of a commotion at home, a secession like the former ones of the Plebes, owing to their indebted state, and the unfair position in which they stood to the patricians, the Licinian law not having been kept. The plebeians emigrated into the Alban district, and had drawn over to them cohorts of the army. It is indeed mentioned that the senate had gathered troops; but there is nothing said about the two armies having faced each other, or about the dictatorship of Valerius (which is found in Livy). Just as they were on the point of drawing the sword, it was agreed on both sides to put an end to the struggle at any price.

A great and essentially plebeian legislation by which that of Licinius was completed, manifests itself as the result of this event. Whatever may have been the true history of that commotion, it was certainly of much greater importance than Livy describes it to have been. Whereas until then the Licinian law, according to which there was always to be one plebeian consul, had been violated seven times in thirteen years; from henceforth there are no more infringements of it, notwithstanding some absurd attempts in later times. In the present fermentation, a rule must have been made which precluded the possibility of any such design being successful. Clauses must have been added, perhaps as stringent as those in the lex Valeria Horatia, by which the severest punishments were denounced against any one who hindered the election of the tribunes of the people. Moreover, it is said to have been enacted, that both consuls might also be chosen from the plebeians; but this seems to be a mistake: that this was not carried out, may easily be proved. In the war of Hannibal, there was once a special resolution passed, that both consuls might be taken from the Plebes while the war lasted; yet it was not acted upon. It was not before 580, that the natural proportion first won the day, the patrician nobility having dwindled down to such insignificance, that it became impossible to keep up the law as had been done hitherto. Another ordinance which Livy mentions, is of great importance: it shows that there was no longer a mere question of the opposition of the orders against each other; but that among the plebeian nobility the same oligarchical intrigues had manifested themselves, which until then had been confined to the patricians alone,—a proof, that neither of the two was better than the other. This law comprised two points: in the first place, that no one should hold two curule dignities at the same time; secondly, that whoever had filled a curule office, could only be re-elected to it after ten years. The first point, as far as the prætorship was concerned, could effect the patricians only, it having probably often happened that a patrician consul had caused himself to be elected prætor as well, so that he might get the upperhand over his colleague; but with regard to the ædileship, it would also affect the plebeians in alternate years. Livy says that the law was especially directed against the ambitio novorum hominum. The second point had probably been mooted by the plebeians themselves, as a check upon the overwhelming influence of men who belonged to their own order; as until then we always find the same plebeian names as Popillius Lænas, C. Marcius, C. Poetelius, in the list of consuls. What was wanted, was to keep the honours of the state from becoming the property of a few exclusive families.

With regard to military matters, Livy knows of two laws which date from the time of these disturbances. The first, that whosoever had once been a military tribune, should no more become a centurion, is represented as having been brought forward owing to a certain Salonius, who is said to have been thus reduced to a lower rank out of spite. The consuls had full right to appoint whom they chose as centurions; yet there was a feeling among the soldiers, that when a man had been a tribune, he could no more be a centurion which was no higher than a non-commissioned officer. Among the military tribunes, six places every year were filled by the tribes, the rest by the consuls: one could not, however, be elected two years running by the same party. During the year in which a person could not be tribune, he must have been unemployed. Now Salonius, who had been a tribune, and as such had no doubt opposed the consuls, was therefore made by these a centurion: thus the voice of the public promoted, and the consuls degraded him. It was against this that the law was directed. The organisation of the class of officers is one of the best things in the Roman system. Slow advancement, the right to gradual promotion, and the making provision for officers in old age, were unknown to the Romans: by law, no one held a permanent commission; every officer was required to be efficient. They had no notion either of gradually rising by length of service, or of a standing corps of officers: every military tribune was appointed for one year only; if he did not show himself equal to his duty, he was not chosen again; but whoever was efficient was elected year by year by the people and by the consuls in turn, and this was his calling, and his desire. Moreover, it was not necessary to pass through a whole succession of subordinate steps: the young Roman of rank served as a horseman; the consul had the distinguished ones in his cohort as staff-officers; there they learned a great deal, and in a couple of years the young man, in the full prime of life, might become a military tribune. Regard was had besides to that respectable class of people who, without any calling for a higher command, were well qualified to train the soldiers. These were made centurions, what with us would be sergeants. They were all of them people of humble station; they had good pay and enjoyed consideration, and they also might in some cases become tribunes, if they showed remarkable ability. What is done by the great mass of our subalterns, might be performed as well by an able non-commissioned officer. In all this, the Roman military system is as admirable as in its perfect training of the individual soldier.

The second law may show us how Livy jumbles everything together. The pay of the equites is said by him to have been lowered, because they had not taken a share in the insurrection. If the rebels could carry this through, the state was lost. I believe that this was the period when the equites ceased to be assigned as a burthen of two thousand asses upon the widows and orphans, and it was decreed, that they should have a fixed pay. This was a reasonable change, but a loss for the eques publicus; reasonable, because the state could afford the expense.

In luco Petelino, the curies now voted a complete amnesty for all that had happened: no one was either in jest or in earnest to be reproached with it. Livy takes it for a resolution of the centuries auctoribus patribus; but it is evident from the trial of Manlius, that in the lucus Petelinus the curies alone assembled.