FORMATION OF THE ROMAN PEOPLE
The Kings.—Tradition relates that Rome for two centuries and a half was governed by kings. They told not only the names of these kings and the date of their death, but the life of each.
They said there were seven kings. Romulus, the first king, came from the Latin city of Alba, founded the hamlet on the Palatine, and killed his brother who committed the sacrilege of leaping over the sacred furrow encircling the settlement; he then allied himself with Tatius, a Sabine king. (A legend of later origin added that he had founded at the foot of the hill-city a quarter surrounded with a palisade where he received all the adventurers who wished to come to him.)
Numa Pompilius, the second king, was a Sabine. It was he who organized the Roman religion, taking counsel with a goddess, the nymph Egeria who dwelt in a wood.
The third king, Tullus Hostilius, was a warrior. He made war on Alba, the capital of the Latin confederation, took and destroyed it.
Ancus Martius, the fourth king, was the grandson of Numa and built the wooden bridge over the Tiber and founded the port of Ostia through which commerce passed up the river to Rome.
The last three kings were Etruscans. Tarquin the Elder enlarged the territory of Rome and introduced religious ceremonies from Etruria. Servius Tullius organized the Roman army, admitting all the citizens without distinction of birth and separating them into centuries (companies) according to wealth. The last king, Tarquinius Superbus, oppressed the great families of Rome; some of the nobles conspired against him and succeeded in expelling him. Since this time there were no longer any kings. The Roman state, or as they said, the commonwealth (res publica) was governed by the consuls, two magistrates elected each year.
It is impossible to know how much truth there is in this tradition, for it took shape a long time after the Romans began to write their history, and it includes so many legends that we cannot accept it in its entirety.
Attempt has been made to explain these names of kings as symbols of a race or class. The early history of Rome has been reconstructed in a variety of ways, but the greater the labor applied to it, the less the agreement among students with regard to it.
The Roman People.—About the fifth century before Christ there were in Rome two classes of people, the patricians and the plebeians. The patricians were the descendants of the old families who had lived from remote antiquity on the little territory in the vicinity of the city; they alone had the right to appear in the assembly of the people, to assist in religious ceremonies, and to hold office. Their ancestors had founded the Roman state, or as they called it, the Roman city (Civitas), and these had bequeathed it to them. And so they were the true people of Rome.
The Plebs.—The plebeians were descended from the foreigners[117] established in the city, and especially from the conquered peoples of the neighboring cities; for Rome had gradually subjected all the Latin cities and had forcibly annexed their inhabitants. Subjects and yet aliens, they obeyed the government of Rome, but they could have no part in it. They did not possess the Roman religion and could not participate in its ceremonies. They had not even the right of intermarrying with the patrician families. They were called the plebs (the multitude) and were not considered a part of the Roman people. In the old prayers we still find this formula: "For the welfare of the people and the plebs of Rome."
Strife between Patricians and Plebeians.—The people and the plebs were like two distinct peoples, one of masters, the other of subjects. And yet the plebeians were much like the patricians. Soldiers, like them, they served in the army at their own cost and suffered death in the service of the Roman people; peasants like them, they lived on their domains. Many of the plebeians were rich and of ancient family. The only difference was that they were descended from a great family of some conquered Latin city, while the patricians were the scions of an old family in the conquering city.
Tribunes of the Plebs.—One day, says the legend, the plebeians, finding themselves mistreated, withdrew under arms to a mountain, determined to break with the Roman people. The patricians in consternation sent to them Menenius Agrippa who told them the fable of the members and the stomach. The plebs consented to return but they made a treaty with the people. It was agreed that their chiefs (they called them tribunes of the plebs) should have the right of protecting the plebeians against the magistrates of the people and of prohibiting any measure against them. All that was necessary was to pronounce the word "Veto" (I forbid); this single word stopped everything; for religion prevented attacks on a tribune under penalty of being devoted to the infernal gods.
Triumph of the Plebs.—The strife between the two orders beginning at the end of the fifth century continued for two centuries (494 B.C. to about 300 B.C.).[118]
The plebeians, much more numerous and wealthy, ended by gaining the victory. They first secured the adoption of laws common to the two orders; afterward that marriage should be permitted between the patricians and the plebeians. The hardest task was to obtain the high magistracies, or, as it was said, "secure the honors." Religious scruple ordained, indeed, that before one could be named as a magistrate, the gods must be asked for their approval of the choice. This was determined by inspecting the flight of birds ("taking the auspices"). But the old Roman religion allowed the auspices to be taken only on the name of a patrician; it was not believed that the gods could accept a plebeian magistrate. But there were great plebeian families who were bent on being the equals of the patrician families in dignity, as they were in riches and in importance. They gradually forced the patricians to open to them all the offices, beginning with the consulship, and ending with the great pontifical office (Pontifex Maximus). The first plebeian consul was named in 366 B.C., the first plebeian pontifex maximus in 302 B.C.[119] Patricians and plebeians then coalesced and henceforth formed but one people.
THE ROMAN PEOPLE
The Right of Citizenship.—The people in Rome, as in Greece, is not the whole of the inhabitants, but the body of citizens. Not every man who lives in the territory is a citizen, but only he who has the right of citizenship. The citizen has numerous privileges:
1. He alone is a member of the body politic; he alone has the right of voting in the assemblies of the Roman people, of serving in the army, of being present at the religious ceremonials at Rome, of being elected a Roman magistrate. These are what were called public rights.
2. The citizen alone is protected by the Roman law; he only has the right of marrying legally, of becoming the father of a family, that is to say, of being master of his wife and his children, of making his will, of buying or selling. These were the private rights.
Those who were not citizens were not only excluded from the army and the assembly, but they could not marry, could not possess the absolute power of the father, could not hold property legally, could not invoke the Roman law, nor demand justice at a Roman tribunal. Thus the citizens constituted an aristocracy amidst the other inhabitants of the city. But they were not equal among themselves; there were class differences, or, as the Romans said, ranks.
The Nobles.—In the first rank are the nobles. A citizen is noble when one of his ancestors has held a magistracy, for the magisterial office in Rome is an honor, it ennobles the occupant and also his posterity.
When a citizen becomes ædile, prætor, or consul, he receives a purple-bordered toga, a sort of throne (the curule chair), and the right of having an image made of himself. These images are statuettes, at first in wax, later in silver. They are placed in the atrium, the sanctuary of the house, near the hearth and the gods of the family; there they stand in niches like idols, venerated by posterity. When any one of the family dies, the images are brought forth and carried in the funeral procession, and a relative pronounces the oration for the dead. It is these images that ennoble a family that preserves them. The more images there are in a family, the nobler it is. The Romans spoke of those who were "noble by one image" and those who were "noble by many images."
The noble families of Rome were very few (they would not amount to 300), for the magistracies which conferred nobility were usually given to men who were already noble.
The Knights.—Below the nobles were the knights. They were the rich who were not noble. Their fortune as inscribed on the registers of the treasury must amount to at least 400,000[120] sesterces. They were merchants, bankers, and contractors; they did not govern, but they grew rich. At the theatre they had places reserved for them behind the nobles.
If a knight were elected to a magistracy, the nobles called him a "new man" and his son became noble.
The Plebs.—Those who were neither nobles nor knights formed the mass of the people, the plebs. The majority of them were peasants, cultivating a little plat in Latium or in the Sabine country. They were the descendants of the Latins or the Italians who were subjugated by the Romans. Cato the Elder in his book on Agriculture gives us an idea of their manners: "Our ancestors, when they wished to eulogize a man, said 'a good workman,' 'a good farmer'; this encomium seemed the greatest of all."[121]
Hardened to work, eager for the harvest, steady and economical, these laborers constituted the strength of the Roman armies. For a long time they formed the assembly too, and dictated the elections. The nobles who wished to be elected magistrates came to the parade-ground to grasp the hand of these peasants ("prensare manus," was the common expression). A candidate, finding the hand of a laborer callous, ventured to ask him, "Is it because you walk on your hands?" He was a noble of great family, but he was not elected.
The Freedmen.—The last of all the citizens are the freedmen, once slaves, or the sons of slaves. The taint of their origin remains on them; they are not admitted to service in the Roman army and they vote after all the rest.
THE GOVERNMENT OF THE REPUBLIC
The Comitia.—The government of Rome called itself a republic (Respublica), that is to say, a thing of the people. The body of citizens called the people was regarded as absolute master in the state. It is this body that elects the magistrates, votes on peace and war, and that makes the laws. "The law," say the jurisconsults, "is what the Roman people ordains." At Rome, as in Greece, the people do not appoint deputies, they pass on the business itself. Even after more than 500,000 men scattered over all Italy were admitted into the citizenship, the citizens had to go in person to Rome to exercise their rights. The people, therefore, meet at but one place; the assembly is called the Comitia.
A magistrate convokes the people and presides over the body. Sometimes the people are convoked by the blast of the trumpet and come to the parade-ground (the Campus Martius), ranging themselves by companies under their standards. This is the Comitia by centuries. Sometimes they assemble in the market-place (the forum) and separate themselves into thirty-five groups, called tribes. Each tribe in turn enters an enclosed space where it does its voting. This is the Comitia by tribes. The magistrate who convokes the assembly indicates the business on which the suffrages are to be taken, and when the assembly has voted, it dissolves. The people are sovereign, but accustomed to obey their chiefs.
The Magistrates.—Every year the people elect officials to govern them and to them they delegate absolute power. These are called magistrates (those who are masters). Lictors march before them bearing a bundle of rods and an axe, emblems of the magisterial powers of chastising and condemning to death. The magistrate has at once the functions of presiding over the popular assembly and the senate, of sitting in court, and of commanding the army; he is master everywhere. He convokes and dissolves the assembly at will, he alone renders judgment, he does with the soldiers as he pleases, putting them to death without even taking counsel with his officers. In a war against the Latins Manlius, the Roman general, had forbidden the soldiers leaving camp: his son, provoked by one of the enemy, went forth and killed him; Manlius had him arrested and executed him immediately.
According to the Roman expression, the magistrate has the power of a king; but this power is brief and divided. The magistrate is elected for but one year and he has a colleague who has the same power as himself. There are at once in Rome two consuls who govern the people and command the armies, and several prætors to serve as subordinate governors or commanders and to pronounce judgment. There are other magistrates, besides—two censors, four ædiles to supervise the public ways and the markets, ten tribunes of the plebs, and quæstors to care for the state treasure.
The Censors.—The highest of all the magistrates are the censors. They are charged with taking the census every five years, that is to say, the enumeration of the Roman people. All the citizens appear before them to declare under oath their name, the number of their children and their slaves, the amount of their fortune; all this is inscribed on the registers. It is their duty, too, to draw up the list of the senators, of the knights, and of the citizens, assigning to each his proper rank in the city. They are charged as a result with making the lustrum, a great ceremony of purification which occurs every five years.[122]
On that day all the citizens are assembled on the Campus Martius arranged in order of battle; thrice there are led around the assembly three expiatory victims, a bull, a ram, and a swine; these are killed and their blood sprinkled on the people; the city is purified and reconciled with the gods.
The censors are the masters of the registration and they rank each as they please; they may degrade a senator by striking him from the senate-list, a knight by not registering him among the knights, and a citizen by not placing his name on the registers of the tribes. It is for them an easy means of punishing those whom they regard at fault and of reaching those whom the law does not condemn. They have been known to degrade citizens for poor tillage of the soil and for having too costly an equipage, a senator because he possessed ten pounds of silver, another for having repudiated his wife. It is this overweening power that the Romans call the supervision of morals. It makes the censors the masters of the city.
The Senate.—The Senate is composed of about 300 persons appointed by the censor. But the censor does not appoint at random; he chooses only rich citizens respected and of high family, the majority of them former magistrates. Almost always he appoints those who are already members of the Senate, so that ordinarily one remains a senator for life. The Senate is an assembly of the principal men of Rome, hence its authority. As soon as business is presented, one of the magistrates convokes the senators in a temple, lays the question before them, and then asks "what they think concerning this matter." The senators reply one by one, following the order of dignity. This is what they call "consulting the Senate," and the judgment of the majority is a senatus consultum (decree of the Senate). This conclusion is only advisory as the Senate has no power to make laws; but Rome obeys this advice as if it were a law. The people have confidence in the senators, knowing that they have more experience than themselves; the magistrates do not dare to resist an assembly composed of nobles who are their peers. And so the Senate regulates all public business: it declares war and determines the number of the armies; it receives ambassadors and makes peace; it fixes the revenues and the expenses. The people ratify these measures and the magistrates execute them. In 200 B.C. the Senate decided on war with the king of Macedon, but the people in terror refused to approve it: the Senate then ordered a magistrate to convoke the comitia anew and to adopt a more persuasive speech. This time the people voted for the war. In Rome it was the people who reigned, just as is the case with the king in England, but it was the Senate that governed.
The Offices.—Being magistrate or senator in Rome is not a profession. Magistrates or senators spend their time and their money without receiving any salary. A magistracy in Rome is before all an honor. Entrance to it is to nobles, at most to knights, but always to the rich; but these come to the highest magistracies only after they have occupied all the others. The man who aims one day to govern Rome must serve in the army during ten campaigns. Then he may be elected quæstor and he receives the administration of the state treasury. After this he becomes ædile, charged with the policing of the city and with the provision of the corn supply. Later he is elected prætor and gives judgment in the courts. Later yet, elected consul, he commands an army and presides over the assemblies. Then only may he aspire to the censorship. This is the highest round of the ladder and may be reached hardly before one's fiftieth year. The same man has therefore, been financier, administrator, judge, general, and governor before arriving at this original function of censor, the political distribution of the Roman people. This series of offices is what is called the "order of the honors." Each of these functions lasts but one year, and to rise to the one next higher a new election is necessary. In the year which precedes the voting one must show one's self continually in the streets, "circulate" as the Romans say (ambire: hence the word "ambition"), to solicit the suffrages of the people. For all this time it is the custom to wear a white toga, the very sense of the word "candidate" (white garment).
FOOTNOTES:
[117] Probably some of the plebeians originated in non-noble Roman families.—ED.
[118] We know the story of this contest only through Livy and Dionysius of Halicarnassus; their very dramatic account has become celebrated, but it is only a legend frequently altered by falsifiers.
[119] The pontificate was opened to the plebeians by the Ogulnian Law of 300 B.C. The first plebeian pontifex maximus was in 254 B.C. Livy, Epitome, xviii.—ED.
[120] This qualification was set in the last century of the republic.—ED.
[121] He cites several of their old proverbs: "A bad farmer is one who buys what his land can raise." "It is bad economy to do in the day what can be done at night."
[122] After the completion of the census.—ED.