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

by Barthold Georg Niebuhr

Of the weakened state of Rome, there is a tradition in Plutarch and Macrobius, which, indeed, such as it is, seems not to be historical. While the city was still without walls, armies made their appearance from quite powerless places in the neighbourhood, like Fidenæ and Ficulea; so that the Romans had to give hostages. But a trick was played when this was done; and instead of maidens of high birth, they sent servant-girls, whose leader, a Greek bondmaid of the name of Philotis, like another Judith, when the troops, in the celebration of their unwonted good luck had got drunk, gave a signal with a torch to the Romans, whereupon these destroyed the enemy. This incident was dated in Quinctilis, consequently four months after the evacuation of the town. This story is at all events a proof how weak Rome was supposed to have become.

On the new country district, which was not inconsiderable, there again arose a renewal of Rome’s might. At the end of this period, the disorganised state of things on the left bank is the same as before: on the right bank, every thing belonged to Rome except Sutrium and Nepete, which are border fastnesses, and beyond which the silva Ciminia grew into a wilderness. Whenever an ager publicus is now spoken of, it lies almost exclusively in these parts. It was probably only with the nearest Latin towns, Tusculum, Lanuvium, Aricia, that Rome was in relations of isopolity. These events cannot here be told in a connected narrative; the details would not serve any purpose whatever: it is only with those which are important in themselves, and in their consequences, that we have to do. It was otherwise with Livy, who wrote for his countrymen.

Of much greater consequence are the events which happened at home. Avarice and usury are among the besetting sins of the Romans; which in proportion as they found a wider range, became the more oppressive. A few years after the evacuation of the city, when a distress was reigning which Livy completely disguises from us, and perhaps from himself, M. Manlius came forward to befriend the sufferers. The cognomen of Capitolinus was not given him for having saved the Capitol, but because he lived there; as T. Manlius, most likely his father, already twenty years before, occurs with that name in the Fasti. The deliverance of the Capitol was not the only brilliant achievement of Manlius: he was acknowledged as one of the most distinguished heroes in war, and the fact of his not being met with at all in the Fasti, throws a light upon the position in which he stood. It is generally told of him, that he entertained consilia regni affectandi; but Livy says, that there were no proofs to be found in the annals of any such intention, beyond meetings held in his house, and his bounty to the Plebes. It may have been, that he bore a grudge against those who were in power, because he had received no reward for his deeds: it may be also, that his great soul was stirred within him by a vast ambition, and that he yielded to the desire of taking the crown for his reward. Whatever he did, his were actions which the purest and most benevolent mind might have done as well. Every day, citizens were assigned to creditors as bondmen for debt; Manlius paid for them what they owed, especially for old soldiers; dissolved their nexum, and restored them to their families by the sacrifice of the whole of his fortune. At the same time, he is said to have charged the patricians with having embezzled the money which had been retaken from the Gauls. The suspicion must have arisen from the tax having been laid on to replace the gold which had been paid to the Gauls; as there was harshness and fanaticism in calling it in under such circumstances, although it was destined for the gods. Thus Manlius acquired an enthusiastic popularity; and therefore the ruling order attacked him in the most violent manner. Instead of taking the hint, and relieving the distress, the patricians stood obstinately upon their right, and thus a race was run between benevolence, or benevolent ambition, and the most headstrong oligarchy; just as in the year 1822 was the case in Ireland, where the peasantry, when animals were bled, would fight for the blood that they might appease their hunger, and yet the landlords would not for all that abate from the strict letter of their claims. Thus it was natural, that there should be a feeling among many, that any change would be better than such a government; and that Manlius, as a usurper, might be useful, like many of the Greek tyrants. The Roman government was so little inclined to recede in its course, that it caused Manlius to be arrested. Yet this was to no purpose: a general sympathy manifested itself in behalf of a man who until now had not offended in any thing; the Plebes went into mourning, and flocked in crowds to the gates of his dungeon. And thus the government was obliged to release him. Now, one might have thought, he would be sure to take some step which could not be justified. Manlius had a difficult part to play. Men often begin under such circumstances with the purest intentions, and are drawn in by degrees to go dreadfully astray. I believe that Manlius did not set out with the design of making himself the tyrant of his country; but when his own kindred now decried him, and gave his good motives an evil interpretation, his actions were thus as it were poisoned in the bud, and thence might grow up the resolution of seizing upon despotic power. And yet there is no proof to be found of it. The tumult increased. Manlius demanded in the name of the people, that part of the common land should be sold, and the debts be paid from the proceeds; a reasonable request as the state had a right of property in the demesne. But the oligarchs wanted to keep it in their occupation, and they exulted at the distress of the plebeians. Embarrassment had made the dependence of the Plebes very great; so long as the Præfectus urbi had the power of addicting, every one was in danger of losing his liberty. Manlius now became more proud and self-assured in consequence of his victory; dangerous thoughts might daily have been more familiar to him. He was accused: two tribunes declared for the senate; Camillus, according to Zonaras, was expressly appointed dictator. Overawed by the dictatorship, he was now brought before the assembly of the centuries; yet they did not venture to send him again into prison. Having been liberated on bail, he surrendered and defended himself; which gives us the strongest presumption of his innocence, as he might have withdrawn himself. He pleaded his great military achievements, and his good and kindly deeds, as vouchers for his motives; he brought forward the spoils of thirty slain enemies, and forty marks of honour gained in war; he appealed to the citizens whom he had saved, even to the Master of the horse himself; he pointed to the Capitol, which is seen from the Campus Martius; and the centuries acquitted him. But the oligarchy was not satisfied with this. The senate prosecuted him before the curies (concilium populi), which were to judge him as a patrician in the Peteline grove. Livy, and all those who followed in his wake, misunderstood this. As the concilium populi occurs but seldom, he thought of a tribunician impeachment; yet he cannot deny that the duumviri, that is to say, the patrician public accusers, instituted the proceedings. The assembly was held in the Peteline grove; not because one could not thence see the Capitol, but most likely because it was not wished to pronounce a sentence of death within the town, and yet one was obliged to assemble on a sacred spot. Manlius was condemned, and thrown headlong from the Tarpeian rock. This brought on an awful calm which lasted for several years, just as after the death of Cassius; but the cause of the patricians, as was always the case, had to suffer for it,[123] although the full weight of vengeance did not fall upon them. For until C. Gracchus called the murderers of his brother to account, those who were in power were not personally made to answer for such outrages; and it was in truth to this very forbearance that Rome owed the preservation of her liberty. From Manlius’ blood sprang those, who did not so much avenge him, as carry out his ideas. Licinius and Sextius were perhaps, or rather, in all likelihood, his friends; his shameful death animated them to brave every danger, that they might accomplish their great work. Encouraged by his example, they did this without bloodshed.

It was about ten or eleven years after the destruction of the city, that two tribunes of the people, C. Licinius and L. Sextius, put themselves at the head of their order, with the resolution of at last placing the two orders on a right footing. The patricians were not to be done away with as a distinct class; but the plebeians were to exist by their side with equal rights, and the state, in the true spirit of its original idea, was to become a double one, being formed of two perfectly equal communities. The military tribunes were now again almost always patricians only, which is unaccountable. Something must be wanting here; unfortunately there is nothing to be found about this period in the excerpta de Sententiis from Dio Cassius. The patricians were content with the military tribunate; they wanted no consuls. There is a silly story current concerning the motives of Licinius in thus putting himself forward; so that it was an easy task for Beaufort to show that it was mere fiction. M. Fabius Ambustus was said to have had two daughters, one of them married to the patrician Sulpicius, the other to C. Licinius. Sulpicius was a military tribune, and had come home with the lictors. The younger sister, who was startled at the noise, was laughed at by the elder one, as if the noise must indeed have been an unwonted one to her, the wife of a man who could never attain to this honour. Beaufort has justly remarked that this honour could not possibly have been unknown to a child of M. Fabius Ambustus; and it is quite as unhistorical, that the younger Fabia begged her father and her husband to help her to get it likewise. Plebeians could indeed be military tribunes just as well as patricians, and M. Fabius Ambustus besides is afterwards one of those who join in violating the Licinian laws. The whole is a wretched story, such as we meet with in memoirs, trumped up by a party who are annoyed at the success of their opponents’ designs. The motives of men are often mean at bottom; yet one ought not to make the rule general, and to bury everything great beneath the littleness of contemptible circumstances. Livy has merely borrowed the tale from others: in him it is the thoughtlessness of haste, and the want of entering into the spirit and relations of the times; he wrote history, not to give an account of facts, but for the sake of the narrative. He had a generous and noble soul; and although his patrician predilections sometimes beguile him, it is still quite true what he says in the preface, that he felt impelled to seek for the great in the olden times.

Whatever may have been the occasion, it was natural enough to think of remedying the existing abuses by a radical reform. Theirs embraced two objects; the alleviation of the temporary distress was the third. The first law which they proposed, was that no military tribunes should be elected any more, but consuls, one of whom must of necessity be a plebeian. The patricians, small as their numbers were, had still the upperhand in the government; and they tried for along time to evade the law, until it was made so stringent, that all their artifices became impossible. It was on account of these tricks, that the law had to be laid down in such absolute terms. It would not do to say, that the most worthy from both orders were to be elected, as the curies had still the confirmation, and could refuse it to a plebeian; and therefore the election of a plebeian was to be made an indispensable point. The division was of importance for the patricians themselves; as otherwise, when the plebeians became powerful in the state, they would have elected two men of their own order. Only two hundred years after, the balance turned in favour of the plebeians, who were then aware that the patricians had quite dwindled, the patrician nobles being to the plebeian ones in the ratio of 1 to 30. The second law established the principle, that plebeians as well as patricians might have a share in the possession of the ager publicus; and that with regard to the past, part of it should be assigned to them as property, according to the lex Cassia, while with regard to the future, one part of it should be granted to the patricians in possession, and one part be allotted to the plebeians as property. No individual was to hold more than five hundred jugera; whatever now exceeded this amount, was to be divided among the Plebes in lots of seven jugera. The number of cattle also, which might be allowed the use of the common pastures, in summer on the hills, and in winter in the meadows near the city, was to be according to a certain proportion. The temporary measure was contained in the third law proposed. Of the debts of the plebeians, the interest, which had been added to the principal, was to be cancelled; and the rest was to be paid, no doubt without interest, in three instalments, at periods of a year of ten months each. This was indeed a general bankruptcy; but it was the only feasible plan, and the creditors had previously gained enough in all conscience by their usury. That was done for individuals, which Sully, after the dismal times of the Ligue, did for the state, when he brought down the debt by striking off the exorbitant interest already paid, and leaving the remaining capital to continue at the usual rate of interest. Owing to this strong measure, France was raised to a high state of prosperity under Louis XIII.; whilst before that, the marrow of the nation had only served to fatten the farmers of the revenue and the usurers. In Rome also, it was without doubt merely the worst people among the citizens who suffered under it: a more gentle remedy would indeed have been very desirable; but there was none to be found, and help could not be withheld.

Against these rogations, the patricians not only now displayed the greatest determination themselves not to yield, but they also exerted all their influence in the assemblies for elections; so that for ten whole years the tribunes, who were re-elected every year, met with opposition within their own college. Beyond this, the affair is shrouded in great darkness; on which side the resistance arose, and wherein the difficulty lay, we cannot tell for certain. Whether the tribunes themselves made opposition; or whether the patricians managed to call forth a spirit of indifference and refractoriness within the commonalty itself; or whether the laws, as rogations, were adopted by the centuries; must all be left undecided: probably it was different in different times.

Our authors state that Licinius and Sextius had so stoutly withstood the election of new magistrates, that for five, or according to others, for six years, no curule magistrates were chosen. This is one of those stories which at first sight seem as if they could not have been invented. We also find in all the Fasti five years, in which neither consuls nor military tribunes are given, but only Licinius and Sextius as tribuni plebis: their colleagues, who surely ought likewise to have been mentioned, we also miss. Thus it is in Junius Gracchanus besides, from whom it passed to Joannes Lydus. Nevertheless it is false. Undoubtedly the tribunes stopped for some length of time the elections of the curule magistrates, so that the Fasti were put out by it: but what a state of confusion there would have been if this had happened five years running! Interreges were sufficient in times of peace only, as no one could have led an army into the field; and were the neighbours quiet all the while? The account arose, in the first place, from the positive information that the tribunes had really during the whole struggle hindered the elections, and had only given way in extreme cases, when a war made the appointment of a curule magistrate indispensable: the vacancies therefore lasted always for a short period only, during the delay of the elections. In the next place, the ancients thought,[124] that Rome had been taken by the Gauls under the Archon Pyrgion Ol. 98, 1. They read this in Timæus, and took it for granted, without considering that he was by no means so sure of this, as would seem from his positive way of speaking. Fifty Olympiads later, Ol. 148, 1. (corresponding with 565 according to Cato), Fabius wrote. He knew perfectly well how they now reckoned in Greece, and he knew likewise that Rome had been taken by the Gauls two hundred years before; and so he reckoned backwards. But the Fasti did not tally: six or seven years were wanting between the taking of Rome and the Licinian rogations, some of which were made up by taking into the account the substitution of interreges instead of consuls. This went some way; but it could not fill up the deficiency. After the Gallic invasion, the consuls were elected Kalendis Quinctil.; at that time perhaps Kal. or Id. Aug., as on those two days of the month only were elections held. And thus the yearly reckoning was disturbed. Hence it follows that these statements are as false as they are incongruous: the Gallic conquest must be placed considerably later, by at least four years, than it has been. Now the first who composed our accounts, were by no means of opinion that the tribunes had been the only magistracy for five years; but they compared the Greek date with the Roman statements, and yet they did not see their way through the Fasti. Owing to this, we have the interpolated dictatorships of entire years in the Fasti of Varro, which are likewise false, and only grounded on the derangement of the consular year. They then went beyond the restored consulship of 388; and putting in this place that impossible anarchy of five or six years, they foisted in the tribunes of the people, to whom, however, instead of ten years, there were much too many given. The forger found in the Fasti tribuni, without any further mention of the curule magistrates; and made out from this the opposition against the elections, which in Livy has been extended to so great a length.

During these proceedings of the tribunes, there surely were always in Rome military tribunes, almost without any exception patricians, upon whom the elections were forced by their presidents; in one instance, however, half of them were plebeians. The exasperation increased from day to day: it went so far, that the outbreak of a civil war was actually to be dreaded. Under the dictator Manlius, the tribunes first succeeded in having half of the decemvirs who had the charge of the Sibylline books, chosen from the plebeians, in order to prevent false assertions concerning the prodigia on the part of the patricians. Another instance of progress was this, that the dictator P. Manlius raised a clansman of the tribune Licinius to the dignity of Magister equitum, being indeed authorized to do so by ancient usage. For in fact the plebeians had also knights of their own, and Brutus, even as early as in his time, had been tribunus celerum. When there was now no more opposition made by any tribune, and the tribes had adopted the rogations of Licinius, matters were brought to a crisis; as the senate, which was almost entirely patrician, refused to give its sanction. The commonalty showed itself much less obstinately bent upon carrying the law for the election of consuls, which was all that the plebeian nobles cared about, than upon having the others passed. The policy of the senate, of trying to compromise the matter by temporising concessions, was brought here into play again. But Dio Cassius informs us, that the tribunes of the people, in order to carry all the laws together at once, had consolidated them into one; and that Licinius had said, that if they did not choose to eat, they should not drink either.

In every free state, there are in families political views and principles which are handed down like heirlooms. Of this there are many examples in Roman history: people are born members of a party, as well as of a church. The first tribune of the people was a Licinius; a Licinius was the first who took the lead of the people in the insurrection on the Sacred Mount; and a Licinius it was, who 420 years later, after Sylla’s rule, again asserted the rights of the tribunate: the Licinii ever continued to be the first plebeian house. It was the same with the Publilii and the Sicinii. If this seems to us a strange narrowing of individual freedom, thus to cleave to the principles of one’s forefathers, as if there were an outward obligation for doing so, we shall after some experience find it to be the true groundwork on which the stability and the strength of a nation rest. In the same manner, there are certain marked political features ever recurring in many English families.

Licinius therefore combined the different laws in one, that they might all stand or fall together. Nothing is more praiseworthy in Roman history, than that a community, which was far superior to its antagonists in might as well as in numbers, bore with their wiles for a succession of years with the greatest forbearance and self-command, and without committing one illegal action. The aged Camillus, who was past eighty, was now named dictator. In him the old party spirit with all the old feelings, was still alive: called upon by his order, he believed that he could make things possible, which were impossible. To withstand a dictator was more than the plebeians would have dared; but with consummate wisdom they formed the resolution, should Camillus take upon himself as dictator to do anything against them contrary to law, to prosecute him after the expiration of his time of office for a fine of 500,000 Asses. This announcement paralysed Camillus: he could effect no more than Cincinnatus had been able to do ninety years before. He himself advised compliance, and made a vow to build a temple to Concordia, if he should succeed in reconciling the two orders. This temple was consecrated, although not before the death of that great man. For the Romans of the later ages, it was too mean in its ancient glory; and under Augustus already it was replaced by another, under Trajan, by a still more splendid one. Until 1817, it was sought for in a wrong place: it stood in a corner, under the Salita which leads from the arch of Septimius Severus to the Capitol. Several votive tablets were found there; it is behind the church of St. Servius, which Pope Clement VII. had built in the place of an older one. The columns, which were of later date, were of Phrygian marble, and of most elegant workmanship. Trajan was fond of transporting himself into the past. He coined Roman denarii, bearing on one side his head, and on the other the stamp of some extinct family of distinction (for, in former times the right of coining was no prerogative); of these nummi restituti there is a great number in existence. In the same spirit, Trajan was pleased with the thought of restoring the ancient temple of Concordia: the spot where the golden age of Rome had begun, to him was hallowed; as it also was to his friends Pliny and Tacitus. This temple is a classical spot in Rome: it is the symbol of the constitution, based on freedom and equality.