The Hortensian law comprehended other objects besides. There was but one dictator Hortensius, down to the time of Cicero, and likewise only one Hortensian law.
This resolution was an extraordinary event, the first step towards the fall and the breaking up of the Roman state. Yet the condition of Rome was so sound, that a hundred and fifty years passed away before the mischief displayed itself. It is one of the disadvantages of a free constitution, that what has once been neglected, cannot be so easily made up. The Veto could not have continued as it was; but what ought to have been done, and was not done, because it was not done at the right time, was this: the curies should have been filled up from the plebeian nobles, and by a number of clans from the allies. The senate could not have the same weight as a strong aristocratical body; the sincera plebes, the good old country folk, gradually dwindled away, and the factio forensis got the upperhand; the elements which had rendered the Roman commonalty so excellent, died off by degrees, and ought to have been replaced. This must have struck many a person at that time; for instance, that wise man Fabius, if he was still alive. Sp. Carvilius, a son or grandson of him who conquered the Samnites, brought forward a motion in the war of Hannibal, to receive two members from each senate of the allies into the Roman one; just like Scipio Maffei, who made a similar proposition in Venice. The former was all but torn to pieces in the senate; as for the latter, it is quite a wonder that he got off unpunished. Sallust says, that between the second and the third Punic war, there had been the strongest feeling of respect for the laws of Rome; yet this was merely the peaceful state just before the outbreak of a revolution. Single cases of evil consequences had not been wanting already; one was, that from henceforth the admission of the Italians to the full right of citizenship became more and more difficult, as this would lessen the influence of the ancient citizens. This afterwards gave rise to a coalition between the allies and the nobles; but unhappily the nobility did not form a corporation. The patrician body crumbled to pieces, and there was nothing to take its place.
Even as the French revolution was very much hastened by the absurd regulation of old Marshal Ségur, that only nobles were to hold commissions, which exasperated all the soldiers; thus in Rome also, a like provocation was given by L. Postumius, an odd character, who—what at that time was not common—had thrice been consul, and was also employed in the decisive embassy to Tarentum: he must therefore have been a man of consequence; but he behaved on this occasion like a madman. During his consulship, he insulted old Q. Fabius, who was with the army as proconsul, by driving him away. There is party hatred in this: Fabius was an aristocrat, but free from all oligarchical spirit. After the war, Postumius had possessed himself of immense tracts of land, and had set two thousand soldiers to work at clearing a forest. For this accumulated insolence, he was impeached by the tribunes, and condemned to pay a fine of five hundred thousand asses. Circumstances of this kind gave greater offence than anything else, and the more bitter it became as the oligarchical party fell off in numbers.
In this period is to be placed the appointment of the triumviri capitales. The form triumviri is indeed a solecism, a proof that even so early as this the casus obliqui were prevalent, as in the modern Romanesque languages. From triumvirorum, which was often heard, a nominative, triumviri, was made; and this form was already generally current in the times of Cicero.—The triumviri capitales correspond to the Athenian ἕνδεκα; they had the superintendence of the gaols; beyond this, we are altogether in the dark as to what their office was. They entered upon the functions which had passed from the old Quæstores parricidii to the ædiles curules. There were many cases in which there was no further investigation to be made, namely, those of delicta manifesta: but to inquire in every instance whether a person was reus manifestus, the prætor had not time, and there must have been an authority which informed him that there was a delictum manifestum: this must formerly have been the quæstors, and now the tresviri capitales. Besides this, they were judges in cases of which the prætor did not take cognisance, in those of foreigners, slaves, and so forth; and they likewise watched over their punishment, as these persons were not under the protection of the tribunes: when, however, there was a doubt, a judex was to be granted. Thus this office had the mingled powers of a police and of a criminal jurisdiction.
DESTRUCTION OF THE SENONIAN GAULS. C. FABRICIUS LUSCINUS. WAR WITH TARENTUM. PYRRHUS OF EPIRUS. EVENTS IN SICILY DOWN TO THE FIRST PUNIC WAR.
According to Zonaras, it was the Tarentines who stirred up the peoples far and near against the Romans; first the Lucanians, then the Etruscans, and even the deeply humbled Samnites: the Greek towns were no longer the closest friends of the people of Tarentum; the latter looked to their own political advantage, and were ready to leave them to the mercy of the Lucanians and Bruttians. Either after the third, or even after the second Samnite war, a peace was concluded between the Romans and the Tarentines: in 451, or 452, they already seem to be friends; the Greek writers also speak of it as a treaty of long standing. They seem on both sides to have checked each other by sea; for the Romans bound themselves not to appear with any ship of war north of the Lacinian headland in the gulf of Tarentum, whilst the Tarentines may have made a similar promise.
An unprejudiced observer must have seen from the issue of the third Samnite war, that the fate of Italy was decided; and the Italian people ought to have hastened to unite themselves with Rome on the most favourable terms which they could get. But men’s passions have no such wisdom, and they are always looking for some Deus ex machina, who is to change everything. One people after another joined the ranks of the enemies of Rome. The Lucanians, who were allied with them during the third Samnite war, availed themselves of their independence to act according to their own liking, and to reduce the Greek towns to subjection. The Bruttians likewise became leagued with the enemies of the Romans; the Greek towns, on the other hand, having been abandoned by the Tarentines, sought their aid. The Etruscans, disunited among themselves, still continued to be ever alternating between peace and war: the Vulsinians alone seem to have carried on uninterrupted war. The strength of the Samnites was quite broken; yet they tried to rally, so as again to take up arms, as soon as it could be done with any hope of success: for the present, they kept aloof, and gave the Romans no occasion for hostilities. The Tarentines tried to stir up even the Gauls, doing every thing all the while by means of subsidies only: they themselves did nothing openly, and to all appearance the good understanding was kept up. The great distress at home must have obliged the Romans to dissemble; we merely know that, true to their system of supporting the weak against the strong, they gave to the Thurinians their help against the Lucanians. On this occasion, we meet with the first instance of a Greek town having raised a statue to a Roman.[157] Rome’s support saved the Thurinians.
In Etruria, the war now took a different turn. The Etruscans seem to have been so divided among themselves, that the war party called in the Gauls to join with them in fighting against their opponents. Arretium in the north-eastern corner of Tuscany, thus exposed to the Gauls, being governed by the Cilnii, and on friendly terms with Rome, was besieged by the barbarians. In 469 (according to Cato, in whose system the birth of Christ is to be placed in 752, not in 754), the Romans sent to the relief of Arretium the prætor L. Cæcilius Metellus and two legions with auxiliaries, in all, about 20,000 men. But the Senonian Gauls, though they dwelt on the other side of the Alps, over which there was no way, broke through, and defeated Metellus, who himself was left dead on the field of battle, and eleven thousand Romans with him: the whole of his force seems to have been utterly destroyed. Curius was now sent with an army into Etruria, and envoys were also despatched to the Senonians, to ransom the prisoners. The Senonians, however, still harboured vengeance on account of the battle of Sentinum, and Britomaris, a young chieftain whose father had been killed there, instigated them to murder the ambassadors. On this, the Romans determined at all hazards to take revenge; and the consul, P. Cornelius Dolabella, instead of attacking the army of the Gauls, who were perhaps already dreaming of a new conquest of Rome, adopted the plan of falling upon the deserted country of the Senonians, where he partly destroyed the population, and partly carried it away captive. The army of the Senonians, maddened at the tidings of this disaster, returned home, and was entirely routed: it is hardly an exaggeration to say, that the whole of the nation was exterminated. The Boians now crossed the mountains, joined the Etruscans, and met with a defeat near the lake Vadimo; yet the Romans did not set foot on their territory, which reached from the river Trebia to the Romagna. In the following year, all the fighting men of this tribe came forth again, but with no greater success; the nation, however, was not annihilated: the women and children had stayed behind, and so it regenerated itself. It was not until fifty years later, that the extermination took place. The Gallic migrations from henceforth were no more turned against Italy, but against Thrace and Macedon. How matters went on in Etruria, and what Etruscan towns made their submission, the wretched history of that period leaves quite untold.
All the time that these dreadful wars were waging on the northern frontier, at home in the city, everything was quiet in consequence of the peace of the Janiculum and Æsquiletum; but in Lucania, the Romans carried on their wars without interruption. In this war, C. Fabricius Luscinus is mentioned for the first time. The old heroes were still living: Valerius Corvus, who was now an old man, full of days, no longer plays any active part; Ap. Claudius was blind, but had very great influence still; Fabius in all likelihood was dead. Younger than Appius, but older than Fabricius, was the great warrior M’. Curius Dentatus, who in his politics was a staunch democrat, but yet no demagogue. Curius and Fabricius are remarkable men, and in some respects they are like each other. Of both of them it is certain that they were really poor; both were proud characters; both of them novi homines, risen by their greatness in war, and by their personal worth. Fabricius has in all ages been quoted as a pattern of public virtue. Besides these two men, there were on the other side also some eminent personages: L. Postumius, who indeed was also a man of energy, but not so noble as he; P. Cornelius Rufinus, as covetous as Fabricius was disinterested, whom moreover Fabricius and his colleague Q. Æmilius Papus removed from the senate for his luxuriousness. And without them, Rome seems to have abounded in remarkable people: it may likewise have already stood high in an intellectual proficiency of its own, far above that of the most celebrated times of the middle ages, and perhaps also in literature.
Another great man, great as a wise statesman, though he left behind him no distinct memorial in the state, was Ti. Coruncanius, the first plebeian Pontifex maximus, who enjoyed the reputation of profound wisdom and knowledge of law. He was always looked upon as the pattern of a pontiff.