Reflections on the Rise and Fall of the Ancient Republicks / Adapted to the Present State of Great Britain

by Edward Wortley Montagu

Rome, once the mighty mistress of the universe, owed her rise, according to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, the most curious and most exact inquirer into the Roman antiquities, to a small colony of the Albans under the conduct of Romulus, the supposed grandson of Numitor king of Alba. That the Albans derived their origin from the Greeks seems highly probable from the nature of the Alban and Roman monarchical government, which appears to be plainly copied from Lycurgus.

The government first instituted by Romulus, the founder of this extraordinary empire, was that perfect sort, as it is termed by Dionysius and Polybius, which consisted of a due admixture of the regal, aristocratick, and democratick powers. As this great man received the crown as a reward for his superior merit, and held it by the best of all titles, the willing and unanimous choice of a free people; and as he is universally allowed to be the sole institutor of their first form of government, I cannot help ranking him amongst the most celebrated lawgivers and heroes of antiquity. Romulus’s plan of government, though formed upon the model of Lycurgus, was evidently, in some respects, superior to the Spartan. For the executive power in the Roman government was lodged in one man only; the number of the senators was much greater, and though the whole body of the Romans was formed into one regular militia, yet the lowest class of the people were directed to apply themselves to agriculture, grazing, and other lucrative employments; a practice wholly prohibited to the free Spartans. The great employments of the state were solely confined to the Patricians, or aristocratick part; but the Plebeians, or commonalty, had in return the power of choosing magistrates, enacting laws, and determining about all wars when proposed by the king. But still their decrees were not final, for the concurrence of the senate was absolutely necessary to give a sanction to whatever the people had determined.

Whether the Romans would have continued the regal power in their founder’s family by hereditary succession, cannot possibly be determined, because, when Romulus was put to death by the Patricians for aiming at more power than was consistent with their limited monarchy, he left no children. This however is certain, that their monarchy continued to be elective, and was attended with those disorders which are the usual effects of that capital error in politicks, until the usurpation of Tarquinius Superbus.

After the death of Romulus, Numa, a man of a very different genius, was invited to the throne by the unanimous consent of the whole body of the Romans. This worthy prince reclaimed his subjects from their savage fondness for war and plunder, and taught them the arts of peace, and the happiness of civil and social life, by instructing them in the great duties of religion, or piety towards their gods, and the laws of justice and humanity, which contained their duty towards their fellow creatures. The long reign of this wise and good prince was the most remarkable, and the most happy period of time Rome ever knew from her foundation to her dissolution. For during the whole term of forty-three years, which was the extent of his reign, the harmony of the Roman state was neither interrupted by any civil dissension at home, nor the happiness of the people disturbed by any foreign war or invasion. After the death of Numa, who died universally lamented as the father of the people, Tullus Hostilius, a man of real merit, was legally elected king, but, after a victorious reign of thirty-two years, was destroyed with his whole family by lightning, according to some authors, but, according to others, was murdered by Ancus Marcius, grandson to Numa by his only daughter, who looked upon his own right to the crown as prior to Tullus, or his family. Ancus Marcius however received the crown by a free election of the people, and died a natural death after a reign of twenty-four years, in which he restored such of the religious institutions of his grandfather Numa as had been neglected during the reign of his predecessor. He greatly enlarged the city of Rome itself, and made it a seaport by fortifying the haven at the mouth of the river Tiber.

Lucius Tarquinius, a man of Greek extraction by his father’s side, and admitted to the privilege of a Roman citizen under the reign of Ancus Marcius, was raised to the throne for his uncommon merit, and showed himself worthy of that high trust, which was reposed in him by the Romans. He increased the number of the senators to three hundred, greatly enlarged their territories, and beautified the city; and, after an illustrious reign of thirty-eight years, was assassinated in his palace by the contrivance of the two sons of Ancus Marcius, who hoped after his death to recover the kingdom, which their father had been possessed of. But their scheme was far from succeeding, for Tarquinius was so well beloved by his people, that the persons who committed the murder, were executed, and the sons of Ancus banished, and their estates confiscated. Tullius Servius, who had married the daughter of Tarquinius, succeeded to the crown by the artful management of his mother-in-law, and by the favour of the people, though without the concurrence either of the senate or Patricians. Tullius was certainly a man of real merit, and, as I think, superior in point of abilities to all the Roman kings, Romulus alone excepted. But as he seemed to affect a democracy, and was chiefly supported by the people, he was always disagreeable to the Patricians, who looked upon his advancement to the crown as an illegal intrusion. But as he did most signal services to his country, during a glorious reign of four and forty years, I cannot help taking notice of some of his institutions, without the knowledge of which it is hardly possible to form a perfect idea of the Roman constitution.

Tullius ordered all the Romans to register their names and ages, with those of their parents, wives and children, and the place of their abode, either in the city or the country. At the same time he enjoined them to give in upon oath a just valuation of their effects, on pain of being whipped and sold for slaves if they failed in registering all these particulars. From this register he formed his plan for a regular and general militia, which was invariably followed by the Romans, until the time of Marius. To effect this he divided the whole body of the citizens into six classes. The first class consisted of those whose possessions amounted to a hundred minæ.[245] These he armed in the completest manner, and divided into eighty centuries; forty of which, composed of the younger men, were appointed to take the field in time of war; the other forty were assigned for the defence of the city. To these eighty centuries of heavy armed foot he added eighteen centuries of horse, selected out of those who had the largest estates, and were of distinguished birth. Thus the first class contained ninety-eight centuries. The second, third, and fourth classes consisted each of twenty centuries only, and were composed of citizens, whose effects were estimated at seventy-five, fifty, and five and twenty minæ; and their arms were lighter according to their respective classes. To the second class he added two centuries of armourers and axe-men. To the fourth class two centuries of trumpeters and blowers on the horn, which contained the martial musick of the army. The fifth class consisted of those who were worth twelve minæ and a half, which he divided into thirty centuries, armed with darts and slings only, and were properly irregulars. The sixth class, which was by much the most numerous, was comprehended in one century only, and consisted of the poorest citizens, who were exempted from all kind of taxes, as well as all service in the army.

By this wise disposition the burthen of the war fell chiefly upon those who were best able to support it. Thus, for instance, if he wanted to raise twenty thousand men, he divided that number amongst the centuries of the first five classes, and ordered each century to furnish its respective quota. He then calculated the sum necessary for the support of the war, which he divided in the same manner amongst the centuries, and ordered every man to pay in proportion to his possessions. Hence the rich, who were fewer in number, but divided into more centuries, were not only obliged to serve oftener, but to pay greater taxes. For Tullius thought it just, that they who had the greatest property at stake should bear the greatest share of the burden, both in their persons and fortunes: as he judged it equitable, that the poor should be exempted from taxes, because they were in want of the necessaries of life; and from the service; because the Roman soldiers served at that time at their own expense; a custom which continued long after. For the Roman soldiers received no pay, as Livy informs us,[246] until the three hundred and forty-eighth year from the foundation of the city.... As the rich, by this regulation, were subjected to the greatest share of the expense and danger, Tullius made them an ample recompense by throwing the chief power of the government into their hands, which he effected by the following scheme, too artful for the penetration of the common people.

By the fundamental constitution of the Romans, the electing magistrates, both civil and military, the enacting or repealing laws, and the declaring war, or concluding peace, were all determined by the suffrages of the people. But as the people voted by their curiæ,[247] into ten of which every tribe was divided, the meanest citizen had an equal vote with the greatest: consequently as the poor were much more numerous than the rich, they carried every point by a sure majority. Tullius altered this method, assembled the people, and took their votes by centuries, not by curiæ. This artful measure turned the scale, and transferred the majority to the rich. For as the votes of the first class were first taken, the votes of that class, which contained ninety-eight centuries, if unanimous, always constituted a majority of three votes, which decided the question without taking the votes of the five succeeding classes, as they were in that case wholly useless.

Tullius had married his two daughters to Tarquinius and Aruns, the grandsons of his predecessor, whose guardianship he had undertaken during their minority. But what tie is strong enough to restrain ambition! his younger daughter Tullia, the most ambitious, and most detestable of her sex, unable to prevail upon her husband Aruns to join in deposing her father, applied to her brother-in-law Tarquinius, whose temper was congenial with her own, and offered to be his wife if he would assert his just right, as she termed it, and attempt to supplant her father. The offer was accepted, and the incestuous match agreed upon, which was soon after completed by the death of her husband and sister, who were privately despatched, that there might be no obstacle remaining. Tarquinius, now the worthy husband of such a wife, attempted in the senate to procure the deposition of Tullius, but failing in his design, at the instigation of his impious wife, he procured the old king to be openly assassinated in the street before his palace, and the unnatural Tullia drove her chariot in triumph over the body of her murdered father. By this complicated scene of adultery, murder, and parricide, Tarquin, surnamed the Proud, forced his way to the throne, and to usurpation added the most execrable and avowed tyranny. The Patricians,[248] who had favoured his usurpation, either from their hatred to Tullius and the Plebeians, or from the hopes of sharing in the government, with which, according to Dionysius, they had been privately allured, were the first who felt the bloody effects of his arbitrary temper. Not only the friends of Tullius, and those whom he suspected as uneasy under his usurpation, but all who were distinguished by their superior wealth fell a sacrifice to his suspicion or avarice. All such were accused, by his profligate emissaries, of many fictitious crimes, but particularly of a conspiracy against his person; the common pretence of all tyrants. As the tyrant himself sat as judge, all defence was useless. Some received sentence of death, some of banishment, and the estates of both were alike confiscated. The greater number of those that were accused, knowing the true motives of the tyrant’s conduct, and despairing of safety, voluntarily left the city; but some of the greatest note were privately murdered by his orders, whose bodies could never be found. When he had sufficiently thinned the senate by the death, or banishment of its most valuable members, he filled up the vacant seats with his own creatures. But as he allowed nothing to be proposed or done there, but in conformity to his orders, he reduced it to an empty form, without the least shadow of power. The Plebeians, who beheld with pleasure the sufferings of the Patricians, which they esteemed a just punishment for their behaviour under the reign of Tullius, were quickly treated with much greater severity.[249] For the tyrant not only abolished all the laws which Tullius had established to secure them against the oppressions of the Patricians, but loaded them with ruinous taxes, and prohibited all their publick religious assemblies, that they might have no opportunity of meeting to form secret conspiracies. Proceeding then upon the constant maxim of all tyrants, that idleness in the people is the parent of sedition, he exhausted them so much by the slavish drudgery, in which he kept them constantly employed at the publick works, that the Patricians rejoiced in their turn at the heavier miseries of the Plebeians, whilst neither of them endeavoured to put a period to their common calamities. After the Romans had groaned five and twenty years under this cruel and ignominious bondage, the rape committed by Sextus, the eldest son of Tarquin, upon Lucretia, the wife of Collatinus, an eminent Patrician, and near relation of the Tarquin family, produced a coalition of both orders, which ended in the expulsion of Tarquin and his sons, and a solemn abjuration of monarchical government.

The tyranny of Tarquin had made the very name of king so odious to the Romans in general, that the Patricians, who were the chief conductors of this revolution, found it no difficult matter to establish an aristocracy upon the ruins of monarchy.[250] Two magistrates were appointed, termed consuls, vested with the regal power, whose office was annual and elective. The senate was filled up out of the most eminent of the Plebeians, after they had first been created Patricians, and the people restored to their right of holding assemblies, of giving their votes and doing whatever they were entitled to by former customs. But the power of the people was rather nominal than real. For though the consuls were annually elected by the suffrages of the people, a privilege which carried the appearance of a democracy, yet as the votes were taken by centuries, not by tribes, the Patricians were generally masters of the election. It is remarkable that, after the expulsion of Tarquin, Dionysius constantly terms the new government an aristocracy. It evidently appears too through the whole remaining part of his history, that there was a selfish and haughty faction amongst the Patricians, who affected a tyrannical oligarchy, and aimed at reducing the Plebeians to a state of servitude. Valerius, surnamed Poplicola, the most humane patriot of all those who were concerned in banishing the Tarquins, introduced some beneficent laws, which, according to Dionysius, gave great relief to the Plebeians. For by one he made it capital for any person to exercise any magistracy over the Romans, unless that office should be received from the people: as he ordered by another, that no Roman should be punished without a legal trial; and that if any Roman should be condemned by any magistrate to be fined, whipped, or put to death, the condemned person might appeal from the sentence of that magistrate to the people, and should be liable to no punishment until his fate had been determined by their suffrages. A plain proof that the Plebeians until that time laboured under grievances not very consistent with their pretended liberty. Another proof may be drawn from the wretched state of the Plebeians, under the cruel oppressions arising from the avarice and extortions of the Patricians, which first gave birth to those perpetual seditions, which fill the history of that republick. For as the Roman soldiers, who were all free citizens, not only paid their proportion of the taxes, but were obliged to serve in the field at their own expense during the whole campaign, this frequently obliged them to borrow money at high interest of the Patricians, who had engrossed by far the greater part of publick wealth. But as the Roman territories were often ravaged by their neighbours in those wars, which Tarquin perpetually incited to procure the recovery of his crown, the loss fell heaviest upon the Plebeians, who were frequently stript of all their effects, and reduced to the utmost poverty. Hence unable to pay the principal of their debts, joined to an accumulated load of usury upon usury, they were surrendered by the judges to the discretion of their creditors. These unfeeling wretches confined their debtors in chains, tortured their bodies with whips, and treated them with such inhumanity, that great numbers of the Romans were in as bad a situation as the poor Athenians when Solon first undertook the administration. The effects of this detestable treatment of people, who had been taught to call themselves free, appeared about twelve years after the erection of their new government. For when the Tarquins had raised up a confederacy of thirty cities of the Latins against them, the Plebeians peremptorily refused to enlist until a vote was passed for the abolition of their debts. As persuasions had no effect, the senate met upon the occasion. Valerius, the son of the humane Poplicola, pleaded strongly in favour of the people, but was violently opposed by Appius Claudius, a haughty and imperious man, who is termed by Dionysius an abettor of the oligarchy, and head of that faction, which were enemies to the people. The moderate men amongst the senators proposed, that the debts should be paid out of the publick treasury; a measure which would preserve the poor for the service of the state, and prevent any injustice to the creditors. Salutary as this measure must seem, the opposition was so great that nothing was agreed to, and the result of the debates was, “that no decree should be made at present relating to this affair, but that as soon as the war should be concluded with success, the consuls should lay it before the senate, and take their vote upon the occasion. That in the mean time no debt should be sued for, and that the execution of all laws, except those relating to the war, should be suspended.” This decree did not wholly quiet the ferment amongst the people. Several of the poorer sort demanded an immediate abolition of their debts, as the condition for their taking a share in the dangers of the war, and looked upon this delay rather as an imposition. The senate, who, as the event showed, were determined never to grant their request, and yet were afraid of new commotions, resolved to abolish the consulship, and all other magistracies for the present, and to invest a new magistrate with absolute and unlimited power, and subject to no account for his actions. This new officer was termed the dictator, and the duration of his office was limited to six months, at the end of which term the consuls were to resume their former authority. The chief reason, as Dionysius informs us, which induced the senate to make use of this dangerous expedient, was to evade that law which Poplicola had procured in favour of the Plebeians, which made it death for a magistrate to punish a Roman without a legal trial, or before he was condemned by the people.[251] The senate then made a decree for the election of a dictator, and the Plebeians ignorant, as Dionysius observes, of the importance of that decree, not only confirmed the resolutions of the senate, but gave up to them the power of choosing the person who should be invested with that dignity. Titus Lartius, one of the consuls, was nominated by his colleague according to the form at that time agreed upon in the senate. When the dictator appeared in all the pomp and grandeur of his new office, he struck a terror into the most turbulent, and the people, thus tricked out of that law which was their only protection, immediately submitted. Lartius, who seems to have been one of the greatest men of his time, ordered in a general register of all the Romans, and formed his army after that wise method first instituted by Servius Tullius. When he took the field he persuaded the Latins, by his singular address, to disband their forces and conclude a truce, and thus diverted the impending storm without fighting. He then returned home, and resigned his office before the time was expired, without having exercised any one act of severity upon a single Roman. A noble instance of moderation and publick virtue!