History of Julius Cæsar, Vol. 1 of 2

by Emperor of the French Napoleon III

Transformation of the Aristocracy.

III. This political organisation, the reflex of a society composed of so many different elements, could hardly have constituted a durable order of things, if the ascendency of a privileged class had not controlled the causes of dissensions. This ascendency itself would soon have diminished if concessions, forced or voluntary, had not gradually lowered the barriers between the two orders.

In fact, the arbitrary conduct of the consuls, who were, perhaps, originally nominated by the Senate alone,[108] excited sharp recriminations: “the consular authority,” cried the plebeians, “was, in reality, almost as heavy as that of the kings. Instead of one master they had two, invested with absolute and unlimited power, without rule or bridle, who turned against the people all the threats of the laws, and all their punishments.”[109] Although after the year 283 the patricians and plebeians were subjected to the same judges,[110] the want of fixed laws left the goods and lives of the citizens delivered to the will either of the consuls or of the tribunes. It became, therefore, indispensable to establish the legislation on a solid basis, and in 303 ten magistrates called decemvirs were chosen, invested with the double power, consular and tribunitian, which gave them the right of convoking equally the assemblies by centuries and by tribes. They were charged with the compilation of a code of laws afterwards known as the Laws of the Twelve Tables, which, engraved on brass, became the foundation of the Roman public law. Yet they persisted in making illegal the union contracted between persons of the two orders, and left the debtor at the mercy of the creditor, contrary to the decision of Servius Tullius.

The decemvirs abused their power, and, on their fall, the claims of the plebeians increased; the tribuneship, abolished during three years, was re-established; it was decided that an appeal to the people from the decision of any magistrate should be permitted, and that the laws made in the assemblies by tribes, as well as in the assemblies by centuries, should be obligatory on all.[111] There were thus, then, three sorts of comitia; the comitia by curiæ, which, conferring the imperium on the magistrates elected by the centuries, sanctioned in some sort the election of the consuls;[112] the comitia by centuries, over which the consuls presided; and the comitia by tribes, over which the tribunes presided; the first named the consuls, the second the plebeian magistrates, and both, composed of nearly the same citizens, had equally the power of approving or rejecting the laws; but in the former, the richest men and the nobility had all the influence, because they formed the majority of the centuries and voted first; while in the latter, on the contrary, the voters were confounded with that of the tribe to which they belonged. “If,” says an ancient author, “the suffrages are taken by gentes (ex generibus hominum), the comitia are by curiæ; if according to age and census, they are by centuries; finally, if the vote be given according to territorial circumscription (regionibus), they are by tribes.”[113] In spite of these concessions, antagonism in matters of law reigned always between the powers, the assemblies, and the different classes of society.

The plebeians laid claim to all the offices of state, and especially to the consulship, refusing to enrol themselves until their demands had been satisfied; and they went so far in their claims that they insisted upon the plebeian origin of the kings. “Shall we, then,” cried the tribune Canuleius, addressing himself to the people, “have consuls who resemble the decemvirs, the vilest of mortals, all patricians, rather than the best of our kings, all new men!” that is, men without ancestors.[114]

The Senate resisted, because it had no intention of conferring upon plebeians the right which formed an attribute of the consuls, for the convocation of the comitia, of taking the great auspices, a privilege altogether of a religious character, the exclusive apanage of the nobility.[115]

In order to obviate this difficulty, the Senate, after suppressing the legal obstacles in the way of marriages between the two orders, agreed in 309 to the creation of six military tribunes invested with the consular power; but, which was an essential point, it was the interrex who convoked the comitia and took the auspices.[116] During seventy-seven years the military tribunes were elected alternately with the consuls, and the consulship was only re-established permanently in 387, when it was opened to the plebeians. This was the result of one of the laws of Licinius Stolo. This tribune succeeded in obtaining the adoption of several measures which appeared to open a new era which would put an end to disputes. Still the patricians held with such tenacity to the privilege of alone taking the auspices, that in 398, in the absence of the patrician consul, an interrex was appointed charged with presiding over the comitia, in order not to leave this care to the dictator, and the other consul, who were both plebeians.[117]

But in permitting the popular class to arrive at the consulship, care had been taken to withdraw from that dignity a great part of its attributes, in order to confer them upon patrician magistrates. Thus they had successively taken away from the consuls, by the creation of two questors, in 307, the administration of the military chest;[118] by the creation of the censors, in 311, the right of drawing up the list of the census, the assessment of the revenue of the State, and of watching over public morals; by the creation of the prætors, in 387, the sovereign jurisdiction in civil affairs, under the pretext that the nobility alone possessed the knowledge of the law of the Quirites; and lastly, by the creation of the curule ediles, the presidency of the games, the superintendence of buildings, the police and the provisioning of the town, the maintenance of the public roads, and the inspection of the markets.

The intention of the aristocracy had been to limit the compulsory concessions; but after the adoption of the Licinian laws, it was no longer possible to prevent the principle of the admission of plebeians to all the magistracies. In 386 they had arrived at the important charge of master of the knights (magister equitum) who was in a manner the lieutenant of the dictator (magister populi);[119] in 387 access to the religious functions had been laid open to them;[120] in 345 they obtained the questorship; in 398, the dictatorship itself; in 403, the censorship; and lastly, in 417, the prætorship.