[233] Haverfield says—and I think he is right—that Rome had a great advantage in her imperial development—viz., that she was a city and not a nation. A nation implies some unity of race, and race prejudice. A city is based on the mere fact of citizenship. We should have said to St. Paul: “Citizen or no citizen, you are only a Levantine Jew.” But a Roman, apparently, did not think of saying so. Hence the great freedom with which emperors and senators are taken from other races.—G. M.
[234] The point raised here that Rome never developed representation is a very interesting one. There was a golden chance in the Social War (90 B.C.). The allies of Rome (socii) revolted, and set up a counter Rome in Corfinium. Now, to our minds, the obvious thing for them to do was (1) to make Corfinium just a capital; (2) to set up a parliament there, consisting of representatives drawn from the allies, who lived, of course, all over Italy. Not a bit of it. They made Corfinium a city state (not a capital), and feigned themselves all to be citizens of it, meeting in a primary assembly there. They also set up, it is true, a senate of 500; but this was just a copy of the Roman senate, and not a representative body (see Mommsen, vol. iii. pp. 237-8, Eng. trans.). Under the Roman Empire there were germs of representation in provincial assemblies: see Bury, Student’s Roman Empire, on the concilium Lugdunense in Gaul and τἁ κοιγἁ in Asia Minor.—E. B.
[235] Seyffert’s Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. (Nettleship Sandys.)
[236] Aristotle, Politics, Bk. ii. ch. xi.; and J. Wells, Rome to the Death of Augustus.
[237] J. Wells, op. cit.
[238] Plutarch, Life of Cato.
[239] Mommsen says the other provinces cost as much as they paid.
[240] But it was this Scipio Nasica who was responsible for the killing of Tiberius Gracchus. On the whole, he seems to have been a statesman of very distinguished abilities. He was the means of bringing the Asiatic Great Mother Goddess to Rome. “People at Rome generally were beginning to see that they would have to take over Asia. Had they any right? Nasica was sent on a mission to invite the Magna Mater at Pessinus to come to Rome. Her image nodded ‘yes.’ She was brought and installed in Rome. Now this is a policy of peaceful assimilation. Just as in Babylon you get gods of other cities brought to Babylon, just as Nabonidus (see Chap. xix. § 6) was trying to get an amicable pantheon as a way of peaceful assimilation, and failing to do so because he did not bring the priesthoods as well as the gods, so Rome was at this time thinking on the same lines. Camillus had shown the way when he suggested the invitation of Juno of Veii to Rome. Now Nasica, it may be suggested, wanted to treat Carthage in the same fashion. He opposed the destruction of Carthage in 146 (Mommsen, iii. p. 23, p. 39). If he had had his way, one may guess, he would have invited the Carthaginian gods to Rome, and the corollary would have been the enfranchisement of the Carthaginian population—the treatment of the Carthaginians as equals, whose gods had been received in Rome, and stood in Rome. Mummius did the same in carrying off the statues of Greek gods to Rome, only, being stupid, he did not understand why (146 B.C.).”
Nasica’s visit to Pessinus was as important as the testament of Attalus. His policy is not the policy of Rome the conqueror, but Rome the assimilator. He is trying to get a nexus by a common pantheon. If this had been done, the Republic might have survived. As it was, the deification of the ruler had to provide the nexus, as in Alexander’s empire. The “Synœcism of gods” or the “deification of rulers,” those are the only ways of amalgamating peoples. It is a pity Alexander and Rome did not attempt the former.—J. L. M. and E. B.
[241] The intervening Scipio was a man of learning and high character who died young.—G. M.