The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 05

by Unknown

It may thus be considered certain that Rome under its last kings was the seat of a great monarchy, extending over the whole of Latium on the one side, and possessing some considerable territory in Etruria on the other. But how this dominion was gained it is vain to inquire. There are accounts which represent all the three last kings of Rome, Servius Tullius no less than the two Tarquins, as of Etruscan origin. Without attempting to make out their history as individuals, it is probable that the later kings were either by birth or by long intercourse closely connected with Etruria, inasmuch as at some early period of the Roman history the religion and usages of the Etruscans gave a deep and lasting colouring to those of Rome; and yet it could not have been at the very origin of the Roman people, as the Etruscan language has left no traces of itself in the Latin; whereas if the Romans had been in part of Etruscan origin, their language, no less than their institutions, would have contained some Etruscan elements.

The Etruscan influence, however introduced, produced some effects that were lasting, and others that were only temporary; it affected the religion of Rome, down to the very final extinction of paganism; and the state of the Roman magistrates, their lictors, their ivory chairs, and their triumphal robes, are all said to have been derived from Etruria. A temporary effect of Etruscan influence may perhaps be traced in the overflow of the free constitution ascribed to Servius Tullius, in the degradation of the Roman commons under the last king, and in the endeavours of the patricians to keep them so degraded during all the first periods of the commonwealth. It is well known that the government in the cities of Etruria was an exclusive aristocracy, and that the commons, if in so wretched a condition they may be called by that honourable name, were like the mass of the people amongst the Slavonic nations, the mere serfs or slaves of the nobility. This is a marked distinction between the Etruscans, and the Sabine and Latin nations of Italy; and, as in the constitution of Servius Tullius a Latin spirit is discernible, so the tyranny which, whether in the shape of a monarchy or an aristocracy, suspended that constitution for nearly two centuries, tended certainly to make Rome resemble the cities of Etruria, and may possibly be traced originally to that same revolution which expelled the Sabine gods from the Capitol, and changed forever the simple religion of the infancy of Rome.

RELIGION

It is a remarkable story that towards the end of the sixth century of Rome, the religious books of Numa were accidentally brought to light by the discovery of his tomb under the Janiculum. They were read by A. Petillius, the prætor urbanus, and by him ordered to be burned in the comitium, because their contents tended to overthrow the religious rites then observed in Rome. We cannot but connect with this story what is told of Tarquinius the elder, how he cleared away the holy places of the Sabine gods from the Capitoline Hill, to make room for his new temple; and the statement which Augustine quotes from Varro, and which is found also in Plutarch, that during the first hundred and seventy years after the foundation of the city, the Romans had no images of their gods.

All these accounts represent a change effected in the Roman religion; and the term of one hundred and seventy years, given by Varro and Plutarch, fixes this change to the reigns of the later kings. It is said also that Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, the three deities to whom the Capitoline temple was dedicated, were the very powers whose worship, according to the Etruscan religion, was essential to every city; there could be no city without three gates duly consecrated, and three temples to these divinities. But here again we gain a glimpse of something real, but cannot make it out distinctly.

Images of the gods belong rather to the religion of the Greeks than of the Etruscans; and the Greek mythology, as well as Grecian art, had been familiar in the southern Etruscan cities from a very early period, whether derived from the Tyrrhenians, or borrowed directly from Hellas or the Hellenic colonies. Grecian deities and Greek ceremonies may have been introduced, in part, along with such as were purely Etruscan. But the science of the haruspices, and especially the attention to signs in the sky, to thunder and lightning, seems to have been conducted according to the Etruscan ritual; perhaps also from the same source came that belief in the punishment of the wicked after death, to which Polybius ascribes so strong a moral influence over the minds of the Romans, even in his own days. And Etruscan rites and ordinances must have been widely prevalent in the Roman commonwealth, when, as some writers asserted, the Roman nobility were taught habitually the Etruscan language, and when the senate provided by a special decree for the perpetual cultivation of the Etruscan discipline by young men of the highest nobility in Etruria; lest a science so important to the commonwealth should be corrupted by falling into the hands of low and mercenary persons.

CONSTITUTION

Nothing is more familiar to our ears than the name of the classes and centuries of Servius Tullius; nothing is more difficult, even after the immortal labour of Niebuhr,[c] than to answer all the questions which naturally arise connected with this part of the Roman history. But first of all, in considering the changes effected in the Roman constitution during the later period of the monarchy, we find another threefold division of them presenting itself. We have, first, the enlargement of the older constitution, on the same principles, in the addition to the number of senators and of the centuries of the knights, commonly ascribed to Tarquinius Priscus. Second, we have the establishment of a new constitution on different principles, in the famous classes and centuries of Servius Tullius. And, third, we have the overthrow, to speak generally, of this new constitution, and the return to the older state of things, modified by the great increase of the king’s power, in the revolution effected by Tarquinius Superbus, and in his subsequent despotism.

The old constitution was enlarged upon the same principles, in the increase of the number of senators, and of the centuries of the knights. It has been already shown that the older constitution was an oligarchy, as far as the clients and commons were concerned; it is no less true, that it was democratical, as far as regarded the relations of the citizens, or members of the houses, to each other. Both these characters, with a slight modification, were preserved in the changes made by Tarquinius Priscus. He doubled, it is said, the actual number of senators, or rather of patrician houses; which involved a corresponding increase in the numbers of the senate; but the houses thus ennobled, to use a modern term, were distinguished from the old by the title of the “lesser houses”; and their senators did not vote till after the senators of the greater houses.