Rome

by W. Warde Fowler

Secondly, imperium stood for the supreme judicial power, for the maintenance of peace between individual citizens. The king had an unlimited power not only in deciding disputes but in inflicting punishments, even that of death. But here again, though his power was absolute, it was not arbitrary. Custom governed the State even more than he did, and his work was to see that custom was obeyed. In order to make sure that this duty was rightly performed, he was provided with a council of elderly men (senatores), fathers of families, whose advice custom compelled him to ask, though it did not compel him to take it. Here, then, the exercise of discipline was combined with a sense of duty and obligation, as in the life of the family; the Senate of the State was the same in principle as the council of relations in the family.

Thirdly, imperium stood for the absolute power of the commander in war: and here, as we might expect, custom seems hardly to have interfered with it. A Roman king in war was outside the custom of his own State, beyond the reach of the protection of his own deities, and under the influence of unknown ones. Both before starting on a campaign, and before entering the city on its return, the army had to undergo certain religious rites, which show how nervous even Romans were about leaving their own land and gods. Custom could not rule here, and the power of the general in the field remained throughout Roman history not only absolute but arbitrary. Doubtless he could, and often did, not only ask advice but take it, but he was never even morally obliged to do so: in this one department of State activity the wise judgment of the Romans left the imperium practically unhampered.

Such, then, was the imperium in the hands of the chief magistrate, the foundation-stone of the Roman government in all periods. But what of the people who obeyed it? Of the people we unluckily know hardly anything until nearly the end of the monarchical period. We do, indeed, know that, as in many Greek city-states, there was a privileged and an unprivileged class, and of these two classes a word shall be said directly. What needs here to be made clear is how this population was placed as regards duty and discipline, and our first real knowledge of this dates traditionally from the reign of the last king but one. Here we find the whole free population, privileged and unprivileged, serving in the army as a civic duty, and paying such taxes as were necessary mainly for military purposes. They served without pay, and the infantry—that is, by far the greater part, provided their own arms and equipment; the cavalry were provided with horses by the State, for horses were expensive. Those who had most property were considered as having the largest stake in the State, and therefore as bound to bear the heaviest burden. This may be seen in the order of the army for battle, for those who could afford the best equipment fought in front, the poorest and worst armed in the rear. This was the wholesome principle that governed the Roman army during the period of advance and conquest in Italy. It was an army of citizens (populus), all of whom served as a matter of duty, and paid taxes as a matter of duty according to their means, leaving all command to the holder of imperium, and the officers whom he appointed to carry out his orders.

Thus when the last king was expelled, and the kingship came to an end, the people were thoroughly well trained in the ideas of duty and discipline, and the practical results of such a training were obedience as a habit, respect for authority and knowledge, steadiness and coolness in danger. This people did not give way to excitement, either in civil or military crises. They not only obeyed their rulers, but trusted them. They were not much given to talking, but contented themselves with action: and as talk is a more effective stimulus to quarrelling than action, they did not as yet quarrel. Though Rome was destined to pass through many political as well as military dangers in the generations to come, it was nearly four centuries before blood was shed in civil strife in her streets.

I must close this chapter with a very brief sketch of the political history of the period of advance in Italy, in order to show how their training in duty and discipline kept the people steady and sound at home.

After the expulsion of the last king the Roman State became a respublica—that is, literally translated, a public thing—or as we may perhaps call it, a free State. This is another of the immortal words bequeathed to modern European language by Latin speech, and its meaning is still the same for us as it was for the Romans. When Cicero, almost at the end of the life of the Roman free State, wrote to a friend, “We have completely lost the respublica,” he meant that it had passed from public management into the hands of private and irresponsible individuals. What were the essential marks of this “public thing,” or free State? As we might expect, they are to be found in the treatment of the imperium, the governmental centre of gravity, by the founders of the respublica.

1. To abolish the imperium was out of the question; no Roman ever dreamed of such a thing, for it would be like digging up the foundations of a building already in part constructed. But the imperium was no longer to be held for life, nor to be held by a single person. It was now to be entrusted to two magistrates instead of one, and for a year only; at the end of the year the holders, henceforward to be called Consuls or Prætors, were to lay down their insignia and resign their power, becoming simply private citizens again. Meanwhile new consuls had been elected; and the voice of the whole people was to be heard in the election, for it was to be effected by the army of citizens, arranged according to property as in military service. Every Roman who was to obey the imperium was to have a voice in the election of its holders, but those who had most stake in the State, and served in the front ranks in war, were to have a preponderating voice.

2. The dread imperium was now not only limited in the period of its tenure, but the possibility of an arbitrary use of it was averted in two ways. First, the two consuls had a veto on each other’s action, and both at home and in the field they took it in turn to exercise the imperium. Secondly, they could not put a citizen to death in the city unless the people in their assembly sanctioned it; in the field the Romans wisely left the imperium unlimited, feeling, as we still feel, that military discipline needs a more forceful sanction than civil. And besides these two restrictions, the council of elders, the Senate, was retained to act as a general advising body for the consuls, who, however, themselves had the power of filling up vacancies in it from time to time. We do not know exactly what its composition was at this time; but it is certain that all who had held the imperium had seats in it, as men whose service and experience best entitled them to advise and criticise their successors. This principle, that ex-magistrates should be members of the Senate, was adhered to at all times, and eventually made this great council into the most effective assembly of men of capacity and experience in practical life that the world has ever seen.

Before we leave the imperium, for the present, one interesting fact must be noted. The Romans were not afraid to withdraw for a time these restrictions on the magistrate’s power, and to revert to absolute government, if they thought it necessary for the safety of the State. In moments of great peril, civil or military, the consul, on the advice of the Senate, would appoint a single individual to hold office for a fixed time with unlimited imperium; and in this case the assembly was not called on even to ratify the choice, so great was the trust reposed in the Fathers of the State. They did not call this single magistrate by the hated name of Rex, but used another word well known in Latium, Dictator. The institution was of the utmost value to a people constantly in a state of struggle and endeavour, and shows well the practical sagacity which a long training in duty and discipline had already developed.

But this practical sagacity was to be put to many a hard test in the period we sketched in the last chapter. No sooner was the respublica established, than a great question pressed for solution, that of the mutual relations of the privileged and unprivileged classes. What was really the origin of this distinction of class we do not yet know, and perhaps never shall. Here the fact must suffice, that the privileged, the patricians as they were called, the representatives of families belonging to the old clans (gentes) were alone deemed capable of preserving the peace between citizens and gods, or between the citizens themselves, and therefore they alone could hold the imperium and take the auspices. Both classes served in the army and voted at elections, but without the chance of holding the imperium the plebeians were helpless. Yet it is quite certain that they had grievances of their own, and real ones. We must think of them as in the main small holders of land, with little or no capital, and constantly obliged to borrow either in the form of money or stock. They became debtors to the rich, who would usually be the patricians, and the old customary law of debt was hard and even savage.