Part 24 (1/2)
The code was soon finished, and the laws were written on twelve tablets of bra.s.s, which were fastened to the rostrum, or orator's platform in the Forum, where they might be seen and read by all. These ”Laws of the Twelve Tables” were to Roman jurisprudence what the good laws of Solon (see p.
120) were to the Athenian const.i.tution. They formed the basis of all new legislation for many centuries, and const.i.tuted a part of the education of the Roman youth--every school-boy being required to learn them by heart.
MISRULE AND OVERTHROW OF THE DECEMVIRS.--The first decemvirs used the great power lodged in their hands with justice and prudence; but the second board, under the leaders.h.i.+p of Appius Claudius, inst.i.tuted a most infamous and tyrannical rule. The result was a second secession of the plebeians to the Sacred Hill. This procedure, which once before had proved so effectual in securing justice to the oppressed, had a similar issue now. The situation was so critical that the decemvirs were forced to resign. The consulate and the tribunate were restored. Eight of the decemvirs were forced to go into exile; Appius Claudius and one other, having been imprisoned, committed suicide.
CONSULAR, OR MILITARY TRIBUNES.--The overthrow of the decemvirate was followed by a long struggle between the n.o.bles and the commons, which was an effort on the part of the latter to gain admission to the consuls.h.i.+p; for up to this time only a patrician could hold that office. The contention resulted in a compromise. It was agreed that, in place of the two consuls, the people _might_ elect from either order magistrates, who should be known as ”military tribunes with consular powers.” These officers, whose numbers varied, differed from consuls more in name than in functions or authority. In fact, the plebeians had gained the office, but not the name (444 B.C.).
THE CENSORS.--No sooner had the plebeians virtually secured admission to the consuls.h.i.+p, than the jealous and exclusive patricians commenced scheming to rob them of the fruit of the victory they had gained. They effected this by taking from the consulate some of its most distinctive duties and powers, and conferring them upon two new patrician officers called censors. The functions of these magistrates were many and important. They took the census, and thus a.s.signed to every man his position in the different cla.s.ses of the citizens; and they could, for immorality or any improper conduct, not only degrade a man from his rank, but deprive him of his vote. It was their duty to watch the public morals and in case of necessity to administer wholesome advice. Thus we are told of their reproving the young Romans for wearing tunics with long sleeves-- an Oriental and effeminate custom--and for neglecting to marry upon arriving at a proper age. From the name of these Roman officers comes our word _censorious_, meaning fault-finding.
The first censors were elected probably in the year 444 B.C.; about one hundred years afterwards, in 351 B.C., the plebeians secured the right of holding this office also.
SIEGE AND CAPTURE OF VEII.--We must now turn to notice the fortunes of Rome in war. Almost from the founding of the city, we find its warlike citizens carrying on a fierce contest with their powerful Etruscan neighbors on the north. Veii was one of the largest and richest of the cities of Etruria. Around this the war gathered. The Romans, like the Grecians at Troy, attacked its walls for ten years. The length of the siege, and the necessity of maintaining a force permanently in the field, led to the establishment of a paid standing army; for hitherto the soldier had not only equipped himself, but had served without pay. Thus was laid the basis of that military power which was destined to effect the conquest of the world, and then, in the hands of ambitious and favorite generals, to overthrow the republic itself.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ROMAN SOLDIER.]
The capture of Veii by the dictator Camillus (396 B.C.) was followed by that of many other Etruscan towns. Rome was enriched by their spoils, and became the centre of a large and lucrative trade. The frontiers of the republic were pushed out even beyond the utmost limits of the kingdom before its overthrow. All that was lost by the revolution had been now regained, and much besides had been won. At this moment there broke upon the city a storm from the north, which all but cut short the story we are narrating.
SACK OF ROME BY THE GAULS (390 B.C.).--We have already mentioned how, in very remote times, the tribes of Gaul crossed the Alps and established themselves in Northern Italy (see p. 223). While the Romans were conquering the towns of Etruria, these barbarian hordes were moving southward, and overrunning and devastating the countries of Central Italy.
[Ill.u.s.tration: GAULS IN SIGHT OF ROME.]
News was brought to Rome that they were advancing upon that city. A Roman army met them on the banks of the river Allia, eleven miles from the capital. The Romans were driven in great panic from the field. It would be impossible to picture the consternation and despair that reigned at Rome when the fugitives brought to the city intelligence of the terrible disaster. It was never forgotten, and the day of the battle of Allia was ever after a black day in the Roman calendar. The sacred vessels of the temples were buried; the eternal fires of Vesta were hurriedly borne by their virgin keepers to a place of safety in Etruria; and a large part of the population fled in dismay across the Tiber. No attempt was made to defend any portion of the city save the citadel. This stronghold was kept by a little garrison, under the command of the hero Marius Manlius. A tradition tells how, when the barbarians, under cover of the darkness of night, had climbed the steep rock and had almost effected an entrance to the citadel, the defenders were awakened by the cackling of some geese, which the piety of the famis.h.i.+ng soldiers had spared, because these birds were sacred to Juno.
News was now brought the Gauls that the Venetians were overrunning their possessions in Northern Italy. This led them to open negotiations with the Romans. For one thousand pounds of gold, according to the historian Livy, the Gauls agreed to retire from the city. As the story runs, while the gold was being weighed out in the Forum, the Romans complained that the weights were false, when Brennus, the Gallic leader, threw his sword also into the scales, exclaiming, ”_Vae, victis!_” ”Woe to the vanquished.”
Just at this moment, so the tale continues, Camillus, a brave patrician general, appeared upon the scene with a Roman army that had been gathered from the fugitives; and, as he scattered the barbarians with heavy blows, he exclaimed, ”Rome is ransomed with steel and not with gold.” According to one account Brennus himself was taken prisoner; but another tradition says that he escaped, carrying with him not only the ransom, but a vast booty besides.
THE REBUILDING OF ROME.--When the fugitives returned to Rome after the withdrawal of the Gauls, they found the city a heap of ruins. Some of the poorer cla.s.ses, shrinking from the labor of rebuilding their old homes, proposed to abandon the site and make Veii their new capital. But love for the old spot at last prevailed over all the persuasions of indolence, and the people, with admirable courage, set themselves to the task of rebuilding their homes. It was a repet.i.tion of the scene at Athens after the retreat of the Persians (see p. 136). The city was speedily restored, and was soon enjoying her old position of supremacy among the surrounding states. There were some things, however, which even Roman resolution and perseverance could not restore. These were the ancient records and doc.u.ments, through whose irreparable loss the early history of Rome is involved in great obscurity and uncertainty.
TREASON AND DEATH OF MANLIUS.--The ravages of the Gauls left the poor plebeians in a most pitiable condition. In order to rebuild their dwellings and restock their farms, they were obliged to borrow money of the rich patricians, and consequently soon began again to experience the insult and oppression that were ever incident to the condition of the debtor cla.s.s at Rome.
The patrician Manlius, the hero of the brave defence of the Capitol, now came forward as the champion of the plebeians. He sold the larger part of his estates, and devoted the proceeds to the relief of the debtor cla.s.s.
It seems evident that in thus undertaking the cause of the commons he had personal aims and ambitions. The patricians determined to crush him. He was finally brought to trial before the popular a.s.sembly, on the charge of conspiring to restore the office of king. From the Forum, where the people were gathered, the Capitol, which Manlius had so bravely defended against the barbarians, was in full sight. Pointing to the temples he had saved, he appealed to the G.o.ds and to the grat.i.tude of the Roman people. The people responded to the appeal in a way altogether natural. They refused to condemn him. But brought to trial a second time, and now in a grove whence the citadel could not be seen, he was sentenced to death, and was thrown from the Tarpeian Rock. [Footnote: The Tarpeian Rock was the name given to the cliff which the Capitoline Hill formed on the side towards the Tiber (or towards the Palatine, according to some). It received its name from Tarpeia, daughter of one of the legendary keepers of the citadel. State criminals were frequently executed by being thrown from this rock.] This event occurred 384 B.C.
PLEBEIANS ADMITTED TO THE CONSULs.h.i.+P.--For nearly half a century after the death of Manlius the most important events in the history of Rome centre about the struggle of the plebeians, for admission to those offices of the government whence the jealousy of the patricians still excluded them. The Licinian laws, so called from one of their proposers, the tribune C.
Licinius, besides relieving the poor of usurious interest, and effecting a more just division of the public lands, also provided that consuls should be chosen yearly, as at first (see p. 238), and that one of the consuls should be a plebeian. This last provision opened to any one of the plebeian cla.s.s the highest office in the state. The n.o.bles, when they saw that it would be impossible to resist the popular demand, had recourse to the old device. They effected a compromise, whereby the judicial powers of the consuls were taken from them and conferred upon a new magistrate, who bore the name of praetor. Only patricians, of course, were to be eligible to this new office. They then permitted the Licinian laws to pa.s.s (367 B.C.).
During the latter half of the fourth century B.C. (between the years 356- 300) the plebeians gained admittance to the dictators.h.i.+p, the censors.h.i.+p, the praetors.h.i.+p, and to the College of Augurs and the College of Pontiffs.
They had been admitted to the College of Priests having charge of the Sibylline books, at the time of the pa.s.sing of the Licinian laws. With plebeians in all these positions, the rights of the lower order were fairly secured against oppressive and partisan decisions on the part of the magistrates, and against party fraud in the taking of the auspices and in the regulation of the calendar. There was now political equality between the n.o.bility and the commonalty.
WARS FOR THE MASTERY OF ITALY.
THE FIRST SAMNITE WAR (343-341 B.C.).--The union of the two orders in the state allowed the Romans now to employ their undivided strength in subjugating the different states of the peninsula. The most formidable compet.i.tors of the Romans for supremacy in Italy were the Samnites, rough and warlike mountaineers who held the Apennines to the east of Latium.
They were worthy rivals of the ”children of Mars.” The successive struggles between these martial races are known as the First, Second, and Third Samnite wars. They extended over a period of half a century, and in their course involved almost all the states of Italy.
Of the first of this series of wars we know very little, although Livy wrote a long, but unfortunately very unreliable, narration of it. In the midst of the struggle, Rome was confronted by a dangerous revolt of her Latin allies, and, leaving the war unfinished, turned her forces upon the insurgents.
REVOLT OF THE LATIN CITIES (340-338 B.C.).--The strife between the Romans and their Latin allies was simply the old contest within the walls of the capital between the patricians and the plebeians transferred to a larger arena. As the n.o.bles had oppressed the commons, so now both these orders united in the oppression of the Latins--the plebeians in their bettered circ.u.mstances forgetting the lessons of adversity. The Latin allies demanded a share in the government, and that the lands acquired by conquest should be distributed among them as well as among Roman citizens.