Part 23 (1/2)
(M766) The government, though monarchical, was limited. The king was bound to lay all questions of moment before the a.s.sembly of the thirty curiae, called the _Comitia Curiata_. But the king had a council called the _Senate_, composed of one hundred members, who were called _Patres_, or Fathers, and doubtless were the heads of clans called _Gentes_. The Gentes were divided into _Familiae_, or families. These _Patres_ were the heads of the patrician houses-that cla.s.s who alone had political rights, and who were Roman citizens.
(M767) Romulus is said to have reigned justly and ably for thirty-seven years, and no one could be found worthy to succeed him. At length the Roman tribe, the Ramnes, elected Numa Pompilius, from the Sabines, a man of wisdom and piety, and said to have acquired his learning from Pythagoras. This king inst.i.tuted the religious and civil legislation of Rome, and built the temple of Ja.n.u.s in the midst of the Forum, whose doors were shut in peace and opened in war, but were never closed from his death to the reign of Augustus, but a brief period after the first Punic war.
(M768) He established the College of Pontiffs, who directed all the ceremonies of religion and regulated festivals and the system of weights and measures; also the College of Augurs, who interpreted by various omens the will of the G.o.ds; and also the College of Heralds, who guarded the public faith. He fixed the boundaries of fields, divided the territory of Rome into districts, called _pagi_, and regulated the calendar.
(M769) According to the legends, Tullus Hostilius was the third king of Rome, elected by the curiae. He a.s.signed the Caelian Mount for the poor, and the strangers who flocked to Rome, and was a warlike sovereign. The great event of his reign was the destruction of Alba. The growing power of Rome provoked the jealousy of this ancient seat of Latin power, and war ensued.
The armies of the two States were drawn up in battle array, when it was determined that the quarrel should be settled by three champions, chosen from each side. Hence the beautiful story of the Curiatii and the Horatii, three brothers on each side. Two of the Horatii were slain, and the three Curiatii were wounded. The third of the Horatii affected to fly, and was pursued by the Curiatii, but as they were wounded, the third Roman subdued them in detail, and so the Albans became subjects of the Romans. The conqueror met his sister at one of the gates, who, being betrothed to one of the Curiatii, reproached him for the death of her lover, which so incensed him that he slew her. Thus early does patriotism surmount natural affections among the Romans. But Horatius was nevertheless tried for his life by two judges and condemned. He appealed to the people, who reversed the judgment-the first instance on record of an appeal in a capital case to the people, which subsequently was the right of Roman citizens.
(M770) Hostilities again breaking out between Alba and Rome, the former city was demolished and the inhabitants removed to the Caeilian Mount and enrolled among the citizens. By the destruction of Alba, Rome obtained the presidency over the thirty cities of the Latin confederacy. Tullus, it would seem, was an unscrupulous king, but able, and to him is ascribed the erection of the Curia Hostilia, where the Senate had its meetings.
(M771) The Sabine Ancus Martius was the fourth king, B.C. 640, who pursued the warlike policy of his predecessor, conquering many Latin towns, and incorporating their inhabitants with the Romans, whom he settled on Mount Aventine. They were freemen, but not citizens. They were called plebeians, with modified civil, but not political rights, and were the origin of that great middle cla.s.s which afterward became so formidable. The plebeians, though of the same race as the Romans, were a conquered people, and yet were not reduced to slavery like most conquered people among the ancients.
They had their Gentes and Familiae, but they could not intermarry with the patricians. Though they were not citizens, they were bound to fight for the State, for which, as a compensation, they retained their lands, that is, their old possessions.
(M772) On the death, B.C. 616, of Ancus Marlius, Lucius Tarquinius, of an Etruscan family, became king, best known as Tarquinius Priscus. He had been guardian of the two sons of Ancus, but offered himself as candidate for the throne, from which it would appear that the monarchs were elected by the people.
(M773) He carried on successful war against the Latins and Sabines, and introduced from Etruria, by permission of the Senate, a golden crown, an ivory chain, a sceptre topped with an eagle, and a crimson robe studded with gold-emblems of royalty. But he is best known for various public works of great magnificence at the time, as well as of public utility.
Among these was the Cloaca Maxima, to drain the marshy land between the Palatine and the Tiber-a work so great, that Niebuhr ranks it with the pyramids. It has lasted, without the displacement of a stone, for more than two thousand years. It shows that the use of the arch was known at that period. The masonry of the stones is perfect, joined together without cement. Tarquin also inst.i.tuted public games, and reigned with more splendor than we usually a.s.sociate with an infant State.
(M774) This king, who excited the jealousy of the patricians, was a.s.sa.s.sinated B.C. 578, and Servius Tullius reigned in his stead. He was the greatest of the Roman kings, and arose to his position by eminent merit, being originally obscure. He married the daughter of Tarquin, and shared all his political plans.
(M775) He is most celebrated for remodeling the const.i.tution. He left the old inst.i.tutions untouched, but added new ones. He made a new territorial division of the State, and created a popular a.s.sembly. He divided the whole population into thirty tribes, at the head of each of which was a tribune. Each tribe managed its own local affairs, and held public meetings. These tribes included both patricians and plebeians. This was the commencement of the power of the plebs, which was seen with great jealousy by the patricians.
(M776) The basis or principle of the new organization of Servius was the possession of property. All free citizens, whether patricians or plebeians, were called to defend the State, and were enrolled in the army.
The equites, or cavalry, took the precedence in the army, and was composed of the wealthy citizens. There were eighteen centuries of these knights, six patrician and twelve plebeian, all having more than one hundred thousand ases. They were armed with sword, spear, helmet, s.h.i.+eld, greaves, and cuira.s.s. The infantry was composed of the cla.s.ses, variously armed, of which, including equites, there were one hundred and ninety-four centuries, one hundred of whom were of the first rank, heavily armed-all men possessing one hundred thousand ases. Each cla.s.s was divided into seniores-men between forty-five and sixty, and juniores-from seventeen to forty-five. The former were liable to be called out only in emergencies.
This division of the citizens was a purely military one, and each century had one vote. But as the first cla.s.s numbered one hundred centuries, each man of which was worth land valued at one hundred thousand ases, it could cast a larger vote than all the other cla.s.ses, which numbered only ninety-four together. Thus the rich controlled all public affairs.
(M777) To this military body of men, in which the rich preponderated, Servius committed all the highest functions of the State, for the Comitia Centuriata possessed elective, judicial, and legislative functions.
Servius also rendered many other benefits to the plebeians, He divided among them the lands gained from the Etruscans. He inclosed the city with a wall, which remained for centuries, embracing the seven hills on which Rome was built. But it is as the hero of the plebeian order that he is famous, and paid the penalty for being such. He was a.s.sa.s.sinated, probably by the instigation of the patricians, by his son-in-law, Lucius Tarquinius, who mounted his throne as Tarquinius Superbus, the last king of Rome, B.C. 534. The daughter of the murdered king, Tullia, who rode in her chariot over his bleeding body, is enrolled among the infamous women of antiquity.
(M778) Tarquinius Superbus, a usurper and murderer, abrogated the popular laws of Servius Tullius, and set aside even the a.s.sembly of the Curiae, and degraded and decimated the Senate, and appropriated the confiscated estates of those whom he destroyed. He reigned as a despot, making treaties without consulting the Senate, and living for his pleasure alone.
But he ornamented the city with magnificent edifices, and completed the Circus Maximus as well as the Capitoline Temple, which stood five hundred years. He was also successful in war, and exalted the glory of the Roman name.
(M779) An end came to his tyranny by one of those events on which poetry and history have alike exhausted all their fascinations. It was while Tarquin was conducting a war against Ardea, and the army was idly encamped before the town, that the sons of Tarquin, with their kinsmen, were supping in the tent of s.e.xtus, that conversation turned upon the comparative virtue of their wives. By a simultaneous impulse, they took horse to see the manner in which these ladies were at the time employed.
The wives of Tarquin's sons at Rome were found in luxurious banquets with other women. Lucretia, the wife of Collatinus, was discovered carding wool in the midst of her maidens. The boast of Collatinus that his wife was the most virtuous was confirmed. But her charms or virtues made a deep impression on the heart or pa.s.sions of s.e.xtus, and he returned to her dwelling in Collatia to propose infamous overtures. They were proudly rejected, but the disappointed lover, by threats and force, accomplished his purpose. Lucretia, stung with shame, made known the crime of s.e.xtus to her husband and father, who hastened to her house, accompanied with Brutus. They found the ravished beauty in agonies of shame and revenge, and after she had revealed the scandalous facts, she plunged a dagger in her own bosom and died, invoking revenge. Her relatives and friends carried her corpse to the market-place, revealed the atrocity of the crime of s.e.xtus, and demanded vengeance. The people rallied in the Forum at Rome, and the a.s.sembled Curiae deprived Tarquin of his throne, and decreed the banishment of his accursed family. On the news of the insurrection, the tyrant started for the city with a band of chosen followers, but Brutus reached the army after the king had left, recounted the wrongs, and marched to Rome, whose gates were already shut against Tarquin. He fled to Etruria, with two of his sons, but s.e.xtus was murdered by the people of Gabii.
(M780) Thus were the kings driven out of Rome, never to return. In the revolution which followed, the patricians recovered their power, and a new form of government was inst.i.tuted, republican in name, but oligarchal and aristocratic in reality, two hundred and forty-five years after the foundation of the city, B.C. 510. Historical criticism throws doubt on the chronology which a.s.signs two hundred and forty-five years to seven elective kings, and some critics think that a longer period elapsed from the reign of Romulus to that of Tarquin than legend narrates, and that there must have been a great number of kings whose names are unknown. As the city advanced in wealth and numbers, the popular influence increased.
The admission of commons favored the establishment of despotism, and its excesses led to its overthrow. It would have been better for the commons had Brutus established a monarchy with more limited powers, for the plebeians were now subjected to the tyranny of a proud and grasping oligarchy, and lost a powerful protector in the king, and the whole internal history of Rome, for nearly two centuries, were the conflicts between the plebeians and their aristocratic masters for the privileges they were said to possess under the reign of Tullius. Under the patricians the growth of the city was slow, and it was not till the voices of the tribunes were heard that Rome advanced in civilization and liberty. Under the kings, the progress in arts and culture had been rapid.
(M781) Mommsen, in his learned and profound history of Rome, enumerates the various forms of civilization that existed on the expulsion of the Tarquins, a summary of which I present. Law and justice were already enforced on some of the elemental principles which marked the Roman jurisprudence. The punishment of offenses against order was severe, and compensation for crime, where injuries to person and property were slight, was somewhat similar to the penalties of the Mosaic code. The idea of property was a.s.sociated with estate in slaves and cattle, and all property pa.s.sed freely from hand to hand; but it was not in the power of the father arbitrarily to deprive his children of their hereditary rights. Contracts between the State and a citizen were valid without formalities, but those between private persons were difficult to be enforced. A purchase only founded an action in the event of its being a transaction for ready money, and this was attested by witnesses. Protection was afforded to minors and for the estate of persons not capable of bearing arms. After a man's death, his property descended to his nearest heirs. The emanc.i.p.ation of slaves was difficult, and that of a son was attended with even greater difficulties. Burgesses and clients were equally free in their private rights, but foreigners were beyond the pale of the law. The laws indicated a great progress in agriculture and commerce, but the foundation of law was the State. The greatest liberality in the permission of commerce, and the most rigorous procedure in execution, went hand in hand. Women were placed on a legal capacity with men, though restricted in the administration of their property. Personal credit was extravagant and easy, but the creditor could treat the debtor like a thief. A freeman could not, indeed, be tortured, but he could be imprisoned for debt with merciless severity. From the first, the laws of property were stringent and inexorable.
(M782) In religion, the ancient Romans, like the Greeks, personified the powers of nature, and also abstractions, like sowing, field labor, war, boundary, youth, health, harmony, fidelity. The profoundest wors.h.i.+p was that of the tutelary deities, who presided over the household. Next to the deities of the house and forest, held in the greatest veneration, was Hercules, the G.o.d of the inclosed homestead, and, therefore, of property and gain. The souls of departed mortals were supposed to haunt the spot where the bodies reposed, but dwelt in the depths below. The hero wors.h.i.+p of the Greeks was uncommon, and even Numa was never wors.h.i.+ped as a G.o.d.
The central object of wors.h.i.+p was Mars, the G.o.d of war, and this was conducted by imposing ceremonies and rites. The wors.h.i.+p of Vesta was held with peculiar sacredness, and the vestal virgins were the last to yield to Christianity. The wors.h.i.+pers of the G.o.ds often consulted priests and augurs, who had great colleges, but little power in the State. The Latin wors.h.i.+p was grounded on man's enjoyment of earthly pleasures, and not on his fear of the wild forces of nature, and it gradually sunk into a dreary round of ceremonies. The Italian G.o.d was simply an instrument for the attainment of worldly ends, and not an object of profound awe or love, and hence the Latin wors.h.i.+p was unfavorable to poetry, as well as philosophical speculation.
(M783) Agriculture is ever a distinguis.h.i.+ng mark of civilization, and forms the main support of a people. It early occupied the time of the Latins, and was their chief pursuit. In the earliest ages arable land was cultivated in common, and was not distributed among the people as their special property, but in the time of Servius there was a distribution.
Attention was chiefly given to cereals, but roots and vegetables were also diligently cultivated. Vineyards were introduced before the Greeks made settlements in Italy, but the olive was brought to Italy by the Greeks.