Part 19 (1/2)

to about 300 B.C.).[118]

The plebeians, much more numerous and wealthy, ended by gaining the victory. They first secured the adoption of laws common to the two orders; afterward that marriage should be permitted between the patricians and the plebeians. The hardest task was to obtain the high magistracies, or, as it was said, ”secure the honors.” Religious scruple ordained, indeed, that before one could be named as a magistrate, the G.o.ds must be asked for their approval of the choice.

This was determined by inspecting the flight of birds (”taking the auspices”). But the old Roman religion allowed the auspices to be taken only on the name of a patrician; it was not believed that the G.o.ds could accept a plebeian magistrate. But there were great plebeian families who were bent on being the equals of the patrician families in dignity, as they were in riches and in importance. They gradually forced the patricians to open to them all the offices, beginning with the consuls.h.i.+p, and ending with the great pontifical office (Pontifex Maximus). The first plebeian consul was named in 366 B.C., the first plebeian pontifex maximus in 302 B.C.[119] Patricians and plebeians then coalesced and henceforth formed but one people.

THE ROMAN PEOPLE

=The Right of Citizens.h.i.+p.=--The _people_ in Rome, as in Greece, is not the whole of the inhabitants, but the body of citizens. Not every man who lives in the territory is a citizen, but only he who has the right of citizens.h.i.+p. The citizen has numerous privileges:

1. He alone is a member of the body politic; he alone has the right of voting in the a.s.semblies of the Roman people, of serving in the army, of being present at the religious ceremonials at Rome, of being elected a Roman magistrate. These are what were called public rights.

2. The citizen alone is protected by the Roman law; he only has the right of marrying legally, of becoming the father of a family, that is to say, of being master of his wife and his children, of making his will, of buying or selling. These were the private rights.

Those who were not citizens were not only excluded from the army and the a.s.sembly, but they could not marry, could not possess the absolute power of the father, could not hold property legally, could not invoke the Roman law, nor demand justice at a Roman tribunal. Thus the citizens const.i.tuted an aristocracy amidst the other inhabitants of the city. But they were not equal among themselves; there were cla.s.s differences, or, as the Romans said, ranks.

=The n.o.bles.=--In the first rank are the n.o.bles. A citizen is n.o.ble when one of his ancestors has held a magistracy, for the magisterial office in Rome is an honor, it enn.o.bles the occupant and also his posterity.

When a citizen becomes aedile, praetor, or consul, he receives a purple-bordered toga, a sort of throne (the curule chair), and the right of having an image made of himself. These images are statuettes, at first in wax, later in silver. They are placed in the atrium, the sanctuary of the house, near the hearth and the G.o.ds of the family; there they stand in niches like idols, venerated by posterity. When any one of the family dies, the images are brought forth and carried in the funeral procession, and a relative p.r.o.nounces the oration for the dead. It is these images that enn.o.ble a family that preserves them. The more images there are in a family, the n.o.bler it is. The Romans spoke of those who were ”n.o.ble by one image” and those who were ”n.o.ble by many images.”

The n.o.ble families of Rome were very few (they would not amount to 300), for the magistracies which conferred n.o.bility were usually given to men who were already n.o.ble.

=The Knights.=--Below the n.o.bles were the knights. They were the rich who were not n.o.ble. Their fortune as inscribed on the registers of the treasury must amount to at least 400,000[120] sesterces. They were merchants, bankers, and contractors; they did not govern, but they grew rich. At the theatre they had places reserved for them behind the n.o.bles.

If a knight were elected to a magistracy, the n.o.bles called him a ”new man” and his son became n.o.ble.

=The Plebs.=--Those who were neither n.o.bles nor knights formed the ma.s.s of the people, the plebs. The majority of them were peasants, cultivating a little plat in Latium or in the Sabine country. They were the descendants of the Latins or the Italians who were subjugated by the Romans. Cato the Elder in his book on Agriculture gives us an idea of their manners: ”Our ancestors, when they wished to eulogize a man, said 'a good workman,' 'a good farmer'; this encomium seemed the greatest of all.”[121]

Hardened to work, eager for the harvest, steady and economical, these laborers const.i.tuted the strength of the Roman armies. For a long time they formed the a.s.sembly too, and dictated the elections. The n.o.bles who wished to be elected magistrates came to the parade-ground to grasp the hand of these peasants (”prensare ma.n.u.s,” was the common expression). A candidate, finding the hand of a laborer callous, ventured to ask him, ”Is it because you walk on your hands?” He was a n.o.ble of great family, but he was not elected.

=The Freedmen.=--The last of all the citizens are the freedmen, once slaves, or the sons of slaves. The taint of their origin remains on them; they are not admitted to service in the Roman army and they vote after all the rest.

THE GOVERNMENT OF THE REPUBLIC

=The Comitia.=--The government of Rome called itself a republic (Respublica), that is to say, a thing of the people. The body of citizens called the people was regarded as absolute master in the state. It is this body that elects the magistrates, votes on peace and war, and that makes the laws. ”The law,” say the jurisconsults, ”is what the Roman people ordains.” At Rome, as in Greece, the people do not appoint deputies, they pa.s.s on the business itself. Even after more than 500,000 men scattered over all Italy were admitted into the citizens.h.i.+p, the citizens had to go in person to Rome to exercise their rights. The people, therefore, meet at but one place; the a.s.sembly is called the Comitia.

A magistrate convokes the people and presides over the body. Sometimes the people are convoked by the blast of the trumpet and come to the parade-ground (the Campus Martius), ranging themselves by companies under their standards. This is the Comitia by centuries. Sometimes they a.s.semble in the market-place (the forum) and separate themselves into thirty-five groups, called tribes. Each tribe in turn enters an enclosed s.p.a.ce where it does its voting. This is the Comitia by tribes. The magistrate who convokes the a.s.sembly indicates the business on which the suffrages are to be taken, and when the a.s.sembly has voted, it dissolves. The people are sovereign, but accustomed to obey their chiefs.

=The Magistrates.=--Every year the people elect officials to govern them and to them they delegate absolute power. These are called magistrates (those who are masters). Lictors march before them bearing a bundle of rods and an axe, emblems of the magisterial powers of chastising and condemning to death. The magistrate has at once the functions of presiding over the popular a.s.sembly and the senate, of sitting in court, and of commanding the army; he is master everywhere.

He convokes and dissolves the a.s.sembly at will, he alone renders judgment, he does with the soldiers as he pleases, putting them to death without even taking counsel with his officers. In a war against the Latins Manlius, the Roman general, had forbidden the soldiers leaving camp: his son, provoked by one of the enemy, went forth and killed him; Manlius had him arrested and executed him immediately.

According to the Roman expression, the magistrate has the power of a king; but this power is brief and divided. The magistrate is elected for but one year and he has a colleague who has the same power as himself. There are at once in Rome two consuls who govern the people and command the armies, and several praetors to serve as subordinate governors or commanders and to p.r.o.nounce judgment. There are other magistrates, besides--two censors, four aediles to supervise the public ways and the markets, ten tribunes of the plebs, and quaestors to care for the state treasure.

=The Censors.=--The highest of all the magistrates are the censors.

They are charged with taking the census every five years, that is to say, the enumeration of the Roman people. All the citizens appear before them to declare under oath their name, the number of their children and their slaves, the amount of their fortune; all this is inscribed on the registers. It is their duty, too, to draw up the list of the senators, of the knights, and of the citizens, a.s.signing to each his proper rank in the city. They are charged as a result with making the l.u.s.trum, a great ceremony of purification which occurs every five years.[122]

On that day all the citizens are a.s.sembled on the Campus Martius arranged in order of battle; thrice there are led around the a.s.sembly three expiatory victims, a bull, a ram, and a swine; these are killed and their blood sprinkled on the people; the city is purified and reconciled with the G.o.ds.

The censors are the masters of the registration and they rank each as they please; they may degrade a senator by striking him from the senate-list, a knight by not registering him among the knights, and a citizen by not placing his name on the registers of the tribes. It is for them an easy means of punis.h.i.+ng those whom they regard at fault and of reaching those whom the law does not condemn. They have been known to degrade citizens for poor tillage of the soil and for having too costly an equipage, a senator because he possessed ten pounds of silver, another for having repudiated his wife. It is this overweening power that the Romans call the supervision of morals. It makes the censors the masters of the city.