Part 30 (2/2)

PRIESTHOODS

Roman priests, who conducted the state religion, did not form a separate cla.s.s, as in some Oriental countries. They were chosen, like other magistrates, from the general body of citizens. A board, or ”college,” of six priests had charge of the public auspices. Another board, that of the pontiffs, regulated the calendar, kept the public annals, and regulated weights and measures. They were experts in all matters of religious ceremonial and hence were very important officials. [15]

IMPORTANCE OF THE STATE RELIGION

This old Roman faith was something very different from what we understand by religion. It had little direct influence on morality. It did not promise rewards or threaten punishments in a future world. Roman religion busied itself with the everyday life of man. Just as the household was bound together by the tie of common wors.h.i.+p, so all the citizens were united in a common reverence for the deities which guarded the state. The religion of Rome made and held together a nation.

52. THE ROMAN CITY-STATE

EARLY ROMAN GOVERNMENT

We find in early Rome, as in Homeric Greece, [16] a city-state with its king, council, and a.s.sembly. The king was the father of his people, having over them the same absolute authority that the house-father held within the family. The king was a.s.sisted by a council of elders, or Senate (Latin _senes_, ”old men”). Its members were chosen by the king and held office for life. The most influential heads of families belonged to the Senate.

The common people at first took little part in the government, for it was only on rare occasions that the king summoned them to deliberate with him in an a.s.sembly.

THE REPUBLICAN CONSULS

Toward the close of the sixth century, as we have already learned, [17]

the ancient monarchy disappeared from Rome. In place of the lifelong king two magistrates, named consuls, were elected every year. Each consul had to share his honor and authority with a colleague who enjoyed the same power as himself. Unless both agreed, there could be no action. Like the Spartan kings, [18] the consuls served as checks, the one on the other.

Neither could safely use his position to aim at unlawful rule.

THE DICTATOR

This divided power of the consuls might work very well in times of peace.

During dangerous wars or insurrections it was likely to prove disastrous.

A remedy was found in the temporary revival of the old kings.h.i.+p under a new name. When occasion required, one of the consuls, on the advice of the Senate, appointed a dictator. The consuls then gave up their authority and the people put their property and lives entirely at the dictator's disposal. During his term of office, which could not exceed six months, the state was under martial law. Throughout Roman history there were many occasions when a dictators.h.i.+p was created to meet a sudden emergency.

PATRICIANS AND PLEBEIANS

The Roman state, during the regal age, seems to have been divided between an aristocracy and a commons. The n.o.bles were called patricians, [19] and the common people were known as plebeians. [20] The patricians occupied a privileged position, since they alone sat in the Senate and served as priests, judges, and magistrates. In fact, they controlled society, and the common people found themselves excluded from much of the religious, legal, and political life of the Roman city. Under these circ.u.mstances it was natural for the plebeians to agitate against the patrician monopoly of government. The struggle between the two orders of society lasted about two centuries.

THE TRIBUNES

A few years after the establishment of the republic the plebeians compelled the patricians to allow them to have officers of their own, called tribunes, as a means of protection. There were ten tribunes, elected annually by the plebeians. Any tribune could veto, that is, forbid, the act of a magistrate which seemed to bear harshly on a citizen.

To make sure that a tribune's orders would be respected, his person was made sacred and a solemn curse was p.r.o.nounced upon the man who injured him or interrupted him in the performance of his duties. The tribune's authority, however, extended only within the city and a mile beyond its walls. He was quite powerless against the consul in the field.

THE TWELVE TABLES, 449 B.C.

We next find the plebeians struggling for equality before the law. Just as in ancient Athens, [21] the early Roman laws had never been written down or published. About half a century after the plebeians had obtained the tribunes, they forced the patricians to give them written laws. A board of ten men, known as decemvirs, was appointed to frame a legal code, binding equally on both patricians and plebeians. The story goes that this commission studied the legislation of the Greek states of southern Italy, and even went to Athens to examine some of Solon's laws which were still in force. The laws framed by the decemvirs were engraved on twelve bronze tablets and set up in the Forum. A few sentences from this famous code have come down to us in rude, unpolished Latin. They mark the beginning of what was to be Rome's greatest gift to civilization--her legal system.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CURULE CHAIR AND FASCES A consul sat on the curule chair. The _fasces_ (axes in a bundle of rods) symbolized his power to flog and behead offenders.]

FINAL TRIUMPH OF THE PLEBEIANS

The hardest task of the plebeians was to secure the right of holding the great offices of state. Eventually, however, they gained entrance to Senate and became eligible to the consuls.h.i.+p and other magistracies and to the priesthoods. By the middle of the third century the plebeians and patricians, equal before the law and with equal privileges, formed one compact body of citizens in the Roman state.

ROME AS A REPUBLIC

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