History of Julius Caesar Vol. 1 of 2

84

“Romulus placed upon their hair a crown of laurels.” (Plutarch, Romulus, XX.)

85

“The Senate and the people decreed to King Tarquin the honours of the triumph.” (Combat of the Romans and Etruscans, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, III. 60.) – “An ovation differs from a triumph, first, because he who receives the honours of it enters on foot at the head of the army, and not mounted in a car; secondly, that he has neither the crown of gold, nor the toga embroidered with gold and of different colours, but he carries only a white trabea bordered with purple, the ordinary costume of the generals and consuls. Besides having only a crown of laurel, he does not carry a sceptre. This is what the little triumph has less than the great; in all other respects there is no difference.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, V. 47.)

86

Romulus kills Acron, routs the enemies, and returns to offer to Jupiter Feretrius the opima spolia taken from that prince.

“After Romulus, Cornelius Cossus was the first who consecrated to the same gods similar spoils, having slain with his own hand, in a combat where he commanded the cavalry, the general of the Fidenates.

“We must not separate the example of M. Marcellus from the two preceding. He had the courage and intrepidity to attack on the banks of the Pô, at the head of a handful of horsemen, the king of the Gauls, though protected by a numerous army; he struck off his head, and carried off his armour, of which he made an offering to Jupiter Feretrius. (Year of Rome 531.)

“The same kind of bravery and combat signalised T. Manilius Torquatus, Valerius Corvus, and Scipio Æmilianus. These warriors, challenged by the chieftains of the enemies, made them bite the dust; but, as they had fought under the auspices of a superior chief, they did not offer their spoils to Jupiter.” (Year of Rome 392, 404, 602.) (Valerius Maximus, III. 2, §§ 3, 4, 5, 6.)

87

“Tarquin divided the seats (of the great circus) among the thirty curiæ, assigning to each the place which belonged to him.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, III. 68.) – “It was then (after the war against the Latins) that the site was chosen which is now called the great circus. They marked out in it the particular places for the senators and for the knights.” (Titus Livius, I. 35.)

88

“The hundred senators were divided into ten decaries, and each chose one of its members to exercise this authority. The power was collective: one alone carried the insignia of it, and walked preceded by the lictors. The duration of this power was for five days, and each exercised it in turn … The plebs was not long before it began to murmur. Its servitude had only been aggravated; instead of one master, it had a hundred. It appeared disposed to suffer only one king, and to choose him itself.” (Titus Livius, I. 17.)

89

“For the rest, this liberty consisted at first rather in the annual election of the consuls than in the weakening of the royal power. The first consuls assumed all its prerogatives and all its insignia; only it was feared that, if both possessed the fasciæ, this solemnity might inspire too much terror, and Brutus owed to the deference of his colleague the circumstance of possessing them first.” (Titus Livius, II. 1.)

90

“The death of Melius was justified,” said Quinctius, “to appease the people, although he might be innocent of the crime of aspiring to the kingly power.” (Titus Livius, IV. 15.)

91

“From these inflexible hearts came a sentence of death, which was odious to the judges themselves.” (Titus Livius, VI. 20.)

92

Discourse on Titus Livius, I. 5.

93

Proofs of the disagreement of the two consuls: “Cassius brought secretly as many Latins and Hernici as he possibly could to have their suffrages; there arrived in Rome such a great number, that in a short time the town was full of strangers. Virginius, who was informed of it, caused a herald to proclaim in all the public places that all those who had no domicile in Rome should withdraw immediately; but Cassius gave orders contrary to those of his colleague, forbidding any one who had the right of Roman freedom to quit the town until the law was confirmed and received.” (Year of Rome 268.) (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, VIII. 72.) – “Quinctius, more indulgent than his colleague, willed the concession to the people of all their just and reasonable demands; Appius, on the contrary, was willing to die rather than to yield.” (Year of Rome 283.) (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IX. 48.)

94

“The two consuls were of the most opposite tempers, and were always in discord (dissimiles discordesque).” (Titus Livius, XXII. 41.) – “While they lost their time in quarrels rather than in deliberations.” (Titus Livius, XXII. 45.)

95

Titus Livius, XXI. 52. – Dio Cassius, Fragments, CCLXXI. edit. Gros.

96

Titus Livius, XXI. 52.

97

“In the Roman army the two consuls enjoyed an equal power; but the deference of Agrippa in concentrating the authority in the hands of his colleague, established the unity so necessary for the success of great enterprises.” (Titus Livius, III. 70.) – “The two consuls commanded often both in the day of battle.” (Titus Livius, Battle of Mount Vesuvius, VIII. 9; Battle of Sentinum, X. 27.) – “A fatal innovation; from that time each had in view his personal interest, and not the general interest, preferring to see the Republic experience a check than his colleague covered with glory, and evils without number afflicted the fatherland.” (Dio Cassius, Fragments, LI. edit. Gros.)

98

“They called tribunes of the people those who, from tribunes of the soldiers, which they were first, were charged with the defence of the people during its retreat at Crustumerium.” (Varro, De Lingua Latina, V. 81, edition of O. Müller.)

99

“The discontented obtained from the patricians the confirmation of their magistrates; afterwards they demanded of the Senate the permission to elect annually two plebeians (ediles) to second the tribunes in all things in which they might have need of aid, to judge the causes which these might entrust into their hands, to have care of the sacred and public edifices, and to ensure the supplying of the market with provisions.” (Year of Rome 260.) (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, VI. 90.)

100

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, VI. 89.

101

The tribunes oppose the enrolment of troops. (Year of Rome 269.) (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, VIII. 81.) – “Licinius and Sextius re-elected tribunes of the people, allowed no curule magistrate to be elected; and, as the people continued to re-appoint the two tribunes, who always threw out the elections of the military tribunes, the town remained five years deprived of magistrates.” (Year of Rome 378.) (Titus Livius, VI. 35.) – “Each time the consuls convoked the people to confer the consulship on the candidates, the tribunes, in virtue of their powers, prevented the holding of the assemblies. So also, when these assembled the people to make the election, the consuls opposed it, pretending that the right of convoking the people and collecting the suffrages belonged to them alone.” (Year of Rome 271.) (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, VIII. 90.) – “Sometimes the tribunes prevented the patricians from assembling for the election of the interrex, sometimes they forbade the interrex himself making the senatus consultus for the consular comitia.” (Year of Rome 333.) (Titus Livius, IV. 43.)

102

Titus Livius, III. 30.

103

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, X. 31.

104

“The most remarkable event of this year (the year of Rome 282), in which military successes were so nearly balanced, and in which discord broke out in the camp and in the town with so much fury, was the establishment of the comitia by tribes, an innovation which gave to the plebeians the honour of the victory, but little real advantage. In fact, the exclusion of the patricians deprived the comitia of all their pomp, without augmenting the power of the people or diminishing that of the Senate.” (Titus Livius, II. 60.)

105

Assembly of the people both of the town and country; the suffrages were given in it, not by centuries, but by tribes: – “The day of the third market, from an early hour in the morning, the public place was occupied by so great a crowd of country people as had never been seen before. The tribunes assembled the people by tribes, and, dividing the Forum by ropes stretched across, formed as many distinct spaces as there were tribes. Then, for the first time, the Roman people gave its suffrages by tribes, in spite of the opposition of the patricians, who tried to prevent it, and demanded that they should assemble by centuries, according to the ancient custom.” (Year of Rome 263.) (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, VII. 59.) – “From that period (the year 283, consulate of Appius) to our days, the comitia by tribes have elected the tribunes and ediles, without auspices or observation of other auguries. Thus ended the troubles which agitated Rome.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IX. 49.) – “The Roman people, more irritated than ever, demanded that for each tribe a third urn should be added for the town of Rome, in order to put the suffrages in it.” (Year of Rome 308.) (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, XI. 52.)

106

“Duas civitates ex una factas: suos cuique parti magistratus, suas leges esse.” (Titus Livius, II. 44.) – “In fact, we are, as you see yourselves, divided into two towns, one of which is governed by poverty and necessity, and the other by abundance of all things and by pride and insolence.” (Year of Rome 260). (Speech of Titus Larcius to the envoys of the Volsci, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, VI. 36,)

107

The clients began to vote in the comitia by tribes after the law Valeria Horatia; we see, by the account of Titus Livius (V. 30, 32), that in the time of Camillus the clients and the patricians had already entered the comitia by tribes.

108

Appian, Civil Wars, I. 1.

109

Titus Livius, III. 9.

110

Lectorius, the most aged of the tribunes of the people, spoke of laws which had not been long made. “By the first, which concerned the translation of judgments, the Senate granted to the people the power of judging any one of the patricians.” (Year of Rome 283.) (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IX. 46.)

111

“The laws voted by the people in the comitia by tribes were to be obligatory on all Romans, and have the same force as those which were made in the comitia by centuries. The pain of death and confiscation was even pronounced against any one who should be convicted of having in anything abrogated or violated this regulation. This new ordinance cut short the old quarrels between the plebeians and the patricians, who refused to obey the laws made by the people, under the pretext that what was decided in the assemblies by tribes was not obligatory on all the town, but only on the plebeians; and that, on the contrary, what was decided in the comitia by centuries became law as well for themselves as for the other citizens.” (Year of Rome 305.) (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, XI. 45.) – “One point always contested between the two orders was to know if the patricians were subjected to the plebiscita. The first care of the consuls was to propose to the comitia assembled by centuries a law to the effect that the decrees of the people assembled by tribes should be laws of the State.” (Year of Rome 305.) (Titus Livius, III. 55.) – “The patricians pretended that they alone had the power of giving laws.” (Titus Livius, III. 31.)

112

“The comitia by curiæ for everything which concerns military affairs; the comitia by centuries for the election of your consuls and of your military tribunes, &c.” (Titus Livius, V. 52.)

113

Aulus Gellius, XV. 27. – Festus, under the words Scitum populi.

114

Titus Livius, IV. 3.

115

“The indignation of the people was extreme, on account of the refusal to take the auspices, as if it had been an object for the reprobation of the immortal gods.” – “The tribune demanded for what reason a plebeian could not be consul, and was told in reply that the plebeians had not the auspices, and that the decemvirs had interdicted marriage between the two orders only to hinder the auspices from being troubled by men of equivocal birth.” (Titus Livius, IV. 6.) – “Now in what hands are the auspices according to the custom of our ancestors? In the hands of the patricians, I think; for the auspices are never taken for the nomination of a plebeian magistrate.” – “Is it not then the same thing as to annihilate the auspices in this city, to take them, in electing plebeian consuls, from the patricians, who alone can observe them?” (Year of Rome 386.) (Titus Livius, VI. 41.)

To the consul, the prætor, and the censor was reserved the right of taking the great auspices; to the less elevated magistracies that of taking the lesser ones. The great auspices appear, in fact, to have been those of which the exercise was of most importance to the rights of the aristocracy. The ancients have not left us a precise definition of the two classes of auspices; but it appears to result from what Cicero says of them (De Legibus, II. 12), that by the great auspices were understood those for which the intervention of the augurs was indispensable; the little auspices, on the contrary, were those which were taken without them. (See Aulus Gellius, XIII. 15.)

As to the auspices taken in the comitia where the consular tribunes were elected, passages of Titus Livius (V. 14, 52; VI. 11) prove that they were the same as for the election of the consuls, and consequently that they were the great auspices; for we know from Cicero (De Divinatione, I. 17; II. 35 – compare Titus Livius, IV. 7) that it was the duty of the magistrate who held the comitia to bring there an augur, of whom he demanded what the presages announced. The privileges of the nobility were maintained by causing the comitia for the election of the consular tribunes to be held by an interrex chosen by the aristocracy.

116

Titus Livius, VI. 5.

117

Titus Livius, VII. 17.

118

In 333, the number was increased to four. Two, overseers for the guard of the treasury and the disposition of the public money, were appointed by the consuls; the two others, charged with the administration of the military chest, were appointed by the tribes.

119

“The master of the knights was so called because he exercised the supreme power over the knights and the accensi, as the dictator exercised it over the whole Roman people; whence the name of master of the people, which was also given to him.” (Varro, De Lingua Latina, V. 82, edit. Müller.)

120

“The duumvirs charged with the sacred rites were replaced by the decemvirs, half plebeians, half patricians.” (Titus Livius, VI. 37.)

121

Titus Livius, VII. 5.

122

“Appius convokes an assembly, accuses Valerius and Horatius of the crime of perduellio, calculating entirely on the tribunian power with which he was invested.” (Year of Rome 305.) (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, XI. 39.)

123

“In the interim, there was at Rome a conspiracy of several slaves, who formed together the design of seizing the forts and setting fire to the different quarters of the town.” (Year of Rome 253.) (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, V. 51.) – “From the summit of the Capitol, Herdonius called the slaves to liberty. He had taken up the cause of misfortune; he had just restored to their country those whom injustice had banished, and delivered the slaves from a heavy yoke; it is to the Roman people that he wishes to give the honour of this enterprise.” (Year of Rome 294.) (Titus Livius, III. 15.) – “The slaves who had entered into the conspiracy were, at different points, to set fire to the town, and, while the people were occupied in carrying assistance to the houses which were in flames, to seize by force of arms the citadel and the Capitol. Jupiter baffled these criminal designs. On the denunciation of two slaves, the guilty were arrested and punished.” (Year of Rome 336.) (Titus Livius, IV. 45.)

124

“Finally, under the consulship of M. Minucius and A. Sempronius, wheat arrived in abundance from Sicily, and the Senate deliberated on the price at which it must be delivered to the citizens.” (Year of Rome 263.) (Titus Livius, II. 34.) – “As the want of cultivators gave rise to the fear of a famine, people were sent to search for wheat in Etruria, in the Pomptinum, at Cumæ, and even as far as Sicily.” (Year of Rome 321.) (Titus Livius, IV. 25.)

125

“When Romulus had distributed all the people in tribes and curiæ, he also divided the lands into thirty equal portions, of which he gave one to each curia, reserving, nevertheless, what was necessary for the temples and the sacrifices, and a certain portion for the domain of the Republic.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, II. 7.)

126

“Numa distributed to the poorest of the plebeians the lands which Romulus had conquered and a small portion of the lands of the public domain.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, II. 62.) – “ Similar measures are attributed to Tullius Hostilius and Ancus Martius.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, III. 1, 48.) – “As soon as he was mounted on the throne, Servius Tullius distributed the lands of the public domain to the thetes (mercenaries) of the Romans.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IV. 13.)

127

Romulus, according to Dionysus of Halicarnassus, sent two colonies to Cænina and Antemnæ, having taken from those two towns the third of their lands. (II. 35.) – In the year 252, the Sabines lost ten thousand acres (jugera) of arable land. (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, V. 49.) – A treaty concluded with the Hernici, in 268, deprived them of two-thirds of their territory. (Titus Livius, II. 41.) – “In 413, the Privernates lost two-thirds of their territory; in 416, the Tiburtines and Prenestines lost a part of their territory.” (Titus Livius, VIII. I, 14.) – “In 563, P. Cornelius Scipio Nasica took from the Boians nearly half their territory.” (Titus Livius, XXXVI. 39.)

128

Appian, Civil Wars, I. vii. – This citation, though belonging to a posterior date, applies nevertheless to the epoch of which we are speaking.

129

“Servius published an edict to oblige all who had appropriated, under the title of usufructuaries or proprietors, the lands of the public domain, to restore them within a certain time, and, by the same edict, the citizens who possessed no heritage were ordered to bring him their names.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IV. 10.)

130

“We need not be astonished if the poor prefer the lands of the domain to be distributed (to all the citizens) than to suffer that a small number of the most shameless should remain sole possessors. But if they see that they are taken from those who gather their revenues, and that the public is restored to the possession of its domain, they will cease to be jealous of us, and the desire to see them distributed to each citizen would diminish, when it shall be demonstrated to them that these lands will be of greater utility when possessed in common by the Republic.” (Year of Rome 268.) (Speech of Appius, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, VIII. 73.)

131

Agannius Urbicus, De Controversiiss agrorum, in the Gromatici veteres, ed. Lachmann, vol. I, p. 82.

132

Titus Livius, II. 48.

133

“Lucius Æmilius said that it was just that the common goods should be shared among all the citizens, rather than leave the enjoyment of them to a small number of individuals; that in regard to those who had seized upon the public lands, they ought to be sufficiently satisfied that they had been left to enjoy them during so long a time without being disturbed in their possession, and that if afterwards they were deprived of them, it ill became them to be obstinate in retaining them. He added that, besides the public law acknowledged by general opinion, and according to which the public goods are common to all the citizens, just as the goods of individuals belong to those who have acquired them legitimately, the Senate was obliged, by a special reason, to distribute the lands to the people, since it had passed an ordinance for that purpose already seventeen years ago.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IX. 51.)

134

Titus Livius, III. 31. – Dionysius of Halicarnassus, X. 33 et seq.

135

“The plebeians complain loudly that their conquests have been taken from them; that it is disgraceful that, having conquered so many lands from the enemy, not the least portion of it remains to them; that the ager publicus is possessed by rich and influential men who take the revenue unjustly, without other title than their power and unexampled acts of violence. They demand finally that, sharing with the patricians all the dangers, they may also have their share in the advantages and profit derived from them.” (Year of Rome 298.) (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, X. 36.)

136

“The moment would have been well chosen, after having taken vengeance on the seditious, to propose, in order to soothe people’s minds, the partition of the territory of the Bolani; they would thus have weakened the desire for an agrarian law which would expel the patricians from the public estates they had unjustly usurped. For it was an indignity which cut the people to the heart, this rage of the nobility to retain the public lands they occupied by force, and, above all, their refusal to distribute to the people even the vacant lands recently taken from the enemy, which, indeed, would soon become, like the rest, the prey of some of the nobles,” (Year of Rome 341.) (Titus Livius, IV. 51.)

137

Titus Livius, V. 30.

138

Titus Livius, VI. 21. – It appears that the Pontine Marshes were then very fertile, since Pliny relates, after Licinius Mucianus, that they included upwards of twenty-four flourishing towns. (Natural History, III. v. 56, edit. Sillig.)

139

Titus Livius, VI. 35-42. – Appian, Civil Wars, I. 8.

140

See the remarkable work of M. A. Mace, Sur les Lois Agraires, Paris, 1846.

141

Roman Colonies. – Second period: 244-416

Lavici (Labicum) (336). Latium. (Via Lavicana.) La Colonna.

Vitellia (359). The Volscians. (Via Prænestina.) Uncertain. Civitella or Valmontone.

Satricum (370). The Volscians. Banks of the Astura. Casale di Conca, between Anzo and Velletri.

Latin Colonies. – Second period: 244-416.

Antium (287). Volscians. Torre d’Anzio or Porto d’Anzio.

Suessa Pometia (287). Near the Pontine Marshes. Disappeared at an early period.

Cora. Volscians (287). Cori.

Signia (259). Volscians. Segni.

Velitræ (260). Volscians. Velletri.

Norba (262). Volscians. Near the modern village of Norma.

Ardea (312). Rutuli. Ardea.

Circeii (361). Aurunces. Monte Circello: San Felice or Porto di Paolo.

Satricum (369). Volscians. Casale di Conca.