The History of Rome, Book I

Class of —Metoeci— Subsisting by the Side of the Community

At first, therefore, the burgesses were in reality the protectors, the non-burgesses were the protected; but in Rome as in all communities which freely admit settlement but do not throw open the rights of citizenship, it soon became a matter of increasing difficulty to harmonize this relation -de jure- with the actual state of things. The flourishing of commerce, the full equality of private rights guaranteed to all Latins by the Latin league (including even the acquisition of landed property), the greater frequency of manumissions as prosperity increased, necessarily occasioned even in peace a disproportionate increase of the number of —metoeci—. That number was further augmented by the greater part of the population of the neighbouring towns subdued by force of arms and incorporated with Rome; which, whether it removed to the city or remained in its old home now reduced to the rank of a village, ordinarily exchanged its native burgess-rights for those of a Roman —metoikos—. Moreover the burdens of war fell exclusively on the old burgesses and were constantly thinning the ranks of their patrician descendants, while the —metoeci— shared in the results of victory without having to pay for it with their blood.

Under such circumstances the only wonder is that the Roman patriciate did not disappear much more rapidly than it actually did. The fact of its still continuing for a prolonged period a numerous community can scarcely be accounted for by the bestowal of Roman burgess-rights on several distinguished foreign clans, which after emigrating from their homes or after the conquest of their cities received the Roman franchise—for such grants appear to have occurred but sparingly from the first, and to have become always the more rare as the franchise increased in value. A cause of greater influence, in all likelihood, was the introduction of the civil marriage, by which a child begotten of patrician parents living together as married persons, although without -confarreatio-, acquired full burgess-rights equally with the child of a -confarreatio- marriage. It is at least probable that the civil marriage, which already existed in Rome before the Twelve Tables but was certainly not an original institution, was introduced for the purpose of preventing the disappearance of the patriciate.44 To this connection belong also the measures which were already in the earliest times adopted with a view to maintain a numerous posterity in the several households.45

Nevertheless the number of the —metoeci— was of necessity constantly on the increase and liable to no diminution, while that of the burgesses was at the utmost perhaps not decreasing; and in consequence the —metoeci— necessarily acquired by imperceptible degrees another and a freer position. The non-burgesses were no longer merely emancipated slaves or strangers needing protection; their ranks included the former burgesses of the Latin communities vanquished in war, and more especially the Latin settlers who lived in Rome not by the favour of the king or of any other burgess, but by federal right. Legally unrestricted in the acquiring of property, they gained money and estate in their new home, and bequeathed, like the burgesses, their homesteads to their children and children's children. The vexatious relation of dependence on particular burgess-households became gradually relaxed. If the liberated slave or the immigrant stranger still held an entirely isolated position in the state, such was no longer the case with his children, still less with his grandchildren, and this very circumstance of itself rendered their relations to the patron of less moment. While in earlier times the client was exclusively left dependent for legal protection on the intervention of the patron, the more the state became consolidated and the importance of the clanships and households in consequence diminished, the more frequently must the individual client have obtained justice and redress of injury, even without the intervention of his patron, from the king. A great number of the non-burgesses, particularly the members of the dissolved Latin communities, had, as we have already said, probably from the outset not any place as clients of the royal or other great clans, and obeyed the king nearly in the same manner as did the burgesses. The king, whose sovereignty over the burgesses was in truth ultimately dependent on the good-will of those obeying, must have welcomed the means of forming out of his own -proteges- essentially dependent on him a body bound to him by closer ties.

Plebs

Thus there grew up by the side of the burgesses a second community in Rome: out of the clients arose the Plebs. This change of name is significant. In law there was no difference between the client and the plebeian, the "dependent" and the "man of the multitude;" but in fact there was a very important one, for the former term brought into prominence the relation of dependence on a member of the politically privileged class; the latter suggested merely the want of political rights. As the feeling of special dependence diminished, that of political inferiority forced itself on the thoughts of the free —metoeci—; and it was only the sovereignty of the king ruling equally over all that prevented the outbreak of political conflict between the privileged and the non-privileged classes.

The Servian Constitution

The first step, however, towards the amalgamation of the two portions of the people scarcely took place in the revolutionary way which their antagonism appeared to foreshadow. The reform of the constitution, which bears the name of king Servius Tullius, is indeed, as to its historical origin, involved in the same darkness with all the events of a period respecting which we learn whatever we know not by means of historical tradition, but solely by means of inference from the institutions of later times. But its character testifies that it cannot have been a change demanded by the plebeians, for the new constitution assigned to them duties alone, and not rights. It must rather have owed its origin either to the wisdom of one of the Roman kings, or to the urgency of the burgesses that they should be delivered from exclusive liability to burdens, and that the non-burgesses should be made to share on the one hand in taxation—that is, in the obligation to make advances to the state (the -tributum-)—and rendering task-work, and on the other hand in the levy. Both were comprehended in the Servian constitution, but they hardly took place at the same time. The bringing in of the non-burgesses presumably arose out of the economic burdens; these were early extended to such as were "possessed of means" (-locupletes-) or "settled people" (-adsidui-, freeholders), and only those wholly without means, the "children-producers" (-proletarii-, -capite censi-) remained free from them. Thereupon followed the politically more important step of bringing in the non-burgesses to military duty. This was thenceforth laid not upon the burgesses as such, but upon the possessors of land, the -tribules-, whether they might be burgesses or mere —metoeci—; service in the army was changed from a personal burden into a burden on property. The details of the arrangement were as follow.

The Five Classes

Every freeholder from the eighteenth to the sixtieth year of his age, including children in the household of freeholder fathers, without distinction of birth, was under obligation of service, so that even the manumitted slave had to serve, if in an exceptional case he had come into possession of landed property. The Latins also possessing land—others from without were not allowed to acquire Roman soil—were called in to service, so far as they had, as was beyond doubt the case with most of them, taken up their abode on Roman territory. The body of men liable to serve was distributed, according to the size of their portions of land, into those bound to full service or the possessors of a full hide,46 who were obliged to appear in complete armour and in so far formed pre-eminently the war army (-classis-), and the four following ranks of smaller landholders—the possessors respectively of three fourths, of a half, of a quarter, or of an eighth of a whole farm—from whom was required fulfilment of service, but not equipment in complete armour, and they thus had a position below the full rate (-infra classem-). As the land happened to be at that time apportioned, almost the half of the farms were full hides, while each of the classes possessing respectively three-fourths, the half, and the quarter of a hide, amounted to scarcely an eighth of the freeholders, and those again holding an eighth of a hide amounted to fully an eighth. It was accordingly laid down as a rule that in the case of the infantry the levy should be in the proportion of eighty holders of a full hide, twenty from each of the three next ranks, and twenty-eight from the last.

Cavalry

The cavalry was similarly dealt with. The number of divisions in it was tripled, and the only difference in this case was that the six divisions already existing with the old names (-Tities-, -Ramnes-, -Luceres- -primi- and -secundi-) were left to the patricians, while the twelve new divisions were formed chiefly from the non-burgesses. The reason for this difference is probably to be sought in the fact that at that period the infantry were formed anew for each campaign and discharged on their return home, whereas the cavalry with their horses were on military grounds kept together also in time of peace, and held their regular drills, which continued to subsist as festivals of the Roman equites down to the latest times.47 Accordingly the squadrons once constituted were allowed, even under this reform, to keep their ancient names. In order to make the cavalry accessible to every burgess, the unmarried women and orphans under age, so far as they had possession of land, were bound instead of personal service to provide the horses for particular troopers (each trooper had two of them), and to furnish them with fodder. On the whole there was one horseman to nine foot-soldiers; but in actual service the horsemen were used more sparingly.

The non-freeholders (-adcensi-, people standing at the side of the list of those owing military service) had to supply the army with workmen and musicians as well as with a number of substitutes who marched with the army unarmed (-velati-), and, when vacancies occurred in the field, took their places in the ranks equipped with the weapons of the sick or of the fallen.

Levy-Districts

To facilitate the levying of the infantry, the city was distributed into four "parts" (-tribus-); by which the old triple division was superseded, at least so far as concerned its local significance. These were the Palatine, which comprehended the height of that name along with the Velia; the Suburan, to which the street so named, the Carinae, and the Caelian belonged; the Esquiline; and the Colline, formed by the Quirinal and Viminal, the "hills" as contrasted with the "mounts" of the Capitol and Palatine. We have already spoken of the formation of these regions48 and shown how they originated out of the ancient double city of the Palatine and the Quirinal. By what process it came to pass that every freeholder burgess belonged to one of those city-districts, we cannot tell; but this was now the case; and that the four regions were nearly on an equality in point of numbers, is evident from their being equally drawn upon in the levy. This division, which had primary reference to the soil alone and applied only inferentially to those who possessed it, was merely for administrative purposes, and in particular never had any religious significance attached to it; for the fact that in each of the city-districts there were six chapels of the enigmatical Argei no more confers upon them the character of ritual districts than the erection of an altar to the Lares in each street implies such a character in the streets.

Each of these four levy-districts had to furnish approximately the fourth part not only of the force as a whole, but of each of its military subdivisions, so that each legion and each century numbered an equal proportion of conscripts from each region, in order to merge all distinctions of a gentile and local nature in the one common levy of the community and, especially through the powerful levelling influence of the military spirit, to blend the —metoeci— and the burgesses into one people.

Organization of the Army

In a military point of view, the male population capable of bearing arms was divided into a first and second levy, the former of which, the "juniors" from the commencement of the eighteenth to the completion of the forty-sixth year, were especially employed for service in the field, while the "seniors" guarded the walls at home. The military unit came to be in the infantry the now doubled legion49—a phalanx, arranged and armed completely in the old Doric style, of 6000 men who, six file deep, formed a front of 1000 heavy-armed soldiers; to which were attached 2400 "unarmed".50 The four first ranks of the phalanx, the -classis-, were formed by the fully-armed hoplites of those possessing a full hide; in the fifth and sixth were placed the less completely equipped farmers of the second and third division; the two last divisions were annexed as rear ranks to the phalanx or fought by its side as light-armed troops. Provision was made for readily supplying the accidental gaps which were so injurious to the phalanx. Thus there served in it 84 centuries or 8400 men, of whom 6000 were hoplites, 4000 of the first division, 1000 from each of the two following, and 2400 light-armed, of whom 1000 belonged to the fourth, and 1200 to the fifth division; approximately each levy-district furnished to the phalanx 2100, and to each century 25 men. This phalanx was the army destined for the field, while a like force of troops was reckoned for the seniors who remained behind to defend the city. In this way the normal amount of the infantry came to 16,800 men, 80 centuries of the first division, 20 from each of the three following, and 28 from the last division—not taking into account the two centuries of substitutes or those of the workmen or the musicians. To all these fell to be added the cavalry, which consisted of 1800 horse; often when the army took the field, however, only the third part of the whole number was attached to it. The normal amount of the Roman army of the first and second levy rose accordingly to close upon 20,000 men: which number must beyond doubt have corresponded on the whole to the effective strength of the Roman population capable of arms, as it stood at the time when this new organization was introduced. As the population increased the number of centuries was not augmented, but the several divisions were strengthened by persons added, without altogether losing sight, however, of the fundamental number. Indeed the Roman corporations in general, closed as to numbers, very frequently evaded the limit imposed upon them by admitting supernumerary members.

Census

This new organization of the army was accompanied by a more careful supervision of landed property on the part of the state. It was now either ordained for the first time or, if not, at any rate defined more carefully, that a land-register should be established, in which the several proprietors of land should have their fields with all their appurtenances, servitudes, slaves, beasts of draught and of burden, duly recorded. Every act of alienation, which did not take place publicly and before witnesses, was declared null; and a revision of the register of landed property, which was at the same time the levy-roll, was directed to be made every fourth year. The -mancipatio- and the -census- thus arose out of the Servian military organization.

Political Effects of the Servian Military Organization

It is evident at a glance that this whole institution was from the outset of a military nature. In the whole detailed scheme we do not encounter a single feature suggestive of any destination of the centuries to other than purely military purposes; and this alone must, with every one accustomed to consider such matters, form a sufficient reason for pronouncing its application to political objects a later innovation. If, as is probable, in the earliest period every one who had passed his sixtieth year was excluded from the centuries, this has no meaning, so far as they were intended from the first to form a representation of the burgess-community similar to and parallel with the curies. Although, however, the organization of the centuries was introduced merely to enlarge the military resources of the burgesses by the inclusion of the —metoeci— and, in so far, there is no greater error than to exhibit the Servian organization as the introduction of a timocracy in Rome—yet the new obligation imposed upon the inhabitants to bear arms exercised in its consequences a material influence on their political position. He who is obliged to become a soldier must also, so long as the state is not rotten, have it in his power to become an officer; beyond question plebeians also could now be nominated in Rome as centurions and as military tribunes. Although, moreover, the institution of the centuries was not intended to curtail the political privileges exclusively possessed by the burgesses as hitherto represented in the curies, yet it was inevitable that those rights, which the burgesses hitherto had exercised not as the assembly of curies, but as the burgess-levy, should pass over to the new centuries of burgesses and —metoeci—. Henceforward, accordingly, it was the centuries whose consent the king had to ask before beginning an aggressive war.51 It is important, on account of the subsequent course of development, to note these first steps towards the centuries taking part in public affairs; but the centuries came to acquire such rights at first more in the way of natural sequence than of direct design, and subsequently to the Servian reform, as before, the assembly of the curies was regarded as the proper burgess-community, whose homage bound the whole people in allegiance to the king. By the side of these new landowning full-burgesses stood the domiciled foreigners from the allied Latium, as participating in the public burdens, tribute and task-works (hence -municipes-); while the burgesses not domiciled, who were beyond the pale of the tribes, and had not the right to serve in war and vote, came into view only as "owing tribute" (-aerarii-).

In this way, while hitherto there had been distinguished only two classes of members of the community, burgesses and clients, there were now established those three political classes, which exercised a dominant influence over the constitutional law of Rome for many centuries.

Time and Occasion of the Reform

When and how this new military organization of the Roman community came into existence, can only be conjectured. It presupposes the existence of the four regions; in other words, the Servian wall must have been erected before the reform took place. But the territory of the city must also have considerably exceeded its original limits, when it could furnish 8000 holders of full hides and as many who held lesser portions, or sons of such holders. We are not acquainted with the superficial extent of the normal Roman farm; but it is not possible to estimate it as under twenty -jugera-.52 If we reckon as a minimum 10,000 full hides, this would imply a superficies of 190 square miles of arable land; and on this calculation, if we make a very moderate allowance for pasture, the space occupied by houses, and ground not capable of culture, the territory, at the period when this reform was carried out, must have had at least an extent of 420 square miles, probably an extent still more considerable. If we follow tradition, we must assume a number of 84,000 burgesses who were freeholders and capable of bearing arms; for such, we are told, were the numbers ascertained by Servius at the first census. A glance at the map, however, shows that this number must be fabulous; it is not even a genuine tradition, but a conjectural calculation, by which the 16,800 capable of bearing arms who constituted the normal strength of the infantry appeared to yield, on an average of five persons to each family, the number of 84,000 burgesses, and this number was confounded with that of those capable of bearing arms. But even according to the more moderate estimates laid down above, with a territory of some 16,000 hides containing a population of nearly 20,000 capable of bearing arms and at least three times that number of women, children, and old men, persons who had no land, and slaves, it is necessary to assume not merely that the region between the Tiber and Anio had been acquired, but that the Alban territory had also been conquered, before the Servian constitution was established; a result with which tradition agrees. What were the numerical proportions of patricians and plebeians originally in the army, cannot be ascertained.

Upon the whole it is plain that this Servian institution did not originate in a conflict between the orders. On the contrary, it bears the stamp of a reforming legislator like the constitutions of Lycurgus, Solon, and Zaleucus; and it has evidently been produced under Greek influence. Particular analogies may be deceptive, such as the coincidence noticed by the ancients that in Corinth also widows and orphans were charged with the provision of horses for the cavalry; but the adoption of the armour and arrangements of the Greek hoplite system was certainly no accidental coincidence. Now if we consider the fact that it was in the second century of the city that the Greek states in Lower Italy advanced from the pure clan-constitution to a modified one, which placed the preponderance in the hands of the landholders, we shall recognize in that movement the impulse which called forth in Rome the Servian reform—a change of constitution resting in the main on the same fundamental idea, and only directed into a somewhat different course by the strictly monarchical form of the Roman state.53

CHAPTER VII

The Hegemony of Rome in Latium

Extension of the Roman Territory

The brave and impassioned Italian race doubtless never lacked feuds among themselves and with their neighbours: as the country flourished and civilization advanced, feuds must have become gradually changed into war and raids for pillage into conquest, and political powers must have begun to assume shape. No Italian Homer, however, has preserved for us a picture of these earliest frays and plundering excursions, in which the character of nations is moulded and expressed like the mind of the man in the sports and enterprises of the boy; nor does historical tradition enable us to form a judgment, with even approximate accuracy, as to the outward development of power and the comparative resources of the several Latin cantons. It is only in the case of Rome, at the utmost, that we can trace in some degree the extension of its power and of its territory. The earliest demonstrable boundaries of the united Roman community have been already stated;54 in the landward direction they were on an average just about five miles distant from the capital of the canton, and it was only toward the coast that they extended as far as the mouth of the Tiber (-Ostia-), at a distance of somewhat more than fourteen miles from Rome. "The new city," says Strabo, in his description of the primitive Rome, "was surrounded by larger and smaller tribes, some of whom dwelt in independent villages and were not subordinate to any national union." It seems to have been at the expense of these neighbours of kindred lineage in the first instance that the earliest extensions of the Roman territory took place.

Territory on the Anio—Alba

The Latin communities situated on the upper Tiber and between the Tiber and the Anio-Antemnae, Crustumerium, Ficulnea, Medullia, Caenina, Corniculum, Cameria, Collatia,—were those which pressed most closely and sorely on Rome, and they appear to have forfeited their independence in very early times to the arms of the Romans. The only community that subsequently appears as independent in this district was Nomentum; which perhaps saved its freedom by alliance with Rome. The possession of Fidenae, the -tete de pont- of the Etruscans on the left bank of the Tiber, was contested between the Latins and the Etruscans—in other words, between the Romans and Veientes—with varying results. The struggle with Gabii, which held the plain between the Anio and the Alban hills, was for a long period equally balanced: down to late times the Gabine dress was deemed synonymous with that of war, and Gabine ground the prototype of hostile soil.55 By these conquests the Roman territory was probably extended to about 190 square miles. Another very early achievement of the Roman arms was preserved, although in a legendary dress, in the memory of posterity with greater vividness than those obsolete struggles: Alba, the ancient sacred metropolis of Latium, was conquered and destroyed by Roman troops. How the collision arose, and how it was decided, tradition does not tell: the battle of the three Roman with the three Alban brothers born at one birth is nothing but a personification of the struggle between two powerful and closely related cantons, of which the Roman at least was triune. We know nothing at all beyond the naked fact of the subjugation and destruction of Alba by Rome.56