History of Julius Caesar Vol. 1 of 2. Napoleon III
of the Tuileries, March 20th, 1862.
BOOK I.
ROMAN HISTORY BEFORE CÆSAR
CHAPTER I.
ROME UNDER THE KINGS
The Kings found the Roman Institutions.
I. “In the birth of societies,” says Montesquieu, “it is the chiefs of the republics who form the institution, and in the sequel it is the institution which forms the chiefs of the republics.” And he adds, “One of the causes of the prosperity of Rome was the fact that its kings were all great men. We find nowhere else in history an uninterrupted series of such statesmen and such military commanders.”8
The story, more or less fabulous, of the foundation of Rome does not come within the limits of our design; and with no intention of clearing up whatever degree of fiction these earliest ages of history may contain, we purpose only to remind our readers that the kings laid the foundations of those institutions to which Rome owed her greatness, and so many extraordinary men who astonished the world by their virtues and exploits.
The kingly power lasted a hundred and forty-four years, and at its fall Rome had become the most powerful state in Latium. The town was of vast extent, for, even at that epoch, the seven hills were nearly all inclosed within a wall protected internally and externally by a consecrated space called the Pomœrium.9
This line of inclosure remained long the same, although the increase of the population had led to the establishment of immense suburbs, which finally inclosed the Pomœrium itself.10
The Roman territory properly so called was circumscribed, but that of the subjects and allies of Rome was already rather considerable. Some colonies had been founded. The kings, by a skilful policy, had succeeded in drawing into their dependence a great number of neighbouring states, and, when Tarquinius Superbus assembled the Hernici, the Latins, and the Volsci, for a ceremony destined to seal his alliance with them, forty-seven different petty states took part in the inauguration of the temple of Jupiter Latialis.11
The foundation of Ostia, by Ancus Martius, at the mouth of the Tiber, shows that already the political and commercial importance of facilitating communication with the sea was understood; while the treaty of commerce concluded with Carthage at the time of the fall of the kingly power, the details of which are preserved by Polybius, indicates more extensive foreign relations than we might have supposed.12
Social Organisation.
II. The Roman social body, which originated probably in ancient transformations of society, consisted, from the earliest ages, of a certain number of aggregations, called gentes, formed of the families of the conquerors, and bearing some resemblance to the clans of Scotland or to the Arabian tribes. The heads of families (patresfamilias) and their members (patricii) were united among themselves, not only by kindred, but also by political and religious ties. Hence arose an hereditary nobility having for distinctive marks family names, special costume,13 and waxen images of their ancestors (jus imaginum).
The plebeians, perhaps a race who had been conquered at an earlier period, were, in regard to the dominant race, in a situation similar to that of the Anglo-Saxons in regard to the Normans in the eleventh century of our era, after the invasion of England. They were generally agriculturists, excluded originally from all military and civil office.14
The patrician families had gathered round them, under the name of clients, either foreigners, or a great portion of the plebeians. Dionysius of Halicarnassus even pretends that Romulus had required that each of these last should choose himself a patron.15 The clients cultivated the fields and formed part of the family.16 The relation of patronage had created such reciprocal obligations as amounted almost to the ties of kindred. For the patrons, they consisted in giving assistance to their clients in affairs public and private; and for the latter, in aiding constantly the patrons with their person and purse, and in preserving towards them an inviolable fidelity: they could not cite each other reciprocally in law, or bear witness one against the other, and it would have been a scandal to see them take different sides in a political question. It was a state of things which had some analogy to feudalism; the great protected the little, and the little paid for protection by rents and services; yet there was this essential difference, that the clients were not serfs, but free men.
Slavery had long formed one of the constituent parts of society. The slaves, taken among foreigners and captives,17 and associated in all the domestic labours of the family, often received their liberty as a recompense for their conduct. They were then named freedmen, and were received among the clients of the patron, without sharing in all the rights of a citizen.18
The gens thus consisted of the reunion of patrician families having a common ancestor; around it was grouped a great number of clients, freedmen, and slaves. To give an idea of the importance of the gentes in the first ages of Rome, it is only necessary to remind the reader that towards the year 251, a certain Attus Clausus, afterwards called Appius Claudius, a Sabine of the town of Regillum, distinguished, according to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, no less for the splendour of his birth than for his great wealth, took refuge among the Romans with his kinsmen, his friends, and his clients, with all their families, to the number of five thousand men capable of bearing arms.19 When, in 275, the three hundred Fabii, forming the gens Fabia, offered alone to fight the Veians, they were followed by four thousand clients.20 The high class often reckoned, by means of its numerous adherents, on carrying measures by itself. In 286, the plebeians having refused to take part in the consular comitia, the patricians, followed by their clients, elected the consuls;21 and in 296, a Claudius declared with pride that the nobility had no need of the plebeians to carry on war against the Volsci.22 The families of ancient origin long formed the state by themselves. To them exclusively the name of populus applied,23 as that of plebs was given to the plebeians.24 Indeed, although in the sequel the word populus took a more extensive signification, Cicero says that it is to be understood as applying, not to the universality of the inhabitants, but to a reunion of men associated by a community of rights and interests.25
Political Organisation.
III. In a country where war was the principal occupation, the political organisation must naturally depend on the military organisation. A single chief had the superior direction, an assembly of men pre-eminent in importance and age formed the council, while the political rights belonged only to those who supported the fatigues of war.
The king, elected generally by the assembly of the gentes,26 commanded the army. Sovereign pontiff, legislator, and judge in all sacred matters, he dispensed justice27 in all criminal affairs which concerned the Republic. He had for insignia a crown of gold and a purple robe, and for escort twenty-four lictors,28 some carrying axes surrounded with rods, others merely rods.29 At the death of the king, a magistrate, called interrex, was appointed by the Senate to exercise the royal authority during the five days which intervened before the nomination of his successor. This office continued, with the same title, under the Consular Republic, when the absence
Titus Livius I. 44. – Dionysius of Halicarnassus, speaking of the portion of the rampart between the Porta Æsquilina and the Porta Collina, says, “Rome is fortified by a fosse thirty feet deep and a hundred or more wide in the narrowest part. Above this fosse rises a wall supported internally by a lofty and wide terrace, so that it cannot be shaken by battering rams, or overthrown by undermining.” (
“Since that time (the time of Servius Tullius) Rome has been no farther enlarged … and if, in face of this spectacle, any one would form a notion of the magnitude of Rome, he would certainly fall into error, for he would not be able to distinguish where the town ends and where it is limited, so close the suburbs come up to the town… The Aventine, till the reign of Claudius, remained outside the Pomœrium, notwithstanding its numerous inhabitants.” (Aulus Gellius, XIII. 14. – Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IV. 13.)
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IV. 49.
“By this treaty, the Romans and their allies engage not to navigate beyond the Bonum Promontorium (a cape situated to the north and opposite Carthage, and now called by navigators the Cape of
“When Tarquinius Priscus regulated, with the foresight of a skilful prince, the state of the citizens, he attached great importance to the dress of children of condition; and he decreed that the sons of patricians should wear the bulla with the robe hemmed with purple: but even this privilege was restricted to the children of those fathers who had exercised a curule dignity; the sons of other patricians had merely the prætexta, and it was necessary that even their fathers should have served the prescribed time in the cavalry.” (Macrobius,
“The plebeians were excluded from all offices, and put only to agriculture, the breeding of cattle, and mercantile occupations.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, II. 9.) – “Numa encouraged the agriculturists; they were excused from service in war, and discharged from the care of municipal affairs.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, II. 76.)
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, II. 9. – Plutarch,
“Agrorum partes attribuerant tenuioribus.” (Festus, under the word
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IV. 24.
These questions have been the object of learned researches; but, after an attentive perusal of the works of Beaufort, Niebuhr, Gœttling, Duruy, Marquardt, Mommsen, Lange, &c., the difference of opinions is discouraging: we have adopted those which appeared most probable.
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, V. 40. – Titus Livius, II. 16.
Titus Livius, II. 48. – Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IX. 15.
Titus Livius, II. 64.
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, X. 15.
“They called a
“The plebs was composed of all the mass of the people which was neither senator nor patrician.” (See Festus, under the words
“Populus autem non omnis hominum cœtus quoquo modo congregatus, sed cœtus multitudinis juris consensu et utilitatis communione sociatus.” – (Cicero,
“Populus curiatis eum (Numam) comitiis regem esse jusserat. Tullum Hostilium populus regem, interrege rogante, comitiis curiatis creavit. Servius, Tarquinio sepulto, populum de se ipse consuluit jussusque regnare legem de imperio suo curiatam tulit.” (Cicero,
“The predecessors of Servius Tullius brought all causes before their tribunal, and pronounced judgment themselves in all disputes which regarded the State or individuals. He separated these two things, and, reserving to himself the cognizance of affairs which concerned the State, abandoned to other judges the causes of individuals, with injunctions, nevertheless, to regulate their judgments according to the laws which he had passed.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IV. 25.)
“The consuls, like the ancient kings, have twelve lictors carrying axes and twelve lictors carrying rods.” (Appian,
“From that time Tarquinius Superbus carried, during the rest of his life, a crown of gold, a toga of embroidered purple, and a sceptre of ivory, and his throne was also of ivory; when he administered justice, or walked abroad in the town, he was preceded by twelve lictors, who carried axes surrounded with rods. (