The Evolution of States. J. M. Robertson

The Evolution of States - J. M. Robertson


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the earliest form of collective religion known to us.[18] Apart from the members of the curiæ are the conquered plebs,[19] "the many" not enslaved, but payers of tribute; without share in the curiæ or vote in the comitia, or assembly, and without part in the curial or other sacra.

      On this head there has been some gratuitous confusion. Schwegler (i, 621 sq.) gives convincing reasons for the view that in early times the plebs were not members of the curiæ. Cp. Ihne, as cited, pp. 110, 127; and Fustel de Coulanges, p. 278 sq. Meyer (ii, 513, 521) asserts, on the contrary, without any specification of periods, that the curiæ included plebeians as well as patricians. The contradiction seems to arise out of inattention to chronology, or a misreading of Mommsen. That historian rightly sets forth in his history (B. ii, ch. i; Eng. trans. ed. 1862, i, 264–65) that the plebs were not admitted into the comitia curiata before the "Servian" period; adding that these bodies were "at the same time" almost totally deprived of their prerogatives. In his Römisches Forschungen, 1864, i, 144 sq., he shows that they were admitted in the "historic period"—when the comitia in question had ceased to have any legal power, and when, as he elsewhere states, the admission "practically gave little more than the capacity for adrogation" (Römisches Staatsrecht, Bd. iii, Abth. i, p. 93). Here again he states that "to equal rights in the curies, especially to the right of vote in the comitia, the plebeians attained only in the later times" (Id. p. 72). Yet Professor Pelham, in asserting (p. 21; cp. p. 46) that "the primitive Roman people of the thirty curiæ included all the freemen of the community, simple as well as gentle," gives the note: "The view here taken on the vexed question of the purely patrician character of the curiæ is that of Mommsen (Röm. Forschungen, vol. i)."

      When this error is corrected, the question ceases to be vexed. Schwegler has disposed of the blunder of Dionysius, who ascribes to the plebeians a share in the curiæ from the beginning; and it is not disputed that they were allowed to enter when the comitia curiata had been practically superseded by the comitia centuriata. It is to be noted that the denial of the inclusion of the plebeians in the original curiæ does not apply to the clientes, whose status, though non-patrician, had been different from that of the true plebs. M. Delaunay, who argues that the plebeians were all along admitted to the curiæ, adds the qualification: "Doubtless not the entire mass of the plebeians, but only those who were … attached to the gentes" (Robiou et Delaunay, Les Institutions de l'ancienne Rome, 1884, i, 21). But who were these gentilitia if not the clientes? (cp. loc. cit. p. 26).

      The clientes have very much the air of being primarily the servile or inferior part of the early clan or gens, as distinct from its "gentlemen." Cp. Burton, Hist. of Scotland, viii, 524–25, as to the lower and the higher (duniewassal) orders in the Scottish Highland clans. "In the old life of the pagus and the gens the weaker sought the protection of the stronger by a willing vassalage" (Greenidge, Roman Public Life, p. 6). The clientes are the nominal as distinct from the real "family" of the chief or patronus. M. Delaunay (Les Institutions de l'ancienne Rome, as cited, i, 27) thinks with Mommsen (so also Dupond, pp. 20–21) that they were mainly freedmen, but gives no evidence. As to the meaning and etymology of the word (clientes from cluere or cliere, "to listen" or "obey"), cp. Newman, Regal Rome, p. 49; Ortolan, p. 29; Mommsen, Römisches Staatsrecht, III, i, 1887, p. 63. The theory that the plebeians were all clientes (Ortolan, pp. 25, 27) seems untenable, though Mommsen (Staatsrecht, III, i, 63) pronounces that "all non-patricians were clients"; and Meyer (ii, 521) appears to acquiesce. Only in theory can the mass of the plebs have been clients at any time. Cp. Fustel de Coulanges, pp. 277–78. The clientes, it seems clear, were as such admitted to the comitia, whereas the plebs were not. See the citations of Fustel de Coulanges from Livy, ii, 56–64; also iii, 14 (Dupond, p. 22, doubts the fact). On any view, the clientela rapidly dwindled, passing into the plebs (cp. Dupond, p. 23; Livy, vi, 18). As to its early status see Fustel de Coulanges, p. 273 sq. Ortolan, after representing all plebeians as clients, speaks (p. 31) of plebeians belonging to no gens (so Aulus Gellius, x, 20).

      Among general historians of Rome Mommsen seems to be the first to note this circumstance, and he gives neither details nor evidence. Schwegler, discussing (i, 619) the theory of Puchta that there was no private property in Rome before the "arrival" of the plebs, admits that among the ancient Germans the land was yearly apportioned among the groups as such, but finds that "Roman tradition tells of nothing of the kind." (So Greenidge, p. 15.) In any case, Mommsen, while insisting that "the fields (sic) of the gentes (Geschlechts-Genossen) in the earliest period lay together" (Staatsrecht, III, i, 24; cp. p. 94), admits that such gentile ownership had at an early stage disappeared (früh verschwundenen). There was then no communal tillage in the historic period. Cincinnatus, in the legend, returns to the plough on his own croft. Further, the early complaints cited by Livy as to the "two yokes" being "hardly enough to raise a roof on or to make a grave in" were addressed by the tribunes on behalf of plebeians to patricians who each had above five hundred yokes. The non-client plebeians then had no share in the land of the gentes or clans, being themselves in large part dispossessed by conquest.

      Meyer (ii, 519) pronounces that the plot of two yokes was, "of course, no farm, but a kitchen-garden," adding: "It is also the personal land of the small farmers and day-labourers who look after the lands of the large landholders, not the original private holding in contrast to the mark belonging in common to the gens (Geschlecht) or commune (Gauverband)." But on the previous page Meyer says that "the land was settled not by the gentes, but communally (genossenschaftlich) by unions of equal freemen." If these, then, were the curiæ (the Mark, says Meyer in this connection, did not belong to the gentes), they did not include the plebs; and we come back to the datum that the free plebeian had no means of support save his five roods and what beasts he had on the public pasture. The pasture-land, again, is surmised by Mommsen (ch. xiii, p. 201) to have been small in area relatively to the arable-land communally owned and cultivated by the gentes or clans—a proposition irreconcilable with the evidence as to the quantity of cattle. As to the two yokes of land, Schwegler decides (i, 618) that it was "nowise inadequate" as arable-land, in view of the


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