The History of Rome, Book IV

162

IV. VI. Collision between the Senate and Equites in the Administration of the Provinces

163

IV. III. Modifications of the Penal Law

164

I. VII. Relation of Rome to Latium, II. V. As to the Officering of the Army

165

II. VII. Furnishing of Contingents; III. XI. Latins

166

III. XI. Roman Franchise More Difficult of Acquisition

167

III. XI. Roman Franchise More Difficult of Acquisition

168

IV. III. Democratic Agitation under Carbo and Flaccus, IV. III. Overthrow of Gracchus

169

These figures are taken from the numbers of the census of 639 and 684; there were in the former year 394, 336 burgesses capable of bearing arms, in the latter 910,000 (according to Phlegon Fr. 12 Mull., which statement Clinton and his copyists erroneously refer to the census of 668; according to Liv. Ep. 98 the number was—by the correct reading— 900,000 persons). The only figures known between these two—those of the census of 668, which according to Hieronymus gave 463,000 persons— probably turned out so low only because the census took place amidst the crisis of the revolution. As an increase of the population of Italy is not conceivable in the period from 639 to 684, and even the Sullan assignations of land can at the most have but filled the gaps which the war had made, the surplus of fully 500,000 men capable of bearing arms may be referred with certainty to the reception of the allies which had taken place in the interval. But it is possible, and even probable, that in these fateful years the total amount of the Italian population may have retrograded rather than advanced: if we reckon the total deficit at 100,000 men capable of bearing arms, which seems not excessive, there were at the time of the Social War in Italy three non- burgesses for two burgesses.

170

The form of oath is preserved (in Diodor. Vat. p. 116); it runs thus: "I swear by the Capitoline Jupiter and by the Roman Vesta and by the hereditary Mars and by the generative Sun and by the nourishing Earth and by the divine founders and enlargers (the Penates) of the City of Rome, that he shall be my friend and he shall be my foe who is friend or foe to Drusus; also that I will spare neither mine own life nor the life of my children or of my parents, except in so far as it is for the good of Drusus and those who share this oath. But if I should become a burgess by the law of Drusus, I will esteem Rome as my home and Drusus as the greatest of my benefactors. I shall tender this oath to as many of my fellow-citizens as I can; and if I swear truly, may it fare with me well; if I swear falsely, may it fare with me ill." But we shall do well to employ this account with caution; it is derived either from the speeches delivered against Drusus by Philippus (which seems to be indicated by the absurd title "oath of Philippus" prefixed by the extractor of the formula) or at best from the documents of criminal procedure subsequently drawn up respecting this conspiracy in Rome; and even on the latter hypothesis it remains questionable, whether this form of oath was elicited from the accused or imputed to them in the inquiry.

171

II. VII. Dissolution of National Leagues

172

IV. VI. Discussions on the Livian Laws

173

IV. IV. Dissatisfaction in the Capital, IV. V. Warfare of Prosecutions

174

Even from our scanty information, the best part of which is given by Diodorus, p. 538 and Strabo, v. 4, 2, this is very distinctly apparent; for example, the latter expressly says that the burgess-body chose the magistrates. That the senate of Italia was meant to be formed in another manner and to have different powers from that of Rome, has been asserted, but has not been proved. Of course in its first composition care would be taken to have a representation in some degree uniform of the insurgent cities; but that the senators were to be regularly deputed by the communities, is nowhere stated. As little does the commission given to the senate to draw up a constitution exclude its promulgation by the magistrates and ratification by the assembly of the people.

175

The bullets found at Asculum show that the Gauls were very numerousalso in the army of Strabo.

176

We still have a decree of the Roman senate of 22 May 676, which grants honours and advantages on their discharge to three Greek ship- captains of Carystus, Clazomenae, and Miletus for faithful services renderedsince the commencement of the Italian war (664). Of the same nature is the account of Memnon, that two triremes were summoned from Heraclea on the Black Sea for the Italian war, and that they returned in the eleventh year with rich honorary gifts.

177

That this statement of Appian is not exaggerated, is shown by the bullets found at Asculum which name among others the fifteenth legion.

178

The Julian law must have been passed in the last months of 664, for during the good season of the year Caesar was in the field; the Plautian was probably passed, as was ordinarily the rule with tribunician proposals, immediately after the tribunes entered on office, consequently in Dec. 664 or Jan. 665.

179

Leaden bullets with the name of the legion which threw them, and sometimes with curses against the "runaway slaves"—and accordingly Roman—or with the inscription "hit the Picentes" or "hit Pompeius"– the former Roman, the latter Italian—are even now sometimes found, belonging to that period, in the region of Ascoli.

180

The rare -denarii- with -Safinim- and -G. Mutil- in Oscan characters must belong to this period; for, as long as the designation -Italia- was retained by the insurgents, no single canton could, as a sovereign power, coin money with its own name.

181

I. VII. Servian Wall

182

Licinianus (p. 15) under the year 667 says: -dediticiis omnibus [ci]vita[s] data; qui polliciti mult[a] milia militum vix XV… cohortes miserunt-; a statement in which Livy's account (Epit. 80): -Italicis populis a senatu civitas data est- reappears in a somewhat more precise shape. The -dediticii- were according to Roman state-law those -peregrini liberi- (Gaius i. 13-15, 25, Ulp. xx. 14, xxii. 2) who had become subject to the Romans and had not been admitted to alliance. They not merely retain life, liberty, and property, but may be formed into communities with a constitution of their own. —Apolides—, -nullius certae civitatis cives- (Ulp. xx. 14; comp. Dig. xlviii. 19, 17, i), were only the freedmen placed by legal fiction on the same footing with the -dediticii qui dediticiorum numero sunt-, only by erroneous usage and rarely by the better authors called directly -dediticii-; (Gai. i. 12, Ulp. i. 14, Paul. iv. 12, 6) as well as the kindred -liberti Latini Iuniani-. But the -dediticii-nevertheless were destitute of rights as respected the Roman state, in so far as by Roman state-law every -deditio- was necessarily unconditional (Polyb, xxi. 1; comp. xx. 9, 10, xxxvi. 2) and all the privileges expressly or tacitly conceded to them were conceded only -precario- and therefore revocable at pleasure (Appian, Hisp. 44); so that the Roman state, what ever it might immediately or afterwards decree regarding its -dediticii-, could never perpetrate as respected them a violation of rights. This destitution of rights only ceased on the conclusion of a treaty of alliance (Liv. xxxiv. 57). Accordingly -deditio- and -foedus- appear in constitutional law as contrasted terms excluding each other (Liv. iv. 30, xxviii. 34; Cod. Theod. vii. 13, 16 and Gothofr. thereon), and of precisely the same nature is the distinction current among the jurists between the -quasi- dediticii- and the -quasi Latini-, for the Latins are just the -foederati- in an eminent sense (Cic. pro Balb. 24, 54).

According to the older constitutional law there were, with the exception of the not numerous communities that were declared to have forfeited their treaties in consequence of the Hannibalic war (p. 24), no Italian -dediticii-; in the Plautian law of 664-5 the description: -qui foederatis civitatibus adscripti fuerunt- (Cic. pro Arch. 4, 7) still included in substance all Italians. But as the -dediticii- who received the franchise supplementary in 667 cannot reasonably be understood as embracing merely the Bruttii and Picentes, we may assume that all the insurgents, so far as they had laid down their arms and had not acquired the franchise under the Plautio-Papirian law were treated as -dediticii-, or—which is the same thing— that their treaties cancelled as a matter of course by the insurrection (hence -qui foederati fuerunt- in the passage of Cicero cited) were not legally renewed to them on their surrender.

183

II. III. Laws Imposing Taxes

184

IV. VI. The Equestrian Party

185

II. XI. Squandering of the Spoil

186