Читать книгу The Roman Republic - Michael Crawford - Страница 10

I HAVE SO FAR emphasized certain structural and permanent features of aristocratic society and government in the Roman Republic; but in many respects Rome of the early and middle Republic was astonishingly innovative.

An early stage of Roman history had probably seen the admission to political rights and duties of men who were domiciled in Rome, but were not full members of the community; the struggle between the patricians and the plebeians had seen the eventual admission of the latter to secular and religious office. One may hypothesize that these bendings of the rules were the result of the interest of the Roman governing class in the display of military virtus which made its members peculiarly amenable to pressure from those followers on whom they depended for success in battle.

In any case, just as non-exclusiveness was ultimately characteristic of privileged groups within Roman territory, so it was also of Rome in relation to Italy. It is also worth remarking that just as Rome throughout the early and middle Republic was anxious to add new members to her citizen body, so she was also open beneath a mask of religious conservatism to the import of foreign cults, as J. A. North has pointed out. The attitude was a general one.

And we shall see that after 200 the Roman aristocracy remained just as innovative, but devoted its energies increasingly to the enormous political problems posed by contact with the Greek world, to the acquisition of Greek culture and to the pursuit of the wealth available from the east.

Rome was originally simply one of a homogeneous group of Latin cities, sharing above all a number of common places of worship, although she possessed by reason of her position, controlling a route along and a route across the Tiber, certain peculiar strategic advantages. Unlike the other members of the Latin League, Rome also came under strong Etruscan influence and under her Etruscan kings expanded at the expense of her Latin neighbours.

Already by the fall of the monarchy, the four regional units of the city of Rome, tribus, tribes, instituted for census purposes and for the levying of men and taxation, had been joined by fifteen regional units in the countryside around Rome.¹

With the overthrow of the monarchy there was a Latin reaction against Roman power, defeated by Rome at the battle of Lake Regillus; Roman relations with the Latin cities were then regulated by an agreement known as the foedus Cassianum, the terms of which were apparently still extant in the time of Cicero. (There were also treaties with some individual Latin cities.)

The next century was characterized by battles between Rome, the Latins and the associated tribe of the Hernici on the one hand and the Etruscans to the north, the Volsci to the south (see Map 1). Largely successful wars on all fronts culminated with the Roman capture of Veii in 396. There followed almost immediately the first Gallic raid into Italy, with the Roman defeat at the battle of the Allia River, the sack of the city, the near capture of the Capitol and the departure of the Gauls only on receipt of a large indemnity.

It might seem that all lay in ruins and the impression is confirmed by the obvious patriotic fictions which the Roman tradition offers for the years after the Gallic sack. But there is impeccable evidence for the fundamental irrelevance of the Gallic sack to Roman expansion and for its negligible effect on Roman power. A mere twelve years after the sack, in 378, Livy records the building of a wall round the city of Rome:

After a short breathing-space had been granted to those in debt, when everything was quiet as far as Rome’s enemies were concerned, jurisdiction (in matters of debt) was resumed and hope was so far abandoned of relieving the burden of existing debts, that new debts were contracted by reason of the taxation levied for the wall in squared blocks put out to contract by the censors (VI, 32, 1).

3 map of roman showing area enclosed by walls of 378

The wall is the so-called ‘Servian’ wall of which extensive tracts still survive; this massive construction shows the structures of the Roman state intact and functioning and able to deploy substantial resources for a communal undertaking. The area enclosed (Fig 3) is already large, and, as if to symbolize the conviction that the Gallic sack changed nothing, the wall is built with tufa from the territory of conquered Veii.

The Roman sphere of interest was also extending steadily southwards. A Roman treaty with the Samnites in 354 was followed by the first war of Rome against the Samnites. In 348 Rome made a treaty with Carthage, renewing the one made after the fall of the monarchy:

There is to be friendship on these conditions between the Romans and their allies and the Carthaginians and Uticans and their allies … And if the Carthaginians take any city in Latium which is not subject to the Romans, they may keep the property and the captives, but must surrender the city. And if a Carthaginian captures anyone (in the course of piracy, presumably) who is a member of a community with a written agreement with Rome, but not subject, he may not bring him into any Roman harbour; if he does, a Roman may touch him and free him … (Polybius III, 24, 3)

Rome emerges as possessing a subject zone, which by implication the Carthaginians may not touch, as having an interest in the whole of Latium and as having a wider protective rôle. This nascent empire was joined by Capua in 343.

An attempt by the Latin cities to throw off the growing de facto hegemony of Rome failed with their defeat in 338; despite the fact that the Volsci and Aurunci and some Campanians fought with the Latins, Rome was able momentarily to secure Samnite help and thereby keep at least the Sidicini occupied and the rest of the hostile coalition preoccupied.

The settlement of 338 is crucial in the development of the forms in which Rome came to express her relationship to the rest of Italy (see here); in the present context it is one more step on the road to hegemony.

In 328 Rome founded a colony at Fregellae; she thereby embroiled herself irrevocably with the Samnites and in the following year became involved even more closely than hitherto with the affairs of Campania. Neapolis (Naples) appealed to Rome in 327 (see here) and a treaty was concluded in 326. An attempt to win a decisive victory over the Samnites in 321 led to the disastrous defeat of the Caudine Forks. The scale of the disaster is again indicated by the patriotic fictions reported for the subsequent years in the Roman tradition; again the check was momentary, with the Via Appia linking Rome and Campania being built in 312 (it eventually reached Brundisium (Brindisi) where the pillars marking its end may be seen a few yards from the modern steamer terminal). When peace was made with the Samnites in 304, that was for them effectively the end. Roman control of Samnium was followed in due course by the foundation of colonies at Beneventum (268) and Aesernia (263). At the same time, the establishment of Roman control over Italy opened the way for the long-distance transhumance agriculture of the second century (see here).

A last attempt was made to resist the rise of Rome by a coalition of Samnites, Gauls, Etruscans and Umbrians, destroyed when the Samnites and Gauls were defeated at Sentinum in 295 (an event noticed by the Greek historian Duris of Samos); thereafter it was simply a question of mopping-up. The only wars Rome fought on Italian soil south of the Po valley down to the great Italian rebellion of 91 were wars against the invaders Pyrrhus and Hannibal and very minor wars, in response to the appeal of the governing class of Volsinii in 264, and to suppress the isolated revolts of Falerii and Fregellae in 241 and 125.

The reasons for Rome’s success in conquering and holding Italy are manifold. Supposed factors such as the absence of an attack on Italy by Alexander the Great are a red herring, nor does Rome’s geographical position provide much help in explaining anything after the very early stages. Clearly in some cases, such as that of Neapolis, the fact that Rome was a tolerably civilized power helped and in other cases, such as that of Volsinii, the fact of her being aristocratically governed opened the way for her to intervene (see here). Rome’s eventual neutralization of the Gallic invaders was also important, but the crucial factor is to be found in the generosity and flexibility of the ways in which she gradually bound the rest of Italy to herself and the manpower upon which she could call as a result. Furthermore, the gradual incorporation of Italy by Rome helps to explain the nature and logic of Roman imperialism. It is thereafter the success with which Rome expanded and her willingness to share the fruits of expansion which underpin her strength; this was built upon the consensus, both of the Roman political system and of the Italian confederacy, from the late fourth to the early second century.

The group of communities with which Rome was most intimately involved was, as we have seen, that composed of the Latin cities; she and each of them were in principle equal, possessed of certain reciprocal rights, commercium, or the right to conclude valid contracts, conubium, or the right to contract marriages of which the offspring were legitimate, migratio, or the right to change domicile and acquire the citizenship of the new domicile, and (after 471, see here) the right to vote in one regional voting unit chosen by lot in a community of temporary domicile.² These rights were no doubt mostly traditional, regulated by the foedus Cassianum of 493 (see here).

Rome and the Latin cities divided up the booty and the land which they acquired as a result of joint military enterprises. Although there is no evidence for the Latin communities, we may presume that they like Rome assigned land so acquired individually, viritim, to members of their own citizen bodies. What also happened was that the Latin League as a body founded colonies which were additional Latin communities, self-governing and possessed of the same reciprocal rights as the old Latin cities.

With the end of the war against the Latins in 338, Rome incorporated many of the disaffected communities into her own citizen body; there remained separate, however, some of the original Latin cities and some colonies. In addition the status of civitas sine suffragio, citizenship without the vote, was conferred on the Campanians, and on the cities of Fundi and Formiae (Livy viii, 14, 10).

The Roman incorporation of some of the Latin communities into her own citizen body was an act which had precedents. Part of the process by which Rome achieved hegemony over Italy was the actual extension of Roman territory, ager Romanus, and some extension had already taken place before 338; there were two ways in which this happened and they help to explain the relative superiority of Rome over the Latins in 338.

Rome had fought the war against Veii largely on her own account, as she was later to fight her wars against the rest of Etruria and to become involved in Campania, although the Latins lay between; the consequent access of land, booty or mere influence accrued to Rome alone. Such land, distributed to Roman citizens, led to an increase in those possessed of enough land to equip themselves as heavily-armed soldiers (and to an increase in the number of regional voting units, tribus, tribes, into which the Roman people was divided).

Rome had also increased her territory already before 338 by the incorporation (in circumstances the details of which escape us) of other communities, perhaps Crustumeria during the monarchy (for extension of Roman territory during the monarchy, see here), Tusculum perhaps early in the fourth century.

Civitas sine suffragio, citizenship without the vote, on the other hand, is an innovation of the settlement of 338; those possessed of this status are the original municipes, those who bear the burdens (of Roman citizenship), military service, militia, and direct taxation, tributum; they are never Latin speakers and were no doubt for that reason debarred from voting. Originally independent, the communities concerned came in the end to identify themselves with Rome; the process no doubt helped to create the climate of opinion to which a dual patria, a local community and Rome, was normal and which was one of the characteristic strengths of the political structure of late Republican Italy.

The truly revolutionary sequel, however, of the settlement of 338 was that Rome, although the Latin League had disappeared, continued to found colonies with the status of Latin cities. The first of these new, self-governing communities to be founded was Cales in 334. Their prime purpose was of course strategic; and at the same time Rome began to found small colonies of Roman citizens to act as garrisons at vulnerable points on the coasts of Italy. These were too small to possess developed organs of self-government, though someone was no doubt charged with organizing the levy when the colony was attacked.³

The standard Roman view of the colonies is well expressed by Cicero:

Is every place of such a kind that it does not matter to the state whether a colony is founded there or not, or are there some places which demand a colony, some which clearly do not? In this as in other state matters it is worth remembering the care of our ancestors, who sited colonies in such suitable places to ward off danger that they seemed not just towns in Italy, but bastions of empire (de lege agraria 11, 73).

The last and by far the largest group in the Italy of the turn of the fourth and third centuries was that of the allies, bound to Rome after defeat by a treaty, the central obligation of which was to provide troops for Rome.

The global result was the military levy ex formula togatorum – ‘according to the list of those who wear the toga’; the relevant categorization of the population of Italy appears in the Agrarian Law of III in a formulation which is presupposed by a Greek inscription of the early second century and which is certainly archaic:

those who are Roman citizens or allies or members of the Latin group, from whom the Romans are accustomed to command troops to be levied in the land of Italy, according to the list of those who wear the toga (Roman Statutes, no. 2, lines 21 and 50).

The relationship of command is in no way dissimulated (see also Polybius VI, 21, 4–5) and after 209 Rome dealt out severe punishment to twelve Latin colonies which claimed that they could not supply any more troops (see here).

The levy that could be produced is described by Polybius in the context of the Gallic incursion of 225:

But I must make it clear from the facts themselves how great were the resources which Hannibal dared to attack and how great was the power which he boldly confronted; despite this, he came so close to his aim as to inflict major disasters on the Romans. Anyway, I must describe the levy and the size of the army available to them on that occasion. (Polybius goes on to claim that the total manpower available to Rome was 700,000 infantry and 70,000 cavalry.) (11, 24)

The link between the manpower thus available and Rome’s openness to outsiders was already obvious to Philip V of Macedon, a future rival of Rome, as appears from a letter written to Larisa in 217:

… and one can look at those others who adopt similar approaches to admission of citizens, among them the Romans, who when they free their slaves admit them to citizenship and enable them (actually their sons) to hold office; in this way they have not only increased the size of their own country, but have been able to send colonies to almost seventy places … (SIG 543 with Chr.Habicht, in Ancient Macedonia, 265, for date)

The admission of outsiders as a source of, presumably military, strength is also explicitly recognized by Cato in his Origines, talking of early Rome:

Those who had come together summoned several more thither from the countryside; as a result their strength grew (Gellius XVIII, 12, 7 = fr. 20 Peter).

The fourth century BC saw not only the emergence of what we call the Italian confederation, but probably also the progressive articulation of the Roman citizen body into the five census classes known in the late Republic; the original division of the citizen body had probably been into assidui and proletarii, members of a single class and those below it, those who served as legionaries and those who did not; assidui were probably simply those who could equip themselves with a full suit of armour. It may be that Servius Tullius, the sixth king of Rome, then defined assidui in monetary terms, but the elaborate division of these assidui into five different classes, defined by different levels of capital wealth, is probably a development of the fourth century BC. Pay for the army had been instituted in 406, to be funded partly by indemnities from defeated enemies, partly from tributum, a levy on the capital wealth of the assidui; it was surely this and the growing complexity of the Roman fiscal system in general which called forth the so-called Servian system in its final form. The shift from a system which singled out those who could arm themselves to one which singled out those who were wealthy is clearly an important stage in the development of the Roman state.

Quite apart from providing the manpower which Rome controlled, the organization of Italy was also a considerable source of strength by reason of the loyalty which Rome was able to inspire by its means. In the first place, the range of statuses, with full citizens at one end and allies at the other and cives sine suffragio, citizens without the vote, and Latins in between prevented undue polarization. Secondly, the process of conquest of course involved deprivation, of booty or land or both, for the defeated; but once part of the Roman confederacy, they were entitled to a share in the spoils of the next stage and had indeed, as we shall see, an interest in ensuring that it took place. Finally, the way in which Italy was organized meant that there were open avenues of approach to full Roman citizenship. Civitas sine suffragio, citizenship without the vote, came to be regarded as a half-way house, whatever its original function; and it was possible for allies to join Latin colonies and thence, eventually no doubt, for their descendants to become Roman citizens.

It is also important to remember that apart from the levy, which was normally followed by a successful campaign, Roman rule lay light on the Italian communities; even in the case of incorporated communities, local government survived, and mostly the various elements of the Italian confederacy were left to themselves to perpetuate or evolve their own peculiar political structures. P. A. Brunt has indeed shown that the levy itself could not have been conducted without considerable local government institutions.

Given the power and preponderance of Rome, however, it is hardly surprising that the different cities of Italy should have increasingly assimilated themselves to Rome. Colonies obviously had a tendency at the outset to model themselves on different aspects of the city of Rome; thus Cosa, founded in 273, borrowed the notion of a curia, senate-house, linked with a circular comitium, place of assembly, directly from Rome. Building styles in general came increasingly to spread out from Rome to the periphery. And Cicero talks of the voluntary adoption of Roman institutions by Latin cities:

C. Furius once passed a law on wills, Q. Voconius on inheritance by women; there have been countless other measures on matters of civil law; the Latins have adopted those which they wished to adopt (pro Balbo 21).

The end product of the social and political process I have described is incisively delineated by Ennius, a native of Rudiae in Apulia, whose maturity belongs in the early second century (Annales, line 169 V): ‘The Campanians were then made Roman citizens.’

1. In 471 these regional units were chosen as the basis of a new organization of the Roman people for voting purposes, the comitia tributa, trial assembly (see Appendix 1).

2. Much later the rule was introduced whereby the magistrates of Latin communities acquired Roman citizenship.

3. A variety of ad hoc measures existed to provide jurisdiction for Roman citizens in colonies and scattered in individual assignations.