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Table of Contents

Advantage of the Republic.

I. The kings are expelled from Rome. They disappear because their mission is accomplished. There exists, one would say, in moral as well as physical order, a supreme law which assigns to institutions, as to certain beings, a fated limit, marked by the term of their utility. Until this providential term has arrived, no opposition prevails; conspiracies, revolts, everything fails against the irresistible force which maintains what people seek to overthrow; but if, on the contrary, a state of things immovable in appearance ceases to be useful to the progress of humanity, then neither the empire of traditions, nor courage, nor the memory of a glorious past, can retard by a day the fall which has been decided by destiny.

Civilisation appears to have been transported from Greece into Italy to create there an immense focus from which it might spread itself over the whole world. From that moment the genius of force and imagination must necessarily preside over the first times of Rome. This is what happened under the kings, and, so long as their task was not accomplished, it triumphed over all obstacles. In vain the senators attempted to obtain a share in the power by each exercising it for five days;88 in vain men’s passions rebelled against the authority of a single chief: all was useless, and even the murder of the kings only added strength to royalty. But the moment once arrived when kings cease to be indispensable, the simplest accident hurls them down. A man outrages a woman, the throne gives way, and, in falling, it divides itself into two: the consuls succeed to all the prerogatives of the kings.89 Nothing is changed in the Republic, except that instead of one chief, elective for life, there will be henceforward two chiefs, elected for a year. This transformation is evidently the work of the aristocracy; the senators will possess the government, and, by these annual elections, each hopes to take in his turn his share in the sovereign power. Such is the narrow calculation of man and his mean motive of action. Let us see what superior impulse he obeyed without knowing it.

That corner of land, situated on the bank of the Tiber, and predestined to hold the empire of the world, enclosed within itself, as we see, fruitful germs which demanded a rapid expansion. This could only be effected by the absolute independence of the most enlightened class, seizing for its own profit all the prerogatives of royalty. The aristocratic government has this advantage over monarchy, that it is more immutable in its duration, more constant in its designs, more faithful to traditions, and that it can dare everything, because where a great number share the responsibility, no one is individually responsible. Rome, with its narrow limits, had no longer need of the concentration of authority in a single hand, but it was in need of a new order of things, which should give to the great free access to the supreme power, and should second, by the allurement of honours, the development of the faculties of each. The grand object was to create a race of men of choice, who, succeeding each other with the same principles and the same virtues, should perpetuate, from generation to generation, the system most calculated to assure the greatness of their country. The fall of the kingly power was thus an event favourable to the development of Rome.

The patricians monopolised during a long time the civil, military, and religious employments, and, these employments being for the most part annual, there was in the Senate hardly a member who had not filled them; so that this assembly was composed of men formed to the combats of the Forum as well as to those of the field of battle, schooled in the difficulties of the administration, and indeed worthy, by an experience laboriously acquired, to preside over the destinies of the Republic.

They were not classed, as men are in our modern society, in envious and rival specialities; the warrior was not seen there despising the civilian, the lawyer or orator standing apart from the man of action, or the priest isolating himself from all the others. In order to raise himself to State dignities, and merit the suffrages of his fellow-citizens, the patrician was constrained, from his youngest age, to undergo the most varied trials. He was required to possess dexterity of body, eloquence, aptness for military exercises, the knowledge of civil and religious laws, the talent of commanding an army or directing a fleet, of administrating the town or commanding a province; and the obligation of these different apprenticeships not only gave a full flight to all capacities, but it united, in the eyes of the people, upon the magistrate invested with different dignities, the consideration attached to each of them. During a long time, he who was honoured with the confidence of his fellow-citizens, besides nobility of birth, enjoyed the triple prestige given by the function of judge, priest, and warrior.

An independence almost absolute in the exercise of command contributed further to the development of the faculties. At the present day, our constitutional habits have raised distrust towards power into a principle; at Rome, trust was the principle. In our modern societies, the depositary of any authority whatever is always under the restraint of powerful bonds; he obeys a precise law, a minutely detailed rule, a superior. The Roman, on the contrary, abandoned to his own sole responsibility, felt himself free from all shackles; he commanded as master within the sphere of his attributes. The counterpoise of this independence was the short duration of his office, and the right, given to every man, of accusing each magistrate at the end of it.

The preponderance of the high class, then, rested upon a legitimate superiority, and this class, besides, knew how to work to its advantage the popular passions. They desired liberty only for themselves, but they knew how to make the image glitter in the eyes of the multitude, and the name of the people was always associated with the decrees of the Senate. Proud of having contributed to the overthrow of the power of one individual, they took care to cherish among the masses the imaginary fear of the return of kingly power. In their hands the hate of tyrants will become a weapon to be dreaded by all who shall seek to raise themselves above their fellows, either by threatening their privileges, or by acquiring too much popularity by their acts of benevolence. Thus, under the pretext, renewed incessantly, of aspiring to kingly power, fell the consul Spurius Cassius, in 269, because he had presented the first agrarian law; Spurius Melius, in 315, because he excited the jealousy of the patricians by distributing wheat to the people during a famine;90 in 369, Manlius, the saviour of Rome, because he had expended his fortune in relieving insolvent debtors.91 Thus will fall victims to the same accusation the reformer Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, and lastly, at a later period, the great Cæsar himself.

But if the pretended fear of the return of the ancient régime was a powerful means of government in the hands of the patricians, the real fear of seeing their privileges attacked by the plebeians restrained them within the bounds of moderation and justice.

In fact, if the numerous class, excluded from all office, had not interfered by their clamours to set limits to the privileges of the nobility, and thus compelled it to render itself worthy of power by its virtues, and re-invigorated it, in some sort, by the infusion of new blood, corruption and arbitrary spirit would, some ages earlier, have dragged it to its ruin. A caste which is not renewed by foreign elements is condemned to disappear; and absolute power, whether it belongs to one man or to a class of individuals, finishes always by being equally dangerous to him who exercises it. This concurrence of the plebeians excited in the Republic a fortunate emulation which produced great men, for, as Machiavelli says:92 “The fear of losing gives birth in men’s hearts to the same passions as the desire of acquiring.” Although the aristocracy had long defended with obstinacy its privileges, it made opportunely useful concessions. Skilful in repairing incessantly its defeats, it took again, under another form, what it had been constrained to abandon, losing often some of its attributes, but preserving its prestige always untouched.

Thus, the characteristic fact of the Roman institutions was to form men apt for all functions. As long as on a narrow theatre the ruling class had the wisdom to limit its ambition to promoting the veritable interests of their country, as the seduction of riches and unbounded power did not come to exalt it beyond measure, the aristocratic system maintained itself with all its advantages, and overruled the instability of institutions. It alone, indeed, was capable of supporting long, without succumbing, a régime in which the direction of the State and the command of the armies passed annually into different hands, and depended upon elections the element of which is ever fickle. Besides, the laws gave rise to antagonisms more calculated to cause anarchy than to consolidate true liberty. Let us examine, in these last relations, the constitution of the Republic.

Institutions of the Republic.

II. The two consuls were originally generals, judges, and administrators; equal in powers, they were often in disagreement, either in the Forum,93 or on the field of battle.94 Their dissensions were repeated many times until the consulate of Cæsar and Bibulus; and they were liable to become the more dangerous as the decision of one consul was annulled by the opposition of his colleague. On the other hand, the short duration of their magistracy constrained them either to hurry a battle in order to rob their successor of the glory,95 or to interrupt a campaign in order to proceed to Rome to hold the comitia. The defeats of the Trebia and Cannæ, with that of Servilius Cæpio by the Cimbri,96 were fatal examples of the want of unity in the direction of war.

In order to lessen the evil effects of a simultaneous exercise of their prerogatives, the consuls agreed to take in campaign the command alternately day by day, and at Rome each to have the fasces during a month; but this innovation had also vexatious consequences.97 It was even thought necessary, nine years after the fall of the kings, to have recourse to the dictatorship; and this absolute authority, limited to six months, that is, to the longest duration of a campaign, only remedied temporarily, and under extraordinary circumstances, the want of power concentrated in a single individual.

This dualism and instability of the supreme authority were not, therefore, an element of strength; the unity and fixity of direction necessary among a people always at war had disappeared; but the evil would have been more serious if the conformity of interests and views of individuals belonging to the same caste had not been there to lessen it. The man was worth more than the institutions which had formed him.

The creation of tribunes of the people, whose part became subsequently so important, was, in 260, a new cause of discord; the plebeians, who composed the greater part of the army, claimed to have their military chiefs for magistrates;98 the authority of the tribunes was at first limited: we may convince ourselves of this by the following terms of the law which established the office:99—

“Nobody shall constrain a tribune of the people, like a man of the commonalty, to do anything against his will; it shall not be permitted either to strike him, or to cause him to be maltreated by another, or to slay him or cause him to be slain.”100

We may judge by this the degree of inferiority to which the plebeians were reduced. The veto of the tribunes could nevertheless put a stop to the proposal of a law, prevent the decisions of the consuls and Senate, arrest the levies of troops, prorogue the convocation of the comitia, and hinder the election of magistrates.101 From the year 297, their number was raised to ten, that is, two for each of the five classes specially subject to the recruitment;102 but the plebeians profited little by this measure; the more the number of tribunes was augmented, the easier it became for the aristocracy to find among them an instrument for its designs. Gradually their influence increased; in 298, they laid claim to the right of convoking the Senate, and yet it was still a long time before they formed part of that body.103

As to the comitia, the people had there only a feeble influence. In the assemblies by centuries, the vote of the first classes, composed of the richest citizens, as we have seen, prevailed over all the others; in the comitia by curiæ, the patricians were absolute masters; and when, towards the end of the third century, the plebeians obtained the comitia by tribes,104 this concession did not add sensibly to their prerogatives. It was confined to the power of assembling in the public places where, divided according to tribes, they placed their votes in urns for the election of their tribunes and ediles, previously elected by the centuries;105 their decisions concerned themselves only, and entailed no obligations on the patricians; so that the same town then offered the spectacle of two cities each having its own magistrates and laws.106 At first the patricians would not form part of the assembly by tribes, but they soon saw the advantage of it, and, towards 305, entered it with their clients.107

Transformation of the Aristocracy.

III. This political organisation, the reflex of a society composed of so many different elements, could hardly have constituted a durable order of things, if the ascendency of a privileged class had not controlled the causes of dissensions. This ascendency itself would soon have diminished if concessions, forced or voluntary, had not gradually lowered the barriers between the two orders.

In fact, the arbitrary conduct of the consuls, who were, perhaps, originally nominated by the Senate alone,108 excited sharp recriminations: “the consular authority,” cried the plebeians, “was, in reality, almost as heavy as that of the kings. Instead of one master they had two, invested with absolute and unlimited power, without rule or bridle, who turned against the people all the threats of the laws, and all their punishments.”109 Although after the year 283 the patricians and plebeians were subjected to the same judges,110 the want of fixed laws left the goods and lives of the citizens delivered to the will either of the consuls or of the tribunes. It became, therefore, indispensable to establish the legislation on a solid basis, and in 303 ten magistrates called decemvirs were chosen, invested with the double power, consular and tribunitian, which gave them the right of convoking equally the assemblies by centuries and by tribes. They were charged with the compilation of a code of laws afterwards known as the Laws of the Twelve Tables, which, engraved on brass, became the foundation of the Roman public law. Yet they persisted in making illegal the union contracted between persons of the two orders, and left the debtor at the mercy of the creditor, contrary to the decision of Servius Tullius.

The decemvirs abused their power, and, on their fall, the claims of the plebeians increased; the tribuneship, abolished during three years, was re-established; it was decided that an appeal to the people from the decision of any magistrate should be permitted, and that the laws made in the assemblies by tribes, as well as in the assemblies by centuries, should be obligatory on all.111 There were thus, then, three sorts of comitia; the comitia by curiæ, which, conferring the imperium on the magistrates elected by the centuries, sanctioned in some sort the election of the consuls;112 the comitia by centuries, over which the consuls presided; and the comitia by tribes, over which the tribunes presided; the first named the consuls, the second the plebeian magistrates, and both, composed of nearly the same citizens, had equally the power of approving or rejecting the laws; but in the former, the richest men and the nobility had all the influence, because they formed the majority of the centuries and voted first; while in the latter, on the contrary, the voters were confounded with that of the tribe to which they belonged. “If,” says an ancient author, “the suffrages are taken by gentes (ex generibus hominum), the comitia are by curiæ; if according to age and census, they are by centuries; finally, if the vote be given according to territorial circumscription (regionibus), they are by tribes.”113 In spite of these concessions, antagonism in matters of law reigned always between the powers, the assemblies, and the different classes of society.

The plebeians laid claim to all the offices of state, and especially to the consulship, refusing to enrol themselves until their demands had been satisfied; and they went so far in their claims that they insisted upon the plebeian origin of the kings. “Shall we, then,” cried the tribune Canuleius, addressing himself to the people, “have consuls who resemble the decemvirs, the vilest of mortals, all patricians, rather than the best of our kings, all new men!” that is, men without ancestors.114

The Senate resisted, because it had no intention of conferring upon plebeians the right which formed an attribute of the consuls, for the convocation of the comitia, of taking the great auspices, a privilege altogether of a religious character, the exclusive apanage of the nobility.115

In order to obviate this difficulty, the Senate, after suppressing the legal obstacles in the way of marriages between the two orders, agreed in 309 to the creation of six military tribunes invested with the consular power; but, which was an essential point, it was the interrex who convoked the comitia and took the auspices.116 During seventy-seven years the military tribunes were elected alternately with the consuls, and the consulship was only re-established permanently in 387, when it was opened to the plebeians. This was the result of one of the laws of Licinius Stolo. This tribune succeeded in obtaining the adoption of several measures which appeared to open a new era which would put an end to disputes. Still the patricians held with such tenacity to the privilege of alone taking the auspices, that in 398, in the absence of the patrician consul, an interrex was appointed charged with presiding over the comitia, in order not to leave this care to the dictator, and the other consul, who were both plebeians.117

But in permitting the popular class to arrive at the consulship, care had been taken to withdraw from that dignity a great part of its attributes, in order to confer them upon patrician magistrates. Thus they had successively taken away from the consuls, by the creation of two questors, in 307, the administration of the military chest;118 by the creation of the censors, in 311, the right of drawing up the list of the census, the assessment of the revenue of the State, and of watching over public morals; by the creation of the prætors, in 387, the sovereign jurisdiction in civil affairs, under the pretext that the nobility alone possessed the knowledge of the law of the Quirites; and lastly, by the creation of the curule ediles, the presidency of the games, the superintendence of buildings, the police and the provisioning of the town, the maintenance of the public roads, and the inspection of the markets.

The intention of the aristocracy had been to limit the compulsory concessions; but after the adoption of the Licinian laws, it was no longer possible to prevent the principle of the admission of plebeians to all the magistracies. In 386 they had arrived at the important charge of master of the knights (magister equitum) who was in a manner the lieutenant of the dictator (magister populi);119 in 387 access to the religious functions had been laid open to them;120 in 345 they obtained the questorship; in 398, the dictatorship itself; in 403, the censorship; and lastly, in 417, the prætorship.

In 391, the people arrogated the right of appointing a part of the legionary tribunes, previously chosen by the consuls.121

In 415, the law of Q. Publilius Philo took from the Senate the power of refusing the auctoritas to the laws voted by the comitia, and obliged it to declare in advance if the proposed law were in conformity with public and religious law. Further, the obligation imposed by this law of having always one censor taken from among the plebeians, opened the doors of the Senate to the richest of them, since it was the business of the censor to fix the rank of the citizens, and pronounce on the admission or exclusion of the senators. The Publilian law thus tended to raise the aristocracy of the two orders to the same rank, and to create the nobility (nobilitas), composed of all the families rendered illustrious by the offices they had filled.

Elements of Dissolution.

IV. At the beginning of the fifth century of Rome, the bringing nearer together of the two orders had given a greater consistence to society; but, just as we have seen under the kingly rule, the principles begin to show themselves which were one day to make the greatness of Rome, so now we see the first appearance of dangers which will be renewed unceasingly. Electoral corruption, the law of perduellio, slavery, the increase of the poor class, the agrarian laws, and the question of debts, will come, under different circumstances, to threaten the existence of the Republic. Let us summarily state that these questions, so grave in the sequel, were raised at an early date.

Electoral Corruption.—Fraud found its way into the elections as soon as the number of electors increased and rendered it necessary to collect more suffrages to obtain public charges; as early as 396, indeed, a law on solicitation, proposed by the tribune of the people, C. Pœtelius, bears witness to the existence of electoral corruption.

Law of High-treason.—As early as 305 and 369, the application of the law of perduellio, or design against the Republic, furnished to arbitrary power an arm of which, at a later period, under the emperors, so deplorable a use was made under the name of the law of high-treason.122

Slavery.—Slavery presented serious dangers for society, for, on the one hand, it tended, by the lower price of manual labour, to substitute itself for the labour of free men; while, on the other, discontented with their lot, the slaves were always ready to shake off the yoke and become the auxiliaries of all who were ambitious. In 253, 294, and 336, partial insurrections announced the condition already to be feared of a class disinherited of all the advantages, though intimately bound up with all the wants, of ordinary life.123 The number of slaves increased rapidly. They replaced the free men torn by the continual wars from the cultivation of the land. At a later period, when these latter returned to their homes, the Senate was obliged to support them by sending as far as Sicily to seek wheat to deliver to them either gratis or at a reduced price.124

Agrarian Laws.—As to the Agrarian laws and the question of debts, they soon became an incessant cause of agitation.

The kings, with the conquered lands, had formed a domain of the State (ager publicus), one of its principal resources,125 and generously distributed part of it to the poor citizens.126 Generally, they took from the conquered peoples two-thirds of their land.127 Of these two-thirds, “the cultivated part,” says Appian, “was always adjudged to the new colonists, either as a gratuitous grant, or by sale, or by lease paying rent. As to the uncultivated part, which, as a consequence of war, was almost always the most considerable, it was not the custom to distribute it, but the enjoyment of it was left to any one willing to clear and cultivate it, with a reservation to the State of the tenth part of the harvest and a fifth part of the fruits. A similar tax was levied upon those who bred cattle, large or small (in order to prevent the pasture land from increasing in extent to the detriment of the arable land). This was done in view of the increase of the Italic population, which was judged at Rome the most laborious, and to have allies of their own race. But the measure produced a result contrary to that which was expected from it. The rich appropriated to themselves the greatest part of the undistributed lands, and reckoning that the long duration of their occupation would permit nobody to expel them, they bought when they found a seller, or took by force from their neighbouring lesser proprietors their modest heritages, and thus formed vast domains, instead of the mere fields which they had themselves cultivated before.”128

The kings had always sought to put a curb on these usurpations,129 and perhaps it was a similar attempt which cost Servius Tullius his life. But after the fall of the kingly power, the patricians, having become more powerful, determined to preserve the lands which they had unjustly seized.130

And it must be acknowledged, as they supported the greatest share of the burthen of war and taxation, they had a better claim than the others to the conquered lands; they thought, moreover, that the colonies were sufficient to support an agricultural population, and they acted rather as State farmers than as proprietors of the soil. According to the public law, indeed, the ager publicus was inalienable, and we read in an ancient author:—“Lawyers deny that the soil which has once begun to belong to the Roman people, can ever, by usage or possession, become the property of anybody else in the world.”131

In spite of this principle, it would have been wisdom to give, to the poor citizens who had fought, a part of the spoils of the vanquished; for the demands were incessant, and after 268, renewed almost yearly by the tribunes or by the consuls themselves. In 275, a patrician, Fabius Cæso, taking the initiative in a partition of lands recently conquered, exclaimed: “Is it not just that the territories taken from the enemy should become the property of those who have paid for it with their sweat and with their blood?”132 The Senate was as inflexible for this proposition as for those which were brought forward by Q. Considius and T. Genucius in 278, by Cn. Genucius in 280, and by the tribunes of the people, with the support of the consuls Valerius and Æmilius, in 284.133

Yet, after fifty years of struggles since the expulsion of the Tarquins, the tribune Icilius, in 298, obtained the partition of the lands of Mount Aventine, by indemnifying those who had usurped a certain portion of them.134 The application of the law Icilia to other parts of the ager publicus135 was vainly solicited in 298 and the following years; but in 330, a new tax was imposed upon the possessors of the lands for the pay of the troops. The perseverance of the tribunes was unwearied, and, during the thirty-six years following, six different propositions were unsuccessful, even that relating to the territory of the Bolani, newly taken from the enemy.136 In 361 only, a senatus consultus granted to each father of a family and to each free man seven acres of the territory which had just been conquered from the Veii.137 In 371, after a resistance of five years, the Senate, in order to secure the concurrence of the people in the war against the Volsci, agreed to the partition of the territory of the Pomptinum (the Pontine Marshes), taken from that people by Camillus, and already given up to the encroachments of the aristocracy.138 But these partial concessions were not enough to satisfy the plebeians or to repair past injustices; in the Licinian law the claims of the people, which had been resisted during a hundred and thirty-six years, triumphed;139 it did not entirely deprive the nobles of the enjoyment of the lands unjustly usurped, but it limited the possession of them to five hundred jugera. When this repartition was made, the land which remained was to be distributed among the poor. The proprietors were obliged to maintain on their lands a certain number of free men, in order to augment the class from which the legions were recruited; lastly, the number of cattle on each domain was fixed, in order to restrain the culture of the meadows, in general the most lucrative, and augment that of the arable lands, which relieved Italy from the necessity of having recourse to foreign corn.

This law of Licinius Stolo secured happy results; it restrained the encroachments of the rich and great, but only proceeded with moderation in its retrospective effects; it put a stop to the alarming extension of the private domains at the expense of the public domain, to the absorption of the good of the many by the few, to the depopulation of Italy, and consequently to the diminution of the strength of the armies.140

The numerous condemnations for trespasses against the law Licinia prove that it was carried into execution, and for the space of two hundred years it contributed, with the establishment of new colonies,141 to maintain this class of agriculturists—the principal sinews of the State. We see indeed that, from this moment, the Senate itself took the initiative of new distributions of land to the people.142

Debts.—The question of debts and the diminution of the rate of interest had long been the subject of strong prejudices and of passionate debates.

As the citizens made war at their own expense, the less rich, while they were under arms, could not take care of their fields or farms, but borrowed money to provide for their wants and for those of their families. The debt had, in this case, a noble origin, the service of their country.143 Public opinion must, therefore, be favourable to the debtors and hostile to those who, speculating on the pecuniary difficulties of the defenders of the State, extorted heavy interest for the money they lent. The patricians also took advantage of their position and their knowledge of legal forms to exact heavy sums from the plebeians whose causes they defended.144

The kings, listening to the demands of the citizens who were overwhelmed with debts, often showed their readiness to help them;145 but, after their expulsion, the rich classes, more independent, became more untractable, and men, ruined on account of their military service, were sold publicly, as slaves,146 by their creditors. Thus, when war was imminent, the poor often refused to serve,147 crying out, “What use will it be to us to conquer the enemies without, if our creditors put us in bonds for the debts we have contracted? What advantage shall we have in strengthening the empire of Rome, if we cannot preserve our personal liberty?”148 Yet the patricians, who contributed more than the others to the costs of the war, demanded of their debtors, not without reason, the payment of the money they had advanced; and hence arose perpetual dissensions.149

In 305, the laws of the Twelve Tables decided that the rate of interest should be reduced to ten per cent. a year; but a law of Licinius Stolo alone resolved, in an equitable manner, this grave question. It enacted that the interests previously paid should be deducted from the principal, and that the principal should be repaid by equal portions during an interval of three years. This measure was advantageous to all, for, in the state of insolvency in which the debtors were involved, the creditors could not obtain the interest of their money, and even risked the loss of the principal; the new law guaranteed the debts; the debtors in their turn, having become landed proprietors, found the means of freeing themselves by means of the lands they had received and the delay which had been given them. The agreement established in 387 was of slight duration, and in the midst of disagreements more or less violent, things were carried so far, in 412, that the entire abolition of debts and the prohibition to exact any interest were decreed mere revolutionary and transitory measures.

Résumé.

V. This rapid sketch of the evils already perceptible which tormented Roman society leads us to this reflection: it is the lot of all governments, whatever be their form, to contain within themselves germs of life, which make their strength, and germs of dissolution, which must some day lead to their ruin; and accordingly, as the Republic was in progress or in decline, the first or the second became developed and dominant in turn; that is, so long as the aristocracy preserved its virtues and its patriotism, the elements of prosperity predominated; but no sooner did it begin to degenerate, than the causes of disturbance gained the upper hand, and shook the edifice which had been erected so laboriously.

If the fall of the kingly power, in giving more vitality and independence to the aristocracy, rendered the constitution of the State more solid and durable, the democracy had at first no reason for congratulation. Two hundred years passed away before the plebeians could obtain, not equality of political rights, but even a share in the ager publicus and an act of lenity in favour of debtors, overwhelmed with liabilities through incessant wars. About the same length of time was required by the Republic to re-conquer the supremacy over the neighbouring peoples which she had exercised under the last kings,150 so many years a country requires to recover from the shocks and enfeebling influence of even the most legitimate revolutions.

Yet Roman society had been vigorously enough constituted to resist at the same time external attacks and internal troubles. Neither the invasions of Porsenna, nor those of the Gauls, nor the conspiracies of the neighbouring peoples, were able to compromise its existence. Already eminent men, such as Valerius Publicola, A. Postumius, Coriolanus, Spurius Cassius, Cincinnatus, and Camillus, had distinguished themselves as legislators and warriors, and Rome could put on foot ten legions, or forty-five thousand men. At home, important advantages had been obtained, and notable concessions had been made to effect a reconciliation between the two orders; written laws had been adopted, and the attributes of the different magistracies had been better defined, but the constitution of society remained the same. The facility granted to the plebeians of arriving at all the State employments only increased the strength of the aristocracy, which recovered its vigour of youth without modifying itself, diminished the number of its adversaries, and increased that of its adherents. The rich and important plebeian families soon began to mingle with the ancient patrician families, to share their ideas, their interests, and even their prejudices; and a learned German historian remarks with justice that after the abolition of the kingly power there was, perhaps, a greater number of plebeians in the Senate, but that personal merit, without birth and fortune, experienced greater difficulty than ever in reaching preferment.151

It is not indeed sufficient, for the application of the state of society, to study thoroughly its laws, but we must also take into consideration the influence exercised by the manners of the people. The laws proclaimed equality and liberty, but the manners left the honours and preponderance to the upper class. The admission to place was no longer forbidden to the plebeians, but the election almost always kept them from it. During fifty-nine years, two hundred and sixty-four military tribunes replaced the consuls, and of this number only eighteen were plebeians; although these latter might be candidates for the consulship, the choice fell generally upon patricians.152 Marriage between the two orders had been long placed on a footing of equality, and yet, in 456, the prejudices of caste were far from being destroyed, as we learn from the history of the patrician Virginia, married to the plebeian Volumnius, whom the matrons drove away from the temple of Pudicitia patricia.153

The laws protected liberty, but they were rarely executed, as is shown by the continual renewal of the same regulations. Thus it had been decided in 305 that the plebiscita should have the force of law, yet in spite of that it was found necessary to re-enact the same regulation by the laws Hortensia, in 466, and Mænia, in 468. This last sanctioned also anew the law Publilia of 415. It was the same with the law of Valerius Publicola (of the year 246), which authorised an appeal to the people from the judgments of the magistrates. It appears to have been restored to vigour by Valerius and Horatius in 305, and again by Valerius Corvus in 454. And, on this occasion, the great Roman historian exclaims, “I can only explain this frequent renewal of the same law by supposing that the power of some of the great ones always succeeded in triumphing over the liberty of the people.”154 The right of admission to the Senate was acknowledged in principle, yet no one could enter it without having obtained a decree of the censor, or exercised a curule magistracy—favours almost always reserved to the aristocracy. The law which required a plebeian among the censors remained almost always in abeyance, and, to become censor, it was generally necessary to have been consul.

All offices ought to be annual, and yet the tribunes, as well as the consuls, obtained their re-election several times at short intervals—as in the instance of Licinius Stolo, re-elected tribune during nine consecutive years; of Sulpicius Peticus, five times consul (from 390 to 403); of Popilius Lænas and Marcius Rutilus, both four times, the first from 395 to 406, the second from 397 to 412. The law of 412 came in vain to require an interval of ten years before becoming again a candidate for the same magistracy. Several personages were none the less re-elected before the time required, such as Valerius Corvus, six times consul (from 406 to 455), and consecutively during the last three years; and Papirius Cursor, five times (from 421 to 441).

The lives of the citizens were protected by the laws, but public opinion remained powerless at the assassination of those who had incurred the hatred of the Senate; and, in spite of the law of the consul Valerius Publicola, the violent death of the tribune Genucius, or of the rich plebeian Spurius Melius, was a subject of applause.

The comitia were free, but the Senate had at its disposal either the veto of the tribunes or the religious scruples of the people. A consul could prevent the meeting of these assemblies, or cut short all their deliberations, either by declaring that he was observing the sky, or that a clap of thunder or some other celestial manifestation had occurred;155 and it depended upon the declaration of the augurs to annul the elections. Moreover, the people in reality were satisfied with naming the persons on whom they wished to confer the magisterial offices, for, to enter upon their functions, the consuls and the prætors had to submit their powers to the sanction of the curiæ (lex curiata de imperio).156 It was thus in the power of the nobility to reverse the elections which displeased them, a fact which Cicero explains in the following terms, while presenting this measure in a light favourable to the people: “Your ancestors required the suffrages twice for all magistracies, for, when a curiate law was proposed in favour of the patrician magistrates, they voted in reality a second time for the same persons, so that the people, if they repented of their choice, had the power of abandoning it.”157

The dictatorship was also a lever left in the hands of the nobility to overthrow oppositions and influence the comitia. The dictator was never elected, but appointed by a consul.158 In the space of only twenty-six years, from 390 to 416, there were eighteen dictators.

The Senate remained, therefore, all powerful in spite of the victory of the plebeians, for, independently of the means placed at its disposal, it was in its power to elude the plebiscita, the execution of which was entrusted to it. If the influence of a predominant class sobered the use of political liberty, the laws presented a still greater curb on individual liberty. Thus, not only all the members of the family were subjected to the absolute authority of the head, but each citizen was obliged further to obey a multitude of rigorous obligations.159 The censor watched over the purity of marriages, the education of children, the treatment of slaves and clients, and the cultivation of the lands.160 “The Romans did not believe,” says Plutarch, “that each individual ought to be allowed the liberty to marry, to have children, to choose his walk in life, to give festivities, or even to follow his desires and tastes, without undergoing a previous inspection and judgment.”161

The condition of Rome then bore a great resemblance to that of England before its electoral reform. For several centuries, the English Constitution was vaunted as the palladium of liberty, although then, as at Rome, birth and fortune were the unique source of honours and power. In both countries the aristocracy, master of the elections by solicitation, money, or rotten boroughs, caused, as the patricians at Rome, the members of the nobility to be elected to parliament, and no one was citizen in either of the two countries without the possession of wealth. Nevertheless, if the people, in England, had no part in the direction of affairs, they boasted justly, before 1789, a liberty which shone brightly in the middle of the silentious atmosphere of the Continental states. The disinterested observer does not examine if the scene where grave political questions are discussed is more or less vast, or if the actors are more or less numerous: he is only struck by the grandeur of the spectacle. Thus, far be from us the intention of blaming the nobility, any more in Rome than in England, for having preserved its preponderance by all the means which laws and habits placed at its disposal. The power was destined to remain with the patricians as long as they showed themselves worthy of it; and, it cannot but be acknowledged, without their perseverance in the same policy, without that elevation of views, without that severe and inflexible virtue, the distinguishing character of the aristocracy, the work of Roman civilisation would not have been accomplished.

At the beginning of the fifth century, the Republic, consolidated, is going to gather the fruit of the many efforts it has sustained. More united henceforward, in the interior, the Romans will turn all their energy towards the conquest of Italy, but it will require nearly a century to realise it. Always stimulated by their institutions, always restrained by an intelligent aristocracy, they will furnish the astonishing example of a people preserving, in the name of liberty and in the midst of agitation, the immobility of a system which will render them masters of the world.