A History of the Roman World (13 page)

The basis of the Servian reform was a registration of property, primarily in land, and a classification of the population in accordance with their scheduled wealth for military purposes. In order to accomplish the registration, the three Romulean tribes were superseded by the creation of four
urban
tribes in Rome and sixteen
rustic
tribes in the
ager Romanus
⁴³
The Roman people, beside being registered in these tribes, was then divided into five
classes
differentiated by their equipment. According to the traditional scheme each member of the
first class provided for himself a full panoply, the second class lacked a bronze corslet, the other classes had less, the fifth nothing but slings and stones. This classification was based on a registration of property; the ratings ranged from 100,000
asses
of the first class to 11,000 of the fifth. These figures represent the attempt of a later generation to interpret the early ratings in terms of a bronze currency which had not yet been introduced; but the proportions of the five ratings (20: 15: 10: 5: 2½: or 2) may represent an original apportionment in land, the minimum being a plot of two
iugera
. More important was the subdivision of these five classes into centuries or companies; in each class half the centuries were made up of elder (
seniores
; men from 47 to 60) and half of younger men (
iuniores
; from 17 to 46). The centuries in each class were unequal in number, as the state naturally drew more heavily upon the well-equipped richer men than on the poorly-equipped masses. Thus the first class contained 80 centuries; the second, third and fourth 20 each; the fifth 30. This makes a total of 170 centuries of combatant infantry, half senior, half junior. Below this there were 5 (or 6) centuries of unarmed men, whose property was too little to justify enrolment in the fifth class. They were registered by ‘heads’ (
capitecensi
) and served the state not by giving their money in taxes or their life-blood in war, but in such capacities as armourers, smiths, trumpeters, etc. They, or one century of them, were the
proletarii
. At the other extreme was the cavalry (
equites
) which consisted of 18 centuries: 6 already established and 12 more added. These were raised by the leading men who could keep their own warhorses, and they took precedence over the five classes.

This new organization based on 193 centuries was designed for military needs. The centuries formed the basis for recruiting, and the junior centuries of the first three classes probably formed the infantry of the line. But from it there developed a political body called the Comitia Centuriata, or the assembly-by-centuries. Its military origin is clear: it was summoned by blast of trumpets, it met in the Field of Mars outside the city, and during its meetings red flags which were struck on the enemy’s approach flew on the Arx and the Janiculum. It was the ‘nation in arms’. But as the census embraced the whole free population a century would contain more men than were actually called up to serve as a military century. Within the meeting of the centuries a system of group voting prevailed as in the Comitia Curiata. Each century recorded a vote which had been determined by a majority vote of its members. The centuries voted in order of precedence, first those of the equites, then the five classes in succession and finally the last five centuries of supernumeraries. As the centuries of the cavalry and the first class numbered 98 (18 and 80) they obtained a clear majority in the total of 193 centuries if they voted solid. That is, the rich, though numerically inferior, could outvote the poor by means of an actual majority of group votes; this was by no means
unfair, as it was they who had to bear the chief burden of fighting and financing the wars. The system was thus timocratic, somewhat similar to that established by Solon at Athens in 590 (of which the Romans may not have been unaware).

How soon the centuries began to function as a political assembly remains controversial. It must have been before the mid-fifth century, since the mention in the Twelve Tables of a
comitiatus maximus
almost certainly refers to the Comitia Centuriata (though some still apply it to the Curiata). It is reasonable, therefore, to place its beginning not later than the establishment of the Republic, and, if so, it does not strain credulity to date it where Roman tradition dated it (although its structure at that time may have been simpler than the quintuple class division). If, then, it met in the regal period, it presumably voted on proposals of the king concerning peace and war and approved the choice of commanders created by him, but it will have lacked the right to initiate business.
⁴⁴

Thus Servius may be credited with setting in motion far-reaching reforms: he skilfully created new tribes in order to incorporate an enlarged citizen body (as Cleisthenes did at Athens); he was thus enabled to increase the size of the army and modernize its method of fighting; this involved a new grading of wealth which gave rise to a timocratic assembly. However, by enlarging the army he strengthened not only Rome but also his own power, since the backbone of the army was formed by the middle class. The nobles, who relied on the support of their
gentes
, will have been resentful, and the process by which they were beginning to form a separate class, the patriciate, by claiming more religious, social and political privileges, was probably slowed down. After Servius had been murdered by his daughter Tullia his successor Tarquinius Superbus is said to have maintained his rule for another quarter of a century; but nevertheless the days of the monarchy at Rome, as in other Etruscan cities, were numbered.

The fall of Tarquinius Superbus at Rome, the collapse of Etruscan power in Latium, the history of Lars Porsenna, the gradual decline of Etruscan influence at Rome, and the establishment of a Republican constitution all form part of an interrelated story, which can scarcely be reconstructed in any detail today. Legend tells that the rape of Lucretia, wife of Tarquinius Collatinus, by Sextus, son of Superbus, provoked L. Iunius Brutus and a band of nobles to encompass the fall of Superbus by inciting the people and army of Rome to revolt. While Sextus fled to Gabii, where he was killed, his father and two brothers found refuge in Caere.
⁴⁵
At Rome the monarchy was abolished and two annually-elected magistrates took the helm. One of these,
Brutus, subsequently slew his own sons who had joined a conspiracy to bring back the house of Tarquin, and then met his death in an indecisive battle at Silva Arsia against the forces of Etruscan Tarquinii and Veii which the exiled Tarquins had summoned to their aid. Lars Porsenna of Clusium then rallied the Etruscans in Tarquin’s cause and marched on Rome, which he would have captured had not Horatius (and two companions who had Etruscan names) held the bridge over the Tiber; later he called off the siege of the city, impressed by the bravery of the Romans shown in the exploits of Mucius Scaevola and Cloelia.
⁴⁶

This heroic tradition, however, was designed to veil the fact that Porsenna at one time succeeded in capturing Rome, as Tacitus and other later Roman writers knew. One difficulty in the story, namely that Clusium was beyond Rome’s political horizon, is surmounted by a modern theory which sees in Porsenna a chieftain of Veii (an alternative ancient tradition derived him from Volsinii).
⁴⁷
However, it is unlikely that he was in league with the Tarquins, who despite his success were not restored to Rome; rather it is likely that it was he who helped to overthrow them. In any case his stay in Rome was brief. Other Latin cities, encouraged by Rome’s example to seek freedom from the Etruscans, sought help from Aristodemus of Cumae, who had checked the Etruscan advance into Campania many years before (pp. 31ff.); at Aricia their combined forces defeated the army, led by Porsenna’s son Arruns, which he sent against them (
c.
506). Whether Porsenna, after his success at Rome, was attempting to push further south, or whether Aristodemus and the Latins were mounting a counter-attack, is not certain, but at any rate Rome had no part in the battle since she was in Etruscan hands. The immediate result of the battle was that the victorious Latins could now cut the land communications between Etruria and Campania, while Aristodemus strengthened his rule at Cumae. The record of these events provides important support for the essential reliability of the Roman tradition. Fortunately Dionysius of Halicarnassus described these operations at some length (vii, 5–6), and his account was based on a local history of Cumae or at any rate on a source quite separate from the Roman annalistic tradition. Thus the chronology of the fall of the monarchy at Rome is confirmed in general terms by an independent Greek tradition, a fact which many critics of the early Roman tradition have tended to overlook.
⁴⁸

Tarquinius Superbus then found refuge with his son-in-law, Mamilius Octavius of Tusculum, who had persuaded the Latins, according to Roman tradition, to take up arms on behalf of the exiled king and to engage the Romans at the battle of Lake Regillus. Tarquin was probably not in fact the cause of the battle: the Latins, who had successfully cooperated at Aricia, were organized in a league from which Rome was excluded, and two rival groups clashed (p. 84). Soon afterwards, in 495, Tarquin is said to have died

MAP I

at Cumae where Aristodemus had granted him a final refuge. Thus although the story of Superbus was decked out by the Roman annalists with a mass of fictitious details, some of which were borrowed from Greek stories of wicked despots, there is no need to doubt that he made himself odious by tyrannical conduct and that his fall in 510/09 was brought about by a conspiracy of nobles; with this bloodless revolution the monarchy was replaced in Rome by a republic, the whole series of events forming one episode in the collapse of Etruscan dominion in Italy. However, the expulsion of an Etruscan ruler did not mean the abrupt end of Etruscan influence in Rome: the revolution was political rather than cultural, and there was no wholesale expulsion of Etruscans who had settled in Rome. In fact some magistrates with Etruscan names were even elected to office in the course of the next few years, Etruscan art flourished in the city for another half-century, and Greek pottery continued to be imported though on a declining scale, and new temples were still built (p. 74). Thus the fall of Tarquin was followed by a few decades which may be called sub-Etruscan, marked by the activities of men like Porsenna. Nor was Rome’s condition unique: times were disturbed, and in other Etruscan cities control was passing from kings to ambitious nobles, who with bands of their clients strove for power. The story of how the clan of the Fabii and their clients fought against Veii at the Cremera (p. 89) in
c.
475 illustrates the way in which individual groups could still operate.

The traditional account of the end of the monarchy admittedly provokes many serious problems, but the solutions proposed by various modern writers who abandon the main outline are varied and often mutually contradictory, so that many still feel that what the later Romans themselves believed about these events may be nearer to the truth. An account of some recent theories is therefore given in the notes rather than here.
⁴⁹

The establishment of the Roman Republic was due either to revolution or evolution; it was either the effect or the cause of the fall of the monarchy. The former view is that presented by tradition, the latter is a hypothesis of some modern scholars. We may here accept the traditional view that after the sudden fall of Tarquinius Superbus the monarchy was abolished and two annual magistrates named consuls (or more probably at first ‘praetors’) were established in its place.
¹
They continued to be appointed throughout the history of the Republic except when they were superseded once by a Decemvirate and on occasions by ‘military tribunes with consular power’. In times of crisis, however, they might be constrained to nominate a dictator, who temporarily overshadowed them.
²

The consuls (or ‘praetors’) had considerably less power than the kings, but they were invested with supreme executive authority (
imperium
) and were the executive head of the state. They possessed full military
imperium
, which included powers of life and death in the military sphere. They exercised supreme criminal and civil jurisdiction and could ‘coerce’ private citizens even in peace-time. But ‘at home’ (
domi
) within the
pomerium
their criminal jurisdiction was checked by the right of every citizen to appeal (
provocare
) to the people against a capital sentence: a right which the Romans believed to have been coeval with the Republic (Lex Valeria).
³
With their subordinate officers they were responsible for the financial and general administration of the state. This supreme executive authority, which was a basic constitutional conception,
was conferred by the Comitia Curiata on those candidates who had been designated by the previous consuls and chosen by the Comitia Centuriata. It was only vested in the consuls and praetors (i.e. the original ‘praetors’ and the judicial praetors established later) or in those who took their place: the dictator, his master of horse and the
interrex
. Later magistrates, e.g. censors and aediles, who took over some of the consuls’ duties, did not obtain
imperium
.
⁴

The great power of the consuls was limited in the religious sphere, where they had not the same prestige as the kings, by the
rex sacrorum
and the Pontifex Maximus. The former was the direct successor of the kings and was provided with an official house in the Forum, the Regia, but it was the Pontifex Maximus who soon became the more influential: he gained control of the calendar, nominated the Flamines and the Vestal Virgins and generally wielded great authority. In fact the nobles may well have created this office, which was held for life, in order to prevent the priesthoods, which they themselves held, from being controlled by the successor of the king, the
rex sacrorum
.
⁵

The two main brakes which prevented the consuls driving the state chariot wherever they wished were the time-limit of their office and the principle of mutual control. They had to abdicate at the end of a year; continuity of government rested in the Senate, not in the magistrates. Secondly, the principle of collegiality, i.e. of investing the two consuls with equal and co-ordinate authority, enabled the one to check and nullify the acts of his colleague by right of veto (
intercessio
), for ‘no’ always overcame ‘yes’. Further, the consul was hampered by the theoretical sovereignty of the people, and by custom,
mos maiorum
; for instance, he was forced by weight of public opinion (at some point) to allow the right of appeal and, like the king, he consulted the Senate from moral, not legal, obligations. The main body of the patricians, who formed the economic and military, though not the numerical, basis of the state, was sufficient to check any consul’s aspirations to tyranny;
⁶
and later the consul’s own power became more limited, while the Roman people found in the tribune a protector against both the patricians and any magistrate who aspired to unconstitutional power.

Beside the consuls were the
quaestores parricidii
, or investigators of murder, whose origin is obscure (p. 63). In historical times the quaestors were responsible for public finance under consular supervision. Probably they had been temporary assistants to whom the king had delegated authority and they were still appointed to help the consuls in criminal jurisdiction and finance. Possibly they were nominated by the consuls themselves until 447
BC
, when the office was filled by popular election in the Comitia Tributa. One of their legal duties may have been to pronounce on the consul’s behalf sentences against which an appeal might be lodged, in order that the consular
imperium
should not be technically infringed.

In addition to the regular magistrates was the extraordinary office of dictator which superseded the others in time of internal or external danger.
Appointed by the consuls for six months, the dictator had absolute power even within the city. Unlike the king or consuls who had twelve lictors, he had twenty-four. His original title may have been
magister populi
, and he himself nominated an assistant,
magister equitum
. The origin of the office is obscure. It probably does not represent a temporary reversion to monarchy, or the survival of a king with much-reduced powers, or of an auxiliary regal office. As dictators are found in other Latin towns and at the head of the Latin League, possibly Rome borrowed the conception from her kinsmen or even from the Etruscan
zilath
. If so, this would explain why Roman dictators were also appointed to celebrate the games and festivals, for the Latin dictator had religious duties. There is reason to doubt the historicity of many dictatorships recorded in the fifth century, but tradition may be correct in naming T. Larcius the first dictator
c.
500
BC
. The antiquity of the office is shown in the customs whereby the dictator was nominated at dead of night and was forbidden to mount a horse.
⁷

Thus the Romans had provided an executive by creating a regular magistracy together with an extraordinary emergency one. This executive was expected by custom to rely largely on the Council of Elders and in practice it did. After the monarchy the ranks of the Senate were increased by the consuls, but the manner is uncertain; the numbers perhaps reached three hundred. But control remained essentially patrician and exclusively aristocratic. A few exceptional plebeians may have crept in, though no plebeian senator is recorded before 401
BC
; but in any case certain privileges were reserved for the patrician members. Though the Senate was a deliberative body which discussed and need not vote on business, it had the right to veto all acts of the assembly which were invalid without senatorial ratification. Its advice need not be taken by the consuls and it was not as powerful as it became later when consular authority was weakened, but through its permanency it attained considerable prestige. Few consuls would flout its wishes, especially as they themselves were senators. Finally, of the two Assemblies of the People the Comitia Centuriata gained increasing political influence and took over many of the functions of the Comitia Curiata, which sank into the background only to emerge to confer
Imperium
on the magistrates.