Rome had held in alliance. They were probably supported by those ancient foes of the republic, the Hernici and the Aurunci, who give name to more than one consular campaign at this period. The people of Privernum are specially mentioned among the assailants of Rome, and over these she gained a triumph. Of the cities of Etruria, none were nearer to Rome, and none more inveterately hostile, than Care and Tarquinii. Again these cities rose against her, and again she defended herself against them with resolution; and, though acknowledging at least one severe defeat and bloody massacre of her soldiers, compelled them to secure their own future safety by pledging themselves to a truce, the one of a hundred, the other of forty years. From the recurrence of these obscure contests we seem to learn the continued weakness of the republic, unable as she was in two hundred years to shake off the petty hordes which still infested her borders; and when we consider the martial training and the civil prudence which are so distinctly attributed to her children, we can only suppose that this weakness resulted from the internal dissensions which were so rife within her walls. Even after the passing of the law of Licinius this fatal cause still continued to operate, and Rome was still, it would seem, compelled to maintain her desperate defence with one hand tied behind her.

U.C. 411.

But while Rome was thus fully occupied in her own territory, or on its immediate borders, her conquering destiny was impelling her to mingle in more distant contests. In the year 343 1.0.343. she found herself solicited by the Campanians to defend them against the encroachments of the Samnites. So began the first of the three great wars with Samnium, in the course of which Rome was more than once reduced to extremity, and exposed to the most dire disgrace. The conflict lasted full seventy years; but it was after this long trial of her endurance and the success which crowned it that she became at last the ruling power in Italy, and was enabled to withstand the invasion of a Pyrrhus and a Hannibal. The first event of this war brought her into contact with the Carthaginians, who sent envoys to congratulate her on her victory at the Mount Gaurus. But this success was speedily checkered by a mutiny among the legions at Capua, when the soldiers marched to Bovillæ, on the road to Rome, and were there met by a sympathizing crowd of citizens, and enabled to extort from the government a sweeping measure of relief for debtors, as well as the satisfaction of some military grievances. A more important enactment, carried also by the tribune Genucius, provided that henceforth both consuls might be taken from the r.o. 413. ranks of the plebeians. The republic seemed at once B.C. 341. to acquire fresh strength, and this reconciliation was fol

CHAP. XII.

COALITION OF THE TWO ORDERS.

101

lowed by at least a temporary compact between the Romans and the Samnites. It is clear that at this period the wisest heads among the old aristocracy became fully impressed with the necessity of making ample concessions. In fact, the plebeians by this time had become by increased wealth and influence substantially their equals, and to insist upon the maintenance of political distinctions between them was neither safe nor reasonable. In the year 339 the dictator Publilius Philo, himself a plebeian, effected a final reconciliation between the two orders, which had already coalesced actually into a single body. He gave the last blow to the ancient polity by suppressing the veto of the Senate, and imposing the plebiscita, or ordinances of the tribes, as the common law of the state. It may be said, indeed, that this later enactment was only the republication of one of an earlier date, and that the former was in reality neutralized by the important provision that the comitia of the centuries should make no resolution which the Senate had not previously sanctioned. It must be admitted that some obscurity hangs around the legislation of this period, but the Romans themselves, as we must suppose from the statement of Livy, regarded it as a decisive triumph for the younger over the older aristocracy.

The spirit of concession which presided over the internal controversies of the republic did not extend to her foreign relations. The quarrel between the patricians and the plebeians, representing, as they nominally did, the conflicting interests of two rival races, was transferred to the citizens of the state, the denizens of Rome and occupiers of the Roman territory, and the people in their immediate neighborhood, who held the dubious position of halfallies and half-subjects, such as the Latins. The Latin confederacy still subsisted, though in complete dependence upon Rome, and under condition of serving by her side in the wars of the republic. The concessions which had been recently made to the Roman soldiery-the regular force of armed citizens who had marched upon Rome from Capua-had been jealously withheld from their Latin comrades, in the same spirit of exclusion which so long marked the attitude of the patricians towards the plebeians. At this point of our history we seem to enter upon another period of political disunion, pregnant with the gravest consequences. After the contests of many generations it issued in fact in the great Social War, which finally extorted from Rome the admission of her Italian allies to the full enjoyment of her franchise, and once more transferred the conflict of parties from Rome and Italy to Italy and the provinces. The same year that witnessed the capitulation of the Senate to the tribes was marked by the revolt of the Latian auxiliaries against the Roman legions.

The Latins claimed an equal share in the Roman polity with the Romans, by whose side they had fought so long, and with no inferior prowess, against the Etruscans, the Volscians, and latterly the Samnites. They boldly laid claim, not only to a division of the spoil, but to participation in the prerogatives of office. They demanded, so we are assured, that one of the consuls and one half of the Senate of the united peoples should be Latins. The Romans disdainfully rejected the claim, which seemed to affect, not only their dignity, but their material interests also. The Latins, not content, as the plebeians of old, with seceding from the alliance, rose in arms against the yoke imposed upon them, and asserted their own sovereign right to an equal share in the fruits of their common inheritance. Their language was the same, the main source of their blood was the same, their traditions were for the most part held in common, and the same Latian Jupiter looked with equal favor upon both from his temple on the Alban Mount. The particulars of the great Latin war, as it is commonly designated, of the years 358-340, are given with much coloring by the Roman historians. Among the most remarkable of its incidents are the battles of Vesuvius and Tifanum, and the ultimate success of the Romans may perhaps be ascribed to the skill which they had now attained in the conduct of sieges, and the pertinacity of the legionary in remaining through the winter under his standards. The Latins, who had been wont, when defeated in the field, to retire behind the shelter of their rock-built citadels, were thus baffled, and their strongholds one by one reduced. The conquest of Antium, which up to that time had been a naval power, and had harassed what little commerce Rome could boast, furnished a new matter of triumph. The brazen beaks of the enemies' vessels were cut off and affixed to the orators' platform in the Forum, which thence obtained the designation of the rostrum, which has become so common and so illustrious. But the sense the Romans entertained of the crisis through which they passed in this desperate conflict is marked apparently by two instances they recorded of military devotion. They vaunted, indeed, ungenerously and no doubt untruly, that the Latins evinced less gallantry than themselves in the field; it would have been better to have contented themselves with pointing to the stories of T. Manlius, the patrician, who smote his son with the lictor's axe for engaging contrary to orders with an enemy whom he overcame; and of Decius Mus, the plebeian consul, who sacrificed himself for his country, plunging alone into the hostile ranks, when assured that by so doing he might avert a great disaster and secure a great triumph for Rome. From age to age the history or the legends of Rome teem with instances of this personal devotion,

CHAP. XII.

THE LATIN CITIZENSHIP.

103

which, whether fact or fiction, alike attested the quality of Roman patriotism, and alike contributed to form it. No doubt it was well for Rome that a crisis of so much importance to her development should be signalized by stories which could not fail to fix upon it the regards of all her citizens of every order. The issue of the Latin war was shortly this. The confederacy of Latium was entirely broken up. The alliance which had subsisted, nominally at least, between Latium and Rome was converted into the entire dependence of the worsted party. Some of the Latin towns, such as Tibur and Præneste, were allowed to retain their own laws and magistrates; others were occupied by Roman garrisons under the name of colonies; a few were placed as it were in a grade between these, and suffered to enjoy their own lands and usages under the control of a Roman prefect. For the most part the Latin population were admitted to a qualified Roman citizenship; they were declared to be citizens without the right of suffrage; but the rights of commercial exchange and of intermarriage were not withheld from them. Such was the origin of the "Latium," or "jus Latii," or Latin citizenship, which came at a later period to be extended to many other conquered territories, and was the source of bitter heartburnings and fierce dissensions in another generation. It may be assumed, however, that the reception of the Latins into almost the same relation to Rome as the plebeians of an earlier date had occupied in respect to the patricians, served more potently than any formal enactments to appease the hostile spirit of these rival nations, and weld them firmly together for the maintenance of the prerogatives which they now equally asserted against the pretensions of the foreigner and the subject.

CHAPTER XIII.

Alexander, King of Epirus, invades Italy.-The Romans unite with him against the Samnites.—Continuation of the Samnite war.-Pontius makes the Roman army pass under the yoke at Caudium.-The Romans retrieve their disgrace, but suffer disaster at Lautulæ in an engagement with the Campanians.The Samnites again defeated; Campania reduced.-The Romans equip a naval armament. (B. C. 332-311.)

In so concise a recital of the leading incidents of Roman history as is here offered it seems necessary to refrain generally from geographical explanations, and leave the reader to follow on his maps the movement of armies and the extension of conquests. It is not less necessary to leave him to trace from other sources, which he can easily discover, the origin and derivation of the various races and communities with which the Romans come

successively in contact. To do otherwise would be to expand the history of Rome into a history of Italy, and eventually into a history of the world. It is at the period on which we are now engaged that Rome comes first historically in contact with the Hellenic settlements in Magna Græcia, or Southern Italy; but what was the origin of those settlements, what their progress, and what at this moment their political polity, are matters on which it will be best to refer to the common sources of information, and content ourselves with barely noticing the fact, and following out the events which ensued upon it. The Romans, it is related, were first brought into contact with the Greeks in the following manner. Alexander, King of Epirus, uncle to Alexander the Great of Macedon, conceived the idea of turning his forces westward at the same time that his nephew was undertaking his B.C. 332. famous invasion of Asia. In the year B.C. 332, invited, as he asserted, by the people of Tarentum, he landed an army on the southern coast of Italy near Pæstum, and made an attack upon the Samnites and the Lucanians, who were threatening the Grecian colonies, now in the decline of their power. The Romans had concerted a truce with the Samnites, in order to leave themselves free for their last encounter with the Latins; but that end having been served, they were not unwilling to see a new enemy press upon the rear of a people whom they had themselves found too formidable, and on slight pretences allowed themselves to

U. C. 422.