CHAPTER XVI. The twenty-one original Number of the Roman citizens at this period. tribes supplemented by twelve additional tribes. the Civitas optimo jure, the Latin right, and the Italic.-Establishment of the Roman colonies.-Construction of roads. As with the products of nature, so with the institutions of human society: their vigor and vitality are commonly found to be measured by the time they have taken to grow and ripen. The Greeks under Alexander effected in ten years the conquest of the East; it took the Romans a hundred and twenty years to complete the subjugation of Italy. But the triumph of the Greeks was barren of results; throughout the greater part of the vast regions they overran their power and even their name was rapidly swept away, and where the Grecian dynasties continued to occupy the throne, and their language and literature to prevail, their influence was for the most part confined within a narrow circle. They never succeeded in Hellenizing the native population of Egypt or of Syria. Far different was the result of the Roman conquest of Italy, the germ from which far wider conquests were developed. Rome rendered Italy thoroughly Roman in arts and language, and also in political usage, and the effects of her conquest remain there even to this day. And as in Italy so in the far distant provinces she acquired later. Throughout all of them she laid deep the foundations of her national system, and moulded the progress of their history to all after-time. We proceed to take a survey of institutions thus painfully matured and fitted for such marvellous extension and permanence. In the beginning, as we have seen, the patricians had been the citizens, the plebeians the subjects of the state. This distinction had in process of time, and through the many struggles which have been recorded, become nearly obliterated, and the conflict of class against class within the limits of the city had been transferred to other conditions. But the Romans and the Italians were now respectively taking the place of the rival orders of primitive Rome, and were destined to run a similar course of long hostility and timely assimilation. The Romans themselves CHAP. XVI. SURVEY OF ROMAN INSTITUTIONS. 121 had now become more or less conscious of the principle by which their early revolutions had been governed; and they seem to have contemplated from an early date the gradual progress of the conquered Italians towards the common goal of civic equality. They decreed that the sovereign people should be always the people of the Forum, and that its civil rights should only be exercised within the sacred precincts of the city itself, and with this purpose they jealously maintained the religious character of the limits within which the auspices might be taken, and other ceremonies performed which they declared to be necessary for the legitimate performance of the highest acts of citizenship, such as popular deliberation and election. They provided, however, for the admission of their subjects, one by one, within these limits, as a long probation of service and dependence should seem gradually to qualify them for political enfranchisement. Such admission, however guarded, might wound the pride and affect the immediate interests of a race of conquerors rapidly enriching themselves with plunder; but the spirit even of ambition and cupidity required fresh recruits to maintain it, and as the empire was extended greater numbers were needed to preserve it. Between the years 384-264 B.C. twelve new tribes were created to absorb the numbers of foreigners thus 490. admitted to the rights of citizenship, and the Ager Romanus, the actual territory of Rome, was extended from the Ciminian forest, in the centre of Etruria, to the middle of Campania. The number of the citizens capable of bearing arms was ascertained every fifth year by the censors, and the result of many of these enumerations is recorded. But the figures, at least in the earlier period, seem often unworthy of credit. If we go back no further than to the year B.C. 293 we find the number there stated at 262,322, from which date it increases slowly to B.C. 252, when it has reached 297,797. From that time it generally declines, and this total is not again exceeded for nearly a hundred years. It is sufficient, however, to remark for the period upon which we have been lately engaged that the armed force of the republic consisted of about 280,000 citizens, representing perhaps a gross Roman population of 1,200,000 souls. This was the central garrison of Italy; but the military force which the republic could set in action was of course vastly larger, the chief condition of alliance with Rome being that of auxiliary service. U.O. 370 If we may speak of an original Roman people-such, for instance, as those who formed the body of the citizens under Servius and contrast the aggregate of its own descendants with that of its clients and subjects, we may believe that at this time it did not exceed one half of the united numbers. But the orig inal twenty-one tribes gave to this section just so many suffrages in the general assembly, while the new recruits, fully equal to it in bulk, were enrolled in twelve additional tribes only, and exercised no more than twelve votes accordingly. Such were the tribes of the Etruscans, the Latins, the Equians, the Volscians, and other neighboring races. Somewhat later, that is, in the year B.C. 241, two more tribes were appropriated to the Sabines. But all these people together formed but a feeble minority of the whole as represented in the assembly of the tribes, while their distance from the city, trifling as it was, sufficed to place them at a still further disadvantage. It was not the policy of the Romans to let them act by deputies. The representative system, as practiced by the moderns, was unknown at Rome, because in fact it was alien to the traditions and adverse to the interest of the ruling race. Accordingly the course of the Roman policy was but little affected by the views of the citizens at however small a distance from the Forum and the Campus. Nor, though actually quartered in the immediate vicinity of the capital, did these adopted tribes occupy the whole of the district surrounding it. The Ager Romanus was intersected, almost within sight from the gates, by parcels of land which still remained in the hands of aliens, and bore the appellation of Ager Peregrinus. Several cities of Latium, such as Tibur and Præneste, were still designated as Latin instead of Roman, retained their own municipal institutions, and were attached to the republic, not by the possession of the Roman franchise, but by the condition of a specific eligibility for it. The citizen of a town which had Latium, or the so-called Latin franchise, became qualified, on serving certain magistracies in his own state, for the enjoyment of citizenship at Rome; and the continual accession of individuals from this source helped to replenish with men of character and position the void caused by constant warfare in the ranks of the Roman nobility. The drain of baser blood was from time to time restored by the introduction into the state of corporate communities. The franchise, or rights of the city, the object of the dearest vows of the subjects of Rome, thus obtained, comprehended: 1. The absolute authority of the master of the house over his wife and children, slaves and chattels; 2. A guarantee for his personal liberty, exemption from stripes, and from capital punishment, except by the vote of the people in the city, or under military authority in the camp; 3. The suffrage or vote in the assembly of the tribes; 4. Access to civil honors and employments; 5. The possession of quiritary property, such land or goods as might be held under Roman law; 6. Immunity from all the taxes and trib CHAP. XVI THE ROMAN FRANCHISE. 123 Such utes imposed at discretion on the subjects of the state. was the complete franchise at Rome-the Jus civitatis optimo jure. To the Italians beyond the pale of the thirty-five tribes some portion of these privileges might be accorded in various measure and degree. To some the Senate extended the right of dealing (commercium); to others that of marriage (connubium). The cities of the conquered nations were arranged in different classes, according to the favor in which they were severally held: 1. The municipia optimo jure, or of the first class, the inhabitants of which, whenever they visited Rome, were allowed to exercise on the spot the rights of complete citizenship; 2. The municipia without franchise, which enjoyed indeed the title, and bore the burdens of citizenship, such as the service in the legions, but were debarred from the suffrage and froin the civil offices of the commonwealth; 3. The cities which had renounced their ancient usages to embrace the laws and institutions of Rome, but yet were not entitled to the name of Roman. But below the municipia was yet another class of præfectura-towns subjected to the government of a Roman officer or prefect, under the forms of Roman jurisprudence. These prefectures were generally towns so classed by way of punishment or precaution. Such was the state to which Capua was reduced after a revolt in which she imprudently engaged. To which among these various classes à foreign state brought under the Roman domination should be assigned was generally settled according to the terms of capitulation in each case. There was still a lower rank in the descending scale-that of the dediticii, or people who had been reduced by the fortune of war to unconditional submission. These were required to deliver up their arms together with hostages, to raze their walls or receive a garrison within them, to pay a tribute, and to furnish besides a contingent to the armies of the republic. The Socii, or allies, of the Roman state, formed another class of communities differing in some particulars from all those above mentioned. They were the dependents of Rome, but flattered themselves that they were not her subjects. The Senate indulged them in an illusion which soothed their pride, and rendered them more serviceable as auxiliaries than they would have been as restless and indignant bond-servants. Tarentum was allowed to retain the name of a free state, though here the conquerors, justly suspecting her temper and jealous of her unrivalled position for communication with Greece, went so far as to level her walls and plant a garrison in her citadel. Neapolis was free, but was required to furnish vessels for the Roman marine, and contribute to the pay of the men impressed into it. The Camertines and the Hera clotes were accepted as equals of Rome, on terms of mutual alli ance. Tibur and Præneste, in Latium, and most of the Etruscan cities, ranked in the same class; but among these the Romans carried out their favorite system of fostering an aristocratic party, which they attached to themselves, in order to mould through its influence the conduct of the state, and secure, if occasion required, a pretence for interfering with its domestic affairs. Such was the policy followed by the Senate, as the director of the military measures of the republic, in its relations with the enemies it had conquered. It is characterized by a studied variety of treatment. No attempt was made to mould the mass of subjects into one homogeneous empire. On the contrary, the maxim of Rome was to govern by dividing, to maintain and even intensify the actual diversities of national usage, character, and circumstances. With this view every possible hinderance, amounting often to specific prohibition, was laid in the way of common action among the members of the great confederacy. In matters of commercial dealing, and even of intermarriage, each state is encouraged to maintain itself as a separate unit, and Rome stands apart from all, or makes with each a separate and special treaty. Gradually, however, as the power of Rome extended, and the weight of her central power became more effective, her jealousy relaxed, and these distinctions, long maintained, were suffered to disappear, or were merged in more general conditions. Such were the three Rights under one or other of which the cities of the peninsula came at last to be all comprehended. The first was the Jus civitatis, or Right of Citizenship, which conferred a share in the central sovereignty of Rome; the second the Jus Latii, or Right of the Latin Franchise, which gave to the chief citizens of a state endowed with it access and eligibility to the Roman; the third, the Jus Italicum, the Right of the Italic Franchise, the burdens of which were greater, the privileges and prospects of advancement more closely limited. Of this last Right, indeed, we cannot speak with any precision. It may be doubted whether, at the epoch now under review, it was strictly defined at all; and when it comes more clearly before us at a later period, it may still be questioned whether it applies to corporate bodies or to their individual members, whether it is in fact a local or only a personal distinction. Rome, as the ruler of Italy, had not sufficient numerical force to encounter alone the enemies who were constantly harassing or threatening her. Her martial policy required the aid of subsidiary battalions, but these she checked and controlled by a system of her own invention. The Roman Colony was a special institution, to which perhaps there has been nothing strictly analogous in the history of any other state. We commonly give, indeed, this name |