was allowed to acquire landed property anywhere but in his native town or else in Roman territory. Nor could he contract a legal marriage with a native of any other allied town, being confined in his selection to his own fellow-citizens or to Romans. This right of intermarriage and of buying land being permitted between Rome and every individual town subject to Rome, but refused to these towns with one another, proved a restriction which not only lowered the dignity of the allies, but injured them in their material prosperity, and led slowly but surely to their impoverishment, and to a preponderating power of the Roman capitalists. A Roman could compete for the purchase of land in any district of Italy, but by the side of him no Italian was admitted as purchaser unless he was a member of the community in which the property was situated. The absence of complete freedom in the right of buying and selling land prevented the free circulation of capital, and, to a certain extent, bound the Italians to the soil. If in addition to this unnatural restriction we consider the advantage which every Roman citizen had over the allies in all other commercial and legal transactions, we can understand that the This important restriction was contained in the rule that they should have no commercium inter se (Liv. viii. 14), by which each community was to a certain extent isolated. When Macedonia was divided into four districts, in 168 B.C., the same rule was adopted. Liv. xlv. 29, 10: Pronunciavit Æmilius Paullus neque connubium neque commercium agrorum ædificiorumque inter se placere cuiquam extra fines regionis suæ esse. In this passage the addition agrorum ædificiorumque' points out distinctly to what restriction in buying and selling the refusal of the 'commercium' chiefly had reference. The consequence was that, as the people of Macedonia complained (Liv. xlv. 30, 2): Regionatim commercio interruptis ita videri lacerata omnia tanquam animali in artus alterum alterius indigentis distracto. 2 In Sicily the citizens of Centuripe alone had unlimited commercium in all Sicilian communities. The consequence was that they had everywhere acquired landed property: eg. 'agri Etnensis multo maximam partem,' Cicero, Verr. iii. 45, 108. Thus Centuripe became the wealthiest town in all Sicily (Cicero, Verr. iv. 23, 50), whilst at the same time the number of landowners decreased (Cicero, Verr. iii. 51, 120). The Roman citizens had all over Italy the same right, and the consequent advantages, which the people of Centuripe had in Sicily, and the landed property passed by degrees into their hands. CHAP. IX. VI. BOOK inferiority in political rights was one of the causes which exterminated the Italian peasants, and covered the peninsula with overgrown private estates, peopled and worked by slaves. We cannot, therefore, be surprised that by the side of Rome all the once flourishing towns of Italy began to decay in spite of universal peace; that the enterprising Greek colonies,' and the industrious Etruscan towns declined more and more, whilst Rome grew rapidly to huge dimensions. We cannot wonder that even the Roman colonies decreased in population and wealth,2 and that means had to be adopted from time to time to send back to their homes the numbers of Latin colonists who were drawn to Rome by the advantages and pleasures of the capital, and by the prospect of acquiring, though by deception and fraud, the rights of citizenship.3 Decay of Italian agricul ture. The economical decay of Italy was hastened still more by the competition of provincial with Italian agriculture. Sicilian and Sardinian corn was brought to Rome in large quantities, and sold at such low prices that the Italian peasants found no market for their own produce. If manufacturing industry had been developed largely in Rome and other Italian towns in proportion to the decrease of agricultural industry occasioned in the above-mentioned manner, the Italians might perhaps have found other means of subsistence. But industry and trade, which had flourished in all the Greek and Etruscan towns in the time of their independence, seemed paralysed from the moment they were incorporated with Rome. They became more and more impoverished and depopulated, and Rome did not attract the trade they lost. It seems that there was 1 Liv. xl. 18, 4. Liv. xxxii. 2, 6; xxxvii. 46, 9: Ex Gallia legatos Placentinorum et Cremonensium L. Aurunculeius prætor in senatum introduxit. Iis querentibus inopiam colonorum, aliis belli casibus, aliis morbo absumtis, quosdam tædio accolarum Gallorum reliquisse colonias, decrevit senatus, uti C. Lælius consul, si ei videretur, sex millia familiarum conscriberet, quæ in eas colonias dividerentur. Liv. xxxix. 23, 3: Sp. Postumius consul renuntiaverat se desertas colonias Sipontum supero, Buxentum infero mari invenisse. Liv. xliii. 17, 1. Liv. xxxix. 3, 4; xli. 9, 9; xlii. 10 2 capital enough in the centre of the Roman empire; but it was more profitably employed in the financial service of the state, such as great public contracts, in the farming of the revenue, and in money-lending transactions. The Italians could not participate in these financial operations, which, as is tolerably certain, were a monopoly of the Roman knights. Roman citizens alone were allowed to enjoy the advantages which were, to a certain extent, the price of victory that Rome carried off as the ruling power. In this, as in other respects, the Italian allies, though they had contributed a fair share towards the establishment of that commanding position which opened to Roman citizens the road to honours and wealth, were excluded from participation in them. 2 But even the right of self-government which Rome had left to the Italian communities proved an illusion in all cases where the interests of the ruling town seemed to require it. A law passed in Rome,' nay, a simple senatorial decree, or a magisterial order, could at pleasure be applied to the whole of Italy. Roman law gradually took the place of local laws, though the Italians had no part in the legislation of the Roman people, or any influence on the decrees of the Roman senate and magistrates. criminal jurisdiction throughout Italy, not only in cases of political offences but also of crimes endangering the safety of individuals, such as conspiracy, murder, robbery, poisoning, plunder, and violence, was exercised by the Roman senate through the ordinary magistrates or special quæstors appointed, as occasion seemed to require.3 All public works in Italy, such as roads, aqueducts, and temples, were carried out solely for the benefit of Rome; The 4 The Roman law of debt was extended in 193 B.C. by a plebiscitum to the towns of the Italian allies. Liv. xxxv. 7, 4: M. Sempronius tribunus plebis ex auctoritate patrum plebem rogavit plebesque scivit, ut cum sociis ac nomine Latino creditæ pecuniæ ius idem quod cum civibus Romanis esset. 2 Such as the 'Senatus consultum de Bacchanalibus.' Liv. xxxix. 18. Polyb. vi. 13, 4. Liv. ix. 26, 5; xxviii. 10, 4; xxix. 36, 10; xxxii. 26, 10; xxxix. 18. Sometimes in the interest of colonies or municipia of Roman citizens. See Liv. xli. 27. Occasionally in that of individual members of the Roman CHAP. IX. Suppres sion of local law. BOOK VI. Military burdens of the allies. improvements and embellishments were lavished upon the capital after victories gained in conjunction with the allies, and necessarily called forth envy and displeasure among the latter, who felt that they were treated with injustice and disdain. Triumphs and festive games were celebrated only for the entertainment of the capital; 1 and the more the capital became the great attraction for men in search of profit or amusement, the more were the provincial towns depopulated and impoverished. 1 Not in peace only, but also in the time of war, the allies were gradually made to feel how heavily the hand of Rome weighed upon them. Although, as may be easily supposed, the original treaties of alliance or the terms granted to the conquered contained minute stipulations with regard to the military service imposed on the allies, it is not probable that these stipulations were regarded by the Romans as a restriction to their demands. According to their convenience and the exigencies of the moment the Roman government called upon the allies for troops in numbers exceeding more or less the normal amount. The rule was that the allies should furnish and pay as many foot soldiers and twice or three times as many horse as the Romans. But as early as 296 B.C., when the Roman army consisted of four legions-i.e. sixteen thousand eight hundred men-no less than twenty-seven thousand men were levied among the allies.2 The same capricious treatment of the subject states is apparent throughout.3 nobility: as at Terracina, where the censor Emilius Lepidus caused a dike to be constructed, by which his own estates in the neighbourhood were benefited. Liv. xl. 51, 2. It was a rare exception when a few trophies gained in war were distributed as ornaments for Italian towns outside Rome. Liv. x. 46, 8: Spoliorum tanta multitudo fuit, ut non templum tantum forumque iis ornaretur, sed sociis etiam colonisque finitumis ad templorum locorumque publicorum ornatum dividerentur. 2 Liv. x. 18, 3, 4. 3 A comparison of the strength of the Roman armies from 193 to 188 B.C., according to Livy (xxxv. 20, 4; xxxv. 20, 11; xxxv. 41, 7; xxxvii. 50; Xxxviii. 36, 3), shows that, assuming the legion at that time to consist of 5,200 men on foot and 300 horse, there were raised 115.500 Romans against nearly 200,000 allies, without counting the socii navales. It deserves particular At Moreover, in the field the allies were sometimes sub- notice that on one occasion 6,200 allies and only 1,050 Romans, on another no 2 Liv. xxxii. 1, 5. The Roman soldiers could be beaten only with vine branches (vites), the allies with cudgels (fustes). It would be interesting to know wherein the distinction lay. On the third Lex Porcia see Lange, Röm. Alterth. ii. pp. 198, 234, 521. 4 Liv. xii. 13, 7: Sociis dimidio minus quam civibus datum. When, in 173 B.C., lands were distributed in Liguria, each Roman received ten jugera, each Latin only three. Liv. xlii. 4, 4. It was an exception when the allies received equal shares with Roman citizens; for instance, in 178 B.C., according to Liv. xli. 7, 3: Militibus denarios quinos vicenos, duplex centurioni, triplex equiti ambo [Ti. Gracchus et L. Postumius] diviserunt, sociis tantundem quantum Romanis. Again in 167 B.C., Liv. xlv. 43, 7: De præda militibus in singulos quadragenos quinos denarios, duplex centurioni, triplex equiti, sociis nominis Latini quantum civibus, et sociis navalibus dedit quantum militibus. Hence the name socii navales for sailors and marines. The surprising number of Roman deserters in the wars with Carthage can only be explained by assuming that they consisted of such men to whom the service was hateful, CHAP. IX. |