BOOK VI. Degrees of freedom left to the allies. ten days. This kind of self-taxation, to all appearance voluntary, but in point of fact compulsory, was nothing new in itself. It was the practice which had long been in use in Italy and the provinces, and was gradually applied to independent states whom Roman statesmen never could distinguish materially from subjects.2 In other matters the allied states were free and independent. They preserved their laws and their own government without encroachment on the part of Roman officials or ambassadors. No permanent embassies were maintained. Ambassadors were despatched only on special occasions. But in every state a Roman party was formed, insisting with more or less determination on complete submission to Roman authority, and preparing the transition into the state of complete subjection, so that when internal circumstances were favourable the change could be effected without difficulty. 1 Liv. xxxix. 22, 1: L. Scipio ludos eo tempore quos bello Antiochi vovisse sese dicebat, ex collata ad id pecunia ab regibus civitatibusque per dies decem fecit. 2 When, in 179 B.C., Quintus Fulvius asked for permission to celebrate public games, for which purpose the people of Spain had contributed money, the senate granted the request, but decreed at the same time 'ne quid ad eos ludos accerseret, cogeret, acciperet, faceret adversus id senatus consultum, quod L. Æmilio Cn. Bæbio consulibus de ludis factum esset. Decreverat id senatus propter effusos sumptus qui graves non modo Italiæ ac sociis Latini nominis, sed etiam provinciis externis fuerant.' Liv. xl. 44, 10. 213 CHAPTER XII. ECONOMICAL AND MORAL CONDITION. CHAP. XII. Relation nized THE living organism of a state with all the forces that penetrate it in every direction cannot be taken to pieces. and all its parts examined as if each were self-existing of parts in and independent. In every organism every part is closely an orgaconnected with the whole, and is continually influenced by whole, and influencing the action of the rest. If, nevertheless, scientific investigation advancing step by step examines every part separately, this process is not one chosen voluntarily. It is a necessary result of the imperfection and one-sidedness of the human faculties, which cannot be directed to more than one point at a time. legal life. In order to limit as much as possible the mistakes in Extrathe comprehension of the whole ensuing from this method phases of of investigation, it would be necessary to pursue every national thread of this complicated network through all its innumerable knots and twists, to examine the connexion of the various parts, the influences, the opposite forces and modifications exercised by each upon the rest. It would be necessary to calculate how in civil life external and internal policy, jurisdiction and finance, military affairs and police work for a common end, and only by their reciprocal influence constitute the organism of society. Nor have we to direct our attention alone to those aspects in the life of a people which are under the immediate control of the constituted public authorities. Those functions also of society which are, or seem to be, independent of the civil order of things, such as national industry, morals and religion, literature and art, play a part in the great system; they are advanced, interrupted, or developed by it, BOOK Earliest conditions of Roman society. and receive from it their peculiar stamp. It is necessary, therefore, to examine also these departments of national life. In many of the subjects which thus come before our notice it is a matter of doubt whether they belong to the department of public law or to that which is left to the free agency of individuals-i.e. to functions of society of which the state takes no notice. They mostly present a double character. Having a share in both departments, their nature is influenced by the laws of the one, their form by the laws of the other. We encounter them in several directions and in various combinations, so that it is often difficult to say what their true character is. This cannot hinder us from distinguishing them as much as possible from similar phenomena and studying them singly, provided we remain conscious that this distinction is a subjective one, and that we keep in view the connexion of all of them with the life of the state and people. Of the social condition of the Roman people in times preceding the dawn of contemporary history, we know no more than of the form of religion and law in prehistoric times. Blood-revenge and human sacrifices, the concomitants of all early phases of civilisation, were, it seems, already abolished before we can catch the first glimpse of settlements on the seven hills. Thus also community of land and property, the remnant of a half-civilised state, had disappeared.' We find the institution of private property in land fully recognised, and by the side of it we find public or common land. A law of debt of extreme severity secured the execution of all private contracts and personal obligations. This is perfectly certain. The sources The feeble remnants of it may be discovered in the economical arrangements of the Roman family, the members of which, even after they had grown up and had become liable to perform their civil duties to the state in peace and war, held all the family property in common during the lifetime of the head of the family. Also the hereditary rights of the members of the Roman gentes to the property left by any of their number point to the same community of property in the gens as their origin. These are the remnants left in the Roman state of that social condition, and of a time in which as yet no state properly speaking existed, but only the community of families in the narrow (natural) sense, as familiæ, or in the wide (artificial) sense as gentes. of our information leave us in doubt only as to the extent to which plebeians as well as patricians could be owners of land in the full sense of the word. Niebuhr goes so far as to declare that the plebeians alone were entitled to freehold property to the exclusion of the patricians. But this view can hardly be maintained, and is now generally abandoned. It is now considered probable that the patricians enjoyed the unlimited right, whereas the plebeians had it only in a limited sense.' But these distinctions and inequalities had disappeared long before the time of which we are now speaking. Every Roman citizen, even those without rights of voting (cives sine suffragio) and freedmen, were entitled to possess land in full ownership in any part of the Roman territory (ager Romanus). CHAP. XII. tion of conquered lands. An institution peculiarly Roman was the custom of Occupa occupation-that is, taking possession of conquered land under the sanction of the state and in such a manner that the state reserved the right of property, and could at any time resume it to the prejudice of the actual occupier.2 Originally the patricians, as constituting the genuine Roman people, claimed this right of occupation for themselves alone. Later on, at a period which we cannot fix, it was extended to the plebeians, and was the subject of one of the Licinian laws, which determined the maximum amount of land which an individual should be allowed to occupy. The right of occupying public land, as it had first been a prerogative of the patricians, seeins afterwards 3 At the time when the patricians alone formed the populus, the plebeians were not citizens in the full sense of the word, but only cives sine suffragio. As such they were excluded from the connubium, and, as may be inferred, also from the commercium, which was necessary for the holding of full landed property everywhere in the ager Romanus. At a later period subject communities were restricted in their commercium to the limits of their own local boundaries. (Above, p. 186, f.) In a similar way it is probable that the plebeian members of each tribe at first could hold property only within the tribe to which they belonged, whilst the patricians were subject to no such restriction. We are exactly informed how and when the plebeians obtained the connubium. Unfortunately we know nothing of the time and manner in which they obtained the commercium. But it would be wrong to infer from this that they had always possessed it. 2 Vol. i. p. 177. 3 Vol. i. p. 326. BOOK Rental of land. Agriculture and commerce. to have been reserved to Roman citizens; but in course of time it was extended also to the Latin and Italian allies. The whole question of this precarious tenure was destined in the time of the Gracchi to become the subject of the most violent disputes, which disturbed the internal peace of the republic and indirectly led to a revolution in the form of government. Besides the tenure of land in full property and the precarious tenure of occupation, the Romans were also well acquainted with the system of holding land by the payment of an annual rent. This manner of disposing of land was customary from the oldest times when the patricians were in the habit of letting to their clients. patches of their own private land or occupied public land,2 and it became more and more usual when private individuals and the state, having large tracts of land to dispose of, found it convenient to resort to the practice of letting. A large portion of fertile Campania which had been confiscated by the state in the Hannibalic war was let in this manner. In Sicily letting land was a universal custom. Agriculture was practised by the Romans from the earliest times. By the side of it, but only as a secondary pursuit, they gave their attention to grazing and rearing cattle. Their principal food was grain, vegetables, milk, and cheese. Animal food was exceptional, and probably eaten only at festivals which were connected with sacrifices. Sheep were bred in large numbers, particularly for their wool. Industry, commerce, and navigation were mostly in the hands of strangers. The Italians themselves had no natural liking or aptitude for these pursuits, which were the delight and glory of Greeks, Etruscans, and Carthaginians. Nor was this the case only in the earlier periods of their rude antiquity. The same habits prevailed when the city of Rome had become the centre of a power 1 Appian, Bell. Civ. i. 10. 2 Paul. Diac. p. 247, Müll.: Patres senatores ideo appellati sunt, quia agrorum partes attribuerant tenuioribus ac si liberis propriis. |