INTRODUCTION.

conquests.

THE second Punic war was the last struggle for existence INTRO. through which the Roman republic had to pass. When Rapidity victory had crowned the heroic perseverance of the senate of Roman and the disciplined courage of the citizen-soldiers, the supremacy of Rome in the ancient world was uncontested, and she could enter without hesitation on her career of conquest. Half a century sufficed to reduce Macedonia and the various states of Greece to a condition of partial or complete subjection, to crush and utterly destroy exhausted and humbled Carthage, and to lay in the north of Italy and in Spain the foundation for Roman dominion and Roman culture.

relations

the con

These conquests brought about a complete revolution Political in the relations between Rome and the rest of the ancient between world. The town on the Tiber had ceased to be merely Rome and the head of an Italian confederacy. Rome had become quered the ruler of numerous islands and continents and the states. commanding centre round which all the nations of the ancient world were henceforth to be grouped. The questions which now occupied the attention of the citizens of Rome were no longer limited by the narrow horizon of an Italian country town, nor even by the sea which surrounds the Italian peninsula; they concerned the welfare of many millions, living in other countries, under the most varied institutions, political, social and religious. Rome was now in a position to occupy herself with the solution of a problem with which up to that time no conquerors of the ancient world had thought of dealing. She was called upon to prove her title to government, not merely by the

BOOK VI. vigour which had led her to victory, but by the wisdom which would teach her to use her victory for the wellbeing of the conquered, and to compensate them for the loss of their independence by the blessings of peace, of just government and of material prosperity.

Mistakes

statesmen.

Unfortunately, the Roman republic proved unequal to of Roman this great task. It did not even seriously think of undertaking it. Whilst erecting a vast empire, the republic could not bring itself to dispense with those narrow constitutional forms, which had been designed for a small town and a limited territory, and thus its own triumphs and conquests brought about its downfall.

The Roman Comitia.

If we compare the period from the beginning of the republic to the Hortensian laws (from 509 to 287 B.C.) with the period which now followed and extended to the days of the Gracchi (from 287 to 131 B.C.), we cannot fail to notice a very great difference. In the former period constitutional changes followed one another in rapid succession. The republic was no sooner established than the plebeians endeavoured to secure legal protection for themselves and equality with the ruling order. The establishment of the tribuneship was closely followed by the codification of the law in the twelve tables, by the equalisation of the marriage law, by the participation of the plebeians in the government, first as military tribunes, then as consuls, and finally in every magistracy of the republic. The comitia of centuries had hardly superseded the old curiate comitia, when a third form of popular assembly was established by the public recognition of the comitia tributa, the assembly of the tribes. This plebeian. assembly rapidly rose to an equality with the older. The restraints and hardships of the old law were removed one after another. The republic grew at the same time within and without. The conquered enemies were received as citizens. The original territory of twenty tribes was expanded step by step, until it embraced thirty-five in 241 B.C.

Meanwhile the Latin colonists spread over the greater

narrow

Roman

part of Italy, and it seemed not unlikely that the whole INTRO. of it would by degrees be received into the community of ShortRoman citizenship. But this gradual and, as it would sighted seem, natural development was arrested at the very time ness of when the success which had accompanied it justified the statesmanpolicy hitherto pursued. The Hannibalian war compelled ship. the Roman statesmen to conciliate the different members of their Italian confederacy, and to unite them with Rome by the closest ties of common interest; for the whole of Italy looked upon the Carthaginian invaders as a common enemy. The greater part of the Roman allies remained faithful; and this fidelity deserved to be rewarded. But neither while the danger lasted, would the Romans condescend to secure their wavering allies by promises, nor after the victory would they hear of rewarding them for their services by raising them to an equality with themselves. It seemed as if the lines of constitutional law and public policy which formerly had been so flexible and expansive had now become hard and rigid, and as if the state were no longer in the time of youthful development and growth. Henceforth it remained stationary in those forms and proportions which by this time it had acquired.

the old

forms for

the new

strain put

upon them.

Thus, then, it may be said that the constitutional de- Inadevelopment of the republic attained its highest point in quacy of the course of the Punic wars. After the fundamental constitutional principles of the republican constitution had been established in the time preceding the Hortensian laws (287 B.C.) the succeeding generations contented themselves with applying these principles to the ever-varying circumstances in which they found themselves, without attempting to introduce new ones. But the change in all outward conditions of power, wealth, culture, greatness and influence abroad was so complete that the old machinery could not bear the strain thus necessarily put upon it. The republican form of government gave way after a severe and longcontinued struggle, and finally the monarchy was established on its ruins.

In studying the character and working of the Roman

We

BOOK VI. constitution, we can only follow one of two courses. Methods of can direct our attention to the formal law, as it was laid dealing with the subject.

The problem of legislation.

Modification of existing law.

down by the legislator in all its technical detail-in other words, we can contemplate the ideal constitution of the republic; or else we can pay attention not so much to the law itself, as to the form which it assumed in the actual course of events, and which necessarily differed more or less from what the legislators intended.

Every constitution has in its working to contend with obstacles which modify its provisions more or less materially, just as the laws of mechanics encounter a certain amount of friction which prevents their complete realisation. No law that was ever passed has been carried out in its entirety. The legislator may have been ever so careful to study the conditions and circumstances to which a law is to be applied; he may be ever so happy in framing the words and in establishing logical order in the different paragraphs; he may even meet with the greatest willingness to acknowledge and carry out the law, but he will nevertheless find it impossible to embrace and classify the infinite variety of the phenomena of actual life in the chapters and schedules of a legal code. Yet, granted that he could accomplish this, he would be unable to stop the growth and development of society, or to compel it to move within the lines prescribed by his legislation. Laws which are suited for one generation, unless they are altered and modified, become more or less unsuitable for the generations that follow.

But life, which is a constant renewal and change, does not allow of any stagnation. It expands and modifies the most rigid forms of existing law and adapts them to the wants of a new age. This adaptation of law to new modes of thinking and acting deserves as much attention in the history of jurisprudence as the creation of new laws. But for the general history of a nation it is of still greater importance. For general or political history has to deal with the actual life of a nation, not with the laws in ab