BOOK VII. Changed conditions of Roman Society in general. management of the public funds, applied them not to the benefit of the public service, to the improvement of harbours or arsenals, the building or repair of ships, or other purposes of public utility, but to their own profit. The public administration was allowed to fall into disorder. Rome, Italy, and the provinces became more and more unsafe; the sea was infested by pirates; the law was administered by veral judges. A poor man who obtained a command, or was sent out in any public capacity, returned laden with gold. It was the public service, not industry or trade, that had become the chief means for the accumulation of enormous wealth; and with the growth of wealth there grew up simultaneously an impatience of the restraints of custom and law, a boundless arrogance, a spirit of presumption and violence, a practical contempt of the much-praised virtues of the past. Instead of these virtues, self-indulgence and luxury became the fashion among the nobles, who rioted in the lowest sensual pleasures, whilst they affected to rival the Greeks in taste and the appreciation of art. Under such circumstances it was a serious question for patriotic statesmen whether there were any means of preventing the moral degeneracy from spreading further, and of bringing about a more healthy condition of the community. But no remedies could be found. It was vain to hope for improvements from such paltry measures as laws against bribery (159 B.C.), or laws for voting by ballot (since 139 B.C.), or even from the stricter regulation of criminal jurisdiction by the Calpurnian law of the year 149 B.C. directed against the malversations and extortions of provincial governors. Utterly futile and useless were the laws for the suppression of private extravagance and luxury, the vain endeavours to restore the old simplicity of life and manners, the restriction of comforts and enjoyments, the moral preachings and 1 1 How narrow and paltry the Romans could sometimes be in this respect is shown by the proceedings of Scipio Nasica (see next note), at whose request the senate was moved to cause a solid stone theatre, erected by the censors, to censorial inculcation of ancestral virtues, such as Cato loved to indulge in. Morals were at that time still less controlled by religion than they are at present, nor was even an attempt made by the servants of religion to grapple with the vices of the age. It was not possible to make the Roman state as small and the people as poor as they had been in the good old time. The age and the manners of Curius and Fabricius were gone by for ever. Prosperity, wealth, political power and greatness could not be laid aside at will, even if the conviction had been universal that they were dangerous to the commonwealth. If a reformer undertook to combat their evil influence, it could be done only by setting up a check or counterpoise sufficient to neutralise their evil influence. If he succeeded in discovering such a check, he could hope to preserve the greatness of the republic, and to restore to it internal health and vigour. CHAP. I. the extension of conquests. Such a check was, in the opinion of some Roman Effects of statesmen, to be found in the continued rivalry of independent foreign powers, like Carthage, whose utter Roman destruction was deprecated by them as likely to hasten on the growing corruption of the people.1 But these warnings were all in vain. The work of conquest went on in every direction. No moral considerations could retard it, as no moral considerations had prompted it. The expansion of Roman power over the ancient world proceeded as with the force of nature, uncontrollable by human will. be pulled down, in order that the citizens might not be provided with commodious seats at the public representations, but compelled to stand, as they had been accustomed to do in former times (Livius, epit. 48). Valerius Maximus quotes from the senatus consultum the following passage: Ne quis in urbe propiusve passus mille subsellia posuisset sedensve ludos spectare vellet, ut scilicet remissioni animorum iuncta standi virilitas propria Romanæ gentis nota esset. This was the opinion of P. Scipio Nasica, who tried in vain to check the brutal ferocity of Cato, the implacable enemy of Carthage. Plutarch, Cato Μαγον, 27 : πολλὰ γὰρ ὕβρει τὸν δῆμον ὁρῶν ἤδη πλημμελοῦντα καὶ δι ̓ εὐτυχίαν καὶ φρόνημα τῇ βουλῇ δυσκάθεκτον ὄντα καὶ τὴν πόλιν ὅλην ὑπὸ δυνάμεως ὅπη ῥέψειε ταῖς ὁρμαῖς βίᾳ συνεφελκόμενον ἐβούλετο τοῦτον γοῦν τὸν φόβον (the fear of Carthage) ὥσπερ χαλινὸν ἐγκεῖσθαι σωφρονιστῆρα τῇ θρασύτητι τῶν BOOK Idea of an appeal to the people. Composition of the people. and the slaves. Under these circumstances a remedy for the abuse of power by a degenerated nobility had to be sought at home, and it was natural that patriotic reformers should fix their hopes on that second element in the community, which from the first had been a counterpoise to the ruling class, and whose stubborn and victorious struggle with the patricians for equal rights had nerved the national spirit, and had qualified Rome to place herself at the head of Italy and of the whole world. Why should it be thought too late to rouse once more the slumbering energies of the people, and with them the old Roman virtues, the honest labour of the peasant, his modesty, his obedience to the laws, his intelligence and constancy in the pursuit of a rational policy, his sense of justice and his integrity, proof against corruption and every undue influence? Such thoughts suggested themselves the more readily as the people-that is, the classes excluded from the government-had, in the gradual revolution of all economical relations, become poor and dependent, whilst the nobility had risen to wealth and power. The Roman people of which we speak—that is, those below the rank of nobility-consisted of three different classes, each of which played a distinct part in the revolution by which the republic was about to be agitated. They were, firstly, the so-called knights, the class of large merchants, bankers, and farmers of the revenue; secondly, the small tradesmen and artisans of the town, the poor and humble clients of the rich; and, thirdly, the population of the country, still engaged in agriculture, and spread over a large area in the thirty-one country tribes. Each of these three classes we shall have to consider The allies separately. But before doing this we must glance at two more classes, not of citizens in the strict sense of the word, but of inferior members of the community, who, though they had no direct legal influence in political questions, were important enough by their mere numbers tor quire to be taken into consideration. These were, firstly, the Latin colonists and the Italian allies; and, I. secondly, the slaves. The latter, though treated by CHAP. the public law of Rome, not as men, but as things, and therefore deprived of all civil rights, were, nevertheless, human beings after all, endowed with human wants and passions, and they were therefore an element in social and political life which could not be overlooked or neglected with impunity. Slavery was an institution not peculiarly Roman, but common to all the nations of antiquity. It was looked upon as established by a natural or divine law, and as inevitable and indispensable. For this reason the evil influence of slavery on society was apt to be overlooked by the ancient historians. We should therefore be the more careful in tracing the effects of the subtle poison which was infused by slavery into all the veins of the ancient communities, which never permitted them to enjoy full health, and made every distemper more complicated and malignant. trian Next to the nobility in social weight and influence, as The equeswe have said, was the moneyed class, which in course of order. time came to be called the order of knights (ordo equester). These knights were not the members of the eighteen centuries of knights (centuriæ equitum) of the centuriate division of the people attributed to Servius Tullius. The knights of the eighteen centuries were originally a portion of the military organization of the people, devised in the first place for war, and applied afterwards to the purposes of legislation. They were therefore selected from among the citizens on the ground of their physical qualification for that branch of the service, and were armed and equipped for it at the public expense. At a later 1 According to the old constitutional practice, ascribed to Servius Tullius, they were provided with the es equestre for the purchase of a horse, and with the as hordearium for its keep. They accordingly served equo publico, and on the termination of their service naturally were called upon to give up their horses to others who took their place, or to sell them and to restore the money to the state. We are not informed what was done if the horse was disabled or killed in the service. Possibly the state in that case provided a new one. When at a later period it became customary for knights to remain formally members of the centuries after the military age, without doing actual service, we may suppose that new horses were not provided. It is true, the censors, VII. BOOK period, when the Servian classes and centuries had ceased to be the groundwork for the formation of the legions, the cavalry of the army was formed irrespectively of the eighteen centuries of knights, and was recruited from the sons of the wealthier citizens, who found their own horses and equipment, and as a compensation for this outlay received three times the pay of infantry soldiers and a corresponding proportion of the booty, whilst even the centurions of the infantry received only double. Nevertheless the eighteen centuries of knights were not formally abolished. They continued to contain the sons of the noble families, who formed a separate body of men privileged to serve as a sort of body-guard of the commanders apart from the ordinary cavalry. At the same time it became customary for the members of the eighteen centuries not to retire upon reaching a more advanced age, and after they had entered on the career of office. The eighteen centuries, therefore, in course of time came to consist partly of senators and men who had been magistrates; they lost their original military character, and remained only as a voting body. It was by the transformation thus effected in the character of the eighteen centuries of knights, whilst the cavalry service passed over to the richer citizens not included in the senatorial families, that a new class of Roman citizens began gradually to be formed, distinct from the nobility proper and from the mass of on reviewing the list of knights, made use of the words 'vende equum,' when they intimated their decision that an individual knight should be struck off the roll. But these words, like so many other formal expressions, had lost their original meaning, and implied no more an actual sale of a horse, than the acceptance of the stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds' is equivalent to the appointment of a retiring member of Parliament to that ancient dignity. The recensio equitum by the censors had become an act of purely civil administration, and had lost its military character. It determined the list of those who were to vote in the eighteen centuries of knights, not the roll of fighting The equites, like the knights of St. Patrick or the Bath, might be soldiers, but they might also be old men, long past military service. men. Liv. v. 12; vii. 41. Polyb. vi. 39. 2 These are the equites illustres referred to by Livy (xxx. 18, 15): Viginti ferme equites illustres obtriti ab elephantis cum centurionibus aliquot perierunt. |