BOOK VI. The senate and foreign affairs. If the administration of financial affairs was left in the hands of the senate simply because such was the order of republican constitutions in Italy as well as in Greece, the conduct of foreign affairs, on the other hand, was confided to the senate, because Rome had not like Athens a demos which discussed the policy of the state publicly in the market-place. The Roman government was conducted by a well-organized aristocracy. In all communications with foreign states, the senate represented the Roman people. The official designation "SENATUS POPULUSQUE ROMANUS " sufficiently indicates that in the first place the senate was or represented Rome. It is not necessary here to show in detail what is exhibited in every page of Roman history, and what is especially clear in the events of the wars in Greece and Asia-namely, that the senate had to discharge the duties which in a modern state belong to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. We have seen how all negotiations with other countries were carried on through the senate in a manner which makes us almost forget that there was such a thing as a sovereign people, and, moreover, as if the magistrates had to perform but the one duty of carrying out the instructions of the senate. It is true, instances of insubordination occur from time to time. Magistrates sometimes endeavoured to have a will of their own, and to act without or even contrary to instructions; but in not one of these instances did they maintain the upper hand when they found themselves opposed by the senate. The proudest and most stubborn. magistrate, either by compromise or by simple submission, invariably yielded at length to the authority of the senate, and even a Scipio could not go beyond the threat of appealing from the senate to the decision of the sovereign people. In the period of the great wars for the dominion of the world, the conviction was universal in Rome that the senate alone was qualified to guide the Roman policy, to survey the whole field of operations, and to apply the hereditary principles tried by previous ages, which had always led to final victory and to the extension of the II. Roman dominion. Perhaps the words attributed to Cineas, CHAP. that the senate appeared to him an assembly of kings,1 are nothing but a rhetorical phrase; yet they correctly represent the impression which foreign ambassadors, and through them foreign nations, received when they were brought into contact with this august assembly which with such consummate wisdom and unflinching firmness wielded the force of the irresistible legions. An individual consul might err, he might make himself detestable or despicable by weakness or cupidity, but the Roman senate appeared inaccessible to temptation and exempt from errors when the interests of the republic were at stake. The oppressed nations appealed again and again from the generals to the senate, and rarely appealed in vain. At a time when corruption had so taken root among the Roman nobility that nothing but avarice, luxury and ambition ruled the hearts of most public men, even then the senate preserved enough virtue either from shame or from national feeling to condemn those men who by their vices disgraced the Roman name. adminis It was natural that the management of foreign affairs Military should be closely connected with the organization of the tration. armies of the republic, and the disposal of them for warike purposes. In this department, important decisions could be left neither to the people nor to the individual magistrates. The people were utterly devoid of the necessary information and judgment; with the officials personal motives and interests might and often did counteract those of the state. The senate alone possessed the requisite knowledge of all that was wanted, and was as a body free from paltry personal considerations. It was therefore qualified to keep in view the public good, and to maintain a consistent line of action in the perpetual change and variety of annual magistrates. It was the senate, therefore, that regularly appointed the tasks and duties of the magistrates; the senate determined what forces were to be placed at the disposal of each com1 Vol. i. p. 520. BOOK Foreign mander, and what provision should be made for the equipment of the troops; it watched over the execution of these orders, and if necessary even sent out special delegates or received direct reports of the course of events. The senate determined whether it was necessary to prolong military commands beyond the year of office, and this right in conjunction with that of appointing a dictator was perhaps the most essential part of the power which it exercised over the military officers, for thus the appointment of generals was practically placed in its hands. Nay, the senate sometimes so far exceeded its lawful authority as to recall generals, and to require them to lay down their command before the expiration of their period of office.1 The power of the Roman senate appeared most magnidiplomacy. ficent after a victory, when conditions of peace were to be prescribed, or the degree of dependence to be fixed in which the conquered people were to stand with regard to the Roman republic. Then the senate-house was thronged with ambassadors from foreign states, from allies, from vassal potentates, from anxious neutrals, all charged with requests, prayers, congratulations and flatteries: everything was done to obtain the favour of the mighty body which awarded liberty or servitude, and gave away towns and kingdoms at pleasure. This was also the time in which the republican virtue of the senators had to undergo its hardest trial, a time which caused true patriots to be anxious and alarmed. Whose virtue, indeed, could be expected to be proof, or whose head free from giddiness, when he saw an Asiatic king behave with the abject servility of a Roman freedman; when he heard how nations and princes were willing to purchase the intercession of an influential man with heaps of gold? The council of a single town beheld itself exalted to the position of an all-powerful arbitrator of the destinies of half the world. Was there not in this plenitude of 1 Liv. epit. 11. Zonar. viii. 1. Dio Cass. Fragm. xxxvi. 30. Liv. xliii. 1. See vol. iii. p. 225. Lange, Röm. Alterth. ii. 404. power a great danger to the established order of things; to the customs inherited from previous generations; to the ancient rustic simplicity and martial severity; to contentedness and abstinence; in short, to social equality and republican liberty? To be just, we ought to confess that there is nothing to surprise us in the fact that the Roman nobility succumbed to the temptation. It was rather creditable to them that they resisted it so long. СНАР. II. disement The senate had risen to this height as early as the Aggranfirst period of the republic. It exercised the sovereignty of the which had been conferred upon Rome by the subjection senate. or voluntary alliance of various towns and districts of Italy. It is true that those subjects who under the honourable title of Roman allies recognised the Roman authority were independent with regard to their internal affairs, and free from tribute as well as from the control of Roman officials. But no right or privilege could be made good against the all-powerful ruler if it happened to be opposed to the interests of Rome; in short, the senate interfered in the internal affairs of the Italian communities whenever and in whatever manner it chose.2 It ordered investigations and judicial inquiries, sent commissions and officers, issued regulations, general or special, without inquiring whether it was strictly entitled by treaty to do so.3 In its capacity of highest financial board, it superintended the management of the state-domains scattered all over Italy and the provinces, and the execution of 1 Liv. ix. 20, 10: Antiatibus quoque dati ab senatu ad iura statuenda ipsius coloniæ patroni. Cicero, Verr. ii. 50, 123. After the great Latin war the political status of the several Latin towns was regulated by decrees of the senate. Liv. viii. 14, 2: Relatum de singulis decretumque. Ib. c. 20, 7: Senatus de Vitruvio Privernatibusque consultus consulem Plautium, dirutis Priverni muris præsidioque valido imposito, ad triumphum accersit . . . . de senatu Privernate ita decretum, etc. Comp. Lange, Röm. Alterth. ii. 406. The authority of the senate in purely military matters is expressly recognised in the Flebiscitum de Thermensibus, lin. 45, where that town receives exemption from having soldiers quartered in it, nisi senatus nominatim decreverit.' The same is proved in numerous other places. Comp. Liv. xxxi. 3, 2. 2 Liv. xxix. 15, xl. 42, xli. 27. For more detail see below, chap. ix. Liv. ix. 26, x. 1, xxviii. 10, xxix. 36, xxxii. 26, xxxiii. 36, xxxix. 3. VI. BOOK public works; in its capacity of supreme council of war it fixed the contingent and the number of ships which each ally was to contribute to the common army. Thus it is natural that the Italians who were not included within the line of Roman citizenship should see in the senate, not their patron and counseller, but their master. The senate and the provinces. Judicial power of the sena tors. This was the case in a still higher degree with regard to the provinces, although in these the pro-consul or proprætor, as the representative of the Roman government, took a more prominent position. All general measures regarding the establishment and administration of provinces, especially those which had reference to the collection of the revenue, were made by the senate, and to this body the governors of provinces were responsible for their administration. If the provincials had any complaints to make, they laid them before the senate, which, as the case might seem to require, either appointed commissions of inquiry, or caused the tribunes to act as public prosecutors, and organized extraordinary law-courts to decide the suits. In spite of all the means at its disposal, it could not stop the misgovernment, violence, cupidity and rapacity of the officials. This was not owing to a want of will, but it was an outflow of that fundamental error in the Roman constitution by which a single town and a close nobility were the absolute rulers of a mighty empire. Although the senate as such was not legally entitled to act as a court of law, until the time of the emperors, its authority was nevertheless based principally upon the circumstance that every Roman saw in the individual senators the men who might possibly hold in their hands the disposal of his entire property. For it was out of the senate that the judges were chosen who decided the suits brought before the prætors. To this dependence of the people upon the senate, or rather upon the individual senators as judges, Polybius points as to the chief source Liv. xxxi. 12, xliii. 8: Accersere in senatum Lucretium placuit. Comp. vol. iii. p. 220. Liv. xlii. 21. Comp. vol. iii. p. 202. Liv. xliii. 2. Comp. vol. iii. p. 378. |