The History of Rome by Theodor Mommsen (highly recommended books TXT) 📖

hide consisted ordinarily of 30, but not unfrequently of 20 or 40 -morgen-, and the homestead frequently, at least among the Anglo-Saxons, amounted to a tenth of the hide, it will appear, taking into account the diversity of climate and the size of the Roman -heredium- of 2 -jugera-, that the hypothesis of a Roman hide of 20 -jugera- is not unsuitable to the circumstances of the case. It is to be regretted certainly that on this very point tradition leaves us without precise information.

13. The analogy also between the so-called Servian constitution and the treatment of the Attic —metoeci— deserves to be particularly noticed. Athens, like Rome, opened her gates at a comparatively early period to the —metoeci—, and afterwards summoned them also to share the burdens of the state. We cannot suppose that any direct connection existed in this instance between Athens and Rome; but the coincidence serves all the more distinctly to show how the same causes—urban centralization and urban development—everywhere and of necessity produce similar effects.

CHAPTER VII

The Hegemony of Rome in Latium

Extension of the Roman Territory

The brave and impassioned Italian race doubtless never lacked feuds among themselves and with their neighbours: as the country flourished and civilization advanced, feuds must have become gradually changed into war and raids for pillage into conquest, and political powers must have begun to assume shape. No Italian Homer, however, has preserved for us a picture of these earliest frays and plundering excursions, in which the character of nations is moulded and expressed like the mind of the man in the sports and enterprises of the boy; nor does historical tradition enable us to form a judgment, with even approximate accuracy, as to the outward development of power and the comparative resources of the several Latin cantons. It is only in the case of Rome, at the utmost, that we can trace in some degree the extension of its power and of its territory. The earliest demonstrable boundaries of the united Roman community have been already stated;(1) in the landward direction they were on an average just about five miles distant from the capital of the canton, and it was only toward the coast that they extended as far as the mouth of the Tiber (-Ostia-), at a distance of somewhat more than fourteen miles from Rome. "The new city," says Strabo, in his description of the primitive Rome, "was surrounded by larger and smaller tribes, some of whom dwelt in independent villages and were not subordinate to any national union." It seems to have been at the expense of these neighbours of kindred lineage in the first instance that the earliest extensions of the Roman territory took place.

Territory on the Anio—Alba

The Latin communities situated on the upper Tiber and between the Tiber and the Anio-Antemnae, Crustumerium, Ficulnea, Medullia, Caenina, Corniculum, Cameria, Collatia,—were those which pressed most closely and sorely on Rome, and they appear to have forfeited their independence in very early times to the arms of the Romans. The only community that subsequently appears as independent in this district was Nomentum; which perhaps saved its freedom by alliance with Rome. The possession of Fidenae, the -tete de pont- of the Etruscans on the left bank of the Tiber, was contested between the Latins and the Etruscans—in other words, between the Romans and Veientes—with varying results. The struggle with Gabii, which held the plain between the Anio and the Alban hills, was for a long period equally balanced: down to late times the Gabine dress was deemed synonymous with that of war, and Gabine ground the prototype of hostile soil.(2) By these conquests the Roman territory was probably extended to about 190 square miles. Another very early achievement of the Roman arms was preserved, although in a legendary dress, in the memory of posterity with greater vividness than those obsolete struggles: Alba, the ancient sacred metropolis of Latium, was conquered and destroyed by Roman troops. How the collision arose, and how it was decided, tradition does not tell: the battle of the three Roman with the three Alban brothers born at one birth is nothing but a personification of the struggle between two powerful and closely related cantons, of which the Roman at least was triune. We know nothing at all beyond the naked fact of the subjugation and destruction of Alba by Rome.(3)

It is not improbable, although wholly a matter of conjecture, that, at the same period when Rome was establishing herself on the Anio and on the Alban hills, Praeneste, which appears at a later date as mistress of eight neighbouring townships, Tibur, and others of the Latin communities were similarly occupied in enlarging their territory and laying the foundations of their subsequent far from inconsiderable power.

Treatment of the Earliest Acquisitons

We feel the want of accurate information as to the legal character and legal effects of these early Latin conquests, still more than we miss the records of the wars in which they were won. Upon the whole it is not to be doubted that they were treated in accordance with the system of incorporation, out of which the tripartite community of Rome had arisen; excepting that the cantons who were compelled by arms to enter the combination did not, like the primitive three, preserve some sort of relative independence as separate regions in the new united community, but became so entirely merged in the general whole as to be no longer traced.(4) However far the power of a Latin canton might extend, in the earliest times it tolerated no political centre except the proper capital; and still less founded independent settlements, such as the Phoenicians and the Greeks established, thereby creating in their colonies clients for the time being and future rivals to the mother city. In this respect, the treatment which Ostia experienced from Rome deserves special notice: the Romans could not and did not wish to prevent the rise -de facto- of a town at that spot, but they allowed the place no political independence, and accordingly they did not bestow on those who settled there any local burgess-rights, but merely allowed them to retain, if they already possessed, the general burgess-rights of Rome.(5) This principle also determined the fate of the weaker cantons, which by force of arms or by voluntary submission became subject to a stronger. The stronghold of the canton was razed, its domain was added to the domain of the conquerors, and a new home was instituted for the inhabitants as well as for their gods in the capital of the victorious canton. This must not be understood absolutely to imply a formal transportation of the conquered inhabitants to the new capital, such as was the rule at the founding of cities in the East. The towns of Latium at this time can have been little more than the strongholds and weekly markets of the husbandmen: it was sufficient in general that the market and the seat of justice should be transferred to the new capital. That even the temples often remained at the old spot is shown in the instances of Alba and of Caenina, towns which must still after their destruction have retained some semblance of existence in connection with religion. Even where the strength of the place that was razed rendered it really necessary to remove the inhabitants, they would be frequently settled, with a view to the cultivation of the soil, in the open hamlets of their old domain. That the conquered, however, were not unfrequently compelled either as a whole or in part to settle in their new capital, is proved, more satisfactorily than all the several stories from the legendary period of Latium could prove it, by the maxim of Roman state-law, that only he who had extended the boundaries of the territory was entitled to advance the wall of the city (the -pomerium-). Of course the conquered, whether transferred or not, were ordinarily compelled to occupy the legal position of clients;(6) but particular individuals or clans occasionally had burgess-rights or, in other words, the patriciate conferred upon them. In the time of the empire there were still recognized Alban clans which were introduced among the burgesses of Rome after the fall of their native seat; amongst these were the Julii, Servilii, Quinctilii, Cloelii, Geganii, Curiatii, Metilii: the memory of their descent was preserved by their Alban family shrines, among which the sanctuary of the -gens- of the Julii at Bovillae again rose under the empire into great repute.

This centralizing process, by which several small communities became absorbed in a larger one, of course was far from being an idea specially Roman. Not only did the development of Latium and of the Sabellian stocks hinge upon the distinction between national centralization and cantonal independence; the case was the same with the development of the Hellenes. Rome in Latium and Athens in Attica arose out of a like amalgamation of many cantons into one state; and the wise Thales suggested a similar fusion to the hard-pressed league of the Ionic cities as the only means of saving their nationality. But Rome adhered to this principle of unity with more consistency, earnestness, and success than any other Italian canton; and just as the prominent position of Athens in Hellas was the effect of her early centralization, so Rome was indebted for her greatness solely to the same system, in her case far more energetically applied,

The Hegemony of Rome over Latium—Alba

While the conquests of Rome in Latium may be mainly regarded as direct extensions of her territory and people presenting the same general features, a further and special significance attached to the conquest of Alba. It was not merely the problematical size and presumed riches of Alba that led tradition to assign a prominence so peculiar to its capture. Alba was regarded as the metropolis of the Latin confederacy, and had the right of presiding among the thirty communities that belonged to it. The destruction of Alba, of course, no more dissolved the league itself than the destruction of Thebes dissolved the Boeotian confederacy;(7) but, in entire consistency with the strict application of the -ius privatum- which was characteristic of the Latin laws of war, Rome now claimed the presidency of the league as the heir-at-law of Alba. What sort of crises, if any, preceded or followed the acknowledgment of this claim, we cannot tell. Upon the whole the hegemony of Rome over Latium appears to have been speedily and generally recognized, although particular communities, such as Labici and above all Gabii, may for a time have declined to own it. Even at that time Rome was probably a maritime power in contrast to the Latin "land," a city in contrast to the Latin villages, and a single state in contrast to the Latin confederacy; even at that time it was only in conjunction with and by means of Rome that the Latins could defend their coasts against Carthaginians, Hellenes, and Etruscans, and maintain and extend their landward frontier in opposition to their restless neighbours of the Sabellian stock. Whether the accession to her material resources which Rome obtained by the subjugation of Alba was greater than the increase of her power obtained by the capture of Antemnae or Collatia, cannot be ascertained: it is quite possible that it was not by the conquest of Alba that Rome was first constituted the most powerful community in Latium; she may have been so long before; but she did gain in consequence of that event the presidency at the Latin festival, which became the basis of the future hegemony of the Roman community over the whole Latin confederacy. It is important to indicate as definitely as possible the nature of a relation so influential.

Relation of Rome to Latium

The form of the Roman hegemony over Latium was, in general, that of an alliance on equal terms between the Roman community on the one hand and the Latin confederacy on the other, establishing a perpetual peace throughout the whole domain and a perpetual league for offence and defence. "There shall be peace between the Romans and all communities of the Latins, as long as heaven and earth endure; they shall not wage war with each other, nor call enemies into the land, nor grant passage to enemies: help shall be rendered by all in concert to any community assailed, and whatever is won in joint warfare shall be equally distributed." The stipulated equality of rights in trade and exchange, in commercial credit and in inheritance, tended, by the manifold relations of business intercourse to which it led, still further to interweave the interests of communities already connected by the ties of similar language and manners, and