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

its increased obligations by the admission of 300 new members; a special criminal commission was to be appointed for pronouncing judgment in the case of those jurymen who had been or should be guilty of accepting bribes. By this means the immediate object was gained; the capitalists were deprived of their political exclusive rights, and were rendered responsible for the perpetration of injustice. But the proposals and designs of Drusus were by no means limited to this; his projects were not measures adapted merely for the occasion, but a comprehensive and thoroughly-considered plan of reform. He proposed, moreover, to increase the largesses of grain and to cover the increased expense by the permanent issue of a proportional number of copper plated, alongside of the silver, -denarii-; and then to set apart all the still undistributed arable land of Italy—thus including in particular the Campanian domains—and the best part of Sicily for the settlement of burgess-colonists. Lastly, he entered into the most distinct obligations towards the Italian allies to procure for them the Roman franchise. Thus the very same supports of power and the very same ideas of reform, on which the constitution of Gaius Gracchus had rested, presented themselves now on the side of the aristocracy—a singular, and yet easily intelligible coincidence. It was only to be expected that, as the -tyrannis- had rested for its support against the oligarchy, so the latter should rest for its support against the moneyed aristocracy, on the paid and in some degree organized proletariate; while the government had formerly accepted the feeding of the proletariate at the expense of the state as an inevitable evil, Drusus now thought of employing it, at least for the moment, against the moneyed aristocracy. It was only to be expected that the better part of the aristocracy, just as it formerly consented to the agrarian law of Tiberius Gracchus, would now readily consent to all those measures of reform, which, without touching the question of a supreme head, only aimed at the cure of the old evils of the state. In the question of emigration and colonization, it is true, they could not go so far as the democracy, since the power of the oligarchy mainly rested on their free control over the provinces and was endangered by any permanent military command; the ideas of equalizing Italy and the provinces and of making conquests beyond the Alps were not compatible with conservative principles. But the senate might very well sacrifice the Latin and even the Campanian domains as well as Sicily in order to raise the Italian farmer class, and yet retain the government as before; to which fell to be added the consideration, that they could not more effectually obviate future agitations than by providing that all the land at all disposable should be brought to distribution by the aristocracy itself, and that according to Drusus' own expression, nothing should be left for future demagogues to distribute but "the street-dirt and the daylight." In like manner it was for the government—whether that might be a monarch, or a close number of ruling families—very much a matter of indifference whether the half or the whole of Italy possessed the Roman franchise; and hence the reforming men on both sides probably could not but coincide in the idea of averting the danger of a recurrence of the insurrection of Fregellae on a larger scale by a judicious and reasonable extension of the franchise, and of seeking allies, moreover, for their plans in the numerous and influential Italians. Sharply as in the question of the headship of the state the views and designs of the two great political parties differed, the best men of both camps had many points of contact in their means of operation and in their reforming tendencies; and, as Scipio Aemilianus may be named alike among the adversaries of Tiberius Gracchus and among the promoters of his reforming efforts, so Drusus was the successor and disciple no less than the antagonist of Gaius. The two high-born and high-minded youthful reformers had a greater resemblance than was apparent at the first glance; and, personally also, the two were not unworthy to meet, as respects the substance of their patriotic endeavours, in purer and higher views above the obscuring mists of prejudiced partisanship.

Discussions on the Livian Laws

The question at stake was the passing of the laws drawn up by Drusus. Of these the proposer, just like Gaius Gracchus, kept in reserve for the moment the hazardous project of conferring the Roman franchise on the Italian allies, and brought forward at first only the laws as to the jurymen, the assignation of land, and the distribution of grain. The capitalist party offered the most vehement resistance, and, in consequence of the irresolution of the greater part of the aristocracy and the vacillation of the comitia, would beyond question have carried the rejection of the law as to jurymen, if it had been put to the vote by itself. Drusus accordingly embraced all his proposals in one law; and, as thus all the burgesses interested in the distributions of grain and land were compelled to vote also for the law as to jurymen, he succeeded in carrying the law with their help and that of the Italians, who stood firmly by Drusus with the exception of the large landowners, particularly those in Umbria and Etruria, whose domanial possessions were threatened. It was not carried, however, until Drusus had caused the consul Philippus, who would not desist from opposition, to be arrested and carried off to prison by a bailiff. The people celebrated the tribune as their benefactor, and received him in the theatre by rising up and applauding; but the voting had not so much decided the struggle as transferred it to another ground, for the opposite party justly characterized the proposal of Drusus as contrary to the law of 656(14) and therefore as null.

CHAPTER VII

The Revolt of the Italian Subjects, and the Sulpician Revolution

Romans and Italians

From the time when the defeat of Pyrrhus had put an end to the last war which the Italians had waged for their independence—or, in other words, for nearly two hundred years—the Roman primacy had now subsisted in Italy, without having been once shaken in its foundations even under circumstances of the utmost peril. Vainly had the heroic family of the Barcides, vainly had the successors of Alexander the Great and of the Achaemenids, endeavoured to rouse the Italian nation to contend with the too powerful capital; it had obsequiously appeared in the fields of battle on the Guadalquivir and on the Mejerdah, at the pass of Tempe and at Mount Sipylus, and with the best blood of its youth had helped its masters to achieve the subjugation of three continents. Its own position meanwhile had changed, but had deteriorated rather than improved. In a material point of view, doubtless, it had in general not much ground to complain. Though the small and intermediate landholders throughout Italy suffered in consequence of the injudicious Roman legislation as to corn, the larger landlords and still more the mercantile and capitalist class were flourishing, for the Italians enjoyed, as respected the turning of the provinces to financial account, substantially the same protection and the same privileges as Roman burgesses, and thus shared to a great extent in the material advantages of the political ascendency of the Romans. In general, the economic and social condition of Italy was not primarily dependent on political distinctions; there were allied districts, such as Umbria and Etruria, in which the class of free farmers had mostly disappeared, while in others, such as the valleys of the Abruzzi, the same class had still maintained a tolerable footing or remained almost unaffected—just as a similar diversity could be pointed out in the different Roman burgess-districts. On the other hand the political inferiority of Italy was daily displayed more harshly and more abruptly. No formal open breach of right indeed occurred, at least in the principal questions. The communal freedom, which under the name of sovereignty was accorded by treaty to the Italian communities, was on the whole respected by the Roman government; the attack, which the Roman reform party at the commencement of the agrarian agitation made on the Roman domains guaranteed to the communities of better position, had not only been earnestly opposed by the strictly conservative as well as by the middle party in Rome, but had been very soon abandoned by the Roman opposition itself.

Disabilities and Wrongs of the Subjects

But the rights, which belonged and could not but belong to Rome as the leading community—the supreme conduct of war-affairs, and the superintendence of the whole administration—were exercised in a way which was almost as bad as if the allies had been directly declared to be subjects devoid of rights. The numerous modifications of the fearfully severe martial law of Rome, which were introduced there in the course of the seventh century, seem to have remained on the whole limited to the Roman burgess-soldiers: this is certain as to the most important, the abolition of executions by martial law,(1) and we may easily conceive the impression which was produced when, as happened in the Jugurthine war, Latin officers of repute were beheaded by sentence of the Roman council of war, while the lowest burgess-soldier had in the like case the right of presenting an appeal to the civil tribunals of Rome. The proportions in which the burgesses and Italian allies were to be drawn for military service had, as was fair, remained undefined by treaty; but, while in earlier times the two had furnished on an average equal numbers of soldiers,(2) now, although the proportions of the population had changed probably in favour of the burgesses rather than to their disadvantage, the demands on the allies were by degrees increased disproportionately,(3) so that on the one hand they had the chief burden of the heavier and more costly service imposed on them, and on the other hand there were two allies now regularly levied for one burgess. In like manner with this military supremacy the civil superintendence, which (including the supreme administrative jurisdiction which could hardly be separated from it) the Roman government had always and rightly reserved to itself over the dependent Italian communities, was extended in such a way that the Italians were hardly less than the provincials abandoned without protection to the caprice of any one of the numberless Roman magistrates. In Teanum Sidicinum, one of the most considerable of the allied towns, a consul had ordered the chief magistrate of the town to be scourged with rods at the stake in the marketplace, because, on the consul's wife expressing a desire to bathe in the men's bath, the municipal officers had not driven forth the bathers quickly enough, and the bath appeared to her not to be clean. Similar scenes had taken place in Ferentinum, likewise a town holding the best position in law, and even in the old and important Latin colony of Cales. In the Latin colony of Venusia a free peasant had been seized by a young Roman diplomatist not holding office but passing through the town, on account of a jest which he had allowed himself to make on the Roman's litter, had been thrown down, and whipped to death with the straps of the litter. These occurrences are incidentally mentioned about the time of the Fregellan insurrection; it admits of no doubt that similar outrages frequently occurred, and of as little that no real satisfaction for such misdeeds could anywhere be obtained, whereas the right of appeal—not lightly violated with impunity—protected in some measure at least the life and limbs of the Roman burgess. In consequence of this treatment of the Italians on the part of the Roman government, the variance, which the wisdom of their ancestors had carefully fostered between the Latin and the other Italian communities, could not fail, if not to disappear, at any rate to undergo abatement.(4) The curb-fortresses of Rome and the districts kept to their allegiance by these fortresses lived now under the like oppression; the Latin could remind the Picentine that they were both in like manner "subject to the fasces"; the overseers and the slaves of former days were now united by a common hatred towards the common despot.

While the present state of the Italian allies was thus transformed from a tolerable relation of dependence into the most oppressive bondage, they were at the same time deprived of every prospect of obtaining better rights. With the subjugation of Italy the Roman burgess-body had closed its ranks; the bestowal of the franchise on whole communities was totally given up, its bestowal on individuals was greatly restricted.(5) They now advanced a step farther: on occasion of the agitation which contemplated the extension of the Roman franchise to all Italy in the years 628,