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

the changes of the moon continued to be made. Private dwellings of a permanent kind, on the other hand, were not tolerated in earlier times on the stronghold-hill;(11) and the space between the two summits of the hill, the sanctuary of the evil god (-Ve-diovis-), or as it was termed in the later Hellenizing epoch, the Asylum, was covered with wood and presumably intended for the reception of the husbandmen and their herds, when inundation or war drove them from the plain. The Capitol was in reality as well as in name the Acropolis of Rome, an independent castle capable of being defended even after the city had fallen: its gate lay probably towards what was afterwards the Forum.(12) The Aventine seems to have been fortified in a similar style, although less strongly, and to have been preserved free from permanent occupation. With this is connected the fact, that for purposes strictly urban, such as the distribution of the introduced water, the inhabitants of Rome were divided into the inhabitants of the city proper (-montani-), and those of the districts situated within the general ring-wall, but yet not reckoned as strictly belonging to the city (-pagani Aventinensis-, -Ianiculenses-, -collegia Capitolinorum et Mercurialium-).(13) The space enclosed by the new city wall thus embraced, in addition to the former Palatine and Quirinal cities, the two federal strongholds of the Capitol and the Aventine, and also the Janiculum;(14) the Palatine, as the oldest and proper city, was enclosed by the other heights along which the wall was carried, as if encircled with a wreath, and the two castles occupied the middle.

The work, however, was not complete so long as the ground, protected by so laborious exertions from outward foes, was not also reclaimed from the dominion of the water, which permanently occupied the valley between the Palatine and the Capitol, so that there was perhaps even a ferry there, and which converted the valleys between the Capitol and the Velia and between the Palatine and the Aventine into marshes. The subterranean drains still existing at the present day, composed of magnificent square blocks, which excited the astonishment of posterity as a marvellous work of regal Rome, must rather be reckoned to belong to the following epoch, for travertine is the material employed and we have many accounts of new structures of the kind in the times of the republic; but the scheme itself belongs beyond doubt to the regal period, although presumably to a later epoch than the designing of the Servian wall and the Capitoline stronghold. The spots thus drained or dried supplied large open spaces such as were needed by the new enlarged city. The assembling-place of the community, which had hitherto been the Area Capitolina at the stronghold itself, was now transferred to the flat space, where the ground fell from the stronghold towards the city (-comitium-), and which stretched thence between the Palatine and the Carinae, in the direction of the Velia. At that side of the -comitium- which adjoined the stronghold, and upon the stronghold-wall which arose above the -comitium- in the fashion of a balcony, the members of the senate and the guests of the city had the place of honour assigned to them on occasion of festivals and assemblies of the people; and at the place of assembly itself was erected the senate-house, which afterwards bore the name of the Curia Hostilia. The platform for the judgment-seat (-tribunal-), and the stage whence the burgesses were addressed (the later rostra), were likewise erected on the -comitium- itself. Its prolongation in the direction of the Velia became the new market (-forum Romanum-). At the end of the latter, beneath the Palatine, rose the community-house, which included the official dwelling of the king (-regia-) and the common hearth of the city, the rotunda forming the temple of Vesta; at no great distance, on the south side of the Forum, there was erected a second round building connected with the former, the store-room of the community or temple of the Penates, which still stands at the present day as the porch of the church Santi Cosma e Damiano. It is a feature significant of the new city now united in a way very different from the settlement of the "seven mounts," that, over and above the hearths of the thirty curies which the Palatine Rome had been content with associating in one building, the Servian Rome presented this general and single hearth for the city at large.(15) Along the two longer sides of the Forum butchers' shops and other traders' stalls were arranged. In the valley between the Palatine and Aventine a "ring" was staked off for races; this became the Circus. The cattle-market was laid out immediately adjoining the river, and this soon became one of the most densely peopled quarters of Rome. Temples and sanctuaries arose on all the summits, above all the federal sanctuary of Diana on the Aventine,(16) and on the summit of the stronghold the far-seen temple of Father Diovis, who had given to his people all this glory, and who now, when the Romans were triumphing over the surrounding nations, triumphed along with them over the subject gods of the vanquished.

The names of the men, at whose bidding these great buildings of the city arose, are almost as completely lost in oblivion as those of the leaders in the earliest battles and victories of Rome. Tradition indeed assigns the different works to different kings—the senate-house to Tullus Hostilius, the Janiculum and the wooden bridge to Ancus Marcius, the great Cloaca, the Circus, and the temple of Jupiter to the elder Tarquinius, the temple of Diana and the ring-wall to Servius Tullius. Some of these statements may perhaps be correct; and it is apparently not the result of accident that the building of the new ring-wall is associated both as to date and author with the new organization of the army, which in fact bore special reference to the regular defence of the city walls. But upon the whole we must be content to learn from this tradition—what is indeed evident of itself—that this second creation of Rome stood in intimate connection with the commencement of her hegemony over Latium and with the remodelling of her burgess-army, and that, while it originated in one and the same great conception, its execution was not the work either of a single man or of a single generation. It is impossible to doubt that Hellenic influences exercised a powerful effect on this remodelling of the Roman community, but it is equally impossible to demonstrate the mode or the degree of their operation. It has already been observed that the Servian military constitution is essentially of an Hellenic type;(17) and it will be afterwards shown that the games of the Circus were organized on an Hellenic model. The new -regia-with the city hearth was quite a Greek —prytaneion—, and the round temple of Vesta, looking towards the east and not so much as consecrated by the augurs, was constructed in no respect according to Italian, but wholly in accordance with Hellenic, ritual. With these facts before us, the statement of tradition appears not at all incredible that the Ionian confederacy in Asia Minor to some extent served as a model for the Romano-Latin league, and that the new federal sanctuary on the Aventine was for that reason constructed in imitation of the Artemision at Ephesus.

Notes for Book I Chapter VII

1. I. IV. Earliest Limits of the Roman Territory

2. The formulae of accursing for Gabii and Fidenae are quite as characteristic (Macrob. Sat. iii. 9). It cannot, however, be proved and is extremely improbable that, as respects these towns, there was an actual historical accursing of the ground on which they were built, such as really took place at Veii, Carthage, and Fregellae. It may be conjectured that old accursing formularies were applied to those two hated towns, and were considered by later antiquaries as historical documents.

3. But there seems to be no good ground for the doubt recently expressed in a quarter deserving of respect as to the destruction of Alba having really been the act of Rome. It is true, indeed, that the account of the destruction of Alba is in its details a series of improbabilities and impossibilities; but that is true of every historical fact inwoven into legend. To the question as to the attitude of the rest of Latium towards the struggle between Rome and Alba, we are unable to give an answer; but the question itself rests on a false assumption, for it is not proved that the constitution of the Latin league absolutely prohibited a separate war between two Latin communities (I. III. The Latin League). Still less is the fact that a number of Alban families were received into the burgess-union of Rome inconsistent with the destruction of Alba by the Romans. Why may there not have been a Roman party in Alba just as there was in Capua? The circumstance, however, of Rome claiming to be in a religious and political point of view the heir-at-law of Alba may be regarded as decisive of the matter; for such a claim could not be based on the migration of individual clans to Rome, but could only be based, as it actually was, on the conquest of the town.

4. I. VI. Amalgamation of the Palatine and Quirinal Cities

5. Hence was developed the conception, in political law, of the maritime colony or colony of burgesses (-colonia civium Romanorum-), that is, of a community separate in fact, but not independent or possessing a will of its own in law; a community which merged in the capital as the -peculium- of the son merged in the property of the father, and which as a standing garrison was exempt from serving in the legion.

6. To this the enactment of the Twelve Tables undoubtedly has reference: -Nex[i mancipiique] forti sanatique idem ius esto-, that is, in dealings of private law the "sound" and the "recovered" shall be on a footing of equality. The Latin allies cannot be here referred to, because their legal position was defined by federal treaties, and the law of the Twelve Tables treated only of the law of Rome. The -sanates- were the -Latini prisci cives Romani-, or in other words, the communities of Latium compelled by the Romans to enter the plebeiate.

7. The community of Bovillae appears even to have been formed out of part of the Alban domain, and to have been admitted in room of Alba among the autonomous Latin towns. Its Alban origin is attested by its having been the seat of worship for the Julian gens and by the name -Albani Longani Bovillenses- (Orelli-Henzen, 119, 2252, 6019); its autonomy by Dionysius, v. 61, and Cicero, pro Plancio, 9, 23.

8. I. III. The Latin League

9. I. III. The Latin League

10. Both names, although afterwards employed as local names (-capitolium- being applied to the summit of the stronghold-hill that lay next to the river, -arx- to that next to the Quirinal), were originally appellatives, corresponding exactly to the Greek —akra— and —koruphei— every Latin town had its -capitolium-as well as Rome. The local name of the Roman stronghold-hill was -mons Tarpeius-.

11. The enactment -ne quis patricius in arce aut capitolio habitaret-probably prohibited only the conversion of the ground into private property, not the construction of dwelling-houses. Comp. Becker, Top. p. 386.

12. For the chief thoroughfare, the -Via Sacra-, led from that quarter to the stronghold; and the bending in towards the gate may still be clearly recognized in the turn which this makes to the left at the arch of Severus. The gate itself must have disappeared under the huge structures which were raised in after ages on the Clivus. The so-called gate at the steepest part of the Capitoline Mount, which is known by the name of Janualis or Saturnia, or the "open," and which had to stand always open in times of war, evidently had merely a religious significance, and never was a real gate.

13. Four such guilds are mentioned (1) the -Capitolini- (Cicero, ad Q. fr. ii. 5, 2), with -magistri- of their own (Henzen, 6010, 6011), and annual games (Liv. v. 50; comp. Corp. Inscr. Lat. i. n. 805); (2) the -Mercuriales- (Liv. ii. 27; Cicero, l. c.; Preller, Myth. p. 597) likewise with -magistri- (Henzen, 6010), the guild from the valley of the Circus, where the temple of Mercury stood; (3) the -pagani Aventinenses- likewise with -magistri- (Henzen, 6010); and (4) the -pagani pagi Ianiculensis- likewise with -magistri- (C. I. L. i. n. 801, 802). It is certainly not accidental that these four guilds, the only ones of the