HISTORY OF ROME. 



their open hamlets, but their capitoliuin was razee 

 their weekly market, their justice-court, their god 

 everything, in short, strictly national wer 

 removed to Rome, while they themselves wer 

 enrolled among the clients or plcbs. But some 

 times the inhabitants themselves, in whole o 

 part, were transferred to Rome, and individual: 

 or clans were even received into the ranks of the 

 Roman burgesses, as in the case of Alba Longa 

 Some of the famous Roman gentes claimed to be 

 of Alban descent the Julii, Servilii, Ouinctilii 

 Cloelii, Curiatii, and Metilii. The wars with the 

 truscans of Fidense and Veii assigned, like the 

 estruction of Alba Longa, to the reign of Tullus 

 "ostilius were apparently indecisive ; those with 

 e Rutuli and Volsci, however, were probably 

 ore fortunate ; but uncertainty hangs like 

 ick mist over the ancient narrative. Even the 

 ory of the Tarquins, though it belongs to the 

 .ter period of the monarchy, is in many of its 

 letails far from credible. Both Niebuhr and 

 ommsen consider ' Tarquin the Proud ' a histori- 

 .1 personage, and without accepting literally all 

 e circumstances of the tradition, believe the 

 general outline his character, his exactions, his 

 expulsion, and his desperate efforts for the recovery 

 of the throne to be trustworthy. The memory 

 f such a monarch was likely to be preserved by 

 ' e very strength of the hatred he excited, and an 

 t so daring as his expulsion (which was at the 

 me time the death-knell of a system of govern- 

 .ent that had prevailed for ages) could hardly be 

 i mere invention, though it might be overlapped 

 "ith fold upon fold of picturesque fiction. The 

 istocracy or populus had become so much more 

 powerful than the individual rex; that they wished 

 to possess de jure as well as de facto the supreme 

 thority. The pride and tyranny of a Tarquin may 

 ry well have aided in furthering their designs. 

 Meanwhile a great internal change had taken 

 ce in Rome. This is usually designated the 

 ervian ' Reform of the Constitution, 5 although the 

 expression is calculated to mislead. There was 

 .othing directly political in the 'reform.' It was 

 ly a reform in the burgess-levy i.e. in the 

 .ode of raising the army. The new arrange- 

 ent is known in Roman histoiy as the formation 

 the Comitia Centuriata. When or with whom 

 ,e change originated it is impossible to say. The 

 jend assigns it to Servius Tullius, predecessor 

 of Tarquin the Proud ; and it was in all proba- 

 bility the work of some kingly ruler who saw the 

 necessity of reorganising the national forces. 

 Its details were briefly as follows : Every 

 Roman freeholder from the age of 17 to 60, 

 whether patrician or plebeian, was made liable to 

 serve in the army ; but he took his place accord- 

 ing to the amount of his property. The free- 

 holders were distributed into five classes (i.e. 

 ' summonings,' from calare, to ' summon ' or ' call 

 out '), and these classes, all of whom were infantry, 

 were again subdivided into centuries (' hundreds '). 

 Theyfr-j/ class, which required to possess property 

 valued at 100,000 ases, or an entire hide of land, 

 furnished 82 'hundreds;' the second, property 

 valued at 75,000 ases, or |ths of a hide of land, 

 furnished 20 'hundreds ;' the third, property valued 

 at 50,000 ases, or | hide of land, furnished 20 

 'hundreds ;' the fourth, property valued at 25,000 

 ases, or th hide of land, furnished 20 'hundreds ;' 

 and the fifth, property valued at 12,500 ases, or ith 



hide of land, furnished 32 ' hundreds.' A single 

 'hundred' was, moreover, added from the ranks 

 of the non-freeholders, or proletarii (mere ' chil- 

 dren-begetters '), although it is possible that from 

 the same order came the two ' hundreds ' of 'horn- 

 blowers ' (cornicines) and ' trumpeters ' (tibicines\ 

 attached to the fifth class. Thus the infantry 

 'hundreds' amounted to 175, that is, 17,500 men, 

 besides whom were 18 'hundreds' of equites 

 ('horsemen'), chosen from the wealthiest burgesses 

 and non-burgesses ; so that the Roman army now 

 numbered in all nearly 20,000 men. We have 

 stated that the original design of this new arrange- 

 ment was merely military, but it is easy to see 

 that it would soon produce political results. Duties 

 and rights are correlative. The former suggest 

 the latter, and create a desire for their attainment. 

 Hence the Servian military reform paved the way 

 for the grand political struggle between the patri- 

 cians and the plebeians, which commenced with 

 the first year of the Republic, and only terminated 

 with its dissolution. 



THE ROMAN REPUBLIC FROM ITS INSTITUTION 

 TO THE ABOLITION OF THE DECEMVIRATE. 



i. Internal History. According to the legend, 

 the expulsion of the Tarquins was mainly the 

 work of their cousins Junius Brutus and Tar- 

 quinius Collatinus, in revenge for the outrage 

 on the honour of Lucretia, and was followed 

 the abolition of the monarchy. The date 

 usually assigned to this event is 509 B.C. The 

 story is intensely tragical, and if we must con- 

 sider it poetry rather than fact, yet it may 

 safely be taken as evidence that it was an un- 

 jridled lust of power and self-gratification that 

 Drought ruin on the Romano-Tuscan dynasty. Of 

 course, we can make nothing definite out of the 

 early years of the republic. Dates and names, 

 and even events, must go for very little. Valerius 

 D ublicola or Poplicola, Sp. Lucretius, M. Hora- 

 ius, Lars Porsenna of Clusium, Aulus Postumius, 

 vith the glorious stories of Horatius Codes and 

 he battle of Lake Regillus, will not bear to be 

 crutinised. We must content ourselves with 

 he knowledge of historical tendencies and gen- 

 eral results. The change from 'kings' to 'con- 

 uls ' (consules, ' those who leap together ' 

 more generally those who act together) was not 

 ntended to diminish the administrative power of 

 he supreme rulers, but only to deprive them of 

 he opportunity of doing harm of becoming 

 "arquins ; and this it effectually succeeded in 

 .oing, by limiting their tenure of office to a 

 ear, and by numerous other restrictions. It 

 s believed to have been about this time, and in 

 onsequence of the new political changes, that the 

 Id assessors of the king, such as the qucestores 

 <arricidit, formally became standing magistrates 

 nstead of mere honorary counsellors, and also 

 tiat the priesthood became a more self-governing 

 nd exclusive body. During the regal period, the 

 >riests were appointed by the king, but now the 

 olleges of augurs and pontiffs began to fill up 

 tie vacancies in their ranks themselves, while the 

 estals and separate ' flamens ' were nominated by 

 tie pontifical college, which chose a president (pon- 

 ifex maximus} for the purpose. In the details 

 riven us of the ' Servian Reform,' we can easily 

 .iscern a spirit of compromise, the concessions 



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