Read Ebook: The Two Great Republics: Rome and the United States by Lewis James

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Some of the concessions made at this time related to temporary provisions for relief of debtors; but the great innovation was that which established the office of tribune. The character of the office of tribune is absolutely unique in the political history of the world. The tribunes, elected by the people in the comitia tributa, were plebeian officers who were at first without any constructive part in the carrying on of the Roman government and whose sole duty at the outset was to protect the members of the plebeian order from the oppression of the patrician officials. This protection was exercised mainly through the use of the veto power given to the tribunes. Under this power the tribunes had the right at any time to put a stop to any act either by any of the public assemblies, by the Senate, or by any of the magistrates. It was a power which, if exercised to its fullest extent, could put a stop to the very carrying on of the government.

It speaks much for the moderation of the Roman tribunes that through all the centuries of the Roman republic little serious inconvenience was experienced from the use of this power. With few and unimportant exceptions, it was exercised only in cases where the welfare of the plebeians as a class, or of some particular plebeian, demanded it.

The creation of the office of tribune was merely one more example of that system of checks and balances which played so prominent a part in the framing of the government after the expulsion of the king--a system of checks and balances so strikingly resembling that in our Federal Constitution. The tribunes were introduced as a protection for the plebeians and an additional restraint upon the magistrates.

While at first the power and duties of the tribunes were entirely of a negative nature, they gradually acquired an authority of a positive character. The tribunes generally presided over the comitia tributa and took the lead in securing the passage of laws by that body. In addition they acquired judicial powers, and in cases where a plebeian had been wronged they could summon any citizen, even the consuls, before them, and might impose even the death penalty. The persons of the tribunes were declared inviolable, and any one who attacked them was thought to be accursed. The number of the tribunes was at first two, but was later increased to five and still later to ten.

The second great victory won by the plebeians was in the passage of the Publilian Law in 471 B.C. This law was proposed by the tribune Valerius Publilius, and was brought about by the murder of the tribune Gnaeus Genucius. The main object of this law was the protection of the plebeian assembly and the plebeian officers, but its exact details are unknown. It is believed by some that the comitia tributa really came into existence with this law, and that previously the plebeians had voted by curies. The law limited to plebeian freeholders the right to vote in a plebeian assembly, and excluded nearly all the freedmen and clients who were under the influence of the patricians as well as the patricians themselves. It is possible also that the increase in the number of the tribunes from two to five was made by this law. In 462 B.C. an unsuccessful attempt was made to abolish the office of tribune; in 457 B.C. came the increase from five tribunes to ten.

During their first year of office the decemvirs drew up ten tables of laws, so called because the laws were engraved upon tables of copper and stood up in the Forum on the rostra in front of the Senate house.

According to the legends , it had originally been intended to intrust the decemvirs with power only for a single year, but their work being incomplete at the expiration of the first year, they were chosen for a second year. It is uncertain whether the decemvirs for the second year were exactly the same men as those for the first year. According to some reports some of the decemvirs of the second year were plebeians, while none of those originally elected belonged to that order.

During their second year of office the decemvirs prepared two more tables of laws, and these, with the ten tables prepared during the preceding year, constituted the famous "Law of the Twelve Tables," the first Roman code of which we have any knowledge. Only fragmentary extracts from these tables have come down to us, but these fragments furnish us with such an insight into early Roman laws, institutions, and customs that they are here inserted:

THE TWELVE TABLES

TABLE I

THE SUMMONS BEFORE THE MAGISTRATE

TABLE II

JUDICIAL PROCEDURE

EXECUTION FOLLOWING CONFESSION OR JUDGMENT

TABLE IV

PATERNAL RIGHTS

TABLE V

INHERITANCE AND TUTELAGE

TABLE VI

OWNERSHIP AND POSSESSION

LAW CONCERNING REAL PROPERTY

ON TORTS

TABLE X

SACRED LAW

SUPPLEMENTARY LAWS

The decemvirs were forcibly overthrown before the close of their second year in office. The stories as to the cause are not only conflicting but diametrically so. According to one historical theory, the rebellion against the decemvirs began among the plebeians on account of the oppression which they suffered from the hands of these men; while, on the other hand, it is believed by many historians that the decemvirs were overthrown by the patricians because they were giving too many concessions to the plebeians. Whatever the cause, the power of the decemvirs was taken from them and all the former Roman officials and assemblies were re?stablished, with the old powers and jurisdictions. The "Law of the Twelve Tables," which the decemvirs had drawn up, however, remained for centuries as the great basis of Roman law.

Five years after the deposition of the decemvirs the tribune Canuleius secured the passage by the comitia tributa of the Canuleian Law, which marked another milestone passed by the plebeians in their march toward equality before the law.

Two great concessions were given by this act, one in the field of private and the other in the field of public law. The law which had existed from the earliest days in Rome, and which had been incorporated in the "Law of the Twelve Tables," prohibiting intermarriage between plebeians and patricians, was abolished. It was also provided that any year the people, instead of electing consuls, might elect military tribunes, who should possess all the powers, although not all the dignities, of the consuls. Either patricians or plebeians could be elected to the office of military tribunes.

The election of military tribunes was authorized by law many years before any such officials were elected in Rome; but the fear that the consular power might sometime fall into the hands of a plebeian induced the patricians in 443 B.C. to secure the passage of a law for the creation of new officials who should possess some of the powers previously held by the consul and who must be chosen from the patrician order.

These new officials, called censors, were to be two in number and were to be elected every five years. At first these officials held office until the time arrived for the election of their successors, but later their term of office was limited to one year and a half, there thus being three and one half years out of every five-year period when this office was in abeyance.

The most important duty given to the censors at the outset seems to have been the authority of filling vacancies in the Senate as it became necessary to keep the number up to the required three hundred. Up to this time this power of appointing senators had been exercised by the consul. As time went on, however, the powers of this office rapidly increased until at length it became the highest post of honor at Rome, the men elected censors being almost invariably former consuls or military tribunes.

The arbitrary power of inquisition over all the public affairs of Rome and the private conduct of the Roman citizens was so astonishingly great that we wonder how it could have existed without constant and gross abuses. In the later days of the republic the censors had the right to make a so-called "censorial note" of all Roman citizens, who, without having gone to the point of violating the criminal law, or at least without having been convicted of a crime, had been guilty of dishonorable or immoral conduct. All persons thus named suffered severe civic penalties. If the person were a senator he lost his seat in the Senate; if a knight, he lost the peculiar privileges belonging to this rank. In every case the person lost his membership in the association of his tribe and was subject to increased taxation.

The exclusive right to serve as censors was one of the last exclusive privileges retained by the patricians, the plebeians not being made eligible to this office until 339 B.C.

Although Rome was in an almost constant state of warfare during the fifth century before Christ, the conflicts were neither on a large scale nor decisive in their results. The chief enemies of Rome were the neighboring Latin and Etruscan cities, with one or another of whom Rome was almost constantly engaged in hostilities. At the beginning of the fourth century before Christ Rome was attacked by a new and more terrible enemy from the north, who very nearly changed the whole course of the world's history by wiping the city of Rome out of existence before its career of greatness had begun.

This enemy was the Gauls, who captured and burned Rome in the year 390 B.C., but who failed to take the citadel of the city and finally withdrew, either being driven away or bribed to depart. Not only are the details of the capture of Rome by the Gauls very uncertain, but by destroying all the old Roman records and many of the Roman monuments in their sack of Rome, the Gauls are responsible for much of the uncertainty which exists as to the truth of the details of the history of Rome prior to their invasion. In fact, it is generally considered that the authentic history of Rome begins only after 390 B.C., the history of the Roman kingdom being little more than mythology; while what we know of the Roman republic prior to 390 B.C. consists of an inseparable mixture of true history and legendary tales.

After the departure of the Gauls the question arose whether Rome should be rebuilt on its old site or whether all the Romans should migrate in a body to Veii. It was only after a long discussion that it was finally decided to remain at Rome.

The rebuilding of Rome was immediately followed by another period of conflict between the patricians and plebeians. Two causes of discontent brought about the renewal of this contest. The first was the financial condition of the poorer classes, who had been rendered more desperate through the losses occasioned by the Gallic invasion; and second, the desire of the richer plebeians to share in the political honors reserved exclusively for the patricians.

In this contest the leaders of the plebeians were the tribunes Gaius Licinius and Lucius Sextius, who were, year after year, re?lected to this office by the people.

The so-called Licinian Laws, first introduced by these tribunes in 376 B.C., were adopted only after the most bitter political contest which up to this time had ever been fought in Rome. Time and again, the tribunes resorted to their veto power to put a stop to the carrying on of every function of the Roman government. These laws were finally passed in 367 B.C., their three great provisions being as follows:

Although the Licinian Laws are generally held to have equalized the different orders at Rome, to have terminated forever the bitter jealousy between patricians and plebeians, to have put a stop for a time to class controversies of all kinds, and to have rendered possible the great career of foreign conquest upon which Rome soon entered, the fact remains that the benefit of these laws was experienced far more by the small class of wealthy plebeians than by the great mass of this order.

Henceforth, with very few exceptions, one consul was always a plebeian, Lucius Sextius being the first plebeian consul and Gaius Licinius the third; but the chance of being elected consul was in reality limited to a small class of plebeians and conferred little practical benefit upon the ordinary member of the order.

The laws for the relief of the poorer classes were not so fully enforced. In particular, the wealthy citizens holding large allotments of the public land found methods by which to evade the carrying out of the provisions of this new law, and we are surprised to find Licinius himself as one of the offenders in this respect.

It was in the period following the passage of the Licinian Laws that the greatest inequalities in wealth began to appear at Rome, and the numbers of free small landowners to decrease.

The history of the Licinian Laws and of the following period show conclusively how mere political equality is never sufficient to secure the welfare of the mass of the community, and that the power held by a class possessed of great wealth, but without special political privileges, is greater than that of a recognized nobility, and far more apt to be abused, on account of the absence of any feeling of class honor.

Two slight efforts were made by the patricians to counteract the political provisions of the Licinian Laws. For the first eleven years after the passage of the Licinian Laws one consul was a plebeian and one a patrician. In the thirteen years beginning with 355 B.C., two patricians were elected consuls in eight of the years; after this, violations of the law ceased, and one consul belonged to each order down to the year 172 B.C., when both consulships were open to the plebeians. The wealthy class of both orders had been so mingled by this time that thereafter consuls were elected indiscriminately from either order, although this election was almost invariably restricted to the members of the great families.

THE PERIOD OF FOREIGN CONQUEST

The most glorious period of Roman history, from the military standpoint, followed closely upon the cessation of fierce national contests in the fourth century before Christ. The united efforts of patricians and plebeians, devoted to the task of foreign conquest, proved sufficient in a few generations to win for Rome her world empire.

"The fifth century is the most beautiful century of Rome. The plebeians had conquered the consulship and are succeeding in conquering their admission to other magistracies which the patricians wished to reserve; they free themselves from the servitude which, under the name of Nexus, weighed on the debtors. They arrive at political equality and individual independence; at the same time the old aristocracy still dominates in the Senate and maintains there the inflexibility of its resolves and the persistence of its designs. It was thanks to this interior condition that the Roman people was able to survive the strongest tests from without over which it had triumphed, and to make that progress which cost it most dear. We see the peoples fight, one by one, and often all together; the Latin people, the Etruscans, the Goths, the Samnites, the other Sabellic peoples of the Apennines; and the end is always victory. The beginnings of this history were somber. Rome was afflicted by one of those pestilences which one finds in all the epochs of the history of this unsanitary city. Thence was the origin of those scenic pieces imported by the Etruscans and giving origin to comedy--a means devised to appease the gods; so that Roman comedy had an origin religious and dismal. The fifth century is for Rome the age of great devotions and of grand sacrifices."

A full description of the various military campaigns of Rome would tend to obscure rather than to illumine the political and economic history of the city. An enumeration of the foreign conquests of Rome during this period, however, is necessary to indicate the rapid increase in the territorial possessions of Rome, with their inevitable reaction upon the domestic conditions of the republic.

The first wars of Rome after the passage of the Licinian Laws were renewed contests with her neighboring enemies. In 361 B.C. Rome was again threatened by a new invasion of the Gauls. The following year the Roman records mention a victory over the Hernicans by one Roman consul, and over the Gauls, and the Latins of Tibur, by the other. This alliance of the Gauls with a portion of the Latins so alarmed the majority of the Latin cities that a new league between the Romans and Latins was formed in 358 B.C. The Gauls soon after retired from the neighborhood of Latium, and their allies, Tibur and Privernum, were compelled to enter the new Latin League.

A war waged against Rome by the Etruscan city of Tarquinii and its allies so seriously threatened Rome that the Roman political factions forgot their differences so far as to agree to the appointment of a plebeian, in the person of C. Marcius Rutilus, to the office of dictator. The old jealousy of the patricians, however, was soon manifested again in the opposition of the Senate to the granting of a triumph to this plebeian for the great military victory which he soon won.

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