King Numitor of Alba Longa was ejected by his younger brother Amulius. To do away with any further possible pretenders to his usurped throne, Amulius murdered Numitor's sons and forced Numitor's daughter, Rhea Silvia, to become a vestal virgin. (Vestal virgins were priestesses to the goddess Vesta and were expected to guard their virginity in the goddess' honour on pain of death.)
However Mars, the god of war became enchanted by her beauty and had his way with Rhea Silvia while she slept. As a result of this Rhea Silvia bore twins, Romulus and Remus.
An enraged Amulius had Rhea Silvia thrown into the river Tiber where she was caught beneath the waves by the river god who married her.
However Mars, the god of war became enchanted by her beauty and had his way with Rhea Silvia while she slept. As a result of this Rhea Silvia bore twins, Romulus and Remus.
An enraged Amulius had Rhea Silvia thrown into the river Tiber where she was caught beneath the waves by the river god who married her.
As the two boys had grown to men in the care of the couple, they were told of their true origins. True to their heroic status they raised an armed and marched on Alba Longa. Amulius was slain in battle and Numitor was restored to his throne.
The twins decided to found a new city close to where they had been washed ashore, caught by the fig tree. The twins disputed which hill their city should be built on, Romulus favouring the Palatine, Remus choosing another (possibly the Aventine).
Taking the auspices to read the will of the gods, Remus on his hill saw six birds, Romulus saw twelve. So it was decided that Romulus’ choice was the right one and he and his followers took to building their city on Palatine Hill.
Romulus took to marking the city's sacred boundary with a plough drawn by a white bull and a white cow. Remus however leapt over the furrow, either in jest or derision. This was an ill omen suggesting the city’s defences could easily be overcome. Remus was slain, either by Romulus himself or by one of his chief followers.
The twins decided to found a new city close to where they had been washed ashore, caught by the fig tree. The twins disputed which hill their city should be built on, Romulus favouring the Palatine, Remus choosing another (possibly the Aventine).
Taking the auspices to read the will of the gods, Remus on his hill saw six birds, Romulus saw twelve. So it was decided that Romulus’ choice was the right one and he and his followers took to building their city on Palatine Hill.
Romulus took to marking the city's sacred boundary with a plough drawn by a white bull and a white cow. Remus however leapt over the furrow, either in jest or derision. This was an ill omen suggesting the city’s defences could easily be overcome. Remus was slain, either by Romulus himself or by one of his chief followers.
| If the tale of Romulus and Remus appears the more popular Roman founding tale today, then the tale of Aeneas, harking back to yet earlier times, was perhaps the more popular in the days of the Roman Empire. In fact through Virgil the Aeneid became the national epic of the Roman empire and the most famous poem of the Roman era. Aeneas was to have been a hero fighting the Greeks in the Trojan wars. The son of Venus and a mortal father, he escaped as the great city of Troy was sacked. After quite an odyssey he landed in Latium through which the river Tiber flows. Aeneas married the daughter of King Latinus, only to aggrieve King Turnus of Rutuli who himself had his eye on her. As usual in ancient tales, there ensued a war for the princess between Turnus and Aeneas, who was by then supported by King Tarchon of the Etruscans. Naturally, Aeneas, son of Venus, was triumphant. The sack of Troy is dated to around 1220 BC. To fill the years from Aeneas to Romulus the Romans therefore were required to produce a string of fictional Kings to make the tale work. This was done across all the generations with some ease from Ascanius, son of Aeneas to Numitor, grandfather of Romulus and Remus.
While being distinctly unique in their own right, the Etruscans too owed much of their culture to the Greeks. At around 650 to 600 BC the Etruscans crossed the Tiber and occupied Latium. It is through this, so one believes, that the settlement on the Palatine Hill was brought together with the settlements on surrounding hills, either in an attempt to fend off the invaders, or, once conquered, by the Etrusc
EARLY ROME
Originally a small town on the banks of the Tiber River, Rome grew in size and strength, early on, through trade. The location of the city provided merchants with an easily navigable waterway on which to traffic their goods. Greek culture and civilization, which came to Rome via Greek colonies to the south, provided the early Romans with a model on which to build their own culture. From the Greeks they borrowed literacy andreligion as well as the fundamentals of architecture. The Etruscans, to the north, provided a model for trade and urban luxury. Etruria was also well situated for trade and the early Romans either learned the skills of trade from Etruscan example or were taught directly by the Etruscans who made incursions into the area around Rome sometime between 650 and 600 BCE. Early on, the Romans showed a talent for borrowing and improving upon the skills and concepts of other cultures. The Kingdom of Rome grew rapidly from a trading town to a prosperous city between the 8th and 6th centuries BCE. When the last of the seven kings of Rome, Tarquin the Proud, was deposed in 509 BCE, his rival for power, Lucius Junius Brutus, reformed the system of government and established the Roman Republic.
WAR & EXPANSION
Though Rome owed its prosperity to trade in the early years, it was war which would make the city a powerful force in the ancient world. The wars with the North African city of Carthage (known as the Punic Wars, 264-146 BCE) consolidated Rome's power and helped the city grow in wealth and prestige. Rome and Carthage were rivals in trade in the Western Mediterranean and, with Carthage defeated, Rome held almost absolute dominance over the region (there were still incursions by pirates which prevented complete Roman control of the sea). As the Republic of Rome grew in power and prestige, the city of Rome began to suffer from the effects of corruption, greed and the over-reliance on foreign slave labor. Gangs of unemployed Romans, put out of work by the influx of slaves brought in through territorial conquests, hired themselves out as thugs to do the bidding of whatever wealthy Senator would pay them. The wealthy elite of the city, the Patricians, became ever richer at the expense of the working lower class, the Plebeians. In the 2nd century BCE, the Gracchi brothers, Tiberius and Gaius, two Roman tribunes, lead a movement for land reform and political reform in general. Though the brothers were both killed in this cause, their efforts did spur legislative reforms and the rampant corruption of the Senate was curtailed (or, at least, the Senators became more discreet in their corrupt activities). By the time of the First Triumvirate, both the city and the Republic of Rome were in full flourish.
THE REPUBLIC
Even so, Rome found itself divided across class lines. The ruling class called themselves Optimates (the best men) while the lower classes, or those who sympathized with them, were known as the Populares (the people). These names were applied simply to those who held a certain political ideology; they were not strict political parties nor were all of the ruling class Optimates nor all of the lower classes Populares. In general, the Optimates held with traditional political and social values which favored the power of the Senate of Rome and the prestige and superiority of the ruling class. The Populares, again generally speaking, favored reform and democratization of the Roman Republic. These opposing ideologies would famously clash in the form of three men who would, unwittingly, bring about the end of the Roman Republic.
Marcus Licinius Crassus and his political rival, Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (Pompey the Great) joined with another, younger, politician, Gaius Julius Caesar, to form what modern historians call the First Triumvirate of Rome (though the Romans of the time never used that term, nor did the three men who comprised the triumvirate). Crassus and Pompey both held the Optimate political line while Caesar was a Populare. The three men were equally ambitious and, vying for power, were able to keep each other in check while helping to make Rome prosper. Crassus was the richest man in Rome and was corrupt to the point of forcing wealthy citizens to pay him `safety' money. If the citizen paid, Crassus would not burn down that person's house but, if no money was forthcoming, the fire would be lighted and Crassus would then charge a fee to send men to put the fire out. Although the motive behind the origin of these fire brigades was far from noble, Crassus did effectively create the first fire department which would, later, prove of great value to the city.
Both Pompey and Caesar were great generals who, through their respective conquests, made Rome wealthy. Though the richest man in Rome (and, it has been argued, the richest in all of Roman history) Crassus longed for the same respect people accorded Pompey and Caesar for their military successes. In 53 BCE he lead a sizeable force against the Parthians at Carrhae, in modern day Turkey, where he was killed when truce negotiations broke down. With Crassus gone, the First Triumvirate disintegrated and Pompey and Caesar declared war on each other. Pompey tried to eliminate his rival through legal means and had the Senate order Caesar to Rome to stand trial on assorted charges. Instead of returning to the city in humility to face these charges, Caesar, crossed the Rubicon River with his army in 49 BCE and entered Rome at the head of it. He refused to answer the charges and directed his focus toward eliminating Pompey as a rival. Pompey and Caesar met in battle at Pharsalus in Greece where Caesar's numerically inferior force defeated Pompey's greater one. Pompey himself fled toEgypt, expecting to find sanctuary there, but was assassinated upon his arrival. News of Caesar's great victory against overwhelming numbers at Pharsalus had spread quickly and many former friends and allies of Pompey swiftly allied themselves with Caesar, believing he was favored by the gods.
TOWARDS EMPIRE
Julius Caesar was now the most powerful man in Rome. He effectively ended the period of the Republic by having the Senate proclaim him dictator. His popularity among the people was enormous and his efforts to create a strong and stable central government meant increased prosperity for the city of Rome. He was assassinated by a group of Roman Senators in 44 BCE, however, precisely because of these achievements. The conspirators, Brutus and Cassius among them, seemed to fear that Caesar was becoming too powerful and that he might eventually abolish the Senate. Following his death, his right-hand man, and cousin, Marcus Antonius (Mark Antony) joined forces with Caesar's nephew and heir, Gaius Octavius Thurinus (Octavian) and Caesar's friend, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, to defeat the forces of Brutus and Cassius at the Battle of Phillippi in 42 BCE.
Octavian, Antony and Lepidus formed the Second Triumvirate of Rome but, as with the first, these men were also equally ambitious. Lepidus was effectively neutralized when Antony and Octavian agreed that he should have Hispania and Africa to rule over and thereby kept him from any power play in Rome. It was agreed that Octavian would rule Roman lands in the west and Antony in the east. Antony's involvement with the Egyptian queen Cleopatra VII, however, upset the balance Octavian had hoped to maintain and the two went to war. Antony and Cleopatra's combined forces were defeated at the Battle of Actium in 31 BCE and both later took their own lives. Octavian emerged as the sole power in Rome. In 27 BCE he was granted extraordinary powers by the Senate and took the name of Augustus, the first Emperor of Rome. Historians are in agreement that this is the point at which the history of Rome ends and the history of the Roman Empire begins.
Early centuries of the Roman RepublicFOUNDATION OF THE REPUBLIC
The ancient historians depicted Rome’s first six kings as benevolent and just rulers but the last one as a cruel tyrant who murdered his predecessor Servius Tullius, usurped the kingship, terrorized the Senate, and oppressed the common people with public works. He supposedly was overthrown by a popular uprising ignited by the rape of a virtuous noblewoman, Lucretia, by the king’s son. The reign of Tarquinius Superbus was described in the stereotypical terms of a Greek tyranny in order to explain the major political transition from the monarchy to the republic in accordance with Greek political theory concerning constitutional evolution from monarchy to tyranny to aristocracy. This explanation provided later Romans with a satisfying patriotic story of despotism giving way to liberty; it is probably unhistorical, however, and merely a Roman adaptation of a well-known Greek story of a love affair in Athens that led to the murder of the tyrant’s brother and the tyrant’s eventual downfall. According to ancient tradition, as soon as the Romans had expelled their last tyrannical king, the king of the Etruscan city of Clusium, Lars Porsenna, attacked and besieged Rome. The city was gallantly defended by Horatius Cocles, who sacrificed his life in defense of the bridge across the Tiber, and Mucius Scaecvola, who attempted to assassinate Porsenna in his own camp. When arrested before accomplishing the deed, he demonstrated his courage by voluntarily burning off his right hand in a nearby fire. As a result of such Roman heroism, Porsenna was supposed to have made peace with Rome and withdrawn his army.
One prevalent modern view is that the monarchy at Rome was incidentally terminated through military defeat and foreign intervention. This theory sees Rome as a site highly prized by the Etruscans of the 6th century bc, who are known to have extended their power and influence at the time across the Tiber into Latium and even farther south into Campania. Toward the end of the 6th century, Rome may have been involved in a war against King Porsenna of Clusium, who defeated the Romans, seized the city, and expelled its last king. Before Porsenna could establish himself as monarch, he was forced to withdraw, leaving Rome kingless. In fact, Porsenna is known to have suffered a serious defeat at the hands of the combined forces of the other Latins and the Greeks of Campanian Cumae. Rather than restoring Tarquin from exile to power, the Romans replaced the kingship with two annually elected magistrates (originally calledpraetors, later consuls).
THE STRUGGLE OF THE ORDERS
As the Roman state grew in size and power during the early republic (509–280 bc), new offices and institutions were created, and old ones were adapted to cope with the changing military, political, social, and economic needs of the state and its populace. According to the annalistic tradition, all these changes and innovations resulted from a political struggle between two social orders, the patricians and the plebeians, that is thought to have begun during the first years of the republic and lasted for more than 200 years. In the beginning, the patricians were supposed to have enjoyed a monopoly of power (the consulship, the Senate, and all religious offices), whereas the plebeians began with nothing except the right to vote in the assemblies. During the course of the struggle the plebeians, however, were believed to have won concessions gradually from the patricians through political agitation and confrontation, and they eventually attained legal equality with them. Thus ancient historians, such as Livy, explained all aspects of early Rome’s internal political development in terms of a single sustained social movement.
As tradition has it, the distinction between patricians and plebeians was as old as Rome itself and had been instituted by Romulus. The actual historical dating and explanation of this distinction still constitutes the single biggest unsolved problem of early Roman history. The distinction existed during the middle and late republic, but modern scholars do not agree on when or how it arose; they are increasingly inclined to think that it originated and evolved slowly during the early republic. By the time of the middle and late republic, it was largely meaningless. At that point only about one dozen Roman families were patrician, all others being plebeian. Both patrician and plebeian families made up the nobility, which consisted simply of all descendants of consuls. The term “patrician,” therefore, was not synonymous with “noble” and should not be confused with it: the patricians formed only a part of the Roman nobility of the middle and late republic. The only difference between patricians and plebeians in later times was that each group was either entitled to or debarred from holding certain minor offices.
The discrepancies, inconsistencies, and logical fallacies in Livy’s account of the early republic make it evident that the annalistic tradition’s thesis of a struggle of the orders is a gross oversimplification of a highly complex series of events that had no single cause. Tensions certainly existed; no state can experience 200 years of history without some degree of social conflict and economic unrest. In fact, legal sources indicate that the law of debt in early Rome was extremely harsh and must have sometimes created much hardship. Yet it is impossible to believe that all aspects of early Rome’s internal political development resulted from one cause. Early documents, if available, would have told the later annalistic historians little more than that a certain office had been created or some law passed. An explanation of causality could have been supplied only by folklore or by the imagination of the historian himself, neither of which can be relied upon. Livy’s descriptions of early republican political crises evince the politicalrhetoric and tactics of the late republic and therefore cannot be given credence without justification. For example, early republican agrarian legislation is narrated in late republican terms. Early republican conflicts between plebeian tribunes and the Senate are likewise patterned after the politics of the Optimates and Populares of the late republic. Caution therefore must be exercised in examining early Rome’s internal development. Many of the major innovations recorded in the ancient tradition can be accepted, but the ancient interpretation of these facts cannot go unchallenged.
THE CONSULSHIP
The later Romans viewed the abolition of the kingship and its replacement by the consulship as marking the beginning of the republic. The king’s religious functions were henceforth performed by a priest-king (rex sacrorum), who held office for life. The king’s military power (imperium) was bestowed upon two annually elected magistrates called consuls. They were always regarded as the chief magistrates of the republic, so much so that the names of each pair were given to their year of office for purposes of dating. Thus careful records were kept of these names, which later formed the chronological basis for ancient histories of the republic. The consuls were primarily generals who led Rome’s armies in war. They were therefore elected by the centuriate assembly—that is, the Roman army organized into a voting body. The two consuls possessed equal power. Such collegiality was basic to almost all Roman public offices; it served to check abuses of power because one magistrate’s actions could be obstructed by his colleague.
According to the annalistic tradition, the first plebeian consul was elected for 366 bc. All consuls before that time were thought to have been patrician, and one major aspect of the struggle of the orders was supposed to have been the plebeians’ persistent agitation to make the office open to them. However, if the classification of patrician and plebeian names known for the middle and late republic is applied to the consular list for the years 509–445 bc, plebeian names are well represented (30 percent). It is likely that there never was a prohibition against plebeians holding the consulship. The distinction between patrician and plebeian families may have become fixed only by the middle of the 4th century bc; and the law of that time (367 bc), which specified that one of the consuls was to be plebeian, may have done nothing more than to guarantee legally that both groups of the nobility would have an equal share in the state’s highest office.
THE DICTATORSHIP
Despite the advantages of consular collegiality, in military emergencies unity of command was sometimes necessary. Rome’s solution to this problem was the appointment of a dictator in place of the consuls. According to ancient tradition, the office of dictator was created in 501 bc, and it was used periodically down to the Second Punic War. The dictator held supreme military command for no longer than six months. He was also termed the master of the army (magister populi), and he appointed a subordinate cavalry commander, the master of horse (magister equitum). The office was thoroughly constitutional and should not be confused with the late republican dictatorships of Sulla and Caesar, which were simply legalizations of autocratic power obtained through military usurpation.
THE SENATE
The Senate may have existed under the monarchy and served as an advisory council for the king. Its name suggests that it was originally composed of elderly men (senes), whose age and knowledge of traditions must have been highly valued in a preliterate society. During the republic, the Senate was composed of members from the leading families. Its size during the early republic is unknown. Ancient sources indicate that it numbered about 300 during the middle republic. Its members were collectively termed patres et conscripti (“the fathers and the enrolled”), suggesting that the Senate was initially composed of two different groups. Since the term “patrician” was derived from patres and seems to have originally meant “a member of the patres,” the dichotomy probably somehow involved the distinction between patricians and plebeians.
During the republic the Senate advised both magistrates and the Roman people. Although in theory the people were sovereign (see below) and the Senate only offered advice, in actual practice the Senate wielded enormous power because of the collective prestige of its members. It was by far the most important deliberative body in the Roman state, summoned into session by a magistrate who submitted matters to it for discussion and debate. Whatever a majority voted in favour of was termed “the Senate’s advice” (senatus consultum). These advisory decrees were directed to a magistrate or the Roman people. In most instances, they were either implemented by a magistrate or submitted by him to the people for enactment into law.
THE POPULAR ASSEMBLIES
During the republic two different assemblies elected magistrates, exercised legislative power, and made other important decisions. Only adult male Roman citizens could attend the assemblies in Rome and exercise the right to vote. The assemblies were organized according to the principle of the group vote. Although each person cast one vote, he did so within a larger voting unit. The majority vote of the unit became its vote, and a majority of unit votes was needed to decide an issue.
The centuriate assembly (comitia centuriata), as stated, was military in nature and composed of voting groups called centuries (military units). Because of its military character, it always met outside the sacred boundary of the city (pomerium) in the Field of Mars (Campus Martius). It voted on war and peace and elected all magistrates who exercised imperium (consuls, praetors, censors, and curule aediles). Before the creation of criminal courts during the late republic, it sat as a high court and exercised capital jurisdiction. Although it could legislate, this function was usually performed by the tribal assembly.
The centuriate assembly evolved through different stages during the early republic, but information exists only about its final organization. It may have begun as the citizen army meeting under arms to elect its commander and to decide on war or peace. During historical times the assembly had a complex organization. All voting citizens were placed into one of five economic classes according to wealth. Each class was allotted varying numbers of centuries, and the entire assembly consisted of 193 units. The first (and richest) class of citizens was distributed among 80 centuries; the second, third, and fourth classes were each assigned 20 units. The fifth class, comprising the poorest persons in the army, was allotted 30 centuries. In addition, there were 18 centuries of knights—men wealthy enough to afford a horse for cavalry service—and five other centuries, one of which comprised the proletarii, or landless people too poor to serve in the army. The knights voted together with the first class, and voting proceeded from richest to poorest. Because the knights and the first class controlled 98 units, they were the dominant group in the assembly, though they constituted the smallest portion of the citizen body. The assembly was deliberately designed to give the greater authority to the wealthier element and was responsible for maintaining the political supremacy of the established nobility.
The tribal assembly (comitia tributa) was a nonmilitary civilian assembly. It accordingly met within the city inside the pomerium and elected magistrates who did not exercise imperium (plebeian tribunes, plebeian aediles, and quaestors). It did most of the legislating and sat as a court for serious public offenses involving monetary fines.
The tribal assembly was more democratic in its organization than the centuriate assembly. The territory of the Roman state was divided into geographic districts called tribes, and people voted in these units according to residence. The city was divided into four urban tribes. During the 5th century bc, the surrounding countryside formed 17 rustic tribes. With the expansion of Roman territory in central Italy (387–241 bc), 14 rustic tribes were added, thus gradually increasing the assembly to 35 units, a number never exceeded.
THE PLEBEIAN TRIBUNATE
According to the annalistic tradition, one of the most important events in the struggle of the orders was the creation of the plebeian tribunate. After being worn down by military service, bad economic conditions, and the rigours of early Rome’s debt law, the plebeians in 494 bc seceded in a body from the city to the Sacred Mount, located three miles from Rome. There they pitched camp and elected their own officials for their future protection. Because the state was threatened with an enemy attack, the Senate was forced to allow the plebeians to have their own officials, the tribunes of the plebs.
Initially there were only 2 tribunes of the plebs, but their number increased to 5 in 471bc and to 10 in 457 bc. They had no insignia of office, like the consuls, but they were regarded as sacrosanct. Whoever physically harmed them could be killed with impunity. They had the right to intercede on a citizen’s behalf against the action of a consul, but their powers were valid only within one mile from the pomerium. They convoked the tribal assembly and submitted bills to it for legislation. Tribunes prosecuted other magistrates before the assembled people for misconduct in office. They could also veto the action of another tribune (veto meaning “I forbid”). Two plebeian aediles served as their assistants in managing the affairs of the city. Although they were thought of as the champions of the people, persons elected to this office came from aristocratic families and generally favoured the status quo. Nevertheless, the office could be and sometimes was used by young aspiring aristocrats to make a name for themselves by taking up populist causes in opposition to the nobility.
Modern scholars disagree about the authenticity of the annalistic account concerning the plebs’ first secession and the creation of the plebeian tribunate. The tradition presented this as the first of three secessions, the other two allegedly occurring in 449 and 287 bc. The second secession is clearly fictitious. Many scholars regard the first one as a later annalistic invention as well, accepting only the last one as historical. Although the first secession is explained in terms resembling the conditions of the later Gracchan agrarian crisis (see below The reform movement of the Gracchi [133–121bc]), given the harshness of early Roman debt laws and food shortages recorded by the sources for 492 and 488 bc (information likely to be preserved in contemporary religious records), social and economic unrest could have contributed to the creation of the office. However, the urban-civilian character of the plebeian tribunate complements the extra-urban military nature of the consulship so nicely that the two offices may have originally been designed to function cooperatively to satisfy the needs of the state rather than to be antagonistic to one another.
THE LAW OF THE TWELVE TABLES
The next major episode after the creation of the plebeian tribunate in the annalistic version of the struggle of the orders involved the first systematic codification of Roman law. The plebeians were supposed to have desired a written law code in which consular imperium would be circumscribed to guard against abuses. After years of tribunician agitation the Senate finally agreed. A special board of 10 men (decemviri) was appointed for 451 bc to draw up a law code. Since their task was not done after one year, a second board of 10 was appointed to finish the job, but they became tyrannical and stayed in office beyond their time. They were finally forced out of power when one commissioner’s cruel lust for an innocent maiden named Verginia so outraged the people that they seceded for a second time.
The law code was inscribed upon 12 bronze tablets and publicly displayed in the Forum. Its provisions concerned legal procedure, debt foreclosure, paternal authority over children, property rights, inheritance, funerary regulations, and various major and minor offenses. Although many of its provisions became outmoded and were modified or replaced in later times, the Law of the Twelve Tables formed the basis of all subsequent Roman private law.
Because the law code seems not to have had any specific provisions concerning consular imperium, the annalistic explanation for the codification appears suspect. The story of the second tyrannical board of 10 is an annalistic invention patterned after the 30 tyrants of Athenian history. The tale of Verginia is likewise modeled after the story of Lucretia and the overthrow of Rome’s last king. Thus the second secession, which is an integral part of the story, cannot be regarded as historical. On the basis of existing evidence, one cannot say whether the law code resulted from any social or economic causes. Rome was a growing city and may simply have been in need of a systematic body of law.
MILITARY TRIBUNES WITH CONSULAR POWER
The creation of the office of military tribunes with consular power in 445 bc was believed to have involved the struggle of the orders. The annalistic tradition portrayed the innovation as resulting from a political compromise between plebeian tribunes, demanding access to the consulship, and the Senate, trying to maintain the patrician monopoly of the office. Henceforth, each year the people were to decide whether to elect two patrician consuls or military tribunes with consular power who could be patricians or plebeians. The list of magistrates for 444 to 367 bc shows that the chief magistracy alternated between consuls and military tribunes. Consuls were more frequently elected down to 426 but rarely thereafter. At first there were three military tribunes, but the number increased to four in 426, and to six in 406. The consular tribunate was abolished in 367 bc and replaced by the consulship.
Livy indicates that according to some sources the consular tribunate was created because Rome was faced with three wars simultaneously. Because there is evidence that there was no prohibition against plebeians becoming consuls, scholars have suggested that the reason for the innovation was the growing military and administrative needs of the Roman state; this view is corroborated by other data. Beginning in 447 bc two quaestors were elected as financial officials of the consuls, and the number increased to four in 421 bc. Beginning in 443 bc two censors were elected about every five years and held office for 18 months. They drew up official lists of Roman citizens, assessed the value of their property, and assigned them to their proper tribe and century within the tribal and centuriate assemblies. The increase in the number of military tribunes coincided with Rome’s first two major wars, againstFidenae and Veii. In 366 bc six undifferentiated military tribunes were replaced with five magistrates that had specific functions: two consuls for conducting wars, an urbanpraetor who handled lawsuits in Rome, and two curule aediles who managed various affairs in the city. In 362 bc the Romans began to elect annually six military tribunes as subordinate officers of the consuls.
SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC CHANGES
The law reinstating the consulship was one of three tribunician bills, the so-called Licinio-Sextian Rogations of 367 bc. Another forbade citizens to rent more than 500iugera (330 acres) of public land, and the third provided for the alleviation of indebtedness. The historicity of the second bill has often been questioned, but the great increase in the size of Roman territory resulting from Rome’s conquest of Veii renders this law plausible. The law concerning indebtedness is probably historical as well, since other data suggest that debt was a problem in mid-4th-century Rome. In 352 bc a five-man commission was appointed to extend public credit in order to reduce private indebtedness. A Genucian law of 342 bc (named after Genucius, tribune of that year) temporarily suspended the charging of interest on loans. In 326 or 313 bc a Poetelian law ameliorated the harsh conditions of the Twelve Tables regarding debt servitude by outlawing the use of chains to confine debt bondsmen.
Rome’s economic advancement is reflected in its replacement of a cumbersome bronze currency with silver coinage adopted from the Greek states of southern Italy, the so-called Romano-Campanian didrachms. The date of this innovation is disputed. Modern estimates range from the First Samnite War to the Pyrrhic War. Rome was no longer a small town of central Italy but rather was quickly becoming the master of theItalian peninsula and was taking its place in the larger Mediterranean world.
The process of expansion is well illustrated by innovations in Roman private law about 300 bc. Since legal business could be conducted only on certain days (dies fasti), knowledge of the calendar was important for litigation. In early times the rex sacrorumat the beginning of each month orally proclaimed in Rome before the assembled people the official calendar for that month. Though suited for a small agricultural community, this parochial procedure became increasingly unsuitable as Roman territory grew and more citizens lived farther from Rome. In 304 bc a curule aedilenamed Gnaeus Flavius upset conservative opinion but performed a great public service by erecting an inscription of the calendar in the Roman Forum for permanent display. From early times, Roman private law and legal procedure had largely been controlled and developed by the priesthood of pontiffs. In 300 bc the Ogulnian law (after the tribunes Gnaeus and Quintus Ogulnius) ended the patrician monopoly of two priestly colleges by increasing the number of pontiffs from four to eight and the number of augurs from four to nine and by specifying that the new priests were to be plebeian.
In 287 bc the third (and perhaps the only historical) secession of the plebs occurred. Since Livy’s account has not survived, detailed knowledge about this event is lacking. One source suggests that debt caused the secession. Many sources state that the crisis was ended by the passage of the Hortensian law (after Quintus Hortensius, dictator for 287), which was thought to have given enactments of the tribal assembly the same force as resolutions of the centuriate assembly. However, since similar measures were supposed to have been enacted in 449 and 339 bc, doubt persists about the meaning of these laws. It is possible that no difference ever existed in the degree of legal authority of the two assemblies. The three laws could be annalistic misinterpretations of a provision of the Twelve Tables specifying that what the people decided last should be binding. One source indicates that the Hortensian law made all assembly days eligible for legal business. If debt played a role in the secession, the Hortensian law may have been designed to reduce the backlog of lawsuits in the praetor’s court in Rome.
THE LATIN LEAGUE
Although the Latins dwelled in politically independent towns, their common language and culture produced cooperation in religion, law, and warfare. All Latins could participate in the cults of commonly worshiped divinities, such as the cult of thePenates of Lavinium, Juno of Lanuvium, and Diana (celebrated at both Aricia and Rome). Latins freely intermarried without legal complications. When visiting another Latin town, they could buy, sell, litigate, and even vote with equal freedom. If a Latin took up permanent residence in another Latin community, he became a full citizen of his new home. Although the Latin states occasionally waged war among themselves, in times of common danger they banded together for mutual defense. Each state contributed military forces according to its strength. The command of all forces was entrusted by common assent to a single person from one of the Latin towns. Sometimes the Latins even founded colonies upon hostile territory as military outposts, which became new, independent Latin states, enjoying the same rights as all the other ones. Modern scholars use the term “Latin League” to describe this collection of rights and duties.
According to ancient tradition, Rome’s last three kings not only transformed Rome into a real city but also made it the leader of the Latin League. There is probably exaggeration in this claim. Roman historians were eager to portray early Rome as destined for future greatness and as more powerful than it actually was. Rome certainly became one of the more important states in Latium during the 6th century, but Tibur, Praeneste, and Tusculum were equally important and long remained so. By the terms of the first treaty between Rome and Carthage (509 bc), recorded by the Greek historian Polybius (c. 150 bc), the Romans (or perhaps more accurately, the Latins generally) claimed a coastal strip 70 miles south of the Tiber River as their sphere of influence not to be encroached upon by the Carthaginians.
Rome’s rapid rise during the 6th century was the achievement of its Etruscan overlords, and the city quickly declined with the collapse of Etruscan power in Campania and Latium about 500 bc. Immediately after the fall of the Roman monarchy, amid Porsenna’s conquest of Rome, his defeat by the Latins, and his subsequent withdrawal, the plain of Latium began to be threatened by surrounding hill tribes (Sabines, Aequi, and Volsci), who experienced overpopulation and tried to acquire more land. Thus Rome’s external affairs during the 5th century largely revolved around its military assistance to the Latin League to hold back these invaders. Many details in Livy’s account of this fighting are, however, unreliable. In order to have a literary theme worthy of Rome’s later greatness, Livy’s annalistic sources had described these conflicts in the most grandiose terms. Yet the armies, military ranks, castrametation (i.e., techniques in making and fortifying encampments), and tactics described belong to the late republic, not the Rome of the 5th century.
![Rome, ancient: Italy, 298-201 BC [Credit: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.]](http://media-2.web.britannica.com/eb-media/40/537x563x1040-004-2659CE24.jpg.pagespeed.ic.knSRVc1rHP.webp) Roman expansion in Italy
Toward the end of the 5th century, while Rome and the Latins were still defending themselves against the Volsci and the Aequi, the Romans began to expand at the expense of Etruscan states. Rome’s incessant warfare and expansion during the republic has spawned modern debate about the nature of Roman imperialism. Ancient Roman historians, who were often patriotic senators, believed that Rome always waged just wars in self-defense, and they wrote their accounts accordingly, distorting or suppressing facts that did not fit this view. The modern thesis of Roman defensive imperialism, which followed this ancient bias, is now largely discredited. Only the fighting in the 5th century bc and the later wars against the Gauls can clearly be so characterized. Rome’s relentless expansion was more often responsible for provoking its neighbours to fight in self-defense. Roman consuls, who led the legions into battle, often advocated war because victory gained them personal glory. Members of the centuriate assembly, which, as noted above, decided war and peace, may sometimes have voted for war in expectation that it would lead to personal enrichment through seizure and distribution of booty. The evidence concerning Roman expansion during the early republic is poor, but the fact that Rome created 14 new rustic tribes during the years 387–241 bc suggests that population growth could have been a driving force. Furthermore, Romans living on the frontier may have strongly favoured war against restless neighbours, such as Gauls and Samnites. The animal husbandry of the latter involved seasonal migrations between summer uplands and winter lowlands, which caused friction between them and settled Roman farmers.
Though the Romans did not wage wars for religious ends, they often used religious means to assist their war effort. The fetial priests were used for the solemn official declaration of war. According to fetial law, Rome could enjoy divine favour only if it waged just wars—that is, wars of self-defense. In later practice, this often simply meant that Rome maneuvered other states into declaring war upon it. Then Rome followed with its declaration, acting technically in self-defense; this strategy had the effect of boosting Roman morale and sometimes swaying international public opinion.
Rome’s first major war against an organized state was fought with Fidenae (437–426bc), a town located just upstream from Rome. After it had been conquered, its land was annexed to Roman territory. Rome next fought a long and difficult war against Veii, an important Etruscan city not far from Fidenae. Later Roman historians portrayed the war as having lasted 10 years (406–396 bc), patterning it after the mythical Trojan War of the Greeks. After its conquest, Veii’s tutelary goddess, Queen Juno, was solemnly summoned to Rome. The city’s territory was annexed, increasing Roman territory by 84 percent and forming four new rustic tribes. During the wars against Fidenae and Veii, Rome increased the number of military tribunes with consular power from three to four
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