A History of the Roman World (19 page)

The Gallic invasion brought in its train a period of extreme distress. Amid this confusion the demands of the plebeians became more insistent until in 367 the Licinian Rogations won for them a considerable political victory which went far to unite the orders. Economic depression formed the background to much of the discontent. This centred around conditions of land tenure and the harsh laws of debt; it was aggravated by actual shortage of food. It has already been seen how pressing were these problems in the early days of the Republic (pp. 75f.). During the fifth century, and especially in its last decades, Rome’s conquests in Italy had increased the amount of
ager publicus
. If the plebs had been refused a fair share of Roman territory earlier, it would obviously be fatal to refuse their demands when this territory had been so greatly increased partly as a result of their efforts. So although some land may have been sold by the state to those who could afford to buy, some was distributed in plots to individual citizens as their absolute property (
assignatio
) The tribunes were not yet powerful enough to propose such measures, which were moved by magistrates and voted by the Comitia Centuriata with the Senate’s approval. Part of the land taken from Veii was distributed in this way in 393 in allotments of perhaps 4
iugera
each (Diodorus, xiv, 102, 4; Livy v, 30, 8, gives 7
iugera
). Patricians could apply for such land, but would probably sell or lease their portions; the poorer citizens were the chief gainers. By such grants of land the Romans secured the proximity and the interest of responsible self-supporting property owners who would rally to defend the state in
hours of need. There were other means of relief for those who lacked land: they could share in the founding of colonies where they received allotments, and it is estimated that some 50,000 people may have gone to colonies between 450 and 290
BC
. Or land could be obtained by squatting (
occupatio
) on state property with the right of
possessio
. Nominally a rent was paid, but most of such land fell into the hands of the richer farmers who could afford to develop it and who in practice seldom paid their dues.

In these circumstances it is not surprising that the legislation of this period should include some agrarian enactments. Such are found in the Licinian Rogations of 367 by which the amount of public land held by any individual was limited. Since the form of the law, as preserved, is similar to that enacted by Tiberius Gracchus in 133
BC
, many historians reject the economic clauses of the Licinio-Sextian legislation as anticipations of later conditions. This radical criticism seems unjustified. Some details, for instance, that the limit was set at 500
iugera
(300 acres), may be due to Gracchan influences, but a clause which limited the tenancies of public land may be accepted.
¹
This measure, however, did not solve the land problem, which was rather met by the rapid advance of Rome in Italy, by the increasing number of colonies, by fresh distributions of land and perhaps by the slow growth of industry.

The second main grievance arose from the harsh laws of debt. The story of how the patrician M. Manlius Capitolinus, who had saved the Capitol from the Gauls, gave up his property to redeem debtors from slavery and was killed for aiming at a tyranny, may deserve little credence, but it does reflect the serious economic situation. As Solon at Athens proclaimed a
Seisachtheia
, so the tribunes Licinius and Sextius in their Rogation of 367 decreed that interest already paid should be deducted from the original loan, and the balance, if any, should be repaid within three years. Modern attempts to discredit this measure are not very convincing; it was a temporary expedient which treated the symptoms rather than the disease.
²

Attempts at relief consisted either in limiting the rate of interest or in bankruptcy laws, neither of which was very successful. No experiment was tried on the lines of allowing the debtor to compound with his creditor for a sum rather less than the full amount. In 357 M. Duilius and L. Menenius, two tribunes, fixed the rate of interest at one-twelfth (8⅓ per cent); if such a law had been contained in the Twelve Tables it was now re-enacted (p. 80). In 352 a Commission of Five was set up by the consuls as a state bank. They had powers to make advances from the state to debtors in difficulties, to take over mortgages on adequate security, or to settle them by allowing bankruptcy proceedings. Five years later the legal rate of interest was reduced by half, and another three years’ moratorium was declared; as the state had taken over many mortgages, the Treasury would have to stand the loss in such cases. In 342 a tribune, L. Genucius, carried a measure to forbid loans and usury; Livy
appears a little doubtful about this law, but it may well have been another temporary expedient which soon fell into disuse. Foreign conquests and increased colonization offered some relief in the following years, but in 326 (Livy, viii, 28) or 313 (Varro, L. L., vii, 105) the question of enslavement for debt was once more faced and finally settled. It was scarcely possible to amend the law relating to
nexum
laid down by the Twelve Tables, but it could be rendered harmless. The
Lex Poetelia
stands out like an ancient Magna Charta. ‘In that year’, wrote Livy, ‘the liberty of the Roman plebs had, as it were, a new beginning; for men ceased to be imprisoned for debt.’ The details are obscure, but apparently it was decreed that judgement must be obtained before execution was carried out; and Pais may be correct in supposing that loans were to be made on the security of the property, and not of the person of the borrower. ‘The bonds of the citizens were released and thereafter binding for debts ceased,’ wrote Cicero.
³
A landmark had been set up, but the financial and agricultural problems still awaited a permanent solution.

Since plebeians had been elected consular tribunes, it would be illogical to exclude them from the consulship if it should be re-established. Yet the plebeian demand for this privilege resulted in the most famous constitutional struggle in Roman history: the ten years’ agitation which produced the Licinian laws. In 376 two tribunes, C. Licinius and L. Sextius, proposed that the consulship should be restored and that one consul should be a plebeian; their economic proposals have already been mentioned. Their eight colleagues blocked the measure. For ten years, it is said, Licinius and Sextius were re-elected to office while the struggle raged. According to Livy no patrician magistrates were elected for five years, though Diodorus reduces the period of ἀναϱχία to one year. Camillus twice was elected dictator. In 368 the patrician resistance began to weaken: the number of commissioners who regulated various religious ceremonies (
sacris faciundis
) was raised from two to ten, of whom five were to be plebeians. At one point the poorer plebeians were willing to drop the law about the consulship, if only the economic measures were passed: but the plebeian leaders stiffened their backs, until finally in 367 all the measures were passed and became law; L. Sextius himself was elected as first plebeian consul for 366. Many details of this struggle are suspicious, but the passage of the bill in 367 should not be questioned.
⁴

The patricians tried to minimize their loss by depriving the consuls (or
praetores consules
) of some of their duties. The ordinary civil jurisdiction of the city was handed over in 366 to a regular magistrate with
imperium
, inferior to that of the consuls; he was named, like them, praetor, but was never called consul, while the consuls themselves retained this part of their title and
dropped the additional
praetores
. This praetor probably was to be patrician, but by 337 the plebeians won admission to the magistracy. In 367 two curule aediles were elected from the patricians, but in the following year it was arranged that this office should alternate annually between the two orders. And thus, notwithstanding attempted patrician evasions, a settlement had been reached. The wealthy plebeians had secured access to the consulship: the other magistracies would be attained in course of time. The Licinian Laws decided the struggle of the orders in every real sense. The final compromise may have been brought about partly through the intervention of the aged Camillus, ‘the second founder of Rome’, who died two years later, but not before he is said to have vowed a temple to Concord (Concordia Ordinum) to commemorate the equalization of the orders.
⁵

When once the principle of equality of office had been established, the plebeians soon reached all the magistracies; a plebeian was dictator in 356 and censor in 351. But the number of plebeian families which held the consulship was small: the Genucii and Licinii were the chief representatives before 361, the Poetelii, Popillii, Plautii and Marcii in the following few years. Sometimes there were apparently no suitable plebeian candidates, or else they were shouldered out by their rivals, since on six or seven occasions between 355–343 two patrician consuls were elected.
⁶
In consequence some legislation was carried in 342, resulting from a mutiny of the army in Campania and from the initiative of a tribune, backed perhaps by a secession. A
lex sacrata militaris
forbade the degradation of a military tribune and the forcible discharge of a soldier, thus checking the power of the consul on active service. L. Genucius is said to have passed laws (1) prohibiting the taking of interest, (2) forbidding the holding of the same office twice within ten years, and (3) declaring that both consuls might legally be plebeians. Of these measures the first is reasonable; the second, if genuine, was certainly not observed; the third is possible as a theoretical ruling; it was not till 172
BC
that two plebeians held the consulship together, yet it is unlikely that two patricians did so after 342.

More important than these Leges Genuciae were the Leges Publiliae of 339. The consul Q. Publilius Philo, who later had a distinguished career, becoming the first plebeian praetor in 337 and the first consul to have his magistracy extended by a
prorogatio imperii
in 326 (p. 120), was named dictator by his colleague in 339. In the Comitia Centuriata he carried three laws in favour of the plebeians; two of them strengthened the popular sovereignty. These concessions were obtained perhaps because of the severity of the Latin revolt which emphasized the value of the Roman people on the field of battle. The measures were: (1) That one of the censors must be a plebeian; this ended the patrician monopoly of an office which had been created partly to evade the consequences of admitting the plebeians to the consulship. (2) That the sanction of the
patres
must be given beforehand to all laws proposed by a magistrate in the
Comitia Centuriata. Before this enactment the only exclusive rights left to the patricians were the occupancy of a few priesthoods, the appointment of an
interrex
, and the
patrum auctoritas
by which they decided on the form of a law. By this last privilege they could block a law passed in the Comitia Centuriata on the ground of its faulty form; but by Philo’s enactment faults could be corrected before submission to the Comitia and so the power of the
patres
was weakened. Yet as a magistrate proposing a law now had to discuss it before the Senate, the influence of that body as a whole increased over the magistrates, as it decreased over the people. The
patres
, however, had been robbed of a useful political weapon. (3) That
plebiscita
should be binding on the whole
populus
. This was a reassertion of one of the clauses of the Valerio-Horatian laws of 449, if the latter are considered genuine. It is not, however, probable that
plebiscita
were recognized as having the force of laws (
leges
) without some limiting clause until 287.
⁷
But the Publilian legislation was another landmark in the history of the orders, and during the fifty years which followed the Gallic invasion the equalization of the orders had been almost completed.

Before reaching calmer waters the ship of state encountered further squalls, arising partly from a radical social readjustment which had begun with the Licinian-Sextian legislation. These laws had in practice abolished the outstanding political differences between the orders, and the patricians were forced to hand over the helm to a new nobility, composed partly of themselves and partly of plebeians. But while this exclusive body absorbed many of the older plebeians, there grew up in the place of the latter a new populace in Rome with fresh demands. The old contrast between patricians and plebeians gave place to a coalition of the moderates of both parties, while at one extremity there remained a small right wing of patricians, at the other an urban proletariat.

The creation of this new patricio-plebeian nobility was caused by the decline of the patricians, whose
gentes
were steadily decreasing in number, and by the increasing political influence and numbers of the plebeians, which were due to the large annexations of territory, the extension of Roman citizenship in Italy, the attraction of the capital and the value of the plebeians in war. Their leaders gradually fused with the more moderate patricians and formed a new caste during the second half of the fourth and the beginning of the third centuries. Outstanding figures were the patrician P. Valerius Publicola and Q. Fabius Rullianus, and the plebeian Q. Publilius Philo, P. Decius Mus and his son, C. Marcius Rutilus and M’. Curius Dentatus. The number of plebeian families to attain to the consulship varied at different times: when the office was first opened to them it was monopolized by a few;
during the decade after 340 eight new
gentes
were admitted to the charmed circle, but then the numbers lessened until the last decade of the century when more
novi homines
were successful. It is uncertain to what extent families from Latin and Campanian cities shared this privilege of office: Tusculum gave Rome the Fulvii and Ti. Coruncanius and indeed more consular families than any other municipality.
⁸
Many Latins doubtless settled in Rome, where they enjoyed the rights of
commercium
and intermarriage and where by residence they could claim full citizenship. But a large number of them probably belonged to the poorer classes and had little prospect of or desire for office, and many, being landless, would be enrolled in one of the four urban tribes where their voting power was restricted since the constituency was larger than those of the rustic tribes.

In contrast to the new nobility was the steadily increasing urban population, which included these poorer Latins and indeed all the humbler artisans that were attracted to the capital. Many half-citizens (
cives sine suffragio
) and strangers would take up residence in Rome, as economic conditions and the growth of small industries increased the importance of the city. A large part of this urban populace consisted of freedmen. The manumission of slaves was becoming common, especially as many were prisoners of war who were often as civilized as their masters. As early as 357 a government tax of 5 per cent was levied on manumission and, although a freedman (
libertus
) could not officially be enfranchised, his sons (
libertini
) could, and the
liberti
were doubtless often able to circumvent the law. As most of the
libertini
would be engaged in industry rather than in possession of land, they too would be included in the four urban tribes; possession of land, which was not a necessary qualification for registration on the citizen-roll and the tribes, probably alone entitled a man to registration in a rustic tribe.

The first attempt to improve the position of this urban population was made by Appius Claudius, one of the outstanding personalities of early Rome, at a time when the Romans needed to mobilize their resources against the Samnites and Etruscans. The censorship of Appius in 312 was memorable for his public works and political independence. He improved the water supply by building the first of the Roman aqueducts, which brought water from the Sabine Hills to the increasing population of the city, and he constructed one of the great military roads, with which Rome secured her hold on Italy, the Via Appia between Rome and Capua. (He later built a temple to Bellona, the goddess of war, in the Campus Martius, where the Senate often met, especially to receive victorious generals and foreign ambassadors.) Though a patrician, he attempted to win over the landless urban population by distributing these
humiles
throughout all the tribes (i.e. rustic as well as urban), and by allowing each man to register his property where he chose. This reform gave the landless (but not necessarily poor) population an advantage
over the landholders of the rustic tribes, who might not always be able to leave their farms and come to Rome in sufficient numbers to assert their will in public business, whereas previously they had easily been able to outvote the four urban tribes. Appius’ measure won him the support of the proletariat and the extreme patricians at the expense of the new nobility. He is said to have given further offence to the nobility in revising the list of the Senate, a right which recently had been transferred to the censors from the consuls by a
lex Ovinia
. He admitted the sons of freedmen to the Senate, but they were promptly rejected by the consuls of the next year, if they were in fact ever admitted. But now that the curule magistracies were open to them and they had a voice in the assemblies they might reach the Senate through a magistracy: for instance, Cn. Flavius, aedile in 304, was the son of a freedman. The reform of Appius provoked considerable opposition and it was repealed by the censors of 304, Q. Fabius Maximus Rullianus and P. Decius Mus, leaders of the new nobility.
⁹
The proletarians and
libertini
were again confined to the four urban tribes, and landed property came back into its own. Appius’ career, which seems more typical of a Cleisthenes or Pericles than an early Roman statesman, was checked for the moment, though he crossed swords with the new nobility more than once in the first decade of the next century.

Cn. Flavius, a magistrate’s clerk (
scriba
) and the son of a freedman, who was elected aedile in 304, published a legal handbook of phrases and forms of procedure (
legis actiones
) and posted up in the Forum a calendar of the
dies fasti
and
nefasti
, showing the court days. The traditional account presents many difficulties, since
inter alia
the calendar already had been included in the Twelve Tables. According to Pliny, Flavius was acting with the help of Appius; but Pomponius relates that Flavius stole the book of
legis actiones
from Appius, who had composed it, and presented it to the people who promptly elected him tribune, senator and curule aedile. Though the law was common to both orders, magistrates could often block proceedings on technical grounds, through their more intimate, if not exclusive, knowledge of the precise and intricate phraseology. Perhaps by publishing for the first time, or more probably by making widely known these forms of procedure, the
ius civile Flavianum
marks a real step in the equalization of the orders.

In the year 300 the struggle of the orders entered its penultimate phase. The consul M. Valerius Maximus passed a law which defined and confirmed the right of appeal to the people against a capital sentence; the judicial and coercive powers of the magistrates in the city were checked. At the same time two tribunes, Cn. and Q. Ogulnius, despite the opposition of Appius Claudius, carried a law to enlarge the priestly colleges and throw them open to plebeians. The number of pontiffs was raised from five (probably) to nine by the inclusion of four plebeians; and the four patrician augurs received five plebeian colleagues. Thus the plebeians won a majority in the lesser of the
colleges, and later even in the college of pontiffs, where they were assigned another post some time between 292 and 218. Thus the plebs had won their way into the very heart of the camp of the patricians, who retained the monopoly only of the offices of
interrex
,
rex sacrorum
and
flamen
. Some time after 293 a Lex Maenia extended the clause of the Publilian law of 339 which decreed that the sanction of the
patres
must be given beforehand to legislative enactments; such preliminary sanction was now made necessary in elections, so that the privileges of the patrician members of the Senate were reduced to pure formality.

About 287, at the end of the Samnite wars, the final scene of the drama was enacted. Unfortunately our knowledge of it is small in comparison with its importance. Troubles arising from debt provoked the last secession of the plebs, who withdrew over the Tiber to the Janiculum. A plebeian, Q. Hortensius, was appointed dictator and carried a law that the resolutions of the plebeian assembly (
plebiscita
) should have the force of law and be binding on the whole community. Thus the right first claimed by Valerius and Horatius more than a hundred and fifty years earlier was at last conceded. The Lex Hortensia has been called the final triumph of democracy at Rome. The people were sovereign. At the time when the Romans were completing the unification of Italy, the struggle of the orders was ended.