by Will Durant
The long war with Veii (405-396), and the assault of the Gauls upon Rome, unified the nation for a time, and stilled internal strife. But victory and disaster alike left the plebeians destitute. While they fought for their country their lands were neglected or ravaged, and the interest on their debts mounted beyond possible repayment. The lenders took no excuse, but demanded principal and interest, or the imprisonment and enslavement of the borrowers. In 376 the tribunes Licinius and Sextius proposed that interest already paid should be deducted from the principal, the balance to be met in three years; that no man should be allowed to own more than five hundred iugera (about three hundred acres) of land, or to use on them more than a certain proportion.of slaves to free laborers; and that one of the two consuls should regularly be chosen from the plebs. For a decade the patricians resisted these proposals; meanwhile, says Dio Cassius, “they stirred up war after war, that the people might be too occupied to agitate about the land.”9 At last, threatened with a third secession, the Senate accepted the “Licinian laws,” and Camillus, leader of the conservatives, celebrated the reconciliation of the classes by building a stately Temple of Concord in the Forum.
It was a major step in the growth of Rome’s limited democracy. From that moment the plebs progressed rapidly towards a formal equality with the “orders” in politics and law. In 356 a plebeian was made dictator for a year; in 351 the censorship, in 337 the praetorship, and in 300 the priesthoods were opened to the plebs. Finally (287) the Senate agreed that the decisions of the Tribal Assembly should also have the force of law, even when contrary to the resolutions of the Senate. Since in this Assembly the patricians could easily be outvoted by the plebs, this lex Hortensia was the capstone and triumph of Roman democracy.
Nevertheless, the power of the Senate soon recovered after these defeats. The demand for land was quieted by sending Romans as colonists to conquered soil. The cost of winning and holding office—which was unpaid—automatically disqualified the poor. The richer plebeians, having secured political equality and opportunity, now co-operated with the patricians in checking radical legislation; the poorer plebeians, shorn of financial means, ceased for two centuries to play a significant role in the affairs of Rome. Businessmen fell in with patrician policy because it gave them contracts for public works, openings for colonial and provincial exploitation, and commissions to collect taxes for the state. The Assembly of the Centuries, whose method of voting gave the aristocracy full control, continued to choose the magistrates, and therefore the Senate. The tribunes, dependent upon the support of rich plebeians, used their office as a conservative force. Every consul, even if chosen by the plebs, became by contagion a zealous conservative when, at the close of his year of office, he was received into the Senate for life. The Senate took the initiative in legislation, and custom sanctioned its authority far beyond the letter of the law. As foreign affairs became more important, the Senate’s firm administration of them raised its prestige and power. When, in 264, Rome entered upon a century of war with Carthage for the mastery of the Mediterranean, it was the Senate that led the nation through every trial to victory; and an imperiled and desperate people yielded without protest to its leadership and domination.
II. THE CONSTITUTION OF THE REPUBLIC
1. The Lawmakers
Let us try to picture to ourselves this complex state, so formed after five centuries of development. By common consent it was one of the ablest and most successful governments that the world has yet seen; Polybius, indeed, considered it an almost literal realization of Aristotle’s ideal constitution. It provided the framework, sometimes the battleground, of Roman history.
Who, among this people, were the citizens? Technically, those who had been born or adopted into one of the three original tribes of Rome. In practice this meant all males above fifteen years of age who were neither slaves nor aliens, and all aliens who had received a grant of Roman citizenship. Never before or since has citizenship been so jealously guarded or so highly prized. It meant membership in the relatively small group that was soon to rule the whole Mediterranean area; it brought immunity from legal torture or duress, and the right of appeal from any official in the Empire to the Assembly—or, later, the emperor—at Rome.
Obligations went with these privileges. The citizen, unless quite poor, was liable to military service at call from his sixteenth to his sixtieth year; and he could not hold political office until he had served ten years in the army. His political rights were so bound up with his military duties that his most important voting was done as a member of his regiment, or “century.” In the days of the kings he had voted also in the comitia curiata; i.e., he and other heads of families had come together (cum-ire) in a gathering of the thirty curiae, or wards, into which the three tribes had been divided; and to the end of the Republic it was this Curial Assembly that conferred upon the elected magistrates the imperium, or authority to govern. After the fall of the monarchy the Curial Assembly rapidly lost its other powers to the comitia centuriata—the soldiers assembled in “centuries” originally of one hundred men. It was this Centurial Assembly that chose the magistrates, passed or rejected the measures proposed to it by officials or the Senate, heard appeals from the judgments of magistrates, tried all cases of capital crime charged to Roman citizens, and decided upon war or peace. It was the broad base of both the Roman army and the Roman government. Nevertheless, its powers were narrowly constrained. It could convene only at the call of a consul or a tribune. It could vote only upon such measures as were presented to it by the magistrates or the Senate. It could not discuss or amend these proposals; it could only vote Yes or No.
The conservative character of its decisions was guaranteed by the class arrangement of its members. At the top were eighteen centuries of patricians and businessmen (equites). Then came the “first class”—men owning 100,000 asses’ worth of property;I these had eighty centuries, or 8000 men, in the Assembly. The second class embraced citizens owning between 75,000 and 100,000 asses; the third, between 50,000 and 75,000 asses; the fourth, between 25,000 and 50,000 asses; and each of these classes had twenty centuries. The fifth class included citizens owning between 11,000 and 25,000 asses, and had thirty centuries. All citizens possessing under 11,000 asses were formed into one century.10 Each century cast one vote, determined by a majority of its members; a small majority in one century could cancel a large majority in another, and give the victory to a numerical minority. Since each century voted in the order of its financial rank, and its vote was announced as soon as taken, the agreement of the first two groups gave at once ninety-eight votes, a majority of the whole, so that the lower classes seldom voted at all. Voting was direct: citizens who could not come to Rome for the meeting had no representation in the Assembly. All this was no mere device to disfranchise the peasants and the plebs. The classification of centuries had been made by the census to distinguish men for taxation as well as for war; the Romans thought it just that the right to vote should be proportioned to taxes paid and military duties required. Citizens with less than 11,000 asses of property had altogether only one centurial vote; but correspondingly they paid a negligible tax and were in normal times exempt from military service.11 Of the proletariat, till Marius’ day, nothing was asked except prolific parentage. Despite some later changes, the Centurial Assembly remained a frankly conservative and aristocratic institution.
Doubtless as an offset to this, the plebs had from the beginning of the Republic held its own assemblies, the concilia plebis. Out of these councils, probably, came the comitia populi tributa which we find exercising legislative power as early as 357 B.C. In this Tribal Assembly of the People the voters were arranged according to tribe and residence, on the basis of the Servian census; each tribe had one vote, and the rich counted for no more than the poor. After the recognition of its legislative authority by the Senate in 287, the power of the Tribal Assembly grew until by 200 it had become the chief source of private law in Rome. It chose the tribunes (i.e., tribal r
epresentatives) of the people (tribuni plebis) as distinct from the tribuni militares elected by the centuries. Here, too, however, there was no discussion by the people; a magistrate proposed a law and defended it, another magistrate might speak against it; the Assembly listened, and voted Yes or No. Though by its constitution it was more progressive than the Centurial Assembly, it was far from radical. Thirty-one of its thirty-five tribes were rural, and their members, mostly owners of land, were cautious men. The urban proletariat, confined to four tribes, was politically powerless before Marius, and after Caesar.
The Senate remained supreme. Its original membership of clan heads was recruited by the regular admission of ex-consuls and ex-censors, and the censors were authorized to keep its numbers up to 300 by nominating to it men of patrician or equestrian rank. Membership was for life, but the Senate or a censor could dismiss any member detected in crime or serious moral offense. The august body convened at the call of any major magistrate in the curia, or senate house, facing the Forum. By a pleasant custom the members brought their sons with them to attend in silence, and to learn statesmanship and chicanery at first hand. Theoretically the Senate might discuss and decide only such issues as were presented to it by a magistrate, and its decisions were merely advice (senatus consulta), without the force of law. Actually its prestige was so great that the magistrates nearly always accepted its recommendations, and seldom submitted to the assemblies any measure not already sanctioned by the Senate. Its decisions were subject to veto by any tribune, and a defeated minority of the Senate might appeal to the assemblies;12 but these procedures were rare except in revolution. The magistrates held power for a year only, while the senators were chosen for life; inevitably this deathless monarch dominated the bearers of a brief authority. The conduct of foreign relations, the making of alliances and treaties, the waging of war, the government of the colonies and provinces, the management and distribution of the public lands, the control of the treasury and its disbursements—all these were exclusive functions of the Senate, and gave it immense power. It was legislature, executive, and judiciary in one. It acted as judge in crimes like treason, conspiracy, or assassination, and appointed from its membership the judges in most major civil trials. When a crisis came it could issue its most formidable decree, the senatus-consultum ultimum, “that the consuls should see to it that no harm should come to the state”—a decree that established martial law and gave the consuls absolute command of all persons and property.
The Senate of the Republic II often abused its authority, defended corrupt officials, waged war ruthlessly, exploited conquered provinces greedily, and suppressed the aspirations of the people for a larger share in the prosperity of Rome. But never elsewhere, except from Trajan to Aurelius, have so much energy, wisdom, and skill been applied to statesmanship; and never elsewhere has the idea of service to the state so dominated a government or a people. These senators were not supermen; they made serious mistakes, sometimes vacillated in their policies, often lost the vision of empire in the lust for personal gain. But most of them had been magistrates, administrators, and commanders; some of them, as proconsuls, had ruled provinces as large as kingdoms; many of them came of families that had given statesmen or generals to Rome for hundreds of years; it was impossible that a body made up of such men should escape some measure of excellence. The Senate was at its worst in victory, at its best in defeat. It could carry forward policies that spanned generations and centuries; it could begin a war in 264 and end it in 146 B.C. When Cineas, the philosopher who had come to Rome as envoy of Pyrrhus (280), had heard the Senate’s deliberations and observed its men, he reported to the new Alexander that here was no mere gathering of venal politicians, no haphazard council of mediocre minds, but in dignity and statesmanship veritably “an assemblage of kings.”13
2. The Magistrates
The major officials were elected by the Centurial, the minor by the Tribal, Assembly. Each office was held by a collegium of two or more colleagues, equal in power. All offices except the censorship ran for only a year. The same office could be held by the same person only once in ten years; a year had to elapse between leaving one office and taking another; and in the interval the ex-official could be prosecuted for malfeasance. The aspirant to a political career, if he survived a decade in the army, might seek election as one of the quaestors who, under the Senate and the consuls, managed the expenditure of state funds, and assisted the praetors in preventing and investigating crime. If he pleased his electors or his influential supporters, he might later be chosen one of the four aediles charged with the care of buildings, aqueducts, streets, markets, theaters, brothels, saloons, police courts, and public games. If again successful, he might be made one of the four praetors who in war led armies, and in peace acted as judges and interpreters of the law.III
At about this point in the cursus honorum, or sequence of offices, the citizen who had made a name for integrity and judgment might become one of the two censors (“valuators”) chosen every fifth year by the Centurial Assembly. One of them would take the quinquennial census of the citizens, and assess their property for political and military status and for taxation. The censors were required to examine the character and record of every candidate for office; they watched over the honor of women, the education of children, the treatment of slaves, the collection or farming of taxes, the construction of public buildings, the letting of governmental property or contracts, and the proper cultivation of the land. They could lower the rank of any citizen, or remove any member of the Senate, whom they found guilty of immorality or crime; and in this function the power of either censor was immune to the veto of the other. They could try to check extravagance by raising taxes on luxuries. They prepared and published a budget of state expenditures on a five-year plan. At the close of their eighteen-month term they would gather the citizens together in a solemn ceremony of national purification (lustrum), as a means of maintaining cordial relations with the gods. Appius Claudius Caecus (the Blind), great-grandson of the Decemvir, was the first to make the censorship rival the consulate in dignity. During his term (312) he built the Appian Aqueduct and the Appian Way, promoted rich plebeians to the Senate, reformed land laws and state finances, helped to break down the priestly and patrician monopoly and manipulation of the law, left his mark on Roman grammar, rhetoric, and poetry, and, by his deathbed speech against Pyrrhus, decided the Roman conquest of Italy.
Theoretically one of the two consuls (“consultants”) had to be a plebeian; actually very few plebeians were chosen, for even the plebs preferred men of education and training for an office that would have to deal with every executive phase of peace and war throughout the Mediterranean. On the eve of the election the magistrate in charge of it observed the stars to see if they favored the presentation of the several candidates’ names; presiding over the Centurial Assembly on the morrow, he might offer to its choice only those names that the auspices had approved;14 in this way the aristocracy discouraged “upstarts” and demagogues, and in most cases the Assembly, awed or intimidated, submitted to the pious fraud. The candidate appeared in person, dressed in a plain white (candidus) toga to emphasize the simplicity of his life and morals, and perhaps the more easily to show the scars he had won in the field. If elected, he entered office on the ensuing March 15. The consul took on sanctity by leading the state in the most solemn religious rites. In peace he summoned and presided over the Senate and the Assembly, initiated legislation, administered justice, and in general executed the laws. In war he levied armies, raised funds, and shared with his fellow consul command of the legions. If both of them died or were captured during their year of office, the Senate declared an interregnum, and appointed an interrex (or interval-king) for five days, while a new election was being prepared. The word suggests that the consuls had inherited, for their brief term, the powers of the kings.
The consul was limited by the equal authority of his colleague, by the pressure of the Senate, and by the veto power of the trib
une. After 367 B.C. fourteen military tribunes were chosen to lead the tribes in war, and ten “tribunes of the plebs” to represent them in peace. These ten were sacro-sancti: it was a sacrilege, as well as a capital crime, to lay violent hands upon them except under a legitimate dictatorship. Their function was to protect the people against the government, and to stop by one word—veto, “I forbid”—the whole machinery of the state, whenever to any one of them this seemed desirable. As a silent observer the tribune could attend the meetings of the Senate, report its deliberations to the people, and, by his veto, deprive the Senate’s decisions of all legal force. The door of his inviolable home remained open day and night to any citizen who sought his protection or his aid, and this right of sanctuary or asylum provided the equivalent of habeas corpus. Seated on his tribunal he could act as judge, and from his decision there was no appeal except to the Assembly of the Tribes. It was his duty to secure the accused a fair trial, and, when possible, to win some pardon for the condemned.
How did the aristocracy retain its ascendancy despite these obstructive powers? First, by limiting them to the city of Rome and to times of peace; in war the tribunes obeyed the consuls. Secondly, by persuading the Tribal Assembly to elect wealthy plebeians as tribunes; the prestige of wealth and the diffidence of poverty moved the people to choose the rich to defend the poor. Thirdly, by allowing the number of tribunes to be raised from four to ten; if only one of these ten would listen to reason or money, his veto could frustrate the rest.15 In the course of time the tribunes became so dependable that they could be trusted to convene the Senate, take part in its deliberations, and become life members of it after their terms.
If all these maneuvers failed, a last bulwark of social order remained—dictatorship. The Romans recognized that in times of national chaos or peril their liberties and privileges, and all the checks and balances that they had created for their own protection, might impede the rapid and united action needed to save the state. In such cases the Senate could declare an emergency, and then either consul could name a dictator. In every instance but one the dictators came from the upper classes; but it must be said that the aristocracy rarely abused the possibilities of this office. The dictator received almost complete authority over all persons and property, but he could not use public funds without the Senate’s consent, and his term was limited to six months or a year. All dictators but two obeyed these restrictions, honoring the story of how Cincinnatus, called from the plow to save the state (456 B.C.), returned to his farm as soon as the task was done. When this precedent was violated by Sulla and Caesar, the Republic passed back into the monarchy out of which it had come.