A History of the Roman World

by Scullard, H. H.

  If the artistic influence of Etruscan statues and temples on the early Romans was great, the religious impact was no less. The vaguer spirits which men hitherto had worshipped were now conceived in the form of men and women, who were honoured with temples in place of rustic altars; Jupiter, the Greatest and Best, became the state-god of the whole community. Further, this new cult was linked with the elaboration of a simple Latin ceremony, the triumph. The king led a victory procession to the temple and sacrificed on the Capitol to the god whom he had represented in the procession.18 He then descended to the Circus Maximus in the valley between the Palatine and Aventine, where the Roman Games were held in the god’s honour. These Games were ascribed to Romulus, but since the Etruscans were devoted to horse-racing they were no doubt elaborated, if not first instituted, by the Tarquins, who built wooden stands for the spectators.19

  This expanding city needed protection, which Servius provided. It is generally agreed that the existing ‘Servian’ Wall belongs in the main to the fourth century; some pieces made of cappellaccio tufa may possibly represent sixth-century defence walls of some of the separate hills, but there is no evidence for a complete girdle of walls. However, Servius is to be credited with an earthwork (agger), more than 25 feet high and with a parallel ditch, which ran across the Quirinal, Viminal and Esquiline, blocking the heads of the valleys leading into Rome and similar to the earthworks which still survive at neighbouring Ardea and which are roughly contemporary.20

  Thus under Etruscan rule Rome became a centralized city with a unified government, and with public buildings worthy to be set alongside those in Etruria itself; indeed, the Capitoline temple may have even outshone anything there. Something of the spirit of public life is reflected in the gaily coloured decorations and in the scenes shown on the friezes: banqueting, horsemen, chariots and men walking in procession, chariot races, strange feline beasts and minotaurs. The quantity of imported Greek pottery shows how far the cultural level of the upper classes had advanced beyond that of their predecessors who were living in huts not long before. The sixth century saw a spectacular change in Roman public life.

  Under Etruscan rule Rome remained basically an agricultural community (p. 307), enriched now by the vine and viticulture,21 but at the same time she received an immense stimulus to develop industry and commerce. The growth of town life created many fresh needs, and the technical skill of the Etruscans in metal and clay set an example for many Roman craftsmen to follow. The labour guilds which are attributed to the regal period are quite credible: bronzesmiths, potters, goldsmiths, dyers, carpenters, leather-workers, tanners and flute-players. The various pieces of terracotta revetments of the sixth century found in many parts of the city testify to the growth of a pottery industry. In bronze work the Capitoline Wolf is unique: if made by an Etruscan artist, it at least set a very high standard for native Romans to admire and imitate. It is difficult to distinguish the contribution of immigrant Etruscan artists from what is due to native Romans. No less important than any actual industry at Rome is the fact that the Etruscans extended Rome’s horizon beyond the limits of a parochial state. Etruscan Rome almost certainly had a formal treaty agreement with the great trading nation of the western Mediterranean, Carthage, since the first treaty between Rome and Carthage made at the beginning of the Republic (p. 144) was probably the renewal of an earlier agreement. The Pyrgi inscriptions (p. 29) demonstrate the close contacts between Carthage and Etruscan Caere: the Tarquins of Rome will not have wished to lag behind the city from which they themselves perhaps derived (p. 49). The site of Rome offered many commercial advantages: it lay at the point where sea commerce stopped and river traffic began, it commanded the old salt route (Via Salaria) from the Tiber mouth to central Italy, while the Pons Sublicius led into the heart of the city and probably carried a large part of the growing trade between Etruria and Campania. With the development of Roman trade may be linked the beginning of a new settlement on the Aventine hill, alongside which the first river wharves were built, and the institution of a fair at the sanctuary of Diana (p. 50) where merchants from other Latin towns could meet traders from overseas.

  The scale of Roman imports is shown by the quantity of Greek pottery found on the site of the city. Fragments of at least 306 vases of the period 575–500 BC (and only 26 before that date) survive, and 203 of these belong to 530–500, while no less than 253 are Attic. Thus in the latter sixth century the upper classes in Rome were not behind other Etruscan cities in their appreciation of Attic pottery.22 Imports, of course, had to be paid for (coined money did not yet exist: cattle, or lumps of copper (aes rude) weighed in the balance, served as currency). What Rome had to offer was salt from the pans at the Tiber mouth, timber from the upper valleys of the Tiber and Anio, perhaps some slaves acquired as prisoners of war, and possibly some products of her industry.

  Rome’s debt to the Etruscans in other spheres will be mentioned in due place. However, we may note here that besides founding temples under Etruscan influence, the Romans derived anthropomorphic conceptions of deity and learnt to elaborate the practice of augury from Etruria. Politically, it was under the Etruscan kings that Rome gained a centralized government, while the trappings and insignia of the magistrates came from the same source: the lictor’s axe and rods (fasces), the curule chair, the purple toga, the ivory rod and the golden wreath. But despite all these great changes which completely transformed Rome in the sixth century, Rome was never in any real sense an Etruscan city; she merely had to endure the domination of a small number of powerful families and receive into her midst a number of Etruscan workers. Apart from some eighth-century tombs on the Esquiline, the nearest Etruscan burial yet found lies four miles from the Forum on the Colle di S. Agata near Monte Mario. The Romans borrowed much, but they remained essentially Latin, in race, language, institutions, and religion. But their relations with the Latins were gradually altered, for the Etruscans had reorientated the city. Previously it had been a northern outpost of the Latins against Etruria; it became a southern outpost of Etruria against the Latins. The spear-head was turned from north to south.

  Between the early Iron Age and the end of the regal period Rome’s relations with her Latin neighbours varied considerably. According to the earliest indications her territory stretched about five miles around the city, but by the end of the sixth century it had increased to about seven times this size, as a result of almost continuous struggles which arose, often from cattle-lifting, despite the fact that Roman fetial law (p. 60) forbade wars of aggression. When a village was destroyed its land was acquired by Rome; the conquered people were often taken to Rome, though sometimes they may have been forcibly transported to a less defensible position near their captured hill town, a regular practice in the third century. Small settlements often gained security by yielding (deditio) before attack and the population might become the clientes of the king or some noble house. Thus Rome began her career of conquest with a policy of incorporation.

  A few incidents stand out from a long series of raids and counter-raids. Towards the Tiber mouth Rome’s expansion was early, as shown by the tradition that Ancus Marcius won the salt-pans near the site of Ostia (p. 48),23 and that he also captured Ficana nearby; as we have seen (p. 34), recent archaeological evidence shows the importance of the sites of Ficana and Decima (Politorium) but the very latest evidence (1980) suggests that the latter survived after the traditional date of Ancus. North of the Tiber little could be done in face of the power of the Etruscan city of Veii, though the last three kings may have won some temporary successes; this is not contradicted by the existence of an Etruscan regime at Rome, because Etruscan cities often fell out with each other. To the north-east Fidenae blocked the advance of the Romans, who gained little permanent control further than some ten miles beyond the Anio. They did not join with the Faliscan peoples around Mt Soracte, who were akin to them.24

  In the Alban Hills the Roman advance was early and successful. The tradition that Alba Longa was captured an
d destroyed by King Tullus is strengthened by the disappearance of Alba from history and by the fact that Aricia before long headed a Latin League, although the epic fight of the three brothers on each side, the Horatii and Curiatii, may be dismissed as legendary. Some of the defeated Albans were perhaps settled at the lower-lying Bovillae. South of the Anio the elder Tarquin took Collatia, but Tibur retained its independence. Between Tibur and the Alban Hills lay Gabii and Tusculum. With the former Tarquinius Superbus made a treaty, which was written on the ox-hide covering of a shield and was said to have been preserved until the time of Augustus in a temple on the Quirinal; there is no strong reason to suppose that it was a forgery.25 Good relations were also probably established with Tusculum, whether or not the story that Tarquin’s daughter married the chief citizen of Tusculum, Octavius Mamilius, is true (the turris Mamilia at Rome was very ancient and shows that the Mamilii were linked to Rome in the regal period). The extent of Rome’s influence further south in Latium remains uncertain. She probably came into conflict with some of the members of the Arician League, one of which was Pometia. This town, north of the Pomptine Marshes, is said to have been captured by Tarquinius and to have yielded spoils worth forty talents of silver which were devoted to building the Capitoline temple (a record of such a dedication might well have survived into later times). Rome’s control of Pometia gave her a base against pressure from the Volscians beyond. Circeii, much further south, is said to have been colonized by Tarquin; this cannot be accepted, but since Circeii is among the towns named in the first treaty between Rome and Carthage (as noted below) as ‘subject to the Romans’, Tarquin seems to have gained some control there.

  Absorption of tribal villages by conquest was at first easy, but when many of these villages grew into politically self-conscious townships, opposition to Rome would stiffen. Rome reacted by developing a new form of incorporation, as illustrated by her relations with Gabii which entered into the Roman state by treaty (see above). The extent of this system during the regal period is uncertain, but in the treaty with Carthage, which Polybius assigns to 508 (p. 144), Rome spoke for the cities of the Latin coast who were ‘subject’ to her (i.e. Ardea, Antium, Circeii, Tarracina and probably Lavinium) and for those who were not. The former were probably socii, who recognized Rome’s military leadership in individual treaties, as that of Gabii. Rome’s claim to speak for those Latins ‘such as were not subject’ suggest that she was acting as spokesman for a league of which she was a prominent member. As has been said (p. 35), among several incipient leagues the Arician League at Lucus Ferentinae had gradually overshadowed the rest. Doubtless Rome sought to win control of these groups: thus Servius Tullius tried to centralize, rival or supplant the cult of the Arician League by building the temple to Diana on the Aventine (see p. 50). The advantages of membership of such leagues were obvious. Between all the Latins there existed a general isopolity which would probably receive greater definition among fellow-members of the league. To be able to buy and sell, to hold property or to contract a lawful marriage in another village or town (privileges later crystallized as iura commercii et conubii) was a great benefit. Thus under the Tarquins Latium became more united under the lead of Rome, from both the political and social points of view.

  6. NOBLES, COMMONS AND THE PRIESTHOOD

  The basis of Roman society was not the individual but the family, at whose head the father (paterfamilias) wielded autocratic power (patria potestas: see p. 323). When he died, his sons in turn became heads of their own households, so that the familiae increased. Gradually relationship would be forgotten, but various families found themselves linked by the use of a common name; thus a new social body was formed, the house or clan (gens), which played a vital part in Rome’s growth.26

  Each man had a name (nomen) denoting his gens, of which there were according to Varro about a thousand, a personal name (praenomen), of which only thirty are known to us and about fifteen were in common use, and a surname (cognomen) which marked the family or group of families within the gens, e.g. Publius (praenomen) Cornelius (nomen) Scipio (cognomen). In early times the gens had common religious observances (sacra) and possessed a common place of burial, but probably it did not hold land in common. The fact that Romulus is said to have distributed conquered land viritim shows that the Romans themselves regarded private ownership as primitive; yet at one time there may have been some restriction on conveying or mortgaging land.27 Closely attached to the gens or family, and enjoying some of the privileges, though not full members, were the dependants (clientes) who stood in a filial relationship to their patrons (patroni). Their origin is clear: in a primitive state the man who lacked the protection of his family could not safeguard his life or property without the legal assistance of a ‘patron’ – for instance, the manumitted slave, the son who broke away from his family, the stranger whom trade had attracted, or even the poor citizen who had fallen under the domination of the nobles. The patron granted protection and land for occupation; in return the client, like a medieval vassal, was expected to render certain services, such as help in ransoming his patron if captured in war, or in dowering his daughter. They were bound together by moral and religious sanctions, which are apparent in the use of the word fides, while he ‘who weaves a net of guile about his client’ is placed by Virgil on a level with the man who strikes his father.

  Roman society was sharply divided into two classes, patricians and plebeians, or nobles and commons, and the early history of the Republic consists largely in the struggle of the plebeians to attain complete equality with the patricians. But the origin of the two orders is shrouded in mystery. Livy and Cicero thought that the distinction was political: Romulus selected a hundred senators whom he named patres and whose descendants were called patricians; the rest of the population was plebeian. Various modern theories have been advanced to explain the origin of the plebeians. One school saw in them a distinct racial element, representing a conquered people, like the English after the Norman conquest. But great divergence was displayed in determining who the conquered were: the original population subdued by Indo-European invaders or by Etruscans; or the inhabitants of conquered cities transported to Rome; or the Sabines conquered by northern invaders coming immediately from the Alban hills; or the original Latin settlers conquered by the Sabine tribes. Such views are now out of favour. Thus although there was a definite Sabine element in the state and although some believe in a Sabine conquest of Rome, ancient tradition neither identifies this element with the patricians, nor supports the view that the Roman state originated by conquest; any differences between the orders in ritual or in ceremony (e.g. marriage and burial) are due to divergences in rank and wealth, not in race. A second school, that of Mommsen, maintained that the patricians were the original settlers, the plebeians their clients and dependants. It is not, however, now generally admitted that the original settlement consisted entirely of patricians, nor is the struggle of the plebs to be conceived as the effort of a depressed non-citizen class of clients to win independence. Further, it is difficult to see how the struggle began if the plebs were originally bound by ties of loyalty and interest to their patrician patrons, for it is unlikely that they ever sank to serfdom; nor is it probable that so large a part of the population would have arisen in this way.28

  A more satisfactory explanation is that class differences and the caste system arose from economic conditions. A plebs urbana would gradually be formed by the humble traders who were attracted to the city and by clients who lost their patrons; and later, when the nobles became more exclusive, even by more wealthy merchants. At the same time a plebs rustica arose from the farmers ruined by war or other causes. Land varied in productivity; the soil of the central plains might be washed away or deteriorate under continual cultivation, so that some farmers would gain at the expense of their fellows whom they could exploit more and more as their capital increased. A caste system of the successful and the failures grew up and hardened under the Etruscan rule; no such distinct clea
vage between the orders is noticeable in other Latin cities which were not subjected to the Etruscans for so long. Yet the plebeians probably did not in early times sink to the condition of serfs, bound to the soil, for the oligarchical tendencies of the aristocracy were checked by the Etruscans who made the plebs class-conscious.29

  It can no longer be maintained that the citizen body of early Rome was composed solely from the patrician clans. The plebs were citizens, and their struggle against the nobles was not for admission to citizenship but for certain privileges from which they were excluded. Like the patricians, they were organized in gentes, some of which even bore the same names as patrician gentes. And since the gentes had no official position in the state, the aristocracy could not easily have objected to the organization of successful plebeian families into gentes, constituted for the practice of common cults and the exercise of rights of succession, nor even to them attaching clients to themselves. The point at which the citizen body definitely hardened into these two sharply divided orders must probably be set later than is often supposed: while doubtless a distinction between oligarchy and the masses was always a feature of Rome’s political existence, the emergence of a patriciate as such may belong only to the later regal period and the early fifth century. In fact, the patricians probably made a final attempt to increase their exclusiveness when in 450 the decemviral legislation forbade intermarriage with plebeians, probably for the first time.30

  The origin and meaning of the division of the patrician gentes into maiores and minores are uncertain. Traditionally Tarquinius Priscus added to the patres a hundred members minorum gentium, who perhaps were either less successful patricians or else a highly successful body of plebeians who were admitted into the patriciate while it was still hardening into a caste. When Alba fell, its chief families were added to the patres by Tullus Hostilius, while even after the fall of the monarchy the Sabine gens of the Claudii is said to have migrated to Rome and to have been co-opted into the patrician body by the Senate. Nevertheless the aristocracy increasingly tried to assert its supremacy, alike in political, social and religious life. The political aspect will be dealt with in the next section; suffice it to say that they alone in practice formed the Senate and held any offices which existed under the monarchy. Socially they maintained their exclusiveness by avoiding intermarriage with the plebs. They practised a form of marriage, named confarreatio after the cakes of spelt (far) offered to Jupiter, at which the Pontifex Maximus and flamen Dialis officiated. The plebs used two forms of marriage, both legally valid: coemptio, originally marriage by purchase, and usus. This avoidance of intermarriage was one cause of the decline of the patricians: of the seventy gentes represented in the early Republic only twenty-four are found among the higher magistrates between 366 and 179 BC. This gradual extinction, which was hastened by the heavy toll which war levied on the nobles, incidentally favoured the rise of the plebs, whose ranks would be swelled by the clients of patrician families which died out.