Of the magistrates the consuls, who acted as presidents at home and generals abroad, retained their primacy, but their wings had been clipped. The establishment of consular tribunes had damaged the prestige of the consulship, the creation of other magistracies had robbed it of many of its functions, the extraordinary appointment of proconsuls in effect widened the basis of the office, dictators were appointed frequently, and the growing power of the Senate encroached on the consular field of action. But nevertheless the consuls’ powers remained very great, especially as the theatres of war increased. The comparative frequency of the appointment of dictators was due to the exigencies of the great wars of 366–265, but many were nominated for special non-military purposes, such as for holding the elections in the absence of the consuls (comitiorum habendorum causa) or for religious purposes. Like the military dictators, these special dictators were required to resign their office when their business was ended. This new use of the dictatorship was one cause of its decline; further, a dictator’s sentence was made subject to provocatio within the city, perhaps by the Lex Valeria of 300.
The new magistracy created in 366, the praetorship, proved very useful. By custom the praetor relieved the consuls of their civil jurisdiction; as their colleague, though vested with lesser imperium, he took their place in Rome when they were absent, summoning and presiding over the Senate, calling an assembly, or if necessary himself commanding an army. But it was his judicial duties that came to be the peculiar mark of his office. Enough has already been said in connection with Appius Claudius to demonstrate the increasing power of the censors, especially when the lectio senatus came within their competence. In 339 it was enacted that one censor must be a plebeian; and no act was more symbolic of the real union of the orders than the ceremonial cleansing of the state (lustrum) by a plebeian censor in 280. The two sets of aediles, curule and plebeian, were soon harmonized; they were responsible mainly for municipal administration, such as the safety of roads and buildings, public order, market regulations, weights and measures, the water and corn supply, and arrangements for public festivals, but they also had judicial authority to prosecute for offences against the community such as usury and the occupation of public land. The quaestors, whose numbers were raised to four in 421, and to eight in about 267, remained chiefly financial officials, but those who served on a consul’s military staff not only administered his financial affairs but also could themselves undertake military duties. Finally, the tribunes of the plebs, though not strictly magistrates of the Roman people, were gradually recognized as such; by a wise compromise the patricians worked these plebeian officers into the constitution. At first the tribune was the revolutionary officer under whose aegis and leadership the plebeians had won political equality, but after the middle of the fourth century he became less of a class leader and more of a representative of the rights of the individual against the claims of the state. He could act as public prosecutor against any magistrate for political offences except the dictator (as was done in 423, 420, 362 and 291; in the last case in the interests of the Senate), and he could pass laws through the Concilium Plebis. Gradually he acquired the right to speak in and finally (in 216) to convoke the Senate, which soon realized the value of the tribune’s veto as a means of controlling the other magistrates as well as his fellow tribunes; and there would be few years when the Senate was unable to win the support of at least one of the ten tribunes.
While magistrates came and went the Senate remained. The need of a permanent governing body which could make quick decisions in times of crisis led to an immense increase in its powers. Theoretically it could not legislate, but its resolutions (senatus consulta) were generally obeyed, and it came to wield a predominating moral guidance in the state. After the fifth century more plebeians won entry, and the rise of the new nobility strengthened its authority at a time when patrician prestige was weakening. Originally its numbers had been filled by the kings and then by the consuls at will, but tradition gradually restricted the consuls’ choice to ex-magistrates. When the duty of revising the list was transferred from the consuls to the censors by the Ovinian law they were instructed to give preference to ex-magistrates. As members retained their seats for life, the Senate might justly be considered a representative council, embodying all the experience of past and present. The sovereign people who claimed ultimate authority were more ready to acquiesce in its rule, since it was they who elected the magistrates and thus they were indirectly responsible for the composition of the Senate. It tended, however, to remain conservative, since the higher magistrates were elected by the Comitia Centuriata where wealth predominated. Its great reverence for custom, mos maiorum, together with its numbers, tended to stereotype its policy in a safe and mediocre mould; but if it lacked brilliance it guided the state safely through many troublous seas and its collective wisdom often checked the extravagant or dangerous whims of the sovereign people.
The people, with their more cumbrous assemblies, were willing for the most part to acquiesce in the growth of the Senate’s power: still more were the magistrates over whom it soon exercised almost absolute control. It became customary for the consul to refer every matter of importance to the Senate, and he was morally bound to follow its advice when formally expressed in a senatus consultum. The average official would not dare to challenge the authority of a body composed of ex-magistrates, on which he himself would sit for the rest of his career; if he was bold enough to withstand this moral pressure, he could generally be checked by a tribune. Thus the magistrates became the executive of a senatorial administration which claimed by right of custom alone to direct the policy of the state in all its important branches, especially in finance and foreign affairs. Only the actual declaration of war and concluding of peace were left to the people, and even then the preliminary diplomatic negotiations had been conducted by the Senate, which was able to give the people a strong lead. Finally, the dignity rather than the actual power of the Senate has found its classic expression in the report of Pyrrhus’ ambassador, Cineas, that the Senate was an assembly of kings.
5. THE ASSEMBLIES AND PEOPLE
In practice the Roman people were willing to allow the Senate and magistrates to conduct a large part of the business of the state, but in theory they claimed to represent the ultimate source of authority. During the century that followed the Gallic invasion they expressed this authority through the legislative, judicial and electoral activity of their assemblies, the Curiata, Centuriata and Tributa, and of the purely plebeian Concilium Plebis: but they could only take action on matters submitted to them by the presiding magistrate. The tendency was, however, in the direction of real democracy; but it was checked by the skill with which the nobles manipulated the tribunate and religion and by the rapid expansion of Roman arms which distracted attention from domestic affairs and increased the control of the Senate. But in theory the Comitia were sovereign.
In conformity with their custom and conservatism the Romans allowed the various Comitia to exist side by side; none was abolished, although their functions were more clearly differentiated as time passed. The Comitia Curiata continued to assent to private acts like adoption and bequests, but its chief function remained its right formally to confer imperium on consuls and praetors. This, however, became such a formality that thirty lictors and three augurs could form a quorum of the curiae. The three other assemblies, Centuriata, Tributa, and Concilium Plebis, all had the right to legislate by the year 287; before this date the Concilium Plebis only claimed the right without possessing it by law. The Comitia Tributa gradually superseded the Comitia Centuriata in many spheres; although it is not always easy to determine through which body a given bill was passed, the tribal assemblies, especially the Concilium Plebis, were becoming the main legislative organs, partly because the thirty-five tribes were easier to handle than 193 centuries, and partly because when the presiding officers, who were the regular magistrates, included an increasing number of plebeians, these would tend to lay their propos
als before the newer assembly. So the influence of wealth and age, which prevailed in the Comitia Centuriata, gave place to the predominance of the smaller country landowners who formed the backbone of the tribes, in which every man, rich and poor alike, had an equal vote. Indeed, it may have been the growing importance of the middle classes to the state that led to the shift from the centuries to the tribes; and later the Comitia Centuriata itself was reformed to bring it more into line with the Tributa and to give greater weight to the small landowner (p. 168). But while most legislation was carried through the tribal assemblies, the Centuriata still legislated regarding the declaration of war, the signing of peace, and conferring plenary power on the censor. The electoral functions of the assemblies remained divided: the Centuriata elected consuls, praetors and censors, the Tributa curule aediles and quaestors, the Concilium Plebis tribunes and plebeian aediles. Jurisdiction likewise was divided. The Comitia Centuriata remained the court of appeal in capital cases, while the Tributa heard cases on appeal when the punishment was only a fine; it is possible that trials still took place before the separate Concilium Plebis.
In all branches of government the Roman people was supreme, but in all the Senate overshadowed them: ‘senatus populusque Romanus’ was not an idle phrase. The people, or more precisely all adult male citizens, comprised the electorate, but in practice their choice of candidates was limited to those who could fulfil the duties of office. In legislation they had ultimate authority, but the resolutions of the Senate had in effect the same validity as their laws; and in time the Senate and praetors took over much of the detailed legislation from the assemblies. Further, the senators often invited tribunes to discuss a measure with them, before presenting it to the tribes. Judicial affairs also gradually passed into the hands of the praetors and Senate, though the assemblies did not allow interference in certain cases, as has been seen. The executive was elected directly by the people, but it was to the Senate rather that the magistrates showed deference. Finally, the administration was in practice transferred by the people to the Senate which acted as a Cabinet in place of the unwieldy assemblies; and the people only elected the Senate in an indirect manner. Thus at the very time when the Lex Hortensia proclaimed the sovereign right of the Roman people and Rome was approaching a democracy, the pendulum swung back in favour of a more oligarchical form of government. This was partly due to the draining off to the colonies of many poorer citizens with the consequent increase in the influence of the remaining landholding nobility, and partly to the complication of business which forced the Senate and magistrates to take the initiative. Further, the average Roman was not much interested in politics. Elections generally meant merely a change in the executive magistrates, not in the policy of the state: the legislative assemblies and the Senate, which determined Rome’s policy, remained the same. As long as the government protected his interests the small farmer cared little about the form of that government. Some of the nobility might be inspired by abstract Greek theories of government, a tribune might be a progressive democrat or the tool of the conservatives, but while his daily life ran smoothly the average farmer or town worker worried less about who governed him than about the efficiency and justice of that government. Thus at the very moment that the theoretical powers of the Roman people were emphasized and a real democracy was within their grasp, they in fact succumbed more and more to the control of the senatorial oligarchy.
VI
ROME’S CONQUEST AND ORGANIZATION OF ITALY
1. ROME AND CAMPANIA
Whether or not Rome had already crossed swords with her Samnite allies, the days when such a conflict would blaze up were fast approaching. Though distracted by the presence of Alexander of Epirus in southern Italy, the Samnites coveted the fertile plain of Campania and would not be held at bay for ever; and the Latin revolt had already drawn the Romans into the vortex of Campanian politics. Rome had granted half-citizenship to several cities there: Fundi, Formiae, Capua, Suessula and Cumae. The Sidicini were still unpunished for their participation in the Latin war: those around Teanum were attacked in 336 and granted alliance with Rome, while Cales was stormed and received a Latin colony (334). This outpost, which commanded the valley between Latium and Campania, protected the Campanian plain from the Sidicini and formed a buffer state between the Samnites on the east and the Roman possessions on the west. Despite the recent Latin revolt Rome wisely continued her policy of founding Latin colonies, in which all her allies were allowed to share; Cales received 2,500 colonists and was granted the right of coinage. In 332 Acerrae was granted the Roman civitas sine suffragio, and soon afterwards Rome entered into alliance with Fabrateria and Frusino, which lay in and above the Trerus valley not far from the Samnite frontier (c. 330). In 329 Privernum was taken and the anti-Roman leaders were banished; it was granted civitas sine suffragio, part of its territory was confiscated and was later formed into a Roman tribe, the Oufentina (318). In the same year Tarracina, which commanded the coast road, received a Roman colony, and in 328 a Latin colony was settled at Fregellae to block the north-western entrance to the fertile plain of the middle Liris. Thus the Romans gradually extended the bounds of their new confederacy and created a barrier against the north-west frontier of the Samnites.
In 326 the Romans strengthened their influence in Campania by winning the alliance of Neapolis, the Greek commercial centre of mid-Italy. The detailed account of how this came about is largely apocryphal, but the cause was political dissension within the city. The ‘Old Citizens’ (the Palaeopolitai, perhaps the refugees from Cumae; p. 99) with the help of Nola introduced a Samnite garrison into the town, or at any rate entered into friendly relations with the Samnites. Capua appealed on behalf of the Neapolitans to Rome. Q. Publilius Philo was sent to besiege the town in 327 and as the siege continued he was kept in his command for the next year as proconsul. Neapolis ultimately got rid of the Samnite garrison; the pro-Roman Greeks surrendered the town to the Romans and were doubtless glad to put their commercial activity under Roman protection against Samnite raids. An alliance was granted to Neapolis on favourable terms, by which the city was freed from the obligation of military service in return for patrolling and guarding the harbour.1 About this time Nuceria also entered into alliance with Rome.
Not only had the Romans thus acquired an alliance which the Samnites had desired to preserve for themselves, not only had they gained control of all Campania except Nola, but they followed up this success by capturing Rufrium and Allifae on the Samnite frontier. War was at hand. The actual cause of the outbreak is uncertain and unimportant. Samnite expansion and Rome’s desire for order on her frontiers led to the inevitable clash, which was hastened by the recent extension of these frontiers by colonization and alliance. Rome is said to have found allies on the other flank of Samnium in the Apulians who, after long struggles with Tarentum, realized that their interests lay with the Greeks against the Oscan invaders. If such an alliance was in fact made, the Romans would have found it difficult to join hands with their new allies, since they could not pass Oscan Nola and the Lucanians without violating their neutrality. In any case, Apulia played little part in the beginning of the Second Samnite War.2
2. THE GREAT SAMNITE WAR
Mommsen’s fervid nationalism led him to declare that ‘history cannot but do the noble people [the Samnites] the justice of acknowledging that they understood and performed their duty’, that is, they fought for Italian liberty. In the same strain Livy made a Samnite spokesman declare: ‘Let us settle the question whether Samnite or Roman is to govern Italy.’ But probably neither side was conscious of what fate held in the balance. War developed from some petty frontier dispute and its result was still hidden in the womb of time. Rome was conscious, or soon became conscious, of the immediate difficulty rather than of the ultimate meaning of the task that lay ahead. The mountain warriors of Samnium might be defeated by the Roman phalanx and the Campanian cavalry on the plains, but once they had to be tackled amid the broken ground of their m
ountainous terrain, fighting for their homeland in small organized bands, they would present the Roman legionaries with a stiffer problem, though one not insuperable to a nation so adaptable as Rome. It was probably to meet these needs, rather than those that had arisen just after the Gallic sack of the city, that the Romans decided to make their army more flexible by introducing manipular tactics in place of the stiffer phalanx: these reforms are discussed below in the context of the history of the army (pp. 312ff.).
The military history of the early years of the Second Samnite War, which broke out in 326, is very obscure, as the details given by Livy are unreliable. While one legion covered Latium or Campania a second could take the initiative. In 325 D. Junius Brutus in a turning movement through the central Apennines won a victory over the Vestini; the other small Sabellian tribes, the Marsi, Paeligni, and Marrucini, were presumably friendly to Rome. The dictator of 324, L. Papirius Cursor, is credited with a victory at the unknown Imbrivium. The Romans scarcely penetrated into Apulia, as tradition maintains, though a Samnite attack on Fregellae is plausible. Little is known of these years of guerrilla warfare, during which the Romans were learning more pliant tactics. In 321 they determined on more vigorous action. The two consuls, T. Veturius and Sp. Postumius, marshalled both consular armies at Calatia in Campania and advanced in what was probably an attempt to defeat the Caudini in Samnium itself. Alternatively, they may have been tricked into believing that the Samnite army under Gavius Pontius was in Apulia, and thrust forward in the hope of cutting it off from its base and winning a decisive victory on the Apulian plains. Whatever their intentions, they advanced into the valley of the Caudine Forks, where they found the way blocked by the Samnites. On trying to withdraw they discovered that the entrance to the defile was also held by the enemy. After vain attempts to cut their way through the encircling ring the consuls surrendered to avoid starvation. Pontius dictated terms: the Romans were to withdraw their garrisons from territory which the Samnites regarded as their own; they were not to reopen the war; six hundred Roman knights were to be given as hostages; and the Roman army was to pass under a ‘yoke’ of spears.3
A History of the Roman World Page 19