(c) The tribunate: according to Livy’s third law the caput of any man who harmed the tribunes or aediles should be devoted to the gods and his goods confiscated and sold at the temple of Ceres, Liber and Libera. This view, which affirms the sacrosanctity of the plebeian officers in law, may derive from a tradition designed to explain away the revolutionary character of the tribunate. Nevertheless, it is quite possible that the tribune’s rights, which hitherto had been based on a lex sacrata sworn by the plebs, were now confirmed by law. Diodorus (xii, 25) records that one of the provisions of the Valerio-Horatian laws was that ten tribunes should be chosen annually to guard the liberty of the citizens. (He adds that one of the consuls must be a plebeian and that the tribunes on pain of being burnt alive must appoint their successors before going out of office. The former clause is an anticipation of fourth-century conditions; the latter is a plebeian agreement, not a legal pact between plebeians and patricians.) Though Diodorus is obviously wrong in supposing the tribunes were first created in 449 (he has indeed already referred to their existence in 471) and though the date when their number was raised to ten is uncertain (Livy put it at 457, but 449 is quite possible), he may be right in supposing that the patricians in 449 first recognized in law the tribunate which they had long been forced to recognize in fact. This would help to explain why the Valerio-Horatian laws were regarded as a milestone on the plebeian advance to success. Otherwise, especially for those who reject the view that they legalized plebiscita, their importance would seem obscure. Such a concession may well have been won as the result of a secession.
21 MILITARY TRIBUNES WITH CONSULAR POWER. Beloch’s view that all the plebeian names in the Fasti from 444 to 367 are interpolations is too drastic. Cf. CAH, vii, 520. In 22 years between 444 and 367 BC consuls, not military tribunes, were elected. The view that consular tribunes were created for military needs or for administrative convenience (cf. K. von Fritz, Historia, 1950, 37 ff.) has been rejected by E. S. Staveley (JRS., 1953, 30 ff.) who champions Livy’s explanation that the purpose was political, designed to appease plebeian agitation for the consulship. F. E. Adcock (JRS., 1957, 9 ff.) finds no single explanation satisfactory: in the years 444–406, when there was much oscillation between consuls and consular tribunes, different reasons will have operated at different times; in the years 405–367 the preference for consular tribunes reflected the balance of supply and demand in regard to approved generals and administrators. A. Boddington (Historia, 1959, 365 ff.) suggests that at first the consular tribunes were supplementary colleagues of the consuls, appointed at any time of the year to meet unexpected military needs, and only later (probably after 390) did they form an alternative magistracy to the consulship. See also R. Sealey, Latomus (1959), 521 ff; J. Pinsent, ‘Military Tribunes and Plebeian Consuls: The Fasti from 444 to 342’, Historia-Einzelschriften, Heft 24 (1975), who examines the chronological basis of the ancient tradition; but on Pinsent see A. Drummond, JRS, 1978, 187 f.
22 THE CENSORSHIP. In general see J. Suolahti, The Roman Censors (1963).
IV THE ROMAN REPUBLIC AND ITS NEIGHBOURS
1 ROME AND THE LATINS. The Roman tradition has naturally stressed Rome’s increasingly dominant position vis-à-vis the Latins, and it may well be that this domination took longer to achieve than the later Romans liked to recognize. Thus the ‘Roman’ colonies founded in the early fifth century were in fact federal ‘Latin’ colonies, in which Rome shared, and perhaps she did not dictate the policy leading to their foundation (see p. 95). While the Latins continued as long as possible to maintain a belief in the sovereignty of their federal organization, the Romans increasingly tended to minimize any feeling of dependence on the Latins. However, a recognition of some pro-Roman bias in the Roman sources need not lead to acceptance of the far-reaching views of A. Alföldi, who in his stimulating and ingenious book, Early Rome and the Latins (1964), argued that the whole picture of early Rome in relation to the other Latin cities which is given by Livy was deliberately invented by Fabius Pictor in an attempt to show that sixth-century Rome was the leading Latin city, whereas in fact (so Alföldi argues) Rome only gained the predominance in the later fifth century, after having been dominated by Alba Longa and Lavinium and then by a string of Etruscan cities (cf. 453 n. 12 above). This large-scale deliberate falsification by Fabius can scarcely be accepted: for its decisive rejection see A. Momigliano, Quarto Contrib., 487 ff. (= JRS, 1967, 211 ff.), Ogilvie, Cl. Rev. (1966), 94 ff., and A. N. Sherwin-White, Rom. Cit., edn 2, 190 ff.
Alföldi has now restated his position and replied to his critics in Römische Frühgeschichte (1976). His detailed arguments cannot be examined here: whether he is right or wrong on this point or that, the basic question is whether he is right both on a sufficient number of points to provide any justification for so radically reconstructed a picture of early Rome and in his belief that it is more likely to be true than the more traditional one (whether or not this hypothetical picture was invented by Fabius Pictor or found in part by him in his earlier sources). The matter must be left to future debate, and here it can only be said that in the writer’s view this attempt to undermine the traditional structure has failed: too many of the foundations on which the latter rest remain unshaken: Etruscan Rome survives as a great and powerful city.
2 LAKE REGILLUS. Despite the story of the help given to the Romans by the horsemen gods, Castor and Pollux, the battle seems to have been a hoplite affair, since Livy (ii, 20, 10) records that the Roman cavalry, after riding to the battlefield, dismounted and fought on foot. Some ten years after the battle a temple of Castor and Pollux was dedicated in the Roman Forum. The battle and the divine epiphany were also commemorated by a parade of horsemen (transvectio equorum), which was held on 15 July during the later Republic and was revived by Augustus. On the importance of the cult of the Dioscuri in early Latium see p. 40.
3 THE CASSIAN TREATY. See Livy, ii, 33, 4; Dion. Halic., vi, 95. The text survived in the early days of Cicero (pro Balbo, 53). The thirty Latin cities may represent a later total of the League (some time before 338 BC) rather than the number at the time of signing the treaty. Livy (ii, 22, 5) may suggest that the treaty was made in 495 by Cassius as a fetial priest rather than in 493, the year of his second consulship, where Livy later (ii, 33, 4) places it; closer to the battle would make better sense. Radical attempts to question the traditional date are scarcely supported by valid evidence, e.g. by Beloch (Röm. Gesch., 189 ff.) who places it in 358 when Livy says it was renewed. Any attempt to place it after 338 is ludicrous, as the Latin League had no political existence then. The only possible date, other than the traditional one, is the period after the Gallic invasion, when Roman authority was weakened. But an early date is supported by its internal evidence. This suggests that Rome was not more powerful than the Latins, as she afterwards became; and as the booty was to be divided into two parts, neither party can have had allies, i.e. it is prior to Rome’s alliance with the Hernici. For a defence of the tradition see A. N. Sherwin-White, Rom. Cit., edn 2, 20 ff. On the machinery of the League and arrangements for military leadership (which are uncertain) see Ogilvie, Livy, 400.
4 THE HERNICI. Their ethnic affinities are uncertain. Beloch (Röm. Gesch., 197 ff.) would place the Hernican, like the Latin, alliance in the fourth century.
5 SABINE CONQUEST OF ROME ? This is the view of E. Pais, Ricerche sulla storia e diritto, Ser. i, 349 ff. Details about Herdonius are confused (Livy, ii, 15–18). Since the episode of a corps of Tusculans intervening on behalf of Rome does not look like a complete invention, there may be a core of truth in the story, but see Ogilvie, Livy 423 ff. (who thinks that the Sabines had an understanding with Etruscan Veii). The view of Mommsen is that the Romans on the contrary even annexed some Sabine territory, a view that is thus diametrically opposed to that of Pais.
6 THE CLAUDII. The migration to Rome is placed in 504 by Livy, ii, 16, 4, Dion. Hal., v, 40 and Plutarch, Public. 21, in the time of Romulus by Suetonius, Tib. 1, and in that of the Tarquins by
Appian, Reg. 12. Considerations of family prestige or of the creation of new patricians might point to either of the earlier dates, but the disturbed conditions of c. 504, together with the probable creation of a new tribe, the Claudia, in 495, support the later date.
7 PRISCAE LATINAE COLONIAE. This is the best title for these early federal settlements, They are discussed by E. T. Salmon, Roman Colonization (1969), 40 ff. and in more detail in Phoenix, 1953, 93 ff. and 123 ff. The early foundation of such colonies is denied by some (e.g. E. Meyer) and their establishment is dated at the end of the fifth century, but the fact that they were captured later by Rome does not mean that they were not originally pro-Roman: they may have changed hands more than once in the course of the century. Excavations at Norba suggest that the smaller sixth/fifth-century walls were superseded about 340 by a larger circuit: see G. Lugli, Rend. Lincei, 1947, 294.
8 CORIOLANUS. See H. Last, CAH, vii, 498 ff., E. T. Salmon, Cl. Quart., 1930, 96 ff., and Ogilvie, Livy, 314 ff. (On Plutarch’s treatment of the story see D. A. Russell, JRS 1963, 21 ff.)
Festus (180 L) preserves the fragmentary record of an inscription which originally recorded the names of nine Romans (seven being ex-consuls) who fell in a battle against the Volsci (c. 487 BC ?) and were cremated and buried in the Circus Maximus.
9 ARDEA. Although excavation has not substantiated the tradition of the colony, there is no need to reject it (with Beloch, Röm. Gesch., 147, who does, however, accept the foedus Ardeatinum). A similar treaty with Lavinium (and perhaps with Aricia), outside the framework of the Cassian treaty, shows that Rome was beginning to add a limited series of local alliances to her general confederation with Latium as a whole. Cf. A. N. Sherwin-White, Rom. Cit., edn 2, 26.
10 THE CREMERA DISASTER. The traditional date of 479 is suitable: when later the Romans had to bear the full weight of the Volscian push they were free from complications in Etruria. The exact date accords with the fact that the name Fabius which appears in the Fasti of the seven years 485–479 is missing for the next eleven years; this in itself helps to confirm the tradition. The nature of the engagement has been used to suggest that hoplite tactics had not yet been introduced. However, during the disturbed days of the early Republic (with episodes like those of Porsenna’s activities) disciplined phalanx warfare may well have given place temporarily to more ‘heroic’ methods of fighting, or, more probably, an irregular formation was deliberately used on a mission aimed at raiding and seizing an enemy strongpoint on the frontier, a mission for which the Fabii may well have volunteered (possibly because of their local interests in the district).
11 FIDENAE. Velthur Tolumne, a member of the family of the Tolumnii, is mentioned in an inscription (?sixth-century) from Veii: B. Nogara, Not. d. Scavi (1930), 327 f. Augustus corrected the popular view that Cossus won the spolia as military tribune in 437 by discovering that the breastplate referred to Cossus as consul. Unless Augustus misrepresented the facts in order to justify his refusal of the spolia opima to M. Crassus, governor of Macedonia, or misread an abbreviation of the name Cossus as consul, the date of the war must have been the consulship of Cossus, i.e. 428 BC. Serious doubts must arise when it is recalled that in this early period the chief magistrate was called praetor not consul, and that cognomina were not officially written; however, the original inscription might have been restored sometime during the four centuries before Augustus saw it. The record of the first war may be due to the cognomina of the consul L. Sergius Fidenas and of the dictator Q. Servilius Fidenas; these may have been given because these men owned property around Fidenae rather than because they had won triumphs. It is, however, possible that they were involved in earlier operations around Fidenae, though the details of the war of 437 undoubtedly belong to 428–425.
12 THE SIEGE AND FATE OF VEII. On the site of Veii see J. B. Ward-Perkins, PBSR, 1961 (and for the ager Veientanus, ibid., 1968). On Livy’s account of the siege see Ogilvie, Livy, 626 ff. (he dates the fall to 392–1). Archaeological evidence shows that the natural defences were artificially strengthened at the end of the fifth century against the Roman attack: the tufa wall was cut back and elsewhere a wall of stone and earth was built. The story of the capture by driving a tunnel under the citadel must be rejected, but it may have arisen from the presence of numerous drainage tunnels (cuniculi) in the neighbourhood. In fact at the Roman camp in the north-west the newly-built wall was constructed over cuniculi which had been filled in with earth and stones. The Romans could possibly have used these to enter the city but not the citadel, which was solid underneath. The story of the draining may or may not have some connection with this episode: the emissarium of the Alban Lake, an engineering work some two thousand yards long, was certainly not constructed later than the siege of Veii. After the fall of Veii the Romans solemnly transferred the statue and cult of Juno Regina by a ritual of evocatio to Rome: the statue was installed by the victorious Camillus on the Aventine. The dedication of the golden bowl at Delphi may be accepted: though stolen en route by the Liparians, it was restored, only to be melted down later by Onomarchus; however, the bronze base remained. The dedication is important because it shows the early friendship of Rome and Massilia (on their early relations see G. Nenci, Riv. di stor. Ligure, 1958), and Rome’s interest in Greece and Apollo. It is not surprising that Rome should send a gift to Delphi when her neighbour Caere maintained a treasury there.
After its destruction Veii maintained only a trickle of life, while the resettlement of its territory is marked by the pottery found on the farms: on one hundred sites examined, the cessation of black-glazed ware at about one third indicates the end of their occupation, while the spread of this ware to other sites indicates the farms of the new Roman masters.
13 FALERII. The one fact that emerges from the story of the Faliscan schoolmaster (Livy, v, 27; Dion. Halic., xiii, 1–2) is that Falerii was not stormed (despite Diod., xvi, 96). It was saved by its precipitous position.
14 SUTRIUM, NEPETE, VOLSINII. Diodorus (xix, 98): Sutrium, 390; Nepete, 383 (cf. Livy, vi, 3, 2; 21, 4). But Velleius (i, 14) gives: Sutrium, 383, Nepete, 373. ‘To go to Sutrium’ remained a proverbial phrase meaning ‘to be ready for war’. It was an exposed outpost. Cf. Plautus, Casina, 524. The tradition (Livy, v, 3–2; Diod. xiv, 109) of a Roman war against Volsinii (392–391) is hardly reliable: at most it represents a frontier raid. Rejected by De Sanctis (SR, ii, 149), it is accepted by E. Meyer, Gesch. d. Altertums, v, 816.
15 ROME AND LATIUM. On their relations see De Sanctis, SR, ii, 151 ff., A. J. Toynbee, Hannibal’s Legacy (1965), i, 115 ff.
16 BATTLE OF ALLIA AND THE SACK OF ROME. The Gauls advanced not perhaps down the Tiber valley, which was too swampy, but round through Sabine territory to Reate and thence by the Via Salaria: see Kromayer and Veith, Atlas, Röm. Abt., Blatt. 1. The numbers are also given as 70,000, against 40,000 Romans (cf. Diod., xiv, 113, 114; Plut., Camillus, 18). The battle is placed on the left or eastern bank of the Tiber by all ancient writers except Diodorus who places it on the right bank. The main objections to the right bank are (1) the Allia which gave its name to the battle is on the left bank, (2) a flight to Veii would be unlikely if the Romans were forced back on the right bank, (3) it is a priori probable that the Gauls would advance on the Roman side of the Tiber. Mommsen, followed by E. Meyer, argued for the right bank. See Kromayer, Schlachtfelder, iv, 449 ff. and Schachermeyr, Klio, 1929, 277 ff. who support the left bank. O. Skutsch, JRS, 1953, 77 f. and 1978, 93 f., has drawn attention to traces of a tradition (observable perhaps in Ennius, Annales, frg. 164, Tacitus, Ann., xi, 23, and in Silius Italicus, Pun., i, 525 f.; iv, 150 f.; vi, 555 f.) that the Capitol actually fell to the Gauls. This tradition, however, must be rejected. For traces of the devastation see L. G. Roberts, Mem. Amer. Acad. Rome, 1918, 55 f. and E. Gjerstad, Early Rome, vol. iii (1960), index, s.v. Gallic invasion; they include a layer of roof-tiles on the site of the Comitium in the Forum. Livy (v, 40, 9 f) tells how in the evacuation of the sacra the Vestals had been helped by a certai
n Lucius Albinus, while Plutarch (Camill., 22, 4) says that Aristotle mentions a Lucius as the man who saved Rome. This is important both as confirming the tradition and also as showing that it is earlier than the later building up of Camillus as the saviour-hero of Rome.
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