BOOK
I.

Relations

of patrons and clients.

be rendered and portions of the produce of the land to be paid. From this obligation to pay arose the debts of the subject population and the oppression under which they languished at all times.' The lords of the soil were always exerting themselves to increase the services to be rendered by the clients, which in all cases were fixed either by contract or by custom.2 Thus arose the inability of the clients to pay, and their gradual eviction from their inherited and original landed property, the absorption of small freeholds, a corresponding enlargement of estates in the hands of the ruling body, and a more general employment of slaves in agriculture.

The Roman clients, according to the ideal conception, described by Dionysius, were supposed to be united to their patrons by bonds of mutual affection and trust, and to regard them as their natural protectors, as sons regard their fathers. They were placed under the paternal authority of the head of the family, but also under his protection. They formed with the whole family a distinct community on a small scale, represented in the larger community of the state by the patron. The state as such did not interfere with the relations of the client to his patron. On this score, therefore, the client was without any protection from the law, and exposed to any act of injustice, as he had no legal redress against his master. But his claim to mild and equitable treatment was acknowledged by the religion of the community, which threatened the unjust masters with the vengeance of the gods. What such protection of the gods could effect, it

The words client and debtor are almost synonymous. Cæsar (Bell. Gall., i. 4) refers to this state of things as existing in his own time. Orgetorix ad iudicium omnem suam familiam, ad hominum milia decem, undique coëgit et omnes clientes obæratosque suos, quorum magnum numerum habebat, eodem conduxit.'

2 Even among the Spartans the Helots paid only a fixed contribution. The masters who exacted more were threatened with the wrath of the gods (see Plutarch, Inst. Lac., 41). In Germany the serf peasantry paid frumenti modum aut pecoris.'-Tacit. Germ., 25. Dionysius, ii. 10.

• Servius, ad Virgil. Æn., vi. 609. 'Patronus si clienti fraudem fecerit, sacer

esto.'

XIII.

is hard to say. The treatment of the client depended, no CHAP. doubt, less on the generosity, the equity, or the religious scruples of the masters, than on their interest, on custom, and public opinion. It is unlikely that the protection of religion could preserve them effectually from oppression and injustice. The abuse of irresponsible power is too deeply rooted in human nature to make it probable that the Roman patricians conscientiously observed a self-imposed moderation, merely from a feeling of justice and religious duty. The history of Rome is full of proofs to the contrary, and shows that the patricians were not guided by such moderation, and that a sense of justice never controlled their selfishness.

Even during the regal period, as it seems, the ties that Gradual united clients and patrons began to be loosened. The first of these weakening impulse towards this change was given by the organisation relations. of the army according to centuries, which subjected the clients to military service without reference to their dependence on their patrons. Subsequently, when, by the establishment of the tribunes of the people, the plebs collectively obtained patrons recognised by the state, the institution of the old clientship began by degrees to disappear, and to sink into oblivion, so that even our oldest historians could obtain no clear conception of it.'

It appears that slavery, the greatest curse of antiquity, Slavery. had reached no great development in ancient Rome, as long as the clients were to some extent the substitutes for slaves. It was only after the successful wars with Etruscans, Volscians, and Samnites, in which numerous prisoners were made, that slavery became more and more common in Rome, while at the same time the old clientship disappeared. We may take for granted that, during the regal period, the number of slaves in Rome was very inconsiderable.

The Roman people, properly so called, consisted at the The

The position in which, at a later period, freedmen stood with regard to their former masters is indeed analogous to the old clientela, but differs entirely from it politically.

Patricians

BOOK.

lus.

I.

time of the kings, of patrician houses. The patricians alone were citizens in the enjoyment of all political rights. or Popu- They alone had access to the gods of the Roman state. They alone were in possession of the auspices, by means of which the intercourse between gods and men was effected. They were invested with a peculiar sanctity and dignity, which could not be communicated to strangers, but was transmitted only to natural descendants. Purity of blood was, therefore, above all things important, and inter-marriages with plebeians were not only degrading but sinful.

Tribes,

houses, and families.

The patrician people were divided into tribes (tribus), houses (gentes), and families (familia), and each of these divisions was consecrated by religious rites, and had its peculiar sanctuaries. In the Roman family the father of the house ruled with patriarchal authority over his wife and children, his clients and his slaves. Even a grownup and married son, with his whole family, was subject to his father, as long as he lived; and no position in the state, no public office and no dignity, could modify the subjection of a member of the family to the common head. The father was priest and judge in his own house, with power of life and death. All the earnings of the members of the family belonged by law to the head. This dependence was dissolved only by death, and then the sons became independent heads of families. Every Roman woman was, either as wife, or daughter, or sister, in the power of her nearest male relative. Marriage was held sacred. Polygamy was unknown. A strictly regulated family was the foundation of a healthy political life. The virgin and the matron enjoyed proper respect. They were subject to the father and the husband, but as free agents, not as slaves. The wife was priestess by the side of the husband, and at the domestic hearth, which was also the family altar, attended to the service of the Penates, the household gods. In the temple of Vesta, which symbolised the common hearth of the whole people, pure virgins watched the eternal flame.

The family discipline was the same among patricians and plebeians.

XIII.

The Roman state was built up on the moral and severe CHAP. organisation of the family. Several families, united together, joined themselves into one House (gens),' on the ground The of real or supposed relationship. The house represented gentes. a higher unit than the family, less strictly bound together, and without a monarchical head, but the members were united by common sanctuaries and rights of inheritance, and marked as relations by a common family name (nomen gentile). In this manner arose a family pride which was quite distinct from the national pride. Not only had the Valerii, Claudii, Fabii, and Furii their own sanctuaries, legends, and traditionary politics, but even the way of thinking and the character of a Roman seemed differently coloured according to the house to which he belonged.

3

A certain number of houses joined together formed a The curiæ. Curia. Thirty of these curiæ made up the whole people of the patricians. The curia again was regarded as an enlarged family; the members of each, the Curiales, met, at stated times, for common festivals and sacrifices, for which purpose priests were appointed at the sanctuary of Juno Curitis. Of any political functions of the curiæ there is, however, nothing known. The thirty curiæ formed collectively the body of the Roman people, and this

There is no word in the English language which satisfactorily renders the Latin word gens. The term clan is apt to mislead; for the Scotch Highland clans were very different from the Roman gentes. The word House is not quite correct, for it always implies relationship, which was not essential in the gens ; but, for want of a better word we shall use House to express gens, except where the spirit of the language rejects the term and requires family instead. The German language has in the word Geschlecht an almost equivalent term for the Latin gens.

* Blood relationship was supposed to exist among the members of a gens, the 'Gentiles,' but was as often assumed as real.-See Niebuhr, Röm. Gesch., i. 792, note; English translation, i. 306. Schwegler, Röm. Gesch., i. 612.

How many gentes went to form a curia, we do not know. We cannot in the least rely on the statement of Dionysius (ii. 7) that originally each curia contained ten gentes, the thirty curiæ, therefore, three hundred. Some of the institutions of the primeval period perished with the monarchy, or survived only in a modified form, losing their original significance and importance. To these belongs the strict arrangement of houses, curiæ, and tribes, as also the clientship.

BOOK

I.

assembly decided on all matters which did not belong to the current business of the executive, especially on the election of the sovereigns, and questions of peace and war; it was the legislative body, and at the same time the supreme court of justice.

Position of The subject population was not entitled to vote in the population. assembly of the curiæ.

the subject

The tribes.

But it is possible, and indeed probable, that, during formal business and religious ceremonies, those plebeians who were clients were admitted by their patrons, and that on the whole they were not shut out from a certain passive presence in the assemblies. They were in a similar position to those Latins, and other foreigners, who were received in considerable numbers into the Roman state after the great Latin war. They were citizens without the right of voting;2 they shared the burdens, but not the honours and privileges, of the patricians, with whom they did not really form one people, until they were enrolled into the centuries of Servius Tullius.

By a further union of ten curiæ into one body was formed a tribe. There were consequently three tribesthe Ramnes, the Tities, and the Luceres-whose almost forgotten names sounded strange in the ears of the later Romans, and were as unconnected with the existing political divisions and institutions of later times as the kingdoms of Mercia, Northumberland, and Wessex are with the England of our days. The Roman antiquarians knew nothing of their origin and practical working in the state, nor have modern critics arrived at a satisfactory theory. Probably the divisions had reference only to the army. Originally the Roman legion is said to have consisted of 3,000 foot and 300 horse. This made 1,000 foot soldiers for each tribe and 100 horse. The military

The

tribunes, six in number in each legion, appear from their names to have been officers of the tribe. eighteen centuries of horse-being the six original

The complete proof is given by Schwegler, Röm. Gesch., i. 620 ff. 2 Cives sine suffragio.