CHAP. XIII. 434 B.C. now and then a warning which made them tremble for the future. After the second censorship, in the year 434 B.C., the quinquennial term of this patrician office was cut short, and on the proposition of the patrician consul Mamercus Æmilius, it was determined that every fifth year new censors should be chosen, but should remain in office only eighteen months. A further concession was made to the plebs in the year 421 B.C., by which the number of the 421 B.C. quæstors was increased from two to four, and the plebeians were declared eligible for this post. It is true this concession was made by the patricians with the secret expectation that, in spite of the legal admission of plebeians to this office, they would be able, as in the case of the consular tribunes, to carry the election of patricians. They were, however, mistaken in this calculation. The plebeian comitia of tribes, which had to elect the quæstors, could not be managed so easily as those of the centuries, and eleven years afterwards, in the year 410 B.C., three plebeians 410 B.C. were elected among the four quæstors. This was a just retribution for the cunning of the patricians, who would not consent to the plebeians having a certain fixed number among the quæstors, in the hope of being able to fill up all the places with patricians. But at the election of the consular tribunes also an un- Signs of expected result took place. In the years 400 and 399 B.C., activity. plebeian and again in the year 396 B.C., a majority of plebeians was elected. We cannot ascertain the causes and the details of these changes, as we are too scantily informed of the events of this period. We see plainly, however, that the plebeians were not hopelessly torpid, but understood how to make good use of a favourable opportunity, when offered, for the assertion of their rights. This perseverance could not fail sooner or later to be crowned with success. In the plebs was the germ of growth. The patrician class could neither be renovated nor extended. One generation later, in the year 366 B.C., the Licinian laws secured to the plebeians a share in the consulate, and the patricians lost their old preponderance in the state for ever. BOOK CHAPTER XIV. ROMAN INTERVENTION IN ARDEA, 446 B.C. WE cannot suppose that the foreign policy of the Roman senate was carried on with a greater respect for justice. Character than was exhibited in the dealings of the patricians with of Roman the popular party. As far as foreign nations were conforeign policy. cerned, the ancients considered everything right which promised to bring advantage, even more unscrupulously than we do at the present day. The considerations of equity and self-restraint which it was necessary to observe to a certain extent with regard to fellow-citizens, were disregarded in the case of foreigners. Towards them cunning and deceit, cruelty and ferocity, became virtues, and passed for wisdom and courage. Antiquity can show but few instances of magnanimity in the intercourse of nations, and the Romans especially were strangers to it. They are therefore entitled least of all to moralise on the faithlessness and perfidy of other nations; for, with regard to foreigners, who for them were originally synonymous with enemies,' they never considered themselves bound by any obligation or restrained by any principles of right, except in so far as their own advantage seemed to demand it. We have occasion to notice this practice at the first contact of Rome with a neighbouring state, which is described in our authorities with so much detail and apparent fidelity that we can judge with tolerable certainty of the motives and the object of the Romans. It is the disgraceful spoliation of the allied town of Ardea, which Livy him 1 Cicero, Off., i. 12, 37: Hostis apud maiores nostros is dicebatur, quem Lunc peregrinum dicimus.' ́self, who so gladly praises or excuses anything Roman, felt to be an infamous act. СНАР. XIV. The treat ment of The town of Corioli1 had been destroyed in the course of the Volscian wars; and its territory, which was lying a waste, was the subject of a long dispute and frequent wars between two adjacent Latin towns, Ardea and Aricia. At length (446 B.C.), after both towns had suffered severely 446 B.C. from the protracted contest, they decided to choose Rome as their umpire. The Roman senate laid the matter before an assembly of the people, and the people decided that the disputed land belonged by right neither to Ardea nor to Aricia, but to Rome; for as Rome had conquered Corioli forty-seven years before, it had become the property of the Roman state (ager publicus). In vain, it is said, did the consuls and the senate endeavour to prevent this selfish and dishonourable decision of the people. The magnanimity and sense of right in the nobility found no response in the great mass, which was only moved by greediness and selfishness. The consuls therefore had no choice but to announce, very much against their will, to the allies of Rome the sentence of the Roman people, which, though not in reality altogether unjust, still was contrary to the feeling of equity of the senate. A formal treaty3 with Ardea ratified the decision of the Roman people in the year 444 B.C. Shortly after this (443 B.C.) a bloody civil war broke out in the town of Ardea. In Ardea also there were patricians and plebeians, and the same disputes and struggles took place there as in Rome." The plebs seceded and united themselves with a Volscian army to besiege the town. The patricians turned to Rome for assistance, and the Roman consul marched to the relief of Ardea. The Volscians were defeated, the town delivered, 1 Livy, iii. 71. 2 2 Livy, iii. 72: Vocatæ tribus indicaverunt agrum publicum populi Romani esse; nec abnuitur ita fuisse, si ad iudices alios itum foret.' This fœdus Ardeatinum is said to have been inspected by the annalist Licinius Macer, the contemporary of Sulla and Cicero. • Livy, iv. 9. BOOK Founda tion of the story. The act not that of the plebeians, who are charged with it. the rebellious plebeians punished,' and the supremacy of the patricians re-established. But, as the town had been very much depopulated in the civil war, it was decided to send Roman colonists to Ardea, and to give them grants of land on the territory which Rome, as umpire, had awarded to itself. In order, however, that the disgrace of the iniquitous sentence might be obliterated, no land was assigned to the Roman colonists until all the people of Ardea had received allotments. Thus the assistance rendered, and the way in which the land was divided, not only reconciled Ardea with Rome, but laid it under especial obligations. The Roman plebeians, who had confidently expected that they would have a share in the division of the land, and who now found themselves excluded, to the advantage of the people of Ardea, were so exasperated that the patrician triumvirs, who had been sent as com missioners to settle the Roman colonists at Ardea, did not venture to return to Rome, but preferred to remain in Ardea. Thus runs this edifying narrative. We cannot fail to see that there is something true in it. It is certainly not a pure invention. The stain on the honour of Rome caused by its decision between Ardea and Aricia was of too deep a dye to be washed out.3 The Roman annalists have taken much trouble to garble the report and to justify or to excuse the conduct of the Romans. They have not, however, altogether succeeded, and we can separate with tolerable accuracy the true from the false. It is, in the first place, no doubt untrue that the decision of the Romans was given by the assembly of the people, that is, by the plebs. All questions of foreign policy came before the senate, and when by its 'decision no burden was imposed upon the people-for example, if no Livy, iv. 10: 'Principibus eius motus securi percussis.' 2 Livy, iv. 10: ‘Demptam iniuriam iudicii tanto beneficio populi Romani Ardeates credebant.' 3 Livy calls it'Publicæ avaritiæ monumentum' (iv. 10), ' Iudicium infame' (iv. 11), Turpe iudicium populi' (iii. 71). war was necessary-there was no need of consulting the people. The Roman patricians could indeed alone be interested in this matter and expect advantage from it. For as the disputed lands became the public land (ager publicus) of Rome, it is clear that the plebs gained nothing. The public lands still belonged exclusively to the privileged class. Only patricians could take possession of them. The principal complaint of the plebeians in relation to the agrarian laws was just this, that they were excluded from the enjoyment of the state lands. It is therefore quite absurd to attribute the ignominious decision to the mean selfishness of the plebeians, as our historians do, and to represent the patricians as opposed to it. It appears plainly in the course of the story that the Roman patricians were allied with the patricians of Ardea, and the district of Corioli was only the price which the aristocracy of Ardea paid to the Romans for their assistance against their own rebellious plebs. Finally, the conduct of the commissioners for the settlement of the colony of Ardea is significant. They dreaded the resentment of the plebs, and did not venture to return to Rome. Surely this proves that the Roman plebeians had not profited by the iniquitous acquisition, and that the patricians, who had the advantage of the transaction, were also the sole authors of it.1 The disputes about agrarian laws, of which we have heard nothing since the lex Icilia, now begin again. In 441 B.C. the tribune Potelius insisted on assignments of land (Livy, iv. 12), having in view, no doubt, the newly acquired territory of Ardea. Is it not possible that Sp. Mælius may have had a similar object in view? CHAP. XIV. |