BOOK 290-282 B,C, noble bride. It is not difficult to recognise in this caricature the real features of the Volsinian revolution, and to see that its course was not unlike the political development in Rome. The changing of the original slaves into freedmen, into clients and citizens with an inferior franchise without any share in the government and legislation; then the admission of these to the senate, to the public offices, and to all the privileges of the old citizens; the granting of the right of intermarriage, with which the right of inheritance was connected; the limitation of the patrician assemblies and clubs,3-all these are steps in the development of plebeian rights with which we are sufficiently acquainted in the internal history of Rome. The nobles of Volsinii would not abide, unfortunately, by the results of their internal revolution, but sought to make themselves masters of their hated opponents by foreign aid. They secretly sent an embassy to Rome, to bring about the intervention of the Roman government in their favour. The conspirators, on their return to Volsinii, were seized, tortured, and executed, together with the chief men of the aristocratic party. A Roman army now advanced before the unhappy town. Sanguinary combats took place. A fortified town like Volsinii, defended by men who were driven to despair and doomed to die, could not be taken at the first onset. The Roman consul, Q. Fabius Gurges, was killed. M. Valerius Flaccus followed him in the command, blockaded the town, and reduced it at last by hunger. A bloody sentence was now passed on the leaders of the popular party. In this fatal revolutionary war the venerable Valer. Max., ix. ext. 2; 'Ac ne qua virgo ingenuo nuberet cuius castitatem non ante ex numero ipsorum aliquis delibasset.' This reminds us of the alleged feudal right of the French nobility. 2 Compare the just remarks of Niebuhr, Röm. Gesch., i. 131; English translation, i. 124. The coitiones,' i.e. associations and clubs, chiefly for the purpose of influencing the elections, seem to have been very obnoxious to the political moralists of Rome. They are invariably condemned as illegal or pernicious, and no doubt often were so.-Livy, iii. 35, 65; vii. 32; ix. 26. Cicero, Planc. xxii. 53. and wealthy town of Volsinii perished. It was sacked and destroyed; the democratic party was annihilated, the wretched remnants of the nobility were restored to power over the ruins of their native town. Volsinii never rose from the ashes. A new town was built in the neighbourhood, in which the aristocratic party had the satisfaction of establishing a government to their liking. Thus dealt the Romans with a friendly town which had sought their help in her domestic troubles. The intervention in the civil war and the destruction of Volsinii were extolled in Rome as a victory over Etruria. Triumphs were celebrated, and innumerable works of art and rich spoils, which, in the lapse of ages, had been collected in the metropolis of Etruscan art and civilisation, were carried off to adorn the Forum and the Capitol. CHAP. XIII. 290-282 B.C. the Gauls. If at this time the Gauls had been in a position per- Inaction of mitting them to oppose the Romans, they would most assuredly have befriended the oppressed popular party in Volsinii, but after their defeat at the Vadimonian Lake, they kept quiet for forty-five years. This was the period during which swarms of Gauls overran Macedonia and Greece. Rome knew how to make use of this respite, by overthrowing one of the now useless bulwarks against which, in former years, the Gallic onsets had been broken. 'the charac The Romans succeeded in the destruction of Volsinii Change in and in the subjection of Falerii, which took place in the ter of the year 292 B.C., without any attempt on the part of the Etruscans. other Etruscan towns to oppose their aggression. The Etruscans exhibited now the same indifference to the fate of their countrymen as a hundred and thirty years earlier when Veii was attacked, and, after a siege of ten years, destroyed by the Romans. The warlike spirit of this people had evidently fled. They lived now only for sensual pleasures. For a period of nearly two hundred years history has next to nothing to relate of them. Their pacific relations to Rome remained unbroken, and this 1 Zonaras, viii, 1. BOOK 290-282 B.C. Condition of the Italian Greeks. enabled them to practise the arts of peace, to cultivate their land like a garden, and to create innumerable works of art, which attest their superior talent and great wealth. They joined in no conspiracy against Rome with the peoples of southern Italy, with the Samnites, the Lucanians, the Tarentines, or with Pyrrhus. When Pyrrhus appeared in the neighbourhood of Rome, after his victory at Heraclea, and hoped to find the Etruscans willing to join in a war against Rome, all was tranquil in the whole of Etruria. Rome was quite safe on this side, and could direct all her energies to the south. The strength of the Samnites had been broken in the third war. They could no longer hope to oppose the extension of the Roman power in the southern districts of the peninsula. The establishment of the colony of Venusia. was the first step by which Rome prepared her lasting dominion over that district. The turn was now come for the Greek towns on the coast, which till now had taken no part in the wars of the Romans and the Italians, and who, conscious of their own weakness, entertained the hope of prolonging their own independence through the internal struggles of the Italian nations. As soon, however, as a decided superiority of one or the other of the belligerent powers was established, it became clear that the independence of the Greek towns was gone. There had been a time when they might have hoped to Hellenise Italy. They could have accomplished this object if they had been united, and prepared to sacrifice a portion of their local independence for the common good. That time was past. They had now no choice but to be absorbed by the natives of Italy. This was the unavoidable consequence of their mutual jealousy and their murderous wars among themselves. Thurii was the first Greek town which was drawn towards Rome. Hard-pressed by the Lucanians, who were in the habit of breaking into the wealthy Greek settlements as the animals of the forest invade the fields and the flocks of man, the people of Thurii applied to Rome for help. XIII. 290-282 B.C. The Lucanians had rendered much important service CHAP. to the Romans in the third Samnite war. They probably thought themselves justified, after the peace with the Samnites, in paying themselves, by laying under contribution Greek cities which were at the same time wealthy and unable to make a stout resistance. Perhaps they contemplated even the conquest and lasting possession of Thurii. They had just seen a Greek town seized by countrymen of their own, and were no doubt eager to follow such a shining example. The Sabellian mercenaries who had served in Sicily under Agathokles had surprised the Greek town of Messana in Sicily, had massacred all the men capable of bearing arms, and lived now in abundance and luxury. The Romans could not allow a similar capture of an Italian town by a warlike people like the Lucanians, and so they had no hesitation in declaring war against their old allies the Lucanians, and espousing the cause of the Thurinians.' In this war with the Lucanians, as might be expected, Samnites and Bruttians took a part. Caius Fabricius gained great victories, raised the siege of Thurii, and, after placing a garrison there, returned laden with spoils to Rome." 6 of the Roman The success of the Romans, however, was not confined Extension to the military occupation of Thurii. Locri, Croton, and Rhegium received Roman garrisons. All of the most power important Greek towns along the coast were thus in the Greek power of Rome, with the exception of Tarentum. The cities. 1 Dionysius, excerpt 2344. Valer. Max., i. 8, 6. The war was declared, not against the Lucanian people in general, but against Sthenius Statilius, the commander of the Lucanians. This shows that only a band of Lucanian freebooters was concerned. Such bands must have existed also among the Samnites, and have carried on war on their own account after the Samnite nation had concluded peace with Rome. The alleged victories of the Romans over the Samnites in this period (Livy, ep. xii.) can refer only to encounters with such bodies of warlike adventurers and plunderers. 2 Probably not communi consilio, but as freebooters.-See preceding note. The exact time cannot be fixed. Italy by Pyrrhus seems the most Croton, perhaps also of Rhegium. 5 Dionysius, xviii. 7. But the period preceding the invasion of likely, at least with regard to Locri and See Droysen, Hellenismus, ii. 122, note 56. over the BOOK possession of this town would have completed the military III. 290-282 B.C. supremacy of Rome over southern Italy, and it seemed now a natural and legitimate object of the Roman policy to add this keystone to the edifice. Tarentum was doomed ; but, before it fell, events took place calculated to test to the uttermost the courage and energy, the perseverance and self-devotion, of the Roman people. |