BOOK THIRD
Notes For Chapter XI
1. II. III. New Aristocracy
2. II. III. New Opposition
3. II. III. Military Tribunes With Consular Powers
4. All these insignia probably belonged on their first emergence only
to the nobility proper, i. e. to the agnate descendants of curule
magistrates; although, after the manner of such decorations, all of
them in course of time were extended to a wider circle. This can be
distinctly proved in the case of the gold finger-ring, which in the
fifth century was worn only by the nobility (Plin. H. N., xxxiii. i.
18), in the sixth by every senator and senator's son (Liv. xxvi. 36),
in the seventh by every one of equestrian rank, under the empire by
every one who was of free birth. So also with the silver trappings,
which still, in the second Punic war, formed a badge of the nobility
alone (Liv. xxvi. 37); and with the purple border of the boys' toga,
which at first was granted only to the sons of curule magistrates,
then to the sons of equites, afterwards to those of all free-born
persons, lastly--yet as early as the time of the second Punic war
--even to the sons of freedmen (Macrob. Sat. i. 6). The golden
amulet-case (-bulla-) was a badge of the children of senators in the
time of the second Punic war (Macrob. l. c.; Liv. xxvi. 36), in that
of Cicero as the badge of the children of the equestrian order (Cic.
Verr. i. 58, 152), whereas children of inferior rank wore the leathern
amulet (-lorum-). The purple stripe (-clavus-) on the tunic was a
badge of the senators (I. V. Prerogatives of the Senate) and of the
equites, so that at least in later times the former wore it broad, the
latter narrow; with the nobility the -clavus- had nothing to do.
5. II. III. Civic Equality
6. Plin. H. N. xxi. 3, 6. The right to appear crowned in public was
acquired by distinction in war (Polyb. vi. 39, 9; Liv. x. 47);
consequently, the wearing a crown without warrant was an offence
similar to the assumption, in the present day, of the badge of a
military order of merit without due title.
7. II. III. Praetorship
8. Thus there remained excluded the military tribunate with consular
powers (II. III. Throwing Open of Marriage and of Magistracies) the
proconsulship, the quaestorship, the tribunate of the people, and
several others. As to the censorship, it does not appear,
notwithstanding the curule chair of the censors (Liv. xl. 45; comp,
xxvii. 8), to have been reckoned a curule office; for the later
period, however, when only a man of consular standing could be made
censor, the question has no practical importance. The plebeian
aedileship certainly was not reckoned originally one of the curule
magistracies (Liv. xxiii. 23); it may, however, have been subsequently
included amongst them.
9. II. I. Government of the Patriciate
10. II. III. Censorship
11. II. III. The Senate
12. The current hypothesis, according to which the six centuries of
the nobility alone amounted to 1200, and the whole equestrian force
accordingly to 3600 horse, is not tenable. The method of determining
the number of the equites by the number of duplications specified by
the annalists is mistaken: in fact, each of these statements has
originated and is to be explained by itself. But there is no evidence
either for the first number, which is only found in the passage of
Cicero, De Rep. ii. 20, acknowledged as miswritten even by the
champions of this view, or for the second, which does not appear at
all in ancient authors. in favour, on the other hand, of the
hypothesis set forth in the text, we have, first of all, the number as
indicated not by authorities, but by the institutions themselves; for
it is certain that the century numbered 100 men, and there were
originally three (I. V. Burdens of the Burgesses), then six (I. Vi.
Amalgamation of the Palatine and Quirinal Cities), and lastly after
the Servian reform eighteen (I. VI. The Five Classes), equestrian
centuries. The deviations of the authorities from this view are only
apparent. The old self-consistent tradition, which Becker has
developed (ii. i, 243), reckons not the eighteen patricio-plebeian,
but the six patrician, centuries at 1800 men; and this has been
manifestly followed by Livy, i. 36 (according to the reading which
alone has manuscript authority, and which ought not to be corrected
from Livy's particular estimates), and by Cicero l. c. (according to
the only reading grammatically admissible, MDCCC.; see Becker, ii. i,
244). But Cicero at the same time indicates very plainly, that in
that statement he intended to describe the then existing amount of the
Roman equites in general. The number of the whole body has therefore
been transferred to the most prominent portion of it by a prolepsis,
such as is common in the case of the old annalists not too much given
to reflection: just in the same way 300 equites instead of 100 are
assigned to the parent-community, including, by anticipation, the
contingents of the Tities and the Luceres (Becker, ii. i, 238).
Lastly, the proposition of Cato (p. 66, Jordan), to raise the number
of the horses of the equites to 2200, is as distinct a confirmation of
the view proposed above, as it is a distinct refutation of the
opposite view. The closed number of the equites probably continued to
subsist down to Sulla's time, when with the -de facto- abeyance of the
censorship the basis of it fell away, and to all appearance in place
of the censorial bestowal of the equestrian horse came its acquisition
by hereditary right; thenceforth the senator's son was by birth an
-eques-. Alongside, however, of this closed equestrian body, the
-equites equo publico-, stood from an early period of the republic the
burgesses bound to render mounted service on their own horses, who are
nothing but the highest class of the census; they do not vote in the
equestrian centuries, but are regarded otherwise as equites, and lay
claim likewise to the honorary privileges of the equestrian order.
In the arrangement of Augustus the senatorial houses retained the
hereditary equestrian right; but by its side the censorial bestowal of
the equestrian horse is renewed as a prerogative of the emperor and
without restriction to a definite time, and thereby the designation of
equites for the first class of the census as such falls into abeyance.
13. II. III. Increasing Powers of the Burgesses
14. II. VIII. Officers
15. II. III. Restrictions As To The Accumulation and Reoccupation Of
Offices
16. II. III. New Opposition
17. The stability of the Roman nobility may be clearly traced, more
especially in the case of the patrician -gentes-, by means of the
consular and aedilician Fasti. As is well known, the consulate was
held by one patrician and one plebeian in each year from 388 to 581
(with the exception of the years 399, 400, 401, 403, 405, 409, 411, in
which both consuls were patricians). Moreover, the colleges of curule
aediles were composed exclusively of patricians in the odd years of
the Varronian reckoning, at least down to the close of the sixth
century, and they are known for the sixteen years 541, 545, 547, 549,
551, 553, 555, 557, 561, 565, 567, 575, 585, 589, 591, 593. These
patrician consuls and aediles are, as respects their -gentes-,
distributed as follows:--
|
Consuls 388-500 | Consuls 501-581 | Curule aediles of those 16 patrician colleges
|
|
Cornelii | 15 | 15 | 15 |
|
Valerii | 10 | 8 | 4 |
|
Claudii | 4 | 8 | 2 |
|
Aemilii | 9 | 6 | 2 |
|
Fabii | 6 | 6 | 1 |
|
Manlii | 4 | 6 | 1 |
|
Postumii | 2 | 6 | 2 |
|
Servilii | 3 | 4 | 2 |
|
Quinctii | 2 | 3 | 1 |
|
Furii | 2 | 3 | - |
|
Sulpicii | 6 | 4 | 2 |
|
Veturii | - | 2 | - |
|
Papirii | 3 | 1 | - |
|
Nautii | 2 | - | - |
|
Julii | 1 | - | 1 |
|
Foslii | 1 | - | - |
|
| --- | --- | --- |
|
| 70 | 70 32 |
Thus the fifteen or sixteen houses of the high nobility, that were
powerful in the state at the time of the Licinian laws, maintained
their ground without material change in their relative numbers--which
no doubt were partly kept up by adoption--for the next two centuries,
and indeed down to the end of the republic. To the circle of the
plebeian nobility new -gentes- doubtless were from time to time added;
but the old plebian houses, such as the Licinii, Fulvii, Atilii,
Domitii, Marcii, Junii, predominate very decidedly in the Fasti
throughout three centuries.
18. I. V. The Senate
19. III. IX. Death of Scipio
20. III. X. Their Lax and Unsuccessful Management of the War f.
21. III. VI. in Italy
22. III. VI. Conquest of Sicily
23. The expenses of these were, however, probably thrown in great part
on the adjoining inhabitants. The old system of making requisitions
of task-work was not abolished: it must not unfrequently have happened
that the slaves of the landholders were called away to be employed in
the construction of roads. (Cato, de R. R. 2 )
24. III. VI. Pressure of the War
25. III. VI. in Italy
26. III. VII. Celtic Wars
27. III. VI in Italy
28. III. VII. Latins
29. II. VII. Non-Latin Allied Communities
30. III. VII. Latins
31. Thus, as is well known, Ennius of Rudiae received burgess-rights
from one of the triumvirs, Q. Fulvius Nobilior, on occasion of the
founding of the burgess-colonies of Potentia and Pisaurum (Cic. Brut.
20, 79); whereupon, according to the well-known custom, he adopted the
-praenomen- of the latter. The non-burgesses who were sent to share
in the foundation of a burgess-colony, did not, at least in tin's
epoch, thereby acquire -de jure- Roman citizenship, although they
frequently usurped it (Liv. xxxiv. 42); but the magistrates charged
with the founding of a colony were empowered, by a clause in the
decree of the people relative to each case, to confer burgess-rights
on a limited number of persons (Cic. pro Balb. 21, 48).
32. III. VII. Administration of Spain
33. III. IX. Expedition Against The Celts in Asia Minor
34. III. X. Their Lax and Unsuccessful Management of the War f.
35. II. I. Term of Office
36. III. VII. Administration of Spain
37. III. XI. Italian Subjects, Roman Franchise More Difficult Of
Acquisition
38. III. XI. Roman Franchise More Difficult of Acquisition
39. in Cato's treatise on husbandry, which, as is well known,
primarily relates to an estate in the district of Venafrum, the
judicial discussion of such processes as might arise is referred to
Rome only as respects one definite case; namely, that in which the
landlord leases the winter pasture to the owner of a flock of sheep,
and thus has to deal with a lessee who, as a rule, is not domiciled in
the district (c. 149). It may be inferred from this, that in ordinary
cases, where the contract was with a person domiciled in the district,
such processes as might spring out of it were even in Cato's time
decided not at Rome, but before the local judges.
40. II. VII. The Full Roman Franchise
41. II. VII. Subject Communities
42. III. VIII. Declaration of War By Rome
43. II. III. The Burgess-Body
44. III. XI. Patricio-Plebian Nobility
45. The laying out of the circus is attested. Respecting the origin
of the plebeian games there is no ancient tradition (for what is said
by the Pseudo-Asconius, p. 143, Orell. is not such); but seeing that
they were celebrated in the Flaminian circus (Val. Max. i, 7, 4), and
first certainly occur in 538, four years after it was built (Liv.
xxiii. 30), what we have stated above is sufficiently proved.
46. II. II. Political Value of the Tribunate
47. III. IX. Landing of the Romans
48. III. IX. Death of Scipio. The first certain instance of such a
surname is that of Manius Valerius Maximus, consul in 491, who, as
conqueror of Messana, assumed the name Messalla (ii. 170): that the
consul of 419 was, in a similar manner, called Calenus, is an error.
The presence of Maximus as a surname in the Valerian (i. 348) and
Fabian (i. 397) clans is not quite analogous.
49. III. XI. Patricio-Plebian Nobility
50. II. III. New Opposition
51. III. III. The Celts Conquered By Rome
52. III. VI. in Italy
53. III. III. The Celts Conquered By Rome
54. III. VII. Liguria
55. III. VII. Measures Adopted To Check The Immigration of the
Transalpine Gauls
56. III. VII. Liguria
57. III. XI. The Nobility in Possession of the Equestrian Centuries
58. III. V. Attitude of the Romans, III. VI. Conflicts in the South Of
Italy
59. II. III. The Burgess-Body
60. As to the original rates of the Roman census it is difficult to
lay down anything definite. Afterwards, as is well known, 100,000
-asses- was regarded as the minimum census of the first class; to
which the census of the other four classes stood in the (at least
approximate) ratio of 3/4, 1/2, 1/4, 1/9. But these rates are
understood already by Polybius, as by all later authors, to refer to
the light -as- (1/10th of the -denarius-), and apparently this view
must be adhered to, although in reference to the Voconian law the same
sums are reckoned as heavy -asses- (1/4 of the -denarius-: Geschichte
des Rom. Munzwesens, p. 302). But Appius Claudius, who first in 442
expressed the census-rates in money instead of the possession of land
(II. III. The Burgess-Body), cannot in this have made use of the light
-as-, which only emerged in 485 (II. VIII. Silver Standard of Value).
Either therefore he expressed the same amounts in heavy -asses-, and
these were at the reduction of the coinage converted into light; or he
proposed the later figures, and these remained the same
notwithstanding the reduction or the coinage, which in this case would
have involved a lowering of the class-rates by more than the half.
Grave doubts may be raised in opposition to either hypothesis; but the
former appears the more credible, for so exorbitant an advance in
democratic development is not probable either for the end of the fifth
century or as an incidental consequence of a mere administrative
measure, and besides it would scarce have disappeared wholly from
tradition. 100,000 light -asses-, or 40,000 sesterces, may, moreover,
be reasonably regarded as the equivalent of the original Roman full
hide of perhaps 20 -jugera- (I. VI. Time and Occasion of the Reform);
so that, according to this view, the rates of the census as a whole
have changed merely in expression, and not in value.
61. III. V. Fabius and Minucius
62. II. I. The Dictator
63. III. XI. Election of Officers in the Comitia
64. III. V. Flaminius, New Warlike Preparations in Rome
65. III. V. Fabius and Minucius
66. III. XI. Squandering of the Spoil
67. III. VI. Publius Scipio
68. III. VI. The African Expedition of Scipio
69. III. X. Humiliation of Rhodes
70. II. II. Agrarian Law of Spurius Cassius
Previous section |
Next section
Mommsen Table of Contents
