History of Julius Caesar Vol. 1 of 2. Napoleon III

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СКАЧАТЬ conditions;167 it is what constituted the jus Latii; these first two categories preserved their autonomy and their magistrates; third, the towns which had lost all independence in exchange for the civil laws of Rome, but without enjoyment, for the inhabitants, of the most important political rights; it was the law of the Cærites, because Cære was the first town which had been thus treated.168

      Below the municipia, which had their own magistrates, came, in this social hierarchy, the prefectures,169 so called because a prefect was sent there every year to administer justice.

      The dediticii were still worse treated. Delivered by victory to the discretion of the Senate, they had been obliged to surrender their arms and give hostages, to throw down their walls or receive a garrison within them, to pay a tax, and to furnish a determinate contingent. With the exclusion of these last, the towns which had not obtained for their inhabitants the complete rights of Roman citizens belonged to the class of allies (fœderati socii). Their condition differed according to the nature of their engagements. Simple treaties of friendship,170 or of commerce,171 or of offensive alliance, or offensive and defensive,172 concluded on the footing of equality, were called fœdera æqua. On the contrary, when one of the contracting parties (and it was never the Romans) submitted to onerous obligations from which the other was exempted, these treaties were called fœdera non æqua. They consisted almost always in the cession of a part of the territory of the vanquished, and in the obligation to undertake no war of their own. A certain independence, it is true, was left to them; they received the right of exchange and free establishment in the capital, but they were bound to the interests of Rome by an alliance offensive and defensive. The only clause establishing the preponderance of Rome was conceived in these terms: Majestatem populi Romani comiter conservanto;173 that is, “They shall loyally acknowledge the supremacy of the Roman people.” It is a remarkable circumstance that, dating from the reign of Augustus, the freedmen were divided in categories similar to those which existed for the inhabitants of Italy.174

      As to the colonies, they were established for the purpose of preserving the possessions acquired, of securing the new frontiers, and of guarding the important passes; and even for the sake of getting rid of the turbulent class.175 They were of two sorts: the Roman colonies and the Latin colonies. The former differed little from the municipia of the first degree, the others from the municipia of the second degree. The first were formed of Roman citizens, taken with their families from the classes subjected to military service, and even, in their origin, solely among the patricians. The coloni preserved the privileges attached to the title of citizen,176 and were bound by the same obligations, and the interior administration of the colony was an image of that of Rome.177

      The Latin colonies differed from the others in having been founded by the confederacy of the Latins on different points of Latium. Emanating from a league of independent cities, they were not, like the Roman colonies, tied by close bonds to the metropolis.178 But the confederacy once dissolved, these colonies were placed in the rank of allied towns (socii Latini). The act (formula) which instituted them was a sort of treaty guaranteeing their franchise.179

      Peopled at first by Latins, it was not long before these colonies received Roman citizens who were induced by their poverty to exchange their title and rights for the advantages assured to the colonists. These did not figure on the lists of the censors. The formula fixed simply the tribute to pay and the number of soldiers to furnish. What the colony lost in privileges it gained in independence.180

      The isolation of the Latin colonies, placed in the middle of the enemy’s territory, obliged them to remain faithful to Rome, and to keep watch on the neighbouring peoples. Their military importance was at least equal to that of the Roman colonies; they merited as well as these latter the name of propugnacula imperii and of specula,181 that is, bulwarks and watch-towers of the conquest. In a political point of view they rendered services of a similar kind. If the Roman colonies announced to the conquered people the majesty of the Roman name, their Latin sisters gave an ever-increasing extension to the nomen Latinum,182 that is, to the language, manners, and whole civilisation of that race of which Rome was but the first representative. The Latin colonies were ordinarily founded to economise the colonies of Roman citizens, which were charged principally with the defence of the coasts and the maintenance of commercial relations with foreign people.

      In making the privileges of the Roman citizen an advantage which every one was happy and proud to acquire, the Senate held out a bait to all ambitions; and this general desire, not to destroy the privilege, but to gain a place among the privileged, is a characteristic trait of the manners of antiquity. In the city not less than in the State, the insurgents or discontented did not seek, as in our modern societies, to overthrow, but to attain to. So every one, according to his position, aspired to a legitimate object: the plebeians to enter into the aristocracy, not to destroy it; the Italic peoples, to have a part in the sovereignty of Rome, not to contest it; the Roman provinces to be declared allies and friends of Rome, and not to recover their independence.

      The peoples could judge, according to their conduct, what lot was reserved for them. The paltry interests of city were replaced by an effectual protection, and by new rights often more precious, in the eyes of the vanquished, than independence itself. This explains the facility with which the Roman domination was established. In fact, that only is destroyed entirely which may be replaced advantageously.

      A rapid glance at the wars which effected the conquest of Italy will show how the Senate made application of the principles stated above; how it was skilful in profiting by the divisions of its adversaries, in collecting its whole strength to overwhelm one of them; after the victory in making it an ally; in using the aims and resources of that ally to subjugate another people; in crushing the confederacies which united the vanquished against it; in attaching them to Rome by new bonds; in establishing military posts on all the points of strategic importance; and, lastly, in spreading everywhere the Latin race by distributing to Roman citizens a part of the lands taken from the enemy.

      But, before entering upon the recital of events, we must cast a glance upon the years which immediately preceded the pacification of Latium.

      Submission of Latium after the first Samnite War.

      IV. During a hundred and sixty-seven years, Rome had been satisfied with struggling against her neighbours to re-conquer a supremacy lost since the fall of her kings. She held herself almost always on the defensive; but, with the fifth century, she took the offensive, and inaugurated the system of conquests continued to the moment when she herself succumbed.

      In 411, she had, in concert with the Latins, combated the Samnites for the first time, and commenced against that redoubtable people a struggle which lasted seventy-two years, and which brought twenty-four triumphs to the Roman generals.183 Proud of having contributed to the two great victories of Mount Gaurus and Suessula, the Latins, with an exaggerated belief in their own strength and a pretension to equality with Rome, went so far as to require that one of the two consuls, and half of the senators, should be chosen from their nation. War was immediately declared. The Senate was willing enough to have allies and subjects, but it could not suffer equals; СКАЧАТЬ