The Roman Republic. Michael Crawford

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The group of communities with which Rome was most intimately involved was, as we have seen, that composed of the Latin cities; she and each of them were in principle equal, possessed of certain reciprocal rights, commercium, or the right to conclude valid contracts, conubium, or the right to contract marriages of which the offspring were legitimate, migratio, or the right to change domicile and acquire the citizenship of the new domicile, and (after 471, see here) the right to vote in one regional voting unit chosen by lot in a community of temporary domicile.² These rights were no doubt mostly traditional, regulated by the foedus Cassianum of 493 (see here).

      Rome and the Latin cities divided up the booty and the land which they acquired as a result of joint military enterprises. Although there is no evidence for the Latin communities, we may presume that they like Rome assigned land so acquired individually, viritim, to members of their own citizen bodies. What also happened was that the Latin League as a body founded colonies which were additional Latin communities, self-governing and possessed of the same reciprocal rights as the old Latin cities.

      With the end of the war against the Latins in 338, Rome incorporated many of the disaffected communities into her own citizen body; there remained separate, however, some of the original Latin cities and some colonies. In addition the status of civitas sine suffragio, citizenship without the vote, was conferred on the Campanians, and on the cities of Fundi and Formiae (Livy viii, 14, 10).

      The Roman incorporation of some of the Latin communities into her own citizen body was an act which had precedents. Part of the process by which Rome achieved hegemony over Italy was the actual extension of Roman territory, ager Romanus, and some extension had already taken place before 338; there were two ways in which this happened and they help to explain the relative superiority of Rome over the Latins in 338.

      Rome had fought the war against Veii largely on her own account, as she was later to fight her wars against the rest of Etruria and to become involved in Campania, although the Latins lay between; the consequent access of land, booty or mere influence accrued to Rome alone. Such land, distributed to Roman citizens, led to an increase in those possessed of enough land to equip themselves as heavily-armed soldiers (and to an increase in the number of regional voting units, tribus, tribes, into which the Roman people was divided).

      Rome had also increased her territory already before 338 by the incorporation (in circumstances the details of which escape us) of other communities, perhaps Crustumeria during the monarchy (for extension of Roman territory during the monarchy, see here), Tusculum perhaps early in the fourth century.

      Civitas sine suffragio, citizenship without the vote, on the other hand, is an innovation of the settlement of 338; those possessed of this status are the original municipes, those who bear the burdens (of Roman citizenship), military service, militia, and direct taxation, tributum; they are never Latin speakers and were no doubt for that reason debarred from voting. Originally independent, the communities concerned came in the end to identify themselves with Rome; the process no doubt helped to create the climate of opinion to which a dual patria, a local community and Rome, was normal and which was one of the characteristic strengths of the political structure of late Republican Italy.

The truly revolutionary sequel, however, of the settlement of 338 was that Rome, although the Latin League had disappeared, continued to found colonies with the status of Latin cities. The first of these new, self-governing communities to be founded was Cales in 334. Their prime purpose was of course strategic; and at the same time Rome began to found small colonies of Roman citizens to act as garrisons at vulnerable points on the coasts of Italy. These were too small to possess developed organs of self-government, though someone was no doubt charged with organizing the levy when the colony was attacked.³

      The standard Roman view of the colonies is well expressed by Cicero:

      Is every place of such a kind that it does not matter to the state whether a colony is founded there or not, or are there some places which demand a colony, some which clearly do not? In this as in other state matters it is worth remembering the care of our ancestors, who sited colonies in such suitable places to ward off danger that they seemed not just towns in Italy, but bastions of empire (de lege agraria 11, 73).

      The last and by far the largest group in the Italy of the turn of the fourth and third centuries was that of the allies, bound to Rome after defeat by a treaty, the central obligation of which was to provide troops for Rome.

      The global result was the military levy ex formula togatorum – ‘according to the list of those who wear the toga’; the relevant categorization of the population of Italy appears in the Agrarian Law of III in a formulation which is presupposed by a Greek inscription of the early second century and which is certainly archaic:

      those who are Roman citizens or allies or members of the Latin group, from whom the Romans are accustomed to command troops to be levied in the land of Italy, according to the list of those who wear the toga (Roman Statutes, no. 2, lines 21 and 50).

      The relationship of command is in no way dissimulated (see also Polybius VI, 21, 4–5) and after 209 Rome dealt out severe punishment to twelve Latin colonies which claimed that they could not supply any more troops (see here).

      The levy that could be produced is described by Polybius in the context of the Gallic incursion of 225:

      But I must make it clear from the facts themselves how great were the resources which Hannibal dared to attack and how great was the power which he boldly confronted; despite this, he came so close to his aim as to inflict major disasters on the Romans. Anyway, I must describe the levy and the size of the army available to them on that occasion. (Polybius goes on to claim that the total manpower available to Rome was 700,000 infantry and 70,000 cavalry.) (11, 24)

      The link between the manpower thus available and Rome’s openness to outsiders was already obvious to Philip V of Macedon, a future rival of Rome, as appears from a letter written to Larisa in 217:

       … and one can look at those others who adopt similar approaches to admission of citizens, among them the Romans, who when they free their slaves admit them to citizenship and enable them (actually their sons) to hold office; in this way they have not only increased the size of their own country, but have been able to send colonies to almost seventy places … (SIG 543 with Chr.Habicht, in Ancient Macedonia, 265, for date)

      The admission of outsiders as a source of, presumably military, strength is also explicitly recognized by Cato in his Origines, talking of early Rome:

      Those who had come together summoned several more thither from the countryside; as a result their strength grew (Gellius XVIII, 12, 7 = fr. 20 Peter).

      The fourth century BC saw not only the emergence of what we call the Italian confederation, but probably also the progressive articulation of the Roman citizen body into the five census classes known in the late Republic; the original division of the citizen body had probably been into assidui and proletarii, members of a single class and those below it, those who served as legionaries and those who did not; assidui were probably simply those who could equip themselves with a full suit of armour. It may be that Servius Tullius, the sixth king of Rome, then defined assidui in monetary terms, but the elaborate division of СКАЧАТЬ