Part 3

If the legends of the Regal period are mythical, and if those of the Patrician period were falsified by bards and minstrels, who made it their vocation to flatter the family pride of the nobles, it is plain there is little of historic narrative relating to these early times which can be depended on. There is no essential difference in the account which Dr Liddell and Sir G. C. Lewis give of the materials of the early history of Rome; but the first of these writers has a far greater faith in that species of constructive or conjectural history, in which Niebuhr was so great an artist, than the second can at all admit. Sir G. C. Lewis contends with great force and clearness that historical evidence does not differ in kind from judicial evidence. They are both founded “on the testimony of credible witnesses.” Unless you can trace your narrative to some contemporary writer who had a fair opportunity of knowing the facts to which he testifies, you have nothing worthy of the name of history. Nor can any ingenuity of reasoning avail if the materials on which you reason are constantly open to suspicion. In the time of the second Punic war there commences a series of Roman historians or annalists who recorded the events of their own age; their works are lost to us, but they furnished subsequent writers, whose histories remain, with _their_ materials. If now, for the years preceding this epoch, you have nothing but a series of meagre official annals, kept by the chief pontiff, some ancient treaties, and a few laws which you can bring into court as historical evidence—if you have nothing but these “dry bones,” there is no help for it; you must be contented with the skeleton. By no means can you, in any legitimate manner, cover these bones. You have no narrative, both lifelike and trustworthy, that extends beyond the age of Pyrrhus. Here the Greek historian steps in. Moreover, the war with Pyrrhus was “not so long prior to the time of Fabius and Cincius (the earliest Roman annalists) as to render it improbable that they and other subsequent writers may have collected some trustworthy notices of it from native tradition and documents.” The speech, too, of Appius the Blind, delivered in the Senate on the occasion of the embassy of Cineas, the minister of Pyrrhus, was extant in the time of Cicero. But beyond this period of the war of Pyrrhus, historic narrative based on acceptable evidence there is none.

Sir G. C. Lewis states the matter, at the opening of his third chapter, in the following lucid manner:—

“In the previous chapter we have followed the stream of Roman contemporary history up to the war of Pyrrhus, but found that at that point the contemporary writers deserted us. There is no trace of any historical account of Roman affairs by a contemporary writer, native or foreign, before that time; nor can it be shown that any Roman literary work, either in verse or prose, was then in existence. But although there was no contemporary history, and no native literature at Rome before the war with Pyrrhus, yet we have a history of Rome for 472 years before that period, handed down to us by ancient classical writers as a credible narrative of events.”

But we must not be seduced further into following the discussions of Sir G. C. Lewis “on the credibility of the early Roman history.” We must not forget that it is Dr Liddell’s History we have at present before us. The wars of Pyrrhus are related by him in a very distinct and spirited manner, and the chivalrous character of the Greek prince—the _Cœur-de-Lion_ of his age—stands out before us in very clear relief. The wars, too, of a greater than Pyrrhus—of the Carthaginian general, Hannibal—are told with more perspicuity than will be found, we think, in the pages of any of his predecessors. But for very manifest reasons we must pass over voluminous details of this description.

No portion of the work will be read with more interest and profit than those chapters which give an account of the civil constitution of Rome, such as it existed in the palmy days of the republic. We confess ourselves to be utterly incredulous of the ability of any writer to describe to us what the constitution of Rome was under her kings, or during the earlier periods of the commonwealth. So much the more pleasure do we derive from a view of that constitution when the clouds seem to break away, and it stands revealed to us in the light of history. When he has driven Hannibal out of Italy, conquered Sicily, and imposed those terms on Carthage which ended the second Punic war, Dr Liddell takes the occasion to review the constitution of Rome such as it displayed itself when the republic was in its full vigour. It was during the time of the Punic wars, he tells us, that this most remarkable and most complex system of government under which men ever lived, attained to some completeness of form. Our own British constitution is often cited as a marvel of complexity; incongruous powers and institutions come into collision at this and that point, till a harmonious action is at length produced; and the prerogative of the Crown is seen to be opposed by the privilege of Parliament, in such a manner as rather to represent a contest between rival institutions, than an understood co-operation of great functionaries of state. But the British constitution is a simple and consistent scheme when compared with the constitution of the Roman republic; with its wild right of the Tribune, which at once seems subversive of all law; with its annual elections, and that even of the general at the head of its armies, which seems at once subversive of all military discipline, and an insuperable obstacle to all military success; with its coequal legislative assemblies, which seems to strike at once at the unity of the laws, and to be a provision for the dissolution of the society.

That which explains the mystery, that which accounts for the long duration and signal success of so complicated a system, is to be found in the predominating power of the Senate. And if again we are asked how it happened that the Senate endured so long, and was not sooner dissolved or reduced to subjection by some military chief, we can only refer to the jealousy which the great men of Rome, patrician or plebeian, entertained of each other. Many a patrician would have been king, none would have endured to have a king over him. This determination to bow to no superior, except the law, except the State, is the feeling of every aristocracy which grows up within a city. It is otherwise with a territorial aristocracy. Here some form of our feudal system invariably presents itself; the common safety requires it. But in a municipal aristocracy, like that of Rome or Venice, the prevailing spirit, the _conservative feeling_, is precisely this determination, that no one member of the body shall obtain predominance over the rest. Looking at the history of Rome and the magnitude of her conquests, we feel that it was inevitable that the Senate should succumb at length to some victorious Cæsar, and we feel that it was equally inevitable that it should deliver its last protest in the daggers of a Brutus and a Cassius.

An extract from this portion of Dr Liddell’s work cannot fail to be acceptable to our readers. What precisely was the august Senate of Rome many of us may not distinctly remember, if indeed we have ever been so distinctly told as we are in the pages of this writer. We have no space to enter on the description of the two legislative assemblies, the “Tribe Assembly,” and the “Centuriate Assembly,” as they are here called, nor of the extraordinary power of the Tribune; we must limit our quotation to that part which rather bears on the ordinary and executive government of Rome.

“To obtain each of these high offices (as those of Quæstor, Ædile, Prætor, Consul, Censor), the Roman was obliged to seek the suffrages of his fellow-citizens. They were all open to the ambition of every one whose name had been entered by the Censors in the Register of Citizens, provided he had reached the required age. No office, except the Censorship, was held for a longer period than twelve months. No officer received any pay or salary for his services. To defray expenses, certain allowances were made from the treasury by order of the Senate. To discharge routine duties and to conduct their correspondence, each magistrate had a certain number of clerks (Scribæ), who formed what we should call the civil service, and who had before this assumed an important position in the State.

“But though the highest offices seemed thus absolutely open to every candidate, they were not so in practice. About the time of the first Punic war an alteration was made, which in effect confined the Curule officers to the wealthy families. The Ædiles were charged with the management of the public games, and for celebrating them with due splendour a liberal allowance had been made from the treasury. At the time just mentioned, this allowance was withdrawn. Yet the Curule Ædiles were still expected to maintain the honour of Rome by costly spectacles at the Great Roman Games, the Megalesian Festival, and others of less consequence. A great change was wrought by this law, which, under a popular aspect, limited the choice of the people to those who could buy their favour. None could become Ædile who had not the command of money, or at least of credit.

“That which strikes the mind as most remarkable in the executive government of Rome, is the short period for which each magistrate held his office, and the seeming danger of leaving appointments so important to the suffrages of the people at large; and this is still more striking when we remember that the same system was extended to the army itself, as well as to its generals. The Romans had no standing army. Every Roman citizen between the complete ages of seventeen and forty-five, and possessing property worth at least 4000 lb. of copper, was placed on the military roll. From this roll four legions, two for each Consul, were enlisted every year; and in cases of necessity additional legions were raised. But at the close of the year’s campaign these legionary soldiers had a right to return home and be relieved by others. Nor were there any fixed officers. Each legion had six tribunes and sixty centurions; but these were appointed, like the consuls and soldiers, fresh every year. The majority of the tribunes were now elected by the people at the Comitia of the tribes, and the remainder were nominated by the consuls of the year; the only limitation to such choice being, that those elected or nominated should have served in the legions at least five campaigns. The Centurions were then nominated by the Tribunes, subject to the approval of the Consuls. No doubt the Tribunes or Consuls, for their own sake, would nominate effective men; and therefore we should conclude, what we find to be the fact, that the Roman armies depended much on their Centurions, and on those Tribunes who were nominated by the Consuls.”

Everything hitherto seems to be in a state of perpetual change and disorganisation. If a consul were pursuing his operations ever so successfully, he was liable to be superseded at the close of the year by his successor in the consulship; and this successor brought with him new soldiers and new officers. This inconvenience was so great that the constitutional usages were necessarily broken through: the same men were re-elected to the consulship notwithstanding the law that no one should hold the office a second time except after the lapse of a certain interval. Impolitic laws, and these frequently suspended, present us with a poor guarantee for the permanence of the republic.

“But though the chief officers, both in state and army, were continually changing at the popular will, there was a mighty power behind them, on which they were all dependent, which did not change. This was the SENATE.

“The importance of this body can hardly be overstated. All the acts of the Roman Republic ran in the name of the Senate and People, as if the Senate were half the State, though its number seems still to have been limited to three hundred members.

“The Senate of Rome was perhaps the most remarkable assembly that the world has ever seen. Its members held their seats for life. Once senators, always senators, unless they were degraded for some dishonourable cause. But the Senatorical peerage was not hereditary; no father could transmit the honour to his son. Each man must win it for himself.

“The manner in which seats in the Senate were obtained is tolerably well ascertained. Many persons will be surprised to learn that the members of this august body, all, or nearly all, owed their places to the votes of the people. In theory, indeed, the Censors still possessed the power really exercised by the kings and early Consuls, of choosing the Senators at their own will and pleasure. But official powers, however arbitrary, are always limited in practice—and the Censors followed rules established by ancient precedent. A notable example of the rule by which the list of the Senate was made occurs at a period when, if ever, there was wide room for the exercise of discretion. After the fatal days of Trasimene and Cannæ, it was found that, to complete the just number of Senators, no less than one hundred and seventy were wanting. Two years were yet to pass before new Censors would be in office; and to provide an extraordinary remedy for an extraordinary case, M. Fabius Buteo, an old Senator of high character, was named Dictator, for the sole purpose of recruiting the vacant ranks of his order. He thus discharged his duty: after reciting the names of all surviving Senators, he chose as new members, first, those who had held Curule offices since the last censorship, according to the order of their election; then those who had served as Ædiles, Tribunes, or Quæstors; then of those who had not held office, such as had decorated their houses with spoils taken from the enemy, or with crowns bestowed for saving the lives of fellow-citizens!

“The first qualification for a seat in the Senate then was that of office. It is probable that to the qualification of office there was added a second, property; a third limitation, that of age, followed from the rule that the Senate was recruited from the lists of official persons. No one could be a Senator till he was about thirty years of age.

“The power of the Senate was equal to its dignity. It absorbed into its ranks a large proportion of the practical ability of the community. It was a standing council, where all official functions were annual. And thus, it is but natural that it should engross the chief business of the State.”

This body of ex-consuls, ex-prætors, and the like (we need hardly say that the distinction between Patrician and Plebeian had been early erased) might well justify the figure of speech which the minister of Pyrrhus used when he called the Roman Senate an assembly of kings. “Many of its members had exercised sovereign power; many were preparing to exercise it.”

The Senate had the absolute control of foreign affairs, except that, in declaring war and concluding treaties of peace, the people were consulted. The conduct of the war, and all diplomatic negotiations, were in their hands. The Consul was the servant of the Senate; the sacred pontiffs took their orders from the Senate. And, what was of no less importance, “all the financial arrangements of the State were left to their discretion.” In times of difficulty, as is well known, they had the power of suspending all rules of law by the appointment of a dictator.

“They prolonged the command of a general or suspended him at pleasure. They estimated the sums necessary for the military chest; nor could a sesterce be paid to the general without their order. If a Consul proved refractory, they could transfer his power for a time to a dictator. All disputes in Italy or beyond seas were referred to their sovereign arbitrement.... They might also resolve themselves into a High Court of Justice for the trial of extraordinary offences.”

Nor was this great Executive Council without participation in, or control over, the function of the legislative assemblies; for, as a general rule, no law could be proposed which had not already received the sanction of the Senate. This body may be well described as having been for many years “the main-spring of the Roman constitution.”

Next to the wars with Hannibal follow those with Philip, and Antiochus, and Perseus, all of which Dr Liddell relates with singular perspicuity. It is sad to notice how soon after the report of victories and extended empire is heard the complaint of corrupted manners, of a Senate greedy of gold, of a people following the war for plunder, making of arms a trade and profession. It was at the end of the second Punic war that we were called upon to take a survey of republican institutions, and republican simplicity of manners—of a people rude and warlike indeed, but agricultural, domestic, where divorce was unknown, faithful and pious,—and the third and last Punic war does not break out before we hear of the city being startled and alarmed at the report of wives poisoning their husbands, and at the discovery of secret associations of men and women where some new and licentious worship of Bacchus was introduced. The disease first manifests itself in the rude efforts to check it, and one of the earliest symptoms of corruption is the appearance on the stage of Cato the Censor.

Of Cato the Censor Dr Liddell gives us the outlines of a very vigorous portrait. “More familiar to us,” he says, “than almost any of the great men of Rome, we see him, with his keen grey eyes and red hair, his harsh features and spare athletic frame, strong by natural constitution and hardened by exercise, clad even at Rome in the coarsest rustic garb, attacking with plain but nervous eloquence the luxury and corruption of the nobles.” This type of a whole class of men, more honest than enlightened, stands out to us in still more distinct relief from his opposition to his great contemporary Scipio, the proud and the reflective, whom he chose to fasten upon as his antagonist. Cato had rushed to the conclusion that the wickedness of Rome was traceable to the arts and philosophy of Greece. He ought to have directed his scrutiny to the cupidity and ambition of Rome. It was wealth and power, not art and philosophy, that were corrupting his fellow-citizens. He should have done his utmost to check their spirit of pillage and of conquest. Instead of which, he joins in the war-cry of the people, and directs his hostility against Scipio, the introducer of Greek literature. Another motive also is assigned for this hostility, which is of a still more commonplace character: there were political parties in Rome as elsewhere, and Cato had attached himself to the party of Fabius, which was opposed to the Scipios.

Born at the provincial town of Tusculum, and inheriting some patrimony, lands and slaves, in the Sabine territory, near the spot once occupied by the great Curius Dentatus, the future Censor of Rome had early adopted a quite rustic mode of life. The young Cato, we are told, looked with reverence on the hearth at which Curius had been roasting his radishes when he rejected the Samnite gold, and resolved to make a model of that rude and simple patriot. He used to work with his slaves, wearing the same coarse dress, and partaking of the same fare. But conscious, nevertheless, of superior powers, and fond, we may be sure, of seeing justice done amongst his neighbours, he would resort occasionally to the nearer courts of law, to plead the cause of some client. His shrewd sayings and caustic eloquence attracted the attention especially of one Valerius Flaccus, “a young nobleman of the neighbourhood, himself a determined friend of the ancient Roman manners.” Flaccus persuaded him to leave his farm, and enter public life at Rome. There he rose, step by step, through the several offices of state, till he reached the highest honour, that of the Censorship.

“Cato was now in full possession of the immense arbitrary powers wielded by the Censor, and determined not to act, as most Censors had acted, merely as the minister of the Senate, but to put down luxury with a strong hand. He had thundered against the repeal of the Oppian law,[2] during his consulship, but in vain,—the ladies were too strong for him. But now it was his turn. Hitherto no property had been included in the Censor’s register, except land and houses. Cato ordered all valuable slaves to be rated at three times the amount of other property, and laid a heavy tax on the dress and equipages of the women, if they exceeded a certain sum. He struck seven Senators off the list, some for paltry causes. Manilius was degraded for kissing his wife in public; another for an unseasonable jest; but all honest men must have applauded when L. Flaminius was at length punished for his atrocious barbarity.[3] It savoured of personal bitterness when, at the grand review of the knights, he deprived L. Scipio Asiaticus of his horse.

“In the management of public works Cato showed judgment equal to his vigour. He provided for the repair of the aqueducts and reservoirs, and took great pains to amend the drainage of the city. He encouraged a fair and open competition for the contracts of tax-collection, and so much offended the powerful companies of Publicani, that, after he had laid down his office, he was prosecuted, and compelled to pay a fine of 12,000 ases.”

That fine of 12,000 ases we are disposed to reckon amongst his highest titles to honour. Restricted in his notions, the Censor still claims our esteem for the genuine sturdy independence which accompanies him throughout his life, and in the presence alike of the Senate and the people. He is no craven demagogue. “You are like a parcel of sheep,” he tells the people on one occasion, “which follow their leader, they care not whither.” He interferes to prevent a gratuitous distribution of corn, which he foresaw would encourage the growth of a lazy mob in the metropolis; and on this occasion he begins his oration thus, “It is a hard thing, Romans, to speak to the belly, for it has no ears.” He was a hard-headed, self-sufficient man, not too humane, since he could recommend, in his book on agriculture, the selling off of old slaves as a useless lumber, and by no means disposed to act with clemency or justice towards foreign nations. In his old age, when he numbered eighty-four years, he led the party which clamoured for the destruction of Carthage. The old Sabine farmer appeared in the Senate, and unfolding his gown, produced some giant figs, which he held up and said, “These figs grow but three days’ sail from Rome.” He then repeated the oft-reiterated and fatal sentence, “Carthage must be destroyed!—_delenda est Carthago!_”