The History of Rome, vol 2 | Page 2

Art And Science

BOOK SECOND
From The Abolition Of The Monarchy In Rome To The Union Of Italy
--dei ouk ekpleittein ton suggraphea terateuomenon dia teis iotopias
tous entugchanontas.--
Polybius.


CHAPTER I
Change Of The Constitution-- Limitation Of The Power Of The
Magistrate
Political And Social Distinctions In Rome
The strict conception of the unity and omnipotence of the state in all
matters pertaining to it, which was the central principle of the Italian
constitutions, placed in the hands of the single president nominated for
life a formidable power, which was felt doubtless by the enemies of the
land, but was not less heavily felt by its citizens. Abuse and oppression
could not fail to ensue, and, as a necessary consequence, efforts were
made to lessen that power. It was, however, the grand distinction of the
endeavours after reform and the revolutions in Rome, that there was no
attempt either to impose limitations on the community as such or even
to deprive it of corresponding organs of expression--that there never
was any endeavour to assert the so-called natural rights of the
individual in contradistinction to the community--that, on the contrary,
the attack was wholly directed against the form in which the
community was represented. From the times of the Tarquins down to

those of the Gracchi the cry of the party of progress in Rome was not
for limitation of the power of the state, but for limitation of the power
of the magistrates: nor amidst that cry was the truth ever forgotten, that
the people ought not to govern, but to be governed.
This struggle was carried on within the burgess-body. Side by side with
it another movement developed itself--the cry of the non-burgesses for
equality of political privileges. Under this head are included the
agitations of the plebeians, the Latins, the Italians, and the freedmen,
all of whom--whether they may have borne the name of burgesses, as
did the plebeians and the freedmen, or not, as was the case with the
Latins and Italians--were destitute of, and desired, political equality.
A third distinction was one of a still more general nature; the
distinction between the wealthy and the poor, especially such as had
been dispossessed or were endangered in possession. The legal and
political relations of Rome led to the rise of a numerous class of
farmers--partly small proprietors who were dependent on the mercy of
the capitalist, partly small temporary lessees who were dependent on
the mercy of the landlord--and in many instances deprived individuals
as well as whole communities of the lands which they held, without
affecting their personal freedom. By these means the agricultural
proletariate became at an early period so powerful as to have a material
influence on the destinies of the community. The urban proletariate did
not acquire political importance till a much later epoch.
On these distinctions hinged the internal history of Rome, and, as may
be presumed, not less the history--totally lost to us--of the other Italian
communities. The political movement within the fully-privileged
burgess-body, the warfare between the excluded and excluding classes,
and the social conflicts between the possessors and the non-possessors
of land--variously as they crossed and interlaced, and singular as were
the alliances they often produced --were nevertheless essentially and
fundamentally distinct.
Abolition Of The Life-Presidency Of The Community
As the Servian reform, which placed the --metoikos-- on a footing of

equality in a military point of view with the burgess, appears to have
originated from considerations of an administrative nature rather than
from any political party-tendency, we may assume that the first of the
movements which led to internal crises and changes of the constitution
was that which sought to limit the magistracy. The earliest achievement
of this, the most ancient opposition in Rome, consisted in the abolition
of the life-tenure of the presidency of the community; in other words,
in the abolition of the monarchy. How necessarily this was the result of
the natural development of things, is most strikingly demonstrated by
the fact, that the same change of constitution took place in an
analogous manner through the whole circuit of the Italo-Grecian world.
Not only in Rome, but likewise among the other Latins as well as
among the Sabellians, Etruscans, and Apulians--and generally, in all
the Italian communities, just as in those of Greece--we find the rulers
for life of an earlier epoch superseded in after times by annual
magistrates. In the case of the Lucanian canton there is evidence that it
had a democratic government in time of peace, and it was only in the
event of war that the magistrates appointed a king, that is, an official
similar to the Roman dictator. The Sabellian civic communities, such as
those of Capua and Pompeii, in like manner were in later times
governed by