Ancient Rome: An Introductory History (13 page)

Page 53

the same time wasted away to nothing, all on acccount of their destructive anger. Consequently it became clear that it was not simply slavery to the stomach, and that the stomach was no more being fed than it was feeding, giving back to all the parts of the body the blood, equally divided between the veins, that it had made from the digested food; and that blood gives us existence and good health." (Livy II.32.8-11)

Menenius then compared that story to the political problems in Rome, and the common people's anger cooled. The two sides negotiated and reached this decision: The plebeians were to have their own officers, called
tribunes
, who would represent them and protect them from the magistrates' abuses of power. The tribunes would be sacrosanct (immune to the power of those holding
imperium
), and no man from the patrician class could be a tribune. Eventually the tribunes gained the power to veto any action of the magistrates; armed with this
intercessio
, one tribune could put a halt to what the Senate and consuls were doing (see chapter 6).

The Twelve Tables

The patricians still kept great power over the common people, because the tribunes were the plebeians' sole representatives in the government. All the magistrates were patricians, and the patricians alone knew the laws, which were not recorded, but were passed down orally through the generations. Undoubtedly the patricians changed the laws as they thought necessary and expedient. This imbalance of knowledge led to abuses of power and to civil strife. Finally, the two sides agreed to appoint a panel of ten men (called
decemviri
) to write down the laws for all to see, read, and learn. While this was taking place, normal government was suspended, and the ten ruled Rome, with their decisions immune to veto or appeal.

Roman tradition says that three Romans were sent to Athens to study the laws of Solon, one of the Seven Wise Men of Greece, who had created reforms to save Athens from civil war in 594
B.C.
After returning to Rome, in 451
B.C.
the
decemviri
produced ten tables of laws, which were written on bronze or wooden tablets (Latin
tabulae
). More were needed, however, so the ten then

Page 54

produced two more tables. The Twelve Tables, as they were called, became the foundation of Roman law. Once they had completed their work, the
decemviri
soon began to abuse their power and became hated by all; the usual government was then restored.

Although Roman schoolboys are said to have learned the Twelve Tables by heart, only fragments of the Twelve Tables survive, and their meaning is not always clear. Yet we can see in them both the Romans' concern for creating a civil, orderly society and also their respect for individual rights and property. Some of the laws, for example, established standards for legal procedure: how one citizen might call another to court, and what to do if he refused to come or ran away. Another such law stipulated that a judge who accepted a bribe should suffer capital punishment, and that a person who lied under oath must be hurled from the Tarpeian Rock.

Other laws detailed certain civil rights. For example, a citizen was guaranteed a trial before execution. A man in default of a debt was allowed a grace period of thirty days before being liable to arrest and being summoned to court; after the grace period, he could be put in chains and imprisoned, if the creditor wished, yet if the creditor decided to imprison the debtor, he had to feed him. One law prohibited marriage between plebeians and patricians; another guaranteed that a measure approved by the people had the force of law.

The Romans' concern for property rights is seen in other laws. If a man willfully destroyed another's building or heap of grain, he was to be flogged and burned at the stake, but if the destruction occurred because of his negligence or by accident, he had to repair the damage; if he was very poor, he would receive a lighter punishment. Another law concerning property probably gave Roman women some protection from abusive husbands and their families. With the exception of the Vestal Virgins, Roman women, by law (because of their supposed "lightness of mind,"
levitas animi
), were not allowed to be independent; they had to have a male guardian, whether a father, husband, or other male family member, who exercised legal rights for them. A married woman and her father's family retained legal power over her and her property if once a year she spent three continuous nights (
trinoctium
) away from her husband's house; otherwise, she and her property

Page 55

including her dowry, which could be a substantial sum of moneywould fall under the legal control of her husband and his family. Because of the
trinoctium
, a Roman woman could seek not just moral and emotional support from her own family, but even legal support, for she was not totally dependent upon her husband and his family. Another measure to protect the powerless held that if a patron defrauded his client, he was to be considered cursed.

The Twelve Tables formed the basis of
ius civile
, "civil law"that is, law that concerns the rights of citizens. As the Roman empire expanded, Roman law naturally became the law of the entire empire. In the Middle Ages, scholars rediscovered Roman law and used it as the basis for the law codes of European countries. Roman law thus became one of the most important elements in the development of Western civiliation (Wolff,
Roman Law
, p. 4).

Continuing Class Conflict

Although their legal position was stronger under the law of the Twelve Tables, the plebeians in Rome still faced many difficulties. The patricians controlled the government, the army, and the courts, and plebeians were excluded from positions of power and authority not only by tradition and precedent, but also by religion and law. For example, until 445 the plebeians were barred even from intermarriage with the patricians. That same year the tribunes agitated for a law to allow the plebeians to run for the consulship, although they still had not gained even the quaestorship. The patricians fiercely contested the bill, arguing that because the plebeians were not allowed to take the auspices (that is, to interpret the will of the gods from observations of natural phenomena), which was one of the consular duties, they could not be consuls. The plebeians were outraged.

The tribunes, making use of their veto, were obstructing everything the magistrates and Senate tried to accomplish, including the enlistment of soldiers to face Rome's enemies, who were using Rome's internal discord as an opportunity to invade. The patricians therefore suspended the consulship and allowed the creation of a new type of magistrate, the "military tribune with consular power." This new office was open to the plebeians, although they

Page 56

were still barred from the consulship. At first there were three military tribunes; later the number was increased to five. However, no plebeian was elected military tribune until 400
B.C.
, ten years after the election of the first plebeian quaestor.

During those turbulent times, the Senate in 406 finally approved payment for soldiers. That the republic, governed by the nobles, had been waging wars for more than a century but had never yet paid the common soldiers for their time away from their farms reveals the depth of the problems between the classes: The patricians could afford to go off on long campaigns, while the common soldiers suffered greatly from such absencesthe story of the impoverished centurion was probably not uncommon. If victorious, the soldiers could gain loot from the conquered, but the commanding officer decided whether or not to allow the soldiers to loot the defeated side, and he and his staff decided who received what.

It was not until the passage of the Leges Liciniae Sextiae in 367
B.C.
that plebeians were allowed to run for the consulship and join the board in charge of performing the sacred rites. The next year, in 366, the tribune G. Licinius Stolo, one of the authors of the Leges Liciniae Sextiae, became the first plebeian to be elected consul. Gradually it became a tradition that one of the two consuls should be a plebeian. (It is worth noting that Lucius Genucius, who in 362 became the first plebeian consul to lead the army against a serious enemy, was disastrously defeated and killed, thus allowing the patricians to claim that the gods were angry that the plebeians had polluted the consulship.) Also in 366 the praetorship was created, and plebeians were allowed to run for this office. G. Marcius Rutilus was the first plebeian elected dictator (356) and censor (351).

To the ordinary plebeians, it probably meant little that men of their class held positions of high authority and power. The ordinary plebeians would still be plagued by the persistent problems of debt and land hunger. Later, when Rome had captured huge numbers of slaves in overseas wars, the plebeians suffered from unemployment and underemployment, for cheap and abundant slavery made it unnecessary for the wealthy to hire workers. The plebeians in the government, being rich and well connected,

Page 57

did not share the concerns of the ordinary plebeians; although grouped in the same class with ordinary plebeians, the high-status plebeians had much more in common with the patricians, with whom they had social dealings, marriage alliances, political deals, and business interests. They had little connection with the poor and distant
vulgus
("masses," hence the English word
vulgar
) clamoring for land, jobs, and grain. As late as 287
B.C.
the plebeians seceded once again, this time to the Janiculum, because of debt laws and usury; their secession forced the passage of the Lex Hortensia, which allowed bills passed by the Popular Assembly to become law. The class problems remained unsolved, and caused more civil turmoil in the late second and first centuries
B.C.

Page 58

Chapter 9
Coriolanus, Cincinnatus, and Camillus

In the fifth century
B.C.
the Romans and their allies waged war on the Sabines, Aequi, Volsci, and Veientes. They managed by wise diplomacy to avert constant war with the Sabines: They gave a large piece of land to a Sabine chieftain, Attius Clausus, who settled there with all his dependents. His family is better known as the Claudius family, or Claudii. The Aequi gave the Romans more persistent problems, but the Romans eventually wore them out.

Coriolanus

One of the outstanding figures of Rome during the early fifth century was not a young, powerful warrior but rather Veturia, an elderly noblewoman, the mother of a son named Coriolanus. In 491 Rome was suffering from famine, and the Romans had to import grain from Sicily. When the Senate was debating what price the common people should pay for the grain, Coriolanus, who hated the tribunate and was bitter about the power the plebeians were gaining, advised his colleagues in the Senate to hold the grain hostage and thus force the plebeians to give up the tribunate. The common people were outraged, and the members of the Senate thought it politically expedient to sacrifice Coriolanus to their wrath. A date was set for him to go on trial for tyrannical behavior, but on the day of his trial Coriolanus went into exile among Rome's enemies, the Volsci. Soon the Volsci, led by Coriolanus, started attacking Rome's allies. After many victories over Rome's allies and subjects, Coriolanus and his Volscian army pitched camp 8 kilometers from Rome and devastated the countryside, though

Other books

Limit, The by Cannell, Michael

The Forever Dream by Iris Johansen

Dracula (A Modern Telling) by Methos, Victor

The Mexican Slow Cooker: Recipes for Mole, Enchiladas, Carnitas, Chile Verde Pork, and More Favorites by Schneider, Deborah

Monday with a Mad Genius by Mary Pope Osborne

Hannah Howell by A Taste of Fire

Shopgirl by Steve Martin

Forever Blue by Jennifer Edlund

Canyon Road by Thomas, Thea

The Lies of Fair Ladies by Jonathan Gash