should be performed, and with what ceremonies; and what was an interference on the part of any individual with sacred places, persons, or things, were all points of their jurisdiction, against which it is doubtful whether even the tribunes would have ventured to interpose. It seems but reasonable, therefore, that as the patricians and commons were now become one people, and as both alike were admitted to those high and sacred dignities of consul and dictator, which involved the practice of augury, and the offering sacrifice to the peculiar gods of Rome, in the name of the Roman people, so the knowledge as well as the practice of the national religious system should be committed to both equally; that where no religious objection really existed, political ambition might no longer be able to shelter itself beneath its semblance. and it becomes a law. 66 Still, however, a party amongst the patricians, headed, as we are told, by ApP. Decius supports it, pius Claudius, 50 vehemently opposed the Ogulnian bill. It was supported by P. Decius; and no man could have pleaded for it with greater effect, when he appealed to his father's memorable death, and recalled him to the memory of some of his hearers, as they had seen him in the great battle with the Latins, with his toga wrapped around his head, and his feet on a javelin, devoting himself to the powers of death in behalf of the Roman people. If my father," said he, was no less fit than his patrician colleague to offer himself to the gods, as an accepted expiation for the whole people, how could he be unfit to direct their worship?" The question, in fact, could not be carried; some of the tribunes were at first engaged to interpose their negative, but the general feeling obliged them to forbear, and the Ogulnian bill became a law. The pontifices, who were then four in number, elected accordingly four commoners to complete their college to eight, or, including their head, the pontifex maximus, to nine. And the augurs, who were also four, elected five commoners to raise their college to the same number of nine, on the notion that each of the original tribes of Rome, the Ramnenses, the Titienses, and Luceres, was to be represented by an equal number of the public ministers of religion. It seems that the new appointments were fairly and wisely made; P. Decius himself, and P. Sempronius Sophus, who had been both consuls and censors, were two of the new pontifices; and amongst the augurs, besides T. Publilius, C. Genucius, and C. Marcius, all of them members of the most eminent families of the commons, we find the name of P. Elius Pætus, a man of no great political or military distinction, but who probably showed a remarkable fondness for the study of the pontifical and augural discipline, inasmuch as we find an unusual number of his descendants2 filling the offices of pontifex and augur, as if those sacred duties were almost the hereditary calling of their race and 51 name. The Valerian law reenacted. In the same year,5 M. Valerius, one of the consuls, re-enacted, for the third time, the famous law which bore the name of his family, and which was, in fact, the Roman law of trial by jury, as it permitted every citizen to appeal from the sentence of a magistrate in capital cases to the judg ment of his country. It is not certain whether the consul who brought forward this law was M. Valerius Maximus, or M. Valerius Corvus: it must have been the latter, however, if the common statement be true that he was six times elected consul; and we should be glad to ascribe the measure to a man so worthy of it. The law denounced the violation of its provisions as a crime, but named no fixed penalty; leaving it open to the accuser to demand, and to the judges to award, a milder or a heavier sentence, according to the nature of the particular case, as was so generally the practice at Athens. But why this law should have been 50 Livy, X. 7. 51 Livy, X. 9. 52 Q. Elius Pætus, who fell at Cannæ, was pontifex, Livy, XXIII. 21. P. Elius Pætus was appointed augur in the place of Marcellus, Livy, XXVII. 36; and on his death he was suc ceeded by Q. Ælius Pætus. Livy, XLI. 21. Nor must we forget that Ælius whom Ennius honored with the title of "egregiè cordatus homo." 53 Livy, X. 9. re-enacted at this particular time we know not. No recent instances of arbitrary power are mentioned, nor do we hear of any consul of this period who is charged with a disposition to cruelty. Perhaps the object of Valerius was simply to satisfy the humbler citizens that the government was not unmindful of their personal security, although it had diminished their political power; and that whilst the more distinguished commoners were completing their own equality with the patricians, they did not mean to allow the poorer members of their order to be oppressed with impunity. Thus, the re-enactment of the Valerian law, taken in conjunction with the passing of the Ogulnian, seems to form an æra in the constitutional history of Rome; when the commons obtained a confirmation of their great charter of personal freedom for the mass of their order, and for those of their members who might rise to eminence, a perfectly equal share in all the honors of the commonwealth, religious no less than civil. In some of the transactions recorded in this chapter, we seem almost to have emerged into the light of day, and to be able to trace events and their actors with much of the clearness of real history. This period is followed But even by one very obscurely known. in those which are in themselves most vivid, we find a darkness on either side, concealing from our view their causes and their consequences; as in dreams, single scenes and feelings present themselves with wonderful distinctness: but what brought us to them, or what is to follow after them, is left altogether a mystery. Some of the many difficult questions which belong to this period, I propose to lay before the reader in the appendix to this volume, as I feel that I can offer no explanation of them so satisfactory as to claim the name of history. In this number I would place especially the famous question as to the later constitution of the comitia of centuries, a problem which not even Niebuhr could fully solve, and which has equally baffled other writers who have more recently attempted it. But in the following period of about fourteen years, which elapsed between the passing of the Ogulnian law and the dictatorship of Q. Hortensius, there is scarcely a single fact in the domestic history of Rome which can be discerned clearly, and we are left to ask what circumstances could have produced so great a change; and how, after a state of things so peaceable and so prosperous, and a settlement of the constitution apparently so final, we are brought back again so suddenly to the circumstances of a long past period, to a heavy burden of debt, to quarrels between the different orders in the state from this cause, and to a new secession of the commons to the Janiculum. In the mean time we must carry on for a while the foreign history of Rome, and describe that short but decisive war, in which the Romans triumphed over the triple coalition of the Etruscans, the Samnites, and the Gauls. CHAPTER XXXIII. FOREIGN HISTORY FROM 450 TO 464 (443 TO 456, NIEBUHR)-CONQUEST OF THE ÆQUIANS-THIRD SAMNITE WAR-COALITION OF THE ETRUSCANS, SAMNITES, AND GAULS-GREAT BATTLE OF SENTINUM, AND DEATH OF P. DECIUS-FINAL VICTORY OF Q. FABIUS OVER THE SAMNITES-C. PONTIUS IS LED IN TRIUMPH, AND PUT TO DEATH IN COLD BLOOD. ans. THE peace with Samnium was immediately followed by a war with the EquiWar with the Equi- ans. Since the Gaulish invasion, the very name of this people has vanished out of our sight, except on one single occasion in the year immediately following the recovery of the city, when Camillus is said to have taken from them the town of Bola. As they took no part in the subsequent attacks made by the Volscians upon Rome, and did not even join their neighbors of Præneste, when they, from the allies of the Romans, became their enemies, so we may conclude with Niebuhr, that the Gaulish invasion had been even more fatal to them tha to the Romans; that they must have been so weakened by some great disaster sustained at that period, as to have fallen back altogether from their advanced position on the edge of the Campagna to their older country in the upper valleys of the Turano2 and the Salto, and near the western shore of the lake Fucinus. From their towns on the edge of the Campagna they were, probably, expelled by the Latins; and acquisitions of territory from the Equians may have been among the causes which raised Tibur and Præneste after the Gaulish invasion to greatness far above the rest of their countrymen. Meanwhile, the Equians were left unmolested in their remaining territory, and for nearly eighty years from the burning of Rome by the Gauls they seem to have remained perfectly neutral. But towards the end of the second Samnite war, when the Hernicans, in their jealousy of the growing power of Rome, took up arms against her, the Equians also, probably from similar motives, were induced to join in the quarrel. Equian soldiers were found, it was said, together with Hernicans, in that Samnite army which Q. Fabius, when proconsul in the year 447, had defeated at Allifæ; and after the Hernican war in the year following, the whole Equian people joined the Samnites. Thus, when the Samnites, in the year 450, were obliged to sue for peace, the Equians were left in a position of no small danger. Rome, it appears, was willing to forgive them on no other terms than those just imposed on the Hernicans; namely, that they should become citizens of Rome without the right of voting in the comitia; in other words, 1 Livy, VI. 2. 2 The Turano is the stream which, rising at the back of the hills which form the northern boundary of the valley of the Anio, flows thence in a northerly direction, and joins the Velino just below Rieti. The Salto rises very near to the lake Fucino, and, in its earlier course, is called the Imele; but it sinks into a fissure in the limestone, a little below the famous battle field of Scurgola, the scene of Conradin's defeat Their country is over taken. that they should submit to become Roman subjects. Hopeless as their condition was, their old spirit would not yet allow them to yield, and they resolved to abide a contest with the whole undivided power of the Roman commonwealth. Both consuls, P. Sempronius and P. Sulpicius, with two consular armies, marched at once into the Equian territory. Such a force, amounting to about 40,000 men, confounded all plans of resistance. Few run, and their towns Equians of that generation had ever seen war; their country had not been exposed to the ravages of an enemy within the memory of any man then living. Abandoning all hope of maintaining the field against the invaders, they took refuge in their several towns, hoping there to baffle the first assault of the enemy, and trusting that time might bring some of the neighboring people to their aid. But their towns were small, and were thus each weak in the number of their defenders the Romans well knew the effect of a first impression, and in the places which they first stormed, they probably, according to their usual practice, made a bloody execution, in order to strike terror into the rest. We have seen, under the influence of a general panic, some of the strongest fortresses and one of the most warlike nations of modern Europe taken and conquered in the space of two months; so that we cannot wonder that fifty days were sufficient to complete the Æquian war, and that forty-one towns were taken within that period, the greater part of which were destroyed and burnt. The polygonal walls of many of them are still in existence, and are to be found scattered along the pastoral upland valley of the Himella or Salto, from Alba almost to the neighborhood of Reate. The Romans, however, did their work of destruction well; for although the style of the walls in these ruins denotes their high antiquity, yet no traces are to be found of the name, or race, or condition of their inhabitants: the actual remains will tell as little of the history of the Æquian people as we can glean from the scanty reports of their conquerors. chise. The fate which the Equians had vainly striven to avert now fell upon the remnant of their nation, after the greatest portion of the people had They submit, and reperished or been led away into slavery. The survivors, after see- ceive the Roman franing the greatest portion of their territory converted into Roman domain land, were obliged to become Roman citizens without suffrage. But five years afterwards, when war with Etruria and with the Samnites was again threatening, the Romans admitted them to the full franchise, and they formed a considerable part of the citizens enrolled in the year 455 in the two tribes then created, the Aniensian and Terentine. Rome and Lucania at When the Samnites had made peace with Rome, they were required to restore Lucania to its independence; that is, they were obliged to give The Roman party preback the hostages whom they had kept as a pledge of the nation's dominant in Lucania. fidelity, and to withdraw their garrisons from the Lucanian towns. war with Tarentum. The Roman party in Lucania, upon this, regained its ascendency, Cleonymus, the Sparand the foreign relations of the country were so changed, that, from having been in alliance with the Samnites and Tarentines against Rome, the Livy, IX. 45. 66 Livy, IX. 45. Diodorus, XX. 101. "Majores nostri," says Cicero, quos in civitatem acceperunt." De Officiis, I. 11. That they were admitted into the tribes Aniensis and Terentina is not expressly stated by any ancient writer; but the date of the creation of these tribes connects them with the Equians, and the tribe Aniensis must have included the upper valley of the Anio, which was Equian. The tribe Terentina contained at a later period, as we know, the people of the Volscian city of Atina (Cicero pro Plancio, 8, 16, 22); and Niebuhr thinks that they were included in it, because it was in their neighborhood. But the Arpinatians, who lived nearer to the Equian country than the people of Atina, were included The Tarentines call tan, to their aid. in the Cornelian tribe (Livy, XXXVIII. 36): and we cannot always conclude that a tribe contained only the people of one particular district. The origin of the name Terentina is quite unknown. We know of no town Terentuin which could have given it its name, nor of any river Terens. What was the ancient name of the Turano, which, as it runs near to the site of Carseoli, must have flowed through the Equian territory? Bunsen has shown that it is a mere mistake to suppose that the Tolenns or Telonius was the Turano. (Annali dell' Instituto, &c. tom. VI. p. 104.) Could the Turano have been anciently called Terens, or Terentus, and could the tribe Terentina have been named from this river, as the Aniensis was from the Anio? Lucanians now took part with Rome against Tarentum. During the Samnite war, the Tarentines, covered as they were by the territory of their allies, had nothing to fear from the Roman armies; and by sea, as the Roman navy was very inconsiderable, they carried on the contest with advantage. But now a consular army, supported by their old enemies, the Lucanians, might, at any moment, appear under their very walls; and they looked out, therefore, for some foreign aid. They sent to Greece, and to their own mother-city, Sparta, imploring that an army might be sent to help them, and that Cleonymus might be its general. Cleonymus was the younger son of Cleomenes, king of Sparta, and the grandson of Cleombrotus, who fell at Leuctra. His nephew Areus, Cleomenes' grandson by his elder son Acrotatus, had been now for about six years on the throne; and Cleonymus, like Dorieus of old, not liking to remain in Sparta as a private citizen, was eager for any opportunity of distinguishing himself abroad. Areus was no less ready to let him go; and accordingly he complied at once with the invitation of the Tarentines, and having levied at their expense about 5000 Greek mercenaries, he crossed over into Italy. There he raised 5000 mercenaries more, and the native forces of Tarentum are reckoned at 20,000 foot and 2000 horse.* Most of the Italian Greeks, together with the Sallentines, who had already been engaged in hostilities with Rome, joined his standard; and had Cleonymus possessed the ability of Pyrrhus, he might have rallied around him the Samnites and Etruscans, and, after the exhaustion of a twenty years' war, the Romans would have found it no easy matter to withstand him. and Tarentum. As it was, the display of his force terrified the Lucanians, and they made heir Peace between Rome peace with Tarentum.10 It is remarkable that Diodorus, who states this in express terms, and who had just before named the Romans as being also at war with the Tarentines, yet makes no mention of any peace between Tarentum and Rome. A treaty, however, must have been concluded, for the attack made by the Tarentines on a Roman fleet, eleven years afterwards, is said to have been occasioned by a violation of the conditions of the peace between the two nations; and had it not been made at this time, we cannot conceive that Cleonymus could so immediately have engaged in other enterprises. It seems probable that no other terms were required on either side than the renewal of a preceding treaty; and this treaty was originally concluded at a period when the only conceivable intercourse between Rome and Tarentum could have been by sea. It stipulated12 in the usual language that no Roman ships, meaning, probably, ships of war, were to advance along the south coast of Italy nearer to Tarentum than the headland of Lacinium, which forms the southern extremity of the Tarentine gulf. There was, no doubt, a similar stipulation, restraining the Tarentines from advancing with their ships of war nearer to Rome than the headland of Circeii. Cleonymus, being thus no longer needed by the Tarentines, employed his arms with various success in plundering operations along the eastern coast of Italy, till at last he was beaten off by the inhabitants and obliged to return to Greece. He is not heard of again till he invited Pyrrhus to assist him in his attempt to seize the throne of Sparta. Two years after the end of the Samnite war, the Marsians, who had then, as Short war with the We have seen, made peace with Rome like the other allies of the Samnites, were again engaged in hostilities. The Roman account1 Marsians. * Diodorus says expressly, Ταραντίνοι πόλεμον ἔχοντες πρὸς Λευκανοὺς καὶ ̔Ρωμαίους. ΧΧ. 104. Pausanias, III. 6. Plutarch, Agis, 3, and Pyrrhus, 26. Compare the article on the kings of Sparta in the Appendix to the second volume of Mr. Fynes Clinton's Fasti Hellenici. Diodorus, XX. 104. 10 Diodorus, XX. 104. 12 Δημαγωγός παλαιῶν τοὺς Ταραντίνους ἀνεμίμνησκε συνθηκών, μὴ πλεῖν Ρωμαίους πρόσω Aakivías akpas.-Appian, Samnitic. VII. 13 Livy, X. 8. At this point we lose the connected history of Diodorus. The last consulship noticed in his twentieth book is that of M. Livius and M. Æmilius, which was the second year after the end of the Samnite war, and, ac cording to Diodorus, the third year of the hun |