.

3. 19: 'Populus Romanus descriptus erat censu, ordinibus, aetatibus.')

We must translate according to the districts and hills which were then inhabited.' This seems to suit pretty well the four urban tribes, of which three are called from hills, and the fourth, the Suburana, from a district.

The tradition that the local tribes were instituted by Servius is confirmed by some traces of an earlier arrangement which they superseded. Varro says (L. L. 5. 45): 'Relicua Urbis loca olim discreta, cum Argeorum sacraria in septem et viginti partes urbis sunt disposita. Argeos dictos putant a principibus, qui cum Hercule Argivo venere Romam et in Saturnia subsederunt. E quis prima est scripta regio Suburana, secunda Exquilina, tertia Collina, quarta Palatina.' So Paul. Diac. (p. 17): 'Argea loca Romae appellantur, quod in his sepulti essent quidam Argivorum illustres viri.' And Livy (1. 21) speaks of 'Argei' as 'loca sacris faciendis.'

About these Argei another very obscure statement is preserved (Varro 7. 44; Dion. 1. 37), which it is not necessary to discuss here. The above passages seem to show that there were a number of chapels in Rome which were of the same kind, and which were understood to be the central points of ancient districts which were afterwards superseded by the city tribes.

Again, as in the country the tribes superseded older pagi, there remain a few traces of ancient pagi in the town. Varro (L. L. 5. 48) speaks of a pagus Succusanus in the neighbourhood of the Carinae, and we find in inscriptions pagus Aventinensis and Janiculensis. (Lange, Röm. Alt. 1. 73.) The festival of the Septimontium is also a monument of a time when there were seven distinct communities (Palatium, Cermalus, Velia, Fagutal, Oppius, Cispius, and Subura) on the same ground which was afterwards occupied by the city tribes.

That these are really traces of an earlier arrangement there is the following strong reason to believe. The local tribes appear to have had no connection whatever with religion, but to have been contrived purely with a view to practical convenience. On the other hand, when we hear of pagi and Argean districts, it is always in connection with religion, with the Argeorum sacella, the Paganalia, the Septimontium. Now we have already frequently had occasion to remark that the oldest constitution of Rome is religious throughout. Institutions suggested by naked utility come in later, and those which they practically supersede are not abolished, but formally retained on account of their religious character. This is the relation of the curies to the centuries, and thus in the case of the Argean districts and pagi we may consider that religion

has acted the part of a historian, and has preserved in permanent forms the memory of primitive realities.

The 'comitia tributa' does not belong to the regal time, and will be more conveniently discussed, along with the rise of the plebs, in the notes to the Second Book.

X. Quaestorship.

Besides the king, we find mentioned as public functionaries in the regal period, the 'tribunus celerum' and the 'praefectus urbis.' But as these magistrates are unknown to the later republic (though the 'praefectus urbis' is mentioned by Livy more than once in the history of the early republic (see 3. 3 and 24), and though the office was revived under the empire), it does not enter into my plan to speak of them here.

Of the magistracies of the later republic, the only one which perhaps existed under the kings was the quaestorship.

The quaestors were forty in number under Caesar, twenty under the constitution of Sulla, in the time of the Punic wars apparently eight (Livy Ep. 15), before this up to B. C. 421 they were four (Livy 4. 43), and before that two.

Of the quaestors in the later time, two remained in the city ('quaestores urbani'), one was stationed at Ostia (Cic. pro Mur. 8), one at Cales in Campania (Tac. Ann. 4. 27), one in Cisalpine Gaul (Suet. Claud. 24); and the rest apparently were distributed through the provinces.

The 'quaestores urbani' have charge of the 'aerarium.' To them taxes and other moneys due to the state are paid (Livy 5. 6; 26. 47; 33. 42; 42. 6); they keep the signa militaria,' and bring them out at the beginning of a campaign (Livy 3. 69; 4. 22; 7. 23); they make payments in behalf of the state (Cic. Phil. 9. 7; 14. 14).

The other quaestors had corresponding duties outside the city. Of all the great magistracies, the quaestorship was the lowest in dignity.

Such being the office, a question arises about the appropriateness of the title'quaestor.' The proper meaning of 'quaestor' is 'judge,' and we see the difficulty that was felt in connecting the title with the function in Varro's explanation (de L. L. 5. 81): Quaestores a quaerendo, qui conquirerent publicas pecunias et maleficia, quae triumviri capitales nunc conquirunt; ab his postea, qui quaestionum judicia exercent, Quaestores dicti.' It is hinted in this passage that the quaestors had in earlier times had judicial duties. If so, we may venture to question Varro's explanation, and to take for granted that the name was suggested by these judicial functions alone, and was not chosen as being equally appropriate to the judicial and the financial functions. Now in the earlier

republic the quaestors actually appear as law-officers: not so much. judges as public prosecutors. The cases are that of Spurius Cassius, who is said to have been impeached by the quaestors (Livy 2. 41; Cic. de Rep. 2. 35), and that of Volscius (Livy 3. 24, 25). When it is urged that a quaestor may have occasionally brought an accusation without being an official accuser, the answer is, that in the case of Volscius the prosecution passes on to the quaestors of the next year (Livy 3. 25), and is thus shown to be official. But it may be argued that the quaestors here meant are not the 'quaestores aerarii' at all, but the 'quaestores parricidii.'

Who were these 'quaestores parricidii?' Paul. Diac. (p. 221) has 'Parricidi quaestores appellabantur qui solebant creari caussa rerum capitalium quaerundarum.' And Pomponius (de Or. Jur. § 23) says, after speaking of the 'quaestores aerarii,' 'Et quia, ut diximus, de capite civis Romani injussu populi non erat lege permissum consulibus jus dicere, propterea quaestores constituebantur a populo, qui capitalibus rebus praeessent; hique appellabantur quaestores parricidii; quorum etiam meminit lex duodecim tabularum.' All we know, then, of the quaestores parricidii,' is that such an office existed before the decemvirate. Whether it was a permanent or occasional office, whether it was identical with the 'quaestores aerarii' or distinct from it, we have no evidence except the conjecture of late writers.

There remains the fact that the word 'quaestor' expresses legal, not financial functions. It seems not improbable that 'quaestores parricidii' was the original title, but that when the legal functions of the quaestor became obsolete, the word 'parricidii' was dropped, as too obviously inappropriate.

The Romans knew of no time when there had not been quaestors in the state. It is true that we have in Livy (4. 4), 'Tribuni plebis, aediles, quaestores nulli erant; institutum est ut fierent,' and that Pomponius also says that the quaestorship was created when the state began to grow rich. But these writers are thinking of the quaestorship purely as a financial office. That in another form it existed under the kings, is attested by Tac. Ann. 11. 22: Quaestores regibus etiam tum imperantibus instituti sunt, quod lex curiata ostendit ab L. Bruto repetita;' and by Ulpian and Junius Gracchanus, as appears from the following: 'Origo quaestoribus creandis antiquissima est et paene ante omnes magistratus. Gracchanus denique Junius libro septimo de potestatibus etiam ipsum Romulum et Numam Pompilium binos quaestores habuisse quos ipsi non sua voce sed populi suffragio crearent refert. Sed sicuti dubium est an Romulo et Numa regnantibus quaestor fuerit, ita Tullo

Hostilio rege quaestores fuisse certum est. Sane crebrior apud veteres opinio est, Tullum Hostilium primum in rem publicam induxisse quaestores.' (Dig. 1. 13.) The assertion, however, that the quaestors were introduced by Tullus Hostilius, seems founded on an assumption of the identity of the 'quaestores parricidii' and the 'duumviri perduellionis.' (See note on 1. 26, 5.) What Tacitus says about the 'lex curiata' mentioning the quaestors, is perhaps to be explained as Lange suggests, by Cicero's statement (de Rep. 2. 17. 31), that Tullius would not use the insignia regia without a decree of the populus, and gained permission from them' (apparently, but the passage is mutilated) 'to have lictors.' In the same way the lex curiata might expressly give the king a power of appointing quaestors.

Although the question is obscure in all its details, the single fact seems highly probable, that the quaestorship as a judicial, not as a financial office, existed in the regal period. The statement of Dio Cassius, preserved to us in Zonaras (7. 13), seems substantially trustworthy. He says of Valerius Poplicola, καὶ τὴν τῶν χρημάτων διοίκησιν ἄλλοις ἀπένειμεν, ἵνα μὴ τούτων ἐγκρατεῖς ὄντες οἱ ὑπατεύοντες μέγα δύνωνται ὅτε πρῶτον οἱ ταμίαι γίνεσθαι ἤρξαντο· κοιαίστορας δ ̓ ἐκάλουν αὐτούς· οἱ πρῶτον μὲν τὰς θανασίμους δίκας ἐδίκαζον, ὅθεν καὶ τὴν προσηγορίαν ταύτην διὰ τὰς ἀνακρίσεις ἐσχήκασι καὶ διὰ τὴν τῆς ἀληθείας ἐκ τῶν ἀνακρίσεων ζήτησιν· ὕστερον δὲ καὶ τὴν τῶν κοινῶν χρημάτων διοίκησιν ἔλαχον καὶ ταμίαι προσωνομάσθησαν μετὰ ταῦτα δ ̓ ἑτέροις μὲν ἐπετράπη τὰ δικαστήρια, ἐκεῖνοι δὲ τῶν χρημάτων ἦσαν διοικηταί.

XI. Religion.

In the historical period Rome had a very rich and complicated religious establishment. There were (1) what are called on the Monumentum Ancyranum the 'quattuor summa Collegia,' i. e. the Pontiffs, the Augurs, the 'xv viri sacris faciundis,' and the 'vii viri epulones; (2) in a sort of subordination to the Pontiffs, the Rex Sacrificulus, the Flamines or Sacrificers, and the Vestal Virgins; (3) the two collegia of the Salii, and the collegium of the Fetiales, which appear from Polyb. (21. 10) and Tac. (Ann. 10. 64) to have taken in earlier times a higher rank; (4) the 'curiones,' who officiated at the great popular gatherings called 'sacra popularia,' e. g. the Fornacalia, Parilia, &c.; (5) a number of brotherhoods, 'sodalitates,' which existed for the purpose of performing particular religious rites; the principal of these were the Luperci, the Sodales Titii, the Fratres Arvales and the Augustales. Of these, some were connected with particular gentes, e. g. the Luperci with the gens Quintilia and the gens Fabia. The rest

of the religious rites performed in Rome were private, belonging to families and gentes.

Now these religious institutions differ from the political institutions of Rome, in being for the most part more ancient. Whereas, of the numerous political offices only one, the quaestorship, dates from the regal period, and of the political assemblies that had real power only the senate (for the comitia centuriata owes its bare existence, and not its power, to the kings;) on the other hand, of the equally numerous religious offices and corporations just enumerated, only two, the vii viri epulones and the sodales Augustales, were established after the regal period.

This fact is most important. Institutions and organization spring from thought and feeling. As the republican period showed itself to be a political period by producing a multitude of political institutions and scarcely any religious ones, so the regal period, in which the political constitution remained extremely simple, while religious institutions multiplied and became complicated, was evidently a religious period.

As I have remarked, definite religious beliefs (though not religious feeling) were dying out in Rome in the age which produced the earliest historians, Fabius and Cato. It seems likely, therefore, that history from the beginning failed to reflect the religiousness of the earlier ages, and that if we had a contemporary history of the kings, and of the controversy between the patricians and plebeians, we should find religion made much more prominent than it is in the rationalizing narratives that have come down to us. The specially religious character of the early Romans is strongly asserted by Cic. (N. D. 2. 3, 8) and by Sallust (Cat. 12). The accounts of Numa Pompilius and his religious legislation have nothing, as I have shown, that can be called historical. Nevertheless we find a religious system which must have had an author or authors. That one of the kings was a great religious legislator has therefore certainly no improbability, perhaps even considerable probability.

In order to gain from our knowledge of Roman religion in historical times a conception of what it must have been earlier, we have to inquire what influences were at work to modify it. Some of these suggest themselves at once.

(1) As a conquering state Rome was constantly absorbing the religions of the tribes it conquered. On besieging a town, the Romans used solemnly to evoke the deities dwelling in it. Macrobius has preserved the formula in which the gods of Carthage are invited to leave Carthage and come to live at Rome. It concludes, 'Si ita feceritis voveo vobis templa ludosque facturum.' A good example of this