ceed. The republic remained for five or six years under Interreges. Licinius and Sextius were re-elected every year, and each year more and more of the friends of the rogations were chosen to be their colleagues. The people were firm to their popular tribunes. The clients had, in the time of the decemvirs, been admitted into the tribes; the influence of the patricians was thereby diminished; the office of the interrex being but for five days, no wars could be carried on: the tribunes allowed no one to be imprisoned for debt. Though the neighbouring states remained at peace, yet such a condition of affairs was unsafe. All parties wished to see an end of it, yet the senate would not yield. Twice was the venerable Camillus created dictator against the people, twice did the dictatorial power fail before the tribunarian. Arts, menaces, force, were tried in vain. The senate would willingly have conceded some of the demands. The tribunes incorporated all into one bill, and would have all or none. Camillus, at length, became convinced of the inutility of protracted resistance. He mediated between the orders, and the senate gave their consent to the rogations.

These rogations were, 1. that no more military tribunes should be chosen, but consuls only, and of these one to be a plebeian; 2. that one half of the guardians of the Sibylline books should be plebeians; 3. that in cases of debt, all the interest already paid should be deducted from the capital, and the residue paid in three equal annual instalments; 4. an Agrarian law : of which the principal provisions were, that the public land should have its boundaries marked out; that every Roman citizen should be entitled to enjoy it; that no one should hold more than 500 jugera of it in arable or plantation land, or feed more than 100 head of black, or 500 of small cattle, on the public pasture; that a tenth of the produce of corn-land, a fifth of that of vineyards and plantations, and so much a head grazing-money for cattle should be paid to the state; that this tax should be farmed out every lustrum by the censors, and the

produce of it appropriated to the payment of the army; that the possessors of the public land should be bound to employ free labourers on their land in a rated proportion to their possession.

The plebeians consented that the consular power should be diminished. The jurisdiction was separated from it, and committed to a prætor, whom the patricians insisted should of right belong to their body; and as the prætor ranked with the consuls, and might be styled their colleague, they thus kept two out of three places to themselves. The first plebeian consul was L. Sextius Lateranus, the fellow-tribune of C. Licinius Stolo.

Samnite War.

The period from 389 to 411 was internally spent in efforts, on the side of the patricians, to do away with the Licinian law; externally in various wars with the Gauls, Etruscans, Hernicians, and others; and victory was, as usual, on the side of the Romans.

The Samnites, a mountain race, descended, it is said, from the Sabines, certainly akin to them, had been for some time spreading themselves to the south. They had long since made themselves masters of Capua, the wealthy capital of Campania, where they rapidly degenerated, and sank into luxury. Their mountain brethren became their bitterest enemies. In the year 412, the Campanians, being hard pressed by the Samnites, called upon Rome for alliance and aid. Aid was not refused; the Romans sent an embassy to the Samnites, requesting them to abstain from injuring the allies of Rome. Their interference was haughtily rejected; a combined Roman and Latin army entered Campania. Mount Gaurus, which overhangs the Lucrine lake, was the scene of the first conflict between these two great nations, who fought for the empire of Italy. After a furious conflict, victory declared for Rome. The war was obstinately continued, though to the advantage of the latter. At last Rome,

G

jealous of Latium, made a peace with the Samnites, in which the Latins refused to join.

The Latin War.

The Latins had long been in close alliance with Rome. In all wars they composed one half of the legions; they were mingled in the manipuli, or companies, and their general commanded alternately with the Roman. Feeling their power, they deemed it just that they should be placed on a footing of perfect equality; their ambassadors repaired to Rome, and proposed to the senate that the two nations should form one, in which Rome should have the supremacy, and which should be denominated from her; that half the senate should be composed of Latins, and one of the consuls be of that nation. These just propositions were rejected with scorn and indignation by the haughty Romans, and war, little less than civil, broke out between the long-united nations.

The Latins and Campanians were still at war with the Samnites, who were now in alliance with Rome. Four Roman legions, by a rapid march through the mountains, arrived in Campania, and joined the Samnite army. At the foot of Vesuvius, the decisive conflict took place: Samnites were arrayed against Campanians, Romans against Latins, similar arms and tactics against each other. Victory long being doubtful, the front ranks in the left wing of the Romans fell back. The plebeian consul Decius, who had vowed to sacrifice himself for Rome, now performed his vow: consecrated by the pontifex, and clad in a magnificent robe, he rushed on horseback amidst the ranks of the enemy, and fell covered with wounds. The Latins gave way before the renewed valour of the Romans; and the other consul, Manlius, was equally successful on his side. Scarcely a fourth of the Latin army escaped.

The loss of the flower of her troops effectually debilitated Latium: town after town submitted to the Romans, and a bloody and cruel vengeance was taken by

that haughty people. The people of Latium were divided ; some obtained the rank of Roman citizens, others were deprived of their lands and their rights. They were forbidden to hold national diets, or to intermarry or acquire lands in each other's territories; they no longer served in the Roman legions. With the Volscians and Hernicians they formed separate cohorts.

About this time, Q. Publilius Philo, being dictator, had three laws passed which completed the constitution. One of these included the censorship in the higher offices, which were common to the two orders; a second took from the curiæ the power of putting their veto on any law; the third made the plebiscita, or decrees of the tribes, binding on all citizens. By these means, internal discord was ended, and Rome, unretarded by domestic dissensions, could now advance rapidly in the career of universal empire.

War with Pyrrhus.

Rome was now mistress of Etruria, Latium, and Campania. The Samnites had aided her to conquer the Latins; a general league of the Samnites and their kindred mountain tribes was formed against the menacing power of Rome, and a fierce war broke out, in which a Roman army endured the disgrace of passing under the yoke at the Caudine pass; but the disgrace was speedily effaced, and Samnium reduced to submission.

B. C.

Tarentum, a rich and luxurious city of Southern Italy, 283. had taken part in this war, and grievously insulted the Romans. Unable to defend themselves, the Tarentines sought the aid of Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, a prince of courage and talent, ready to serve whoever could pay. He had just gained and lost Macedonia; and he now fed himself with the hopes of becoming the Alexander of the West; reckoned on a speedy conquest of Italy; and already, in his ambitious views, anticipated that of Gaul, Spain, and Africa. He therefore willingly acceded to the desire of the Tarentines, and passed over to Italy,

For the first time the arms and tactics of Greece and Rome came into collision. In the first two battles, fought at Pandosia and Asculum, his military skill and his elephants gained the victory for Pyrrhus; yet with so much loss, that he made proposals of peace to the Romans. They would treat only on condition of his quitting Italy. A third battle was fought near Beneventum, in which Pyrrhus was so roughly handled, that he gave 279. up all hopes of conquest in Italy, and passed over to Sicily, and thence to Greece, where he met his death, in an attempt on the city of Argos, in the Peloponnesus. The Romans now reduced all Southern Italy; and from the Arno to Rhegium, the whole peninsula obeyed the City.

B. C.

CHAP. VII.

ROME TILL THE TIME OF THE GRACCHI.

First Punic War.

THE island of Sicily had originally been colonised by the people who inhabited Italy. The Greeks early began to establish colonies there, and many of these rapidly grew up to be powerful states. The Carthaginians also settled there. They held at this period one half of the island, and their power was formidable to the remainder.*

Its

Syracuse was the chief of the Grecian colonies. founders were Dorians; its constitution was therefore at first aristocratic; but it was a trading city, and did not long continue to be so governed. The beneficent Gelo, at the time when Greece was assailed by Persia, possessed 406. the supreme power in Syracuse. Six years after the fatal expedition of the Athenians against it, Syracuse fell under the dominion of Dionysius, an able, talented, and, if we credit a modern historian, a useful prince. He left his power to his son, of the same name, who inherited not

* See Carthage, p. 62.