Зображення сторінки
PDF
ePub

longed, at any rate, eventually, the disposition of the newly conquered lands. The king, or rather the state, relied upon them, in return, for military service with horse 23 and foot; 24 and it was as the army of Rome that the Patricians became the conquerors of other nations and the masters of their own. The only distinctions amongst them of any importance, besides those above mentioned, arose from the institutions of the early period.

These were of the two common classes, religious and secular; but as the first were mostly referred to the following reign, we may here confine our attention to the civil institutions, of which Romulus was supposed to have been the author. It is but fair, however, to premise, that there are evident indications of his having established several of the priesthoods, and especially of his having provided for the support of their members by the same means which were ever afterward employed, namely, the assignment of lands to each temple and to every sacred college. 25

The whole body of Patricians was united in the Comitia Curiata, the assembly of the Curies. Each Tribe was divided into ten Curies; each of the Curies into ten Gentes, or Names, as they may be styled,

V. 9. "Bina jugera a Romulo divisa viritim." Ibid., De Re Rust., I. 10.

23 Turma terima est (E in U abiit) quod terdeni equites ex tribus tribubus, etc., fiebant." Varro, De Ling. Lat., V. 16.

24Milites quod trium millium prima legio fiebat ac singulæ tribus millia singula militum mittebant." Ibid.

.....

25 Dion. Hal., II. 7.

because they were formed of kindred names rather than of kindred families.26 The Name was, therefore, the first element in the constitution of the Roman state. It may be called a corporation, partly religious and partly civil, but much inferior in the extent of either attribute to the Curia, which, under the presidency of a Curio, a chief, perhaps, at first, but afterwards a priest, exercised the more public charges for which it was created. So long as it met alone, it was generally a body of citizens assembled to observe the ceremonies and sacrifices 27 incumbent upon faithful worshippers; but as soon as the Curies were joined together in their assembly, their religious functions disappeared in the civil and the political rights they then assumed, each Curia counting as one vote of the thirty in elections and legislation.29 From out the assembly two other bodies appear to have been formed, from the beginning of the constitution: one, of the Senators, the other, of the Celeres, or, as their successors were afterwards called, the Knights. It does not appear that there was primarily any incongruity between the two to prevent the same individual from holding a place in both; although it is

[ocr errors]
[merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

indubitable that the offices of either were totally dissimilar. One hundred Celeres from each of the three Tribes formed a company of cavalry, which may have been partly intended to serve the king for a guard or a suite, but which was more probably raised to do the state such service as swift moving horsemen could alone perform in forays and campaigns.29 It is something better than a conjecture, therefore, that these were the younger Romans.30 Their Tribune, or leader, was the second personage in the city, ranking next after the king, by whom he was named. On the other hand, the Senate was composed of the elder men, of whom one hundred were appointed, as we will say, by Romulus, from the Ramnes, and another hundred by Tatius, from the Sabine Tities; 34 the third Tribe having no representation for several reigns. The Prince or Chief Senator, receiving his appointment, also, from the king, was, in his absence, invested with the government of the city; yet it must be remembered, that, when the king was absent, the Tribune of the Celeres, who would otherwise have taken his place, most com

33

35

32

29 Hence their name : κέλης, Æol. Kéλnp, Lat. celer, Eng. swift. I give the etymology in full, because Niebuhr will have it that Celeres is a name for the whole body of Patricians. See, besides, Plin., Nat. Hist., XXXIII. 9. The number is from Liv., I. 13.

30 Dion. Hal., II. 13.

31 See Ruperti, Röm. Alt., Tom. II. pp. 111, 116.

32 The Senes. Plut., Rom., 13. 33 Liv., I. 8. Dion. Hal., II. 12. 34 Dion. Hal., II. 47, 57. The second hundred were not immediately of equal dignity with the first, according to the same historian. II. 58, 62. The Decem Primi, or First Ten, belonged, it here appears, to the Ramnes.

35 Dion. Hal., II. 12. Tacit., Ann., VI. 11.

monly accompanied him. But if the head of the Senate, as an individual magistrate, was inferior in consideration to the head of the Celeres, on account of the high military functions which the latter exercised, the civil character of the Senate, collectively, did not preclude it from holding the first place amongst the institutions of Rome. Its acts, the Senatus Consulta, though never independent, as if they had been laws, were, almost from the first, the mainspring of the public legislation and administration. It was itself rude enough, undoubtedly, in its earlier days; there was no temple then, of majestic form, to protect its session; nor were there the memories of century upon century to inflate its deliberations; but it was still the profound and faithful bosom "7 whose breathings were nearly as much respected by the king as by the slave.

36

37

Such were the institutions 38 to create distinctions amongst the class to which they exclusively belonged; but as the Tribes united the Patricians on terms of comparative equality, before they need be supposed to have had their magistracies or assemblies, so the Gens, or Name, of which the Tribe itself was formed, continued, as the foundation of every institution, to preserve the equilibrium that offices and dignities might otherwise have disturbed. The liberty of

36 "Buccina cogebat priscos ad verba Qui- this history to describe the magis

[blocks in formation]

39

Rome, at its starting-point, was in the leash of the Patricians, and of them alone. For no other than one of their order was received into the Name; no others, therefore, besides themselves, were considered free to use the race-course or to win the goal. But of their number, though some might be denied the attainment of the rank and the authority they desired, all, nevertheless, through their Names, were in possession of the same hopes for the future that were engrossed for the present by the more fortunate, rather than by the more illustrious. The point to mark is this, that even amongst the Patricians of Rome there is a beginning to be made in the history of the development of Roman liberty.

It may already appear strange to have passed over the royal power, except in mentioning the origin of the early institutions. The king, it is true, was at the head of every one of these, either as the general, the judge, the lawgiver, or the priest. The festival and the sacrifice were, to a certain degree, under his superintendence; the Senate or the Curies waited for his summons to assemble; their legislation was subject to his proposal or his approval, and the laws they passed were committed to him, or to the judges he appointed,10 for interpretation and execution; while

39 Die Glieder einer Gens..... auch ingenui genannt wurden." Ruperti, Röm. Alt., II. p. 12. See Festus, s. v. Patricios; Cicero, Topic., 6, etc. As Hugo remarks, our word gentleman has some association with the old gentilis, the

VOL. I.

37

member of the Gens. Hist. Rom. Law, Sect. LXX. It soon happened, however, as the freedmen and Plebeians came into existence at Rome, that there were ingenui who were not gentiles.

40 Dionysius relates that Romulus

« НазадПродовжити »