- that, if they were united,- or if even a sufficient number of them were supported by their clients, when these were also in the Centuries, the lower classes were powerless. The spirit of the new assembly may be further tested by observing that the Elders and the Juniors exactly divided the Centuries between them, although one class must have much outnumbered the other; but the authority of age was obeyed in Rome long before the Centuries were ever planned. As already remarked, however, the new institution was, in its beginning, little more than a new organization of the public forces; and it would be but anticipating its operation at a later period, to speak of the Patrician influence which was still preserved at the election or the deliberation. There is no doubt but that the Patricians still maintained the upperhand, forming, as they did, the great proportion of the higher Centuries; yet there is no weightier doubt but that the Plebeians, clustered together in the Phalanx, were henceforth able to resist, or, at all events, to prepare to resist, the cavalry or the menat-arms, their fellow-soldiers and still their adversaries, 106 In describing the assembly of the Tribes, it was observed that the chief article of the consultations they held in their rude way must have been the provision of the Tributum, that is, the tax on prop 106 "Das gesammte Volk, welches sich gegen den Feind bewaffnen kann, und zwar nach dem Maasse in dem es sich zu bewaffnen das Ver mögen hat, zum Antheil an der Herrschaft aufgerufen," etc. Müller, Etrusker, II. 2. 12. Cf. Ruperti, Röm. Alt., Vol. II. p. 67. erty, the method of raising it, and, in some instances, the amount to raise. This had been long imposed on individuals in equal portions for the rich and the poor, until, by the Census of Servius Tullius, it was more justly ordered to be graduated according to the fortune or the poverty of every citizen.107 It is true that the tax was laid upon real property, in such a manner, that, while the debtor was taxed for his mortgage or his debt, the public land in possession of the richer Patricians was exempt from impost; but the land was, at least nominally, held under other obligations, of which we shall take our account at a later moment; and for the present, it was as much as could have been naturally yielded by the Patricians, that the downright beggar should be spared the burdens they bore themselves.108 In after times, if not in these, the Senate ordered the tax, and committed its collection amongst the Tribes to the Tribunes, or the Ærarian Tribunes, as they were named, after the Ærarium, or Treasury, of which they became the ministers; but the Tribes themselves could reject the burden they thought unjust, or, perhaps, avoidable: 109 thus far, at least, though not, perhaps, under the monarchy, the Plebeians drew or loosened their own purse-strings. 107 Censum enim instituit, rem saluberrimam tanto futuro imperio: ex quo belli pacisque munia non viritim ut ante, sed pro habitu pecuniarum fierent." Liv., I. 42. "Tribus appellavit, ut ego arbitror, ab tributo; nam ejus quoque æqualiter ex censu conferendi ab eodem inita ratio est." Ibid., 43. Cf. Dion. Hal., IV. 22. 108 It is a little uncertain, perhaps, whether the Patricians paid any of this tax until the time of the Commonwealth. Liv., IV. 60. 109 Dion. Hal., IV. 14, 15. Liv., V. 12. These changes which Servius wrought are almost too numerous and too profound to be regarded as the work of a single king, especially in the government of a confused and turbulent people. Consciously or unconsciously, he had set the seal upon the promises already discernible of the wonderful destiny in prepation for the Roman nation, by bringing them from out their embryo existence into the sight of law and confidence and maturity. He was the great king of the line which governed Rome; 110 nor only as the ruler, but as the warrior, of the same ardent heart in the hour of horror which bore him through the hour of reform. He revenged his people upon their Etruscan enemies, and was, perhaps, in reality, as in dim tradition, the liberator as well as the lawgiver of his people; and it appears, besides, that he loved a free so much better than a monarchical government, as to propose either to lay down his power or else to establish two magistrates to succeed him when he died.112 Under such a monarch the people of every class were stirred; some, perhaps, like him, to wisdom, more, undoubtedly, like him also, to - but all, like a boiling and overboiling fluid, above the never-ceasing fire, to find new issues for its strength or steam. But there were none among the heated people to save the life of Servius, or to protect his corpse from dishonor, when his daughter war, 110 "Præcipuus Servius Tullius sanctor legum fuit." Tac., Ann., III. 26. 111 According to our previous conjecture, not worth the attempt of being proved, from various signs and his daughter's husband wreaked murder and outrage upon their father. The legend, here, tells something more. It represents the Patricians, or some of their number, as joining in the conspiracy against the king who had given others besides themselves a seed-time and a harvest in the state of Rome; and warrants the presumption that another revolution took place under the second Tarquin, the son, rather the grandson, of the first, supported by the principal men, who preferred a violent monarchy under their own influence to a temperate one inclining towards the interests of the Plebeians. The character of the rulers and the condition of the inferior classes at that time is but too grievously described in the tradition that Tarquin the assassin became the king. It is true that there appears to have been no formal election,113 but there was no resistance: and Servius would almost seem to have been forgotten, had not the new monarch received the name of Superbus, or the Proud; though this epithet may have been of later invention. Whoever Tarquin was, and however he obtained the throne, he was evidently a powerful and a magnificent sovereign. The great buildings he began or finished were long the pride of the city accustomed to smaller temples and meaner dwellings; while the numbers of the people increased, and their occupations, doubtless, extended with his conquests. These were vast beyond all that had hitherto been gained; 113" Ut qui neque populi jussu neque auctoribus Patribus regnavit." Liv., I. 49. and even the splendors of the elder Tarquin, as a conqueror, grew pale in contrast with the bale-fires which the younger lighted over all the country nearest Rome. The Latins yielded to his arms; other states submitted and gave him their aid; 114 and the trophies of his winning were the inspiration of the same minstrels who sang of his darker deeds. If he were a stranger, however, as his namesake seems to have been, the number of his victories and the spread of his dominions were to his glory, as it was called, rather than to that of Rome or any other city which he ruled. Perhaps this story is to be regarded only as another lesson to the Romans of what could be done in war. Stranger or Roman, Tarquin was remembered as a tyrant, whose magnificence resulted from oppression and sanguinary wrongs. He was said to have forced. the lower classes to labor on his temples and sewers, which he became so earnest to complete that he also set his soldiers and mercenaries to dig and build. Some of the Plebeians were conciliated by grants of conquered lands; but the repeal of Servius's laws concerning the safety of the debtor, as well as the interference which Tarquin chose to make with the festivals and the assemblies of the whole people, were more than could be borne.115 Yet the Plebeians would have been unable to redress their grievances, if the Patricians had not, themselves, as the legends relate, been still more shockingly wronged. These were 114 Liv., I. 49. 115 Dion. Hal., IV. 43 et seq. |