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which they also claimed their share of lands and dwellings.10 It was only a new form of carrying an Agrarian law; and the Patricians, into whose hands Veii fell, with all its riches, according to their ancient system of appropriating conquests to themselves, now contrived to give a new form to their opposition, by representing the project of the removal as that of desertion from Rome. Some of the Tribunes put their veto upon the measure, as if convinced of its nefarious design; but others were more consistent to the office they held, and maintained the demand of their needier brethren for two good years, at the end of which time the opposing Tribunes, failing in a second, though they had obtained a first, reëlection, were brought to trial, and heavily fined." Yet if the narrative, thus far, be one to illustrate the bitterness of the dissensions which still existed in the Commonwealth, its conclusion is a striking example of the unity that, weak as it often was, did sometimes rise superior to any tendencies to separation. The Tribes, though they condemned the Tribunes, rejected the bill which the Tribunes had opposed; whereupon the Senate, as of its own accord, decreed that seven jugers in our measure about four acres of the territory of Veii should be assigned, not only to each father of a family, but to every free adult or infant of the Commonwealth.12 A much more perfect unity than that which thus

10 Liv., V. 24-26, 29.

11"Quod, gratificantes patribus, rogationi tribunitia intercessissent." Liv., V. 29.

12 This was in A. C. 392. Liv., V. 30. Diod. Sic. (where the quantity assigned is different), XIV. 102.

occasionally showed itself amongst the Romans would have been endangered by the wars and conquests of the period we have now entered. The liberty that gave birth to confidence between one class and another led them, as it would lead on any nation, to victories in arms; but the way of warfare is for ever the same, most fatal at last to those who have advanced the farthest amongst its thorns and crags and sanguined streams. The conquests and the triumphs of the Commonwealth reacted upon the freedom from which they were derived, in modes we shall observe as we read on. But from the first moment of their extension, though we have scarcely yet reached this point ourselves, it will be seen that there were many changes to destroy the union of the Roman people.13 The earliest of these was the impoverishment of the poor; almost simultaneous was the elevation of the richer men of the lower estate: but more important still was the introduction of new inferior classes in the persons of the conquered, who, whether enrolled in the Tribes, as at first, or held in bondage, as at first and at last likewise, were equally a mass to whom liberty, in the one case, was denied, and in the other, only nominally conceded. Even though the newly admitted citizens became, in time, an integral portion of the nation, yet the numbers of the freshly subdued were continually replenished, and in one or two centuries later, the distance between

13 "There is no sure foundation set on blood,

No certain life achieved by others' death."
King John.

the most recently conquered and their conquerors will be found so widened as to have become impassable.

In endeavouring to gain some sort of insight into the domestic character of the Romans, in order to complete this scanty sketch of their early warfare in its influence as well as its extent, we need not undertake to get behind the scenes, because we have but little to see upon the stage. The great drama of life is of an Author who allows the actors in the later parts to recall their predecessors, even when words. fail and visions cease, by reading His Will as it is revealed to the simplest minds. It is beyond our power to open the door of a single dwelling in Rome, and learn, by any familiarity, the manner in which the household was affected by what happened in the Forum, or with the absent army. But this we can believe, because it coincides with the military and the political destinies appointed on high to the Romans, that the incessant battles in which they engaged, whether with a hostile nation abroad, or between hostile estates at home, would result in excitability, clamor, and crime, as well within as without the walls of every habitation. Such a scene as that in which Virginia was murdered will, if imaged vividly, show more through common reflections than could be gained from any individual conjectures. The lust and the power of the Patrician, the easy subornation of the client, the unprotectedness of the maiden, the mute amazement of the multitude, and, above all, the dreadful expedient to which the father

thought himself compelled, are as characteristic of the private as of the public life of the Roman people.

There is little to add concerning the cultivation of the nation, even of the upper and the richer classes. The civilization of Tarquin, or the later kings in general, had not, in all likelihood, been abandoned; but there appears to have been little exercise of any other tastes than those for conflicts, or of other powers than those required by the passage of a law or the gain of a victory. The rich relied upon their landed possessions, rather than upon any trading enterprises, to keep or to increase their wealth; and the poor were either simple husbandmen or quite unoccupied, if they were free, or else, if clients and slaves, employed in the mechanical toils then universally despised. There could have been little attention to any of the higher arts, little knowledge, indeed, of their existence, until they and their teachers were found in foreign lands. Nevertheless, the conclusion is not to be made too hastily, that the Romans were without objects of serious interest and continued labor. The richest men toiled on their own fields, and were glad to count their harvests when they were weary of trophies and campaigns. The poorest were daily anxious to earn their bread and fill their children's mouths; a matter, indeed, of

no

common concern, where honorable occupations were few in number, and even those were often ended by death in battle, or the more cruel fate of bondage. In public, the victory gained, the conflict lost, the trial

approaching, or the law proposed, were subjects to keep men busy, without much thought of higher desires or nobler liberties. It was thus that war excluded better things, and filled their places, directly or indirectly, with its dangerous toils.14

14"It may be said," says Dr. Channing, and the remark will be found continually applicable to Rome," that society, through its

whole extent, is deformed by war." Discourse on War, Works, Vol. IV. p. 237.

VOL. I.

62

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