between the two estates, each on its own side, having passed away. The career of Appius Claudius, afterwards known as Appius the Blind, discloses openly the alliance of the richest and the poorest classes. He was elected Censor within two years from the dictatorship of Mænius, and, as was usual, entered, with his colleague, Plautius Decianus,87 upon the charge of filling the vacancies which had occurred within the Senate since the last nominations to that body by the preceding Censors. The new elections were always made, it appears, from certain lists of citizens who had either borne great offices or possessed high rank; but Appius, determined from the beginning to secure his authority, either for his own sake or for that of his faction, through any support he could command, now named several of the lowest men in Rome as Senators, amongst whom he even admitted some sons of freedmen, who, as such, were scarcely considered to be absolutely free, much less to be worthy of any political advancement. 89 The nomination, backed by a powerful party, out of rather than in the Senate, and vainly, if not feebly, opposed by Plautius Decianus, who resigned his office in disgust at his colleague,90 was carried, but was set aside in the following year 87 The same who stood by the conquered people of Privernum. 88 Diod. Sic., XX. 36. Suet., Claud., 24. Suetonius, born about A. D. 70, is the biographer of the Cæsars. 89 Two free ancestors, just as much as landed property, or at least an agricultural occupation, and the 91 by the Consuls, who could call such Senators as they pleased, and those only, as it seems, to their sessions. Appius, still keeping his place, was soon after assailed by some of the Tribunes, now the representatives, as must be remembered, of the moderate party, rather than of the Plebeian estate. At this the Censor admitted all the freedmen in Rome to the Tribes, amongst which he distributed them in such a manner as promised him the most effectual support. Appius, however, was not wholly absorbed in mere political intrigues. A large portion of his energy and his ambition was spent upon the Way and the Aqueduct which have borne his name to our day, and which, in his own time, were undertakings so vast as to obtain for him the name of "the Hundred-handed." 93 He was an author, a jurist, a philosopher, and a poet, besides. 92 It was, probably, after the example rather than at the instigation of Appius, that his scribe rose to distinction. Cneius Flavius, the son of a freedman, one, therefore, of the partisans on whom the Censor and his faction were willing to lavish pretended favor in return for unstinted support, was employed by Appius near his person, in the capacity of private secretary. Appius, who, as already mentioned, was a jurist and an author, appears to have compiled a sort of manual concerning the business-days of the Calendar and the forms of instituting or conducting a 91 Liv., IX. 30. 92 Ibid., IX. 46. 93" Hic centemmanus appellatus est." Digest. Lib. I. Tit. II. 2, sect. 36. suit before the courts; both these subjects being kept in profound concealment from the mass of the people, who were therefore obliged, in case of any legal proceeding, to resort first to the Pontiff to learn on what day, and next to the Patrician jurist to inquire in what form, they could lawfully manage their affairs before the judicial tribunals. This manual was very likely given to Flavius to copy; but it could scarcely have been with the knowledge, much less with the desire, of his employer, that it was published. The haughty Patrician, while he had no wish to enlighten even the multitude which supported him, would have been distinctly opposed to any measure in favor of the middle classes, who were attached to his antagonists, and who would be much more benefited than the lower orders by the publication of legal calendars or formularies. But Flavius stood in a position which tempted him, whether he were generous or designing, to divulge the secrets of the manual he had obtained; and it may very well have been from a desire to conciliate the real party of the Plebeians, which ranked above him, as a freedman, that he published his discoveries.95 94 See Hugo's Hist. Roman Law, Sect. CLXXXII. Cicero says that the forms disclosed by Flavius had been most undeniably abused to the advantage of the learned:-"Erant in magna potentia qui consulebantur: a quibus etiam dies, tanquam a Chaldæis, petebatur," etc. Pro L. Murena, 11. "Civile jus, repositum in penetralibus pontificum, evulgavit, fastosque circa forum in albo proposuit, ut, quando lege agi posset, sciretur." Liv., IX. 46; where, however, the publication is, as it seems, erroneously ascribed to the year of Flavius's ædileship. 95 Pomponius, the great jurist, says expressly, "Postea cum Appius Claudius proposuisset et ad formam redegisset has actiones, He did not go unrewarded, but was raised to various offices, amongst them to the tribuneship of the Plebeians, and finally to the curule ædileship, in which his disclosures are sometimes represented as having been made.96 The only direct evidence we have concerning his supporters is, that he was chosen Ædile by the votes of the lower faction, which the historian calls the faction of the Forum ;' 97 but in opposition to this is the relation, that the Patricians went into mourning at the election of the freedman's son, and one who had made light of their mysteries. The party of the nobility and the populace could not thus be separated without the influence of either fraction against the moderate, or, as it may be called henceforward, the popular party, being neutralized; and it is on this account that we may suppose Flavius to have been seconded by the suffrages of many amongst the Plebeians at large. 98 The predominance of the popular party is plainly attested in the same year by the censorship of Fabius Rullianus and Decius Mus, the two great generals, who, succeeding to Appius Claudius, removed the freedmen he had enrolled amongst all the Tribes into Cnæus Flavius, scriba ejus, libertini filius, subreptum librum populo tradidit; et adeo gratum fuit id munus populo, ut tribunus plebis fieret, et senator et ædilis curulis: hic liber, qui actiones continet, appellatur jus civile Flavianum." Digest. Lib. I. Tit. II. 2, sect. 7. Compare, however, Plin., Nat. Hist., XXXIII. 6, and Cicero, Pro Murena, 11. 96 Liv., IX. 46. This was A. C. 303, seven years after the beginning of Appius Claudius's censorship. 97 Flavium dixerat ædilem forensis factio." Liv., IX. 46. See Diod. Sic., XX. 36. 98 Plin., Nat. Hist., XXXIII. 6. Liv., IX. 46; where see the story of Flavius and the nobiles adoles centes. four Tribes by themselves.99 There are also the memorials of some action, perhaps amounting, however, to no more than the institution of a festival 100 in favor of the Knights, who, as a class, were greatly increasing in wealth and in importance, at the same time that they were ranked, politically, upon the popular side. In the midst of these changes, Flavius, the Ædile, built a temple to Concord. But the glimpses we catch of concord amongst the Romans are few indeed, and far between; nor are the traditions of any inclinations or any liberty, besides those of warrior-citizens, less unfrequent. The statues of Pythagoras as the wisest, and of Alcibiades as the bravest Greek, which were set up in the Forum in obedience to a command from the oracle at Delphi,101 are images to us of the uncertain knowledge and the wanton energy which were spread amongst the Romans. A picture, painted by Fabius, hence called Pictor,102 and a poem of Appius Claudius,103 can scarcely be said to bear any other testimony than that of their names to cultivation of taste or mind. Yet when we look away to Babylon, where Alexander lay dying,104 it seems as if the only heirs who could succeed him were the people he had not conquered in Rome. 99 These four were called hence- the story of the pipers, Liv., IX. forth the City Tribes. Liv., IX. 46. 100 De Vir. Illust., Cap. XXXII. Liv., IX. 46. 101 Plin., Nat. Hist., XXXIV. 12. 102 Plin., Nat. Hist., XXXV. 7. Painting, however, and sculpture likewise, were known long before Fabius's time. As for music, see 30. 103 Cicero calls it a 66 carmen Pythagoreum." Tuscul. Quæst., IV. 2. 104 A. C. 323. The embassy from Rome to Alexander may not have been a mere tradition. See Plin., Nat. Hist., III. 9. |