unes of the second year after the deposition of Æmilius, to prohibit the candidate from wearing a whiter robe than usual; of which the intention is expressly stated to have been the counteraction of the ambition or the intrigue of the Patricians. A year later, the Tribunes, being called upon by the Serate to oblige the Consuls to appoint a Dictator, were able, for once at least, to play the part of super.or magistrates, and to declare it fit for the Consuls, as their inferiors, to obey the Senate. But again the frost set in. The Tribunes quarrelled with one another, and the interference of one or two amongst them was sufficient to hinder the projects of the rest; 56 while some or all complained of the pusilanimity of their constituents and the sinking conditon of their common liberties.57 The troubles amongst the Plebeians extended even to the lower classes; and the rumors of a conspiracy amongst the slaves 59 sound as if hardship and violence were even more general than they had been. Meanwhile the old struggles for the public lands revived; but to these, as to the various trials in which the judicial povers of the people were often exercised and sometimes strained, it seems unnecessary to pay any partialar attention. Most of the actors in these changing scenes are too far removed for us to hear their vices 54 Tollendæ ambitionis causa." 15) of the decline of the tribuLiv., IV. 25. 55 Liv., 56 Compare Liv., IV. 42, 48, 53, etc., with V. 25, 29, etc., and note the mention in Zonaras (VII. nate. or learn with any advantage the characters and the principles they sustain. Of one or two only can we get a little clearer view. Publius Postumius, for example, is seen to be an ill-minded Patrician, who, being in command of an army, as Consular Tribune, obtained some easy victories over the Equian forces, whose spoils, though promised, he afterwards refused to his men. While his campaign continued, it was proposed in Rome to settle the soldiers in the town and territory their arms had won; at which, Postumius, being called, it is said, to the city, to conduct the opposition excited by the project, came back in haste, and declared in open assembly of the Tribes, that he would scourge his men like slaves, if any of them dared to stir in favor of the scheme. The Consular Tribune had gone too far. Blamed by Patricians, and stung by the reproaches of the Plebeian Tribunes, he returned to his camp, where his words had already raised a mutiny, in endeavouring to quiet which, he was stoned and slain. His murderers were brought to trial, and some of them punished; but though sentence was pronounced upon a few only, the people murmured that the laws against them were swifter of execution than the laws for them.59 Among all the advocates of an Agrarian law during these passing years, none seems to have been more active than Marcus Mænius, in his tribuneship, four years after the murder of Postumius. He stood 59 Liv., IV. 49-51. This was in A. C. 413-412. The name of Publius is from the Fasti. 60 alone in behalf of the poorer Plebeians, resisting, in spite of nine colleagues against him, the consular levy, and determined to resist it, until, as he said, the unjust occupants of the public lands should surrender them. His exertions, of course, were fruitless; yet he acquired so much popularity by them for himself, that he appears to have been tempted to seek the consular tribuneship for the following year. The Patricians were sufficiently alarmed by his pretensions to contrive that the elections should be held for Consuls, who could be chosen only from themselves. However Mænius bore his disappointment, the Plebeians were mortified, even to resentment, at being again outwitted.61 by since the first Consular Tribunes were chosen, and not one of the number, beginning or succeeding, had yet been a Plebeian. More than thirty years had gone The first amends to the neglected or impracticable privileges of the Plebeians came through the medium of another magistracy. This was the quæstorship, to one part of which allusion has been made in mentioning the Quæstors of Parricide; the other part, so to speak, being in the hands of Quæstors of the Classes 62 or the Treasury. These latter, two in number, like the former, acted as the treasurers of the Commonwealth, under the directions of the Senate, and in the city; and, at about the present period of our history, were increased by two more, appointed to serve as paymasters to the army, under the author 60 Liv., 62 Plut., Publ., 12. See Niebuhr's Hist., Vol. II. p. 195. ity of the Consuls.63 It was not from any inherent dignity in either office of the quæstorship, that the Plebeians were excited, on the occasion of increasing the number of the financial Quæstors, to demand that two of the four should be elected from their estate; nor was it for the same reason that the Patricians were both anxious and able to change the form of the Plebeian claim, in such a way as to make either estate eligible, which, as it left the election of Plebeians optional, rendered their elevation virtually impossible. The Quæstor, on retiring from office, was admitted to the Senate; so that the Plebeians were seeking to be Senators far more than to be Quæstors, while the Patricians were zealous to keep the Senate free from Plebeians, in carrying on the controversy which arose and temporarily terminated as has been observed. Some years, during which the four Quæstors were chosen just as the two had been, went on; but in the election following that in which the Tribune Mænius was disappointed, three Quæstors of the Treasury were elected from the Plebeians. It was opening the way to higher honors.64 Reactions were not yet over; but the character they assumed was of altogether a milder kind. It might 63 A. C. 446. "LXIII. anno 64 A. C. 408. "Patefactus ad post Tarquinios exactos, ut rem militarem comitarentur." Tac., Ann., XI. 22. “Ut, præter duos urbanos quæstores, duo consulibus ad ministeria belli præsto essent." Liv., IV. 43. Livy's date, however, is twenty-five years later. consulatum ac triumphos locus novis hominibus videbatur." See the whole account in Liv., IV. 55. "Henceforward," says Niebuhr, somewhat prematurely, "the Roman people was victorious over the Patricians." Vol. II. p. 196. happen, as it did a few years subsequently, that the Patricians were able to control an election of Tribunes with sufficient influence, or even authority, to secure the choice, in part at least, of the candidates they preferred.65 But there was no longer a lack of hearts or voices to uphold the prerogatives of the Plebeians, nor did they think any one they had more precious than the nomination of their own good magistrates. "Is the matter come to such a pass," cried Trebonius, a Tribune, and the namesake of him whose law provided the security of the tribunitian elections, "to such a pass that our Tribunes are to be Patricians or Patricians' slaves?"66 And the answer was returned from the people, spite of every effort, even among the Tribunes, to close their mouths, when, at the end of the year, four of six Consular Tribunes were elected from the Plebeians.67 It was thus, at last, that the promises which Publilius and Canuleius had set before their order were beginning to be fulfilled, near a century from the time of the secession to the Sacred Hill. 65 Liv., V. 10. 66 Ibid., V. 11. Note 28. 67 A. C. 399. Liv., V. 12. the fact that four were Plebeians, see Arnold's Hist., Ch. XIX. For note 9. |