Latium and the Latins. The district to the south of the Tiber, extending along the coast to the promontory of Circeii and from the coast inland to the slopes of the Apennines, was called in antiquity Latium. Its inhabitants, at the opening of the historic period, were the Latins (Latini), a branch of the Italian stock, perhaps mingled with the remnants of an older population.
They were mainly an agricultural and pastoral people, who had settled on the land in pagi, or cantons, naturally or artificially defined rural districts. The pagus constituted a rude political and religious unit. Its population lived scattered in their homesteads. If some few of the homesteads happened to be grouped together, they constituted a vicus, which, however, had neither a political nor a religious organization.
At one or more points within the cantons there soon developed small towns (oppida), usually located on hilltops and fortified, at first with earthen, later with stone, walls. These towns served as market-places and as points of refuge in time of danger for the people of the pagus. There developed an artisan and mercantile element, and there the aristocratic element of the population early took up their abode, i. e., the wealthier landholders, who could leave to others the immediate oversight of their estates. And so these oppida became the centers of government for the surrounding pagi. It is very doubtful if the Latins as a whole were ever united in a single state. But even if that had once been the case, this loosely organized state must early have been broken up into a number of smaller units. These were the various populi; that is, the cantons with their oppida. The names of some sixty-five of these towns are known, but before the close of the sixth century many of the smaller of them had been merged with their more powerful neighbors.
The Latin League. The realization of the racial unity of the [pg 26]Latins was expressed in the annual festival of Jupiter Latiaris celebrated on the Alban Mount. For a long time also the Latin cities formed a league, of which there were thirty members according to tradition. Actually, about the middle of the fifth century there were only some eight cities participating in the association upon an independent footing. The central point of the league was the grove and temple of Diana at Aricia, and it was in the neighborhood of Aricia that the meetings of the assembly of the league were held. The league possessed a very loose organization, but we know of a common executive head—the Latin dictator.
The site of Rome. Rome, the Latin Roma, is situated on the Tiber about fifteen miles from the sea. The Rome of the later Republic and the Empire, the City of the Seven Hills, included the three isolated eminences of the Capitoline, Palatine and Aventine, and the spurs of the adjoining plateau, called the Quirinal, Viminal, Esquiline, and Caelian. Other ground, also on the left bank of the river, and likewise part of Mount Janiculum, across the Tiber, were included in the city. But this extent was only attained after a long period of growth, and early Rome was a town of much smaller area.
The growth of the city. Late Roman historians placed the founding of Rome about the year 753 B. C., and used this date as a basis for Roman chronology. However, it is absolutely impossible to assign anything like a definite date for the establishment of the city. Excavations have revealed that in the early Iron Age several distinct settlements were perched upon the Roman hills, separated from one another by low, marshy ground, flooded by the Tiber at high water. These were probably typical Latin walled villages (oppida).
At a very early date some of these villages formed a religious union commemorated in the festival of the Septimontium or Seven Mounts. These montes were crests of the Palatine, Esquiline and Caelian hills, perhaps each the site of a separate settlement.
But the earliest city to which we can with certainty give the name of Rome is of later date than the establishment of the Septimontium. It is the Rome of the Four Regions—the Palatina, Esquilina, Col[pg 27]lina and Sucusana (later Suburana)—which included the Quirinal, Viminal, Esquiline, Caelian and Palatine hills, as well as the intervening low ground. Within the boundary of this city, but not included in the four regions, was the Capitoline, which had separate fortifications and served as the citadel (arx). It may be that the organization of this city of the Four Regions was effected by Etruscan conquerors, for the name Roma seems to be of Etruscan origin, and, for the Romans, an urbs, as they called Rome, was merely an oppidum of which the limits had been marked out according to Etruscan ritual. The consecrated boundary line drawn in this manner was called the pomerium.
The Aventine Hill, as well as the part of the plateau back of the Esquiline, was only brought within the city walls in the fourth century, and remained outside the pomerium until the time of Claudius.
The location of Rome, on the Tiber at a point where navigation for sea-going vessels terminated and where an island made easy the passage from bank to bank, marked it as a place of commercial importance. It was at the same time the gateway between Latium and Etruria and the natural outlet for the trade of the Tiber valley. Furthermore, its central position in the Italian peninsula gave it a strategic advantage in its wars for the conquest of Italy. But the greatness of Rome was not the result of its geographic advantages: it was the outgrowth of the energy and political capacity of its people, qualities which became a national heritage because of the character of the early struggles of the Roman state.
Although it is very probable that the historic population of Rome was the result of a fusion of several racial elements—Latin, Sabine, Etruscan, and even pre-Italian, nevertheless the Romans were essentially a Latin people. In language, in religion, in political institutions, they were characteristically Latin, and their history is inseparably connected with that of the Latins as a whole.
The tradition. The traditional story of the founding of Rome is mainly the work of Greek writers of the third century B. C., who desired to find a link between the new world-power Rome and the older centers of civilization: while the account of the reign of the [pg 28]Seven Kings is a reconstruction on the part of Roman annalists and antiquarians, intended to explain the origins of Roman political and religious institutions. And, in fact, owing to the absence of any even relatively contemporaneous records (a lack from which the Roman historians suffered as well as ourselves) it is impossible to attempt an historical account of the period of kingly rule. We can improve but little on the brief statement of Tacitus (i, 1 Ann.)—“At first kings ruled the city Rome.”
The kingship. The existence of the kingship itself is beyond dispute, owing to the strength of the Roman tradition on this point and the survival of the title rex or king in the priestly office of rex sacrorum. It seems certain, too, that the last of the Roman kings were Etruscans and belong to the period of Etruscan domination in Rome and Latium. As far as can be judged, the Roman monarchy was not purely hereditary but elective within the royal family, like that of the primitive Greek states, where the king was the head of one of a group of noble families, chosen by the nobles and approved by the people as a whole. About the end of the sixth century the kingship was deprived of its political functions, and remained at Rome solely as a lifelong priestly office. It is possible that there had been a gradual decline of the royal authority before the growing power of the nobles as had been the case at Athens, but it is very probable that the final step in this change coincided with the fall of an Etruscan dynasty and the passing of the control of the state into the hands of the Latin nobility (about 508 B. C.).
Institutions of the regal period. The royal power was not absolute, for the exercise thereof was tempered by custom, by the lack of any elaborate machinery of government, and by the practical necessity for the king to avoid alienating the good will of the community. The views of the aristocracy were voiced in the Senate (senatus) or Council of Elders, which developed into a council of nobles, a body whose functions were primarily advisory in character. From a very early date the Roman people were divided into thirty groups called curiae, and these curiae served as the units in the organization of the oldest popular assembly—the comitia curiata. Membership in the curiae was probably hereditary, and each curia had its special cult, which was maintained long after the curiae had lost their political importance. The primitive assembly of the curiae was convoked at the pleasure of the king to hear matters of interest [pg 29]to the whole community. It did not have legislative power, but such important steps as the declaration of war or the appointment of a new rex required its formal sanction.
Expansion under the kings. Under the kings Rome grew to be the chief city in Latium, having absorbed several smaller Latin communities in the immediate neighborhood, extended her territory on the left bank of the Tiber to the seacoast, where the seaport of Ostia was founded, and even conquered Alba Longa, the former religious center of the Latins. It is possible that by the end of the regal period Rome exercised a general suzerainty over the cities of the Latin plain. The period of Etruscan domination failed to alter the Latin character of the Roman people and left its traces chiefly in official paraphernalia, religious practices (such as the employment of haruspices), military organization, and in Etruscan influences in Roman art.
The Populus Romanus. The oldest name of the Romans was Quirites, a name which long survived in official phraseology, but which was superseded by the name Romani, derived from that of the city itself. The whole body of those who were eligible to render military service, to participate in the public religious rites and to attend the meetings of the popular assembly, with their families, constituted the Roman state—the populus Romanus.
Patricians and Plebeians. At the close of the regal period the populus Romanus comprised two distinct social and political classes. These were the Patricians and the Plebeians. A very considerable element of the latter class was formed by the Clients. These class distinctions had grown up gradually under the economic and social influences of the early state; and, in antiquity, were not confined to Rome but appeared in many of the Greek communities also at a similar stage of their development.
The Patricians were the aristocracy. Their influence rested upon their wealth as great landholders, their superiority in military equipment and training, their clan organization, and the support of their clients. Their position in the community assured to them political control, and they had early monopolized the right to sit in the Senate. The members of the Senate were called collectively patres, whence the name patricii (patricians) was given to all the members of their [pg 30]class. The patricians formed a group of many gentes, or clans, each an association of households (familiae) who claimed descent from a common ancestor. Each member of a gens bore the gentile name and had a right to participate in its religious practices (sacra).
Patrons and clients. Apparently, the clients were tenants who tilled the estates of the patricians, to whom they stood for a long time in a condition of economic and political dependence. Each head of a patrician household was the patron of the clients who resided on his lands. The clients were obliged to follow their patrons to war and to the political arena, to render them respectful attention, and, on occasion, pecuniary support. The patron, in his turn, was obliged to protect the life and interests of his client. For either patron or client to fail in his obligations was held to be sacrilege. This relationship, called patronatus on the side of the patron, clientela on that of the client, was hereditary on both sides. The origin of this form of clientage is uncertain and it is impossible for us to form a very exact idea of position of the clients in the early Roman state, for the like-named institution of the historic republican period is by no means the one that prevailed at the end of the monarchy. The older, serf-like, conditions had disappeared; the relationship was voluntarily assumed, and its obligations, now of a much less serious nature, depended for their observance solely upon the interest of both parties.
The patrician aristocracy formed a social caste, the product of a long period of social development, and this caste was enlarged in early times by the recognition of new gentes as possessing the qualifications of the older clans (patres maiorum and minorum gentium). But eventually it became a closed order, jealous of its prerogatives and refusing to intermarry with the non-patrician element.
The Plebs. This latter constituted the plebeians or plebs. They were free citizens—the less wealthy landholders, tradesmen, craftsmen, and laborers—who lacked the right to sit in the Senate and so had no direct share in the administration. Beyond question, however, they were included in the curiae and had the right to vote in the comitia curiata. Nor is there any proof of a racial difference between plebeians and patricians. It is not easy to determine to what degree the clients participated in the political life of the community, yet, in the general use of the term, the plebs included the clients, who later, under the republic, shared in all the privileges won by the [pg 31]plebeians and who, consequently, must have had the status of plebeians in the eye of the state.
The sharp social and political distinction between nobles and commons, between patricians and plebeians, is the outstanding feature of early Roman society, and affords the clue to the political development of the early republican period.
[pg 32]The alliance of Rome and the Latin League, about 486 B. C. At the close of the regal period Rome appears as the chief city in Latium, controlling a territory of some 350 sq. miles to the south of the Tiber. But the fall of the monarchy somewhat weakened the position of Rome, for it brought on hostilities with the Etruscan prince Lars Porsena of Clusium, which resulted in a defeat for Rome and the forced acceptance of humiliating conditions.
This defeat naturally broke down whatever suzerainty Rome may have exercised over Latium and necessitated a readjustment of the relations between Rome and the Latin cities. A treaty attributed by tradition to Spurius Cassius was finally concluded between Rome on the one hand and the Latin league on the other, which fixed the relations of the two parties for nearly one hundred and fifty years. By this agreement the Romans and the Latin league formed an offensive and defensive military alliance, each party contributing equal contingents for joint military enterprises and dividing the spoils of war, while the Latins at Rome and the Romans in the Latin cities enjoyed the private rights of citizenship. The small people called the Hernici, situated to the east of Latium, were early included in this alliance. This union was cemented largely through the common dangers which threatened the dwellers in the Latin plain from the Etruscans on the north and the highland Italian peoples to the east and south. For Rome it was of importance that the Latin cities interposed a barrier between the territory of Rome and her most aggressive foes, the Aequi and the Volsci.
Wars with the Aequi and Volsci. Of the details of these early wars we know practically nothing. However, archæological evidence seems to show that about the beginning of the fifth century B. C. the [pg 34]Latins sought an outlet for their surplus population in the Volscian land to the south east. Here they founded the settlements of Signia, Norba and Satricum. But this expansion came to a halt, and about the middle of the fifth century the Volsci still held their own as far north as the vicinity of Antium, while the Aequi were in occupation of the Latin plain as far west as Tusculum and Mt. Algidus. Towards the end of the century, however, under Roman leadership the Latins resumed their expansion at the expense of both these peoples.
Veii. In addition to these frequent but not continuous wars, the Romans had to sustain a serious conflict with the powerful Etruscan city of Veii, situated about 12 miles to the north of Rome, across the Tiber. The causes of the struggle are uncertain, but war broke out in 402, shortly after the Romans had gained possession of Fidenae, a town which controlled a crossing of the Tiber above the city of Rome. According to tradition the Romans maintained a blockade of Veii for eleven years before it fell into their hands. It was in the course of this war that the Romans introduced the custom of paying their troops, a practice which enabled them to keep a force under arms throughout the entire year if necessary. Veii was destroyed, its population sold into slavery, and its territory incorporated in the public land of Rome. By this annexation the area of the Roman state was nearly doubled.
Recent excavations have shown that Veii was a place of importance from the tenth to the end of the fifth century B. C., that Etruscan influence became predominant there in the course of the eighth century, and that, at the time of its destruction, it was a flourishing town, which, like Rome itself, was in contact with the Greek cultural influences then so powerful throughout the Italian peninsula.
The Gauls in the Po Valley. But scarcely had the Romans emerged victorious from the contest with Veii when a sudden disaster overtook them from an unexpected quarter. Towards the close of the fifth century various Celtic tribes crossed the Alpine passes and swarmed down into the Po valley. These Gauls overcame and drove out the Etruscans, and occupied the land from the Ticinus and Lake Maggiore southeastwards to the Adriatic between the mouth of the Po and Ancona. This district was subsequently known as Gallia [pg 35]Cisalpina. The Gauls formed a group of eight tribes, which were often at enmity with one another. Each tribe was divided into many clans, and there was continual strife between the factions of the various chieftains. They were a barbarous people, living in rude villages and supporting themselves by cattle-raising and agriculture of a primitive sort. Drunkenness and love of strife were their characteristic vices: war and oratory their passions. In stature they were very tall; their eyes were blue and their hair blond. Brave to recklessness, they rushed naked into battle, and the ferocity of their first assault inspired terror even in the ranks of veteran armies. Their weapons were long, two-edged swords of soft iron, which frequently bent and were easily blunted, and small wicker shields. Their armies were undisciplined mobs, greedy for plunder, but disinclined to prolonged, strenuous effort, and utterly unskilled in siege operations. These weaknesses nullified the effects of their victories in the field and prevented their occupation of Italy south of the Apennines.
The sack of Rome. In 387 B. C., a horde of these marauders crossed the Apennines and besieged Clusium. Thence, angered, as was said, by the hostile actions of Roman ambassadors, they marched directly upon Rome. The Romans marched out with all their forces and met the Gauls near the Allia, a small tributary of the Tiber above Fidenae. The fierce onset of the Gauls drove the Roman army in disorder from the field. Many were slain in the rout and the majority of the survivors were forced to take refuge within the ruined fortifications of Veii. Deprived of their help and lacking confidence in the weak and ill-planned walls, the citizen body evacuated Rome itself and fled to the neighboring towns. The Capitol, however, with its separate fortifications, was left with a small garrison. The Gauls entered Rome and sacked the city, but failed to storm the citadel. Apparently they had no intention of settling in Latium and therefore, after a delay of seven months, upon information that the Veneti were attacking their new settlements in the Po valley, they accepted a ransom of 1000 pounds of gold (about $225,000) for the city and marched off home. The Romans at once reoccupied and rebuilt their city, and soon after provided it with more adequate defences in the new wall of stone later known as the Servian wall.
Later Gallic invasions. For some years the Gauls ceased their inroads, but in 368 another raid brought them as far as Alba in the land of the Aequi, and the Romans feared to attack the invaders. [pg 36]However, when a fresh horde appeared in 348 the Romans were prepared. They and their allies blocked the foe’s path, and the Gauls retreated, fearing to risk a battle. Rome thus became the successful champion of the Italian peoples, their bulwark against the barbarian invaders from the north. In 334 the Gauls and the Romans concluded peace and entered upon a period of friendly relations which lasted for the rest of the fourth century.
Wars with the Aequi, Volsci, and Etruscans. The disaster that overtook Rome created a profound impression throughout the civilized world and was noted by contemporary Greek writers. But the blow left no permanent traces, for only the city, not the state, had been destroyed. It is true that, encouraged by their enemy’s defeat, the Aequi, Volsci and the Etruscan cities previously conquered by Rome took up arms, but each met defeat in turn. Rome retained and consolidated her conquests in southern Etruria. Part of the land was allotted to Romans for settlement and four tribal districts were organized there. On the remainder, two Latin colonies, Sutrium (383) and Nepete (372), were founded. The territory won from the Volsci was treated in like manner.
In 354 the Romans concluded an alliance with the Samnite peoples of the south central Apennines. Probably this agreement was reached in view of the common fear of Gallic invasions and because both parties were at war with the smaller peoples dwelling between Latium and Campania, so that a delimitation of their respective spheres of action was deemed advisable. At any rate, it was in the course of the next few years that Rome completely subdued the Volsci and Aurunci, while the Samnites overran the land of the Sidicini.
The Latin War, 338–336 B. C. Not long afterwards, the Latins, allied with the Campanians, were at war with Rome. Even before this, subsequent to the Gallic capture of Rome, the Romans had fought with individual Latin cities, but now practically all the cities of the Latin league were in arms against them. It is possible that both Latins and Campanians felt their independence threatened by the expansion and alliance of the Romans and the Samnites and that [pg 37]this was the underlying cause of hostilities. However that may be, within two years the Latins had been completely subdued. The Latin league ceased to exist. The individual cities, except Tibur and Praeneste, lost their independence and were incorporated in the Roman state. These two cities preserved their autonomy and concluded new treaties with Rome.
Alliance with the Campanians, about 334 B. C. At about the same time, the majority of the cities of Campania, including Capua, concluded an alliance with Rome upon the conditions of the Roman alliance with the old Latin league. These cities retained their independence, and extended and received the rights of commercium and connubium with Rome. This meant that the citizen of one city could transact any business in another that was party to this agreement with the assurance that his contract would be protected by the law of the second city, while if he married a woman of that city his children would be considered legitimate heirs to his property. By virtue of this close alliance, the military resources of Campania were arrayed on the side of Rome, and Rome and Campania presented a united front against their common foes. The Roman sphere of influence was thus extended as far south as the Bay of Naples.
After the Latin war, the territory previously won from the Volsci and Aurunci was largely occupied by settlements of Roman citizens or by Latin colonies, for even after the dissolution of the Latin league the Romans made use of this type of colony to secure their conquests, as well as to relieve the surplus population of Rome and Latium.
The conflict of Rome and the Samnites in Campania. The alliance of Rome and Campania brought the Romans into immediate contact with the Samnites and converted these former friends into enemies, since the Samnites regarded Campania as their legitimate field for expansion and refused to submit to its passing under the aegis of Rome. However, they had been unable to prevent the union of Rome with Capua and other cities, for at the time they were engaged with another enemy, the Tarentines, who were assisted by Alexander, king of the Molossians (334–331).
The Samnites formed a loose confederacy of kindred peoples, with [pg 38]no strong central authority. Therefore, although bold and skilful warriors, they were at a disadvantage in a long struggle where unity of control and continuity of policy became of decisive importance. Here Rome had the advantage, an advantage that was increased by the alliances Rome was able to form in the course of her wars against this enemy. For generations the excess population of the Samnite valleys had regularly overflowed into the lowland coast areas, and such migrations had given rise to the Lucanians, Bruttians, and a large part of the Campanians themselves. However, the danger of being submerged by fresh waves of Samnites caused the peoples whose territories bordered on Samnium to look to Rome for support, and so Rome found allies in the Central Italian peoples, and in the Apulians and the Lucanians.
The beginning of hostilities, 325–4. Hostilities broke out over the occupation of Naples by the Romans and its incorporation in the Roman alliance. This step was taken in the interests of the party in the city that sought Roman protection, and was accomplished in spite of Samnite opposition. The war was waged chiefly in Campania, in the valley of the upper Liris, and in Apulia. In 318, a Roman army attempting to penetrate from Campania into Samnium was cut off and compelled to surrender at the Caudine Pass. It is probable that as a result of this defeat the Romans gave up Fregellae (occupied in 328) and other territory on the Liris, and they may even have made a temporary truce. However, hostilities were soon resumed. Once again, in 314, the Samnites won a great victory, this time at Lautulae not far south of Circeii, and their party acquired control in Campania. But this temporary success was quickly counterbalanced by Roman victories in Campanian territory.
The war was prolonged by an Etruscan attack upon Roman territory that necessitated a division of the Roman forces. But in two campaigns (309–7 B. C.), in the course of which a Roman army advanced through Umbria and invaded northern Etruria, the cities which had taken up arms against Rome were forced to make peace.
The war against the Samnites could be energetically prosecuted again. By the construction of the Via Appia the Romans secured a military highway from Rome to Capua which greatly facilitated the conduct of operations in Campania. It is probable, too, that the reorganization of the Roman army, which dates from this period, was beginning to bear fruit. From both Campania and Apulia the [pg 39]Romans took the offensive, and several severe defeats forced the Samnites to seek peace in 304. They retained their independence, but the disputed territory on their borders fell to Rome.
It was about the close of this war that the Aequi, Marsi, Marrucini, Frentani, Paeligni, some of the Umbrians, and other of the peoples of Central Italy became federate allies of Rome. Apulia likewise passed under Roman control. New Latin colonies and new tribal districts marked the expansion of Roman territory.
Wars with the Samnites, Gauls and Etruscans, 298–80 B. C. In 298 war broke out again between the Romans and Samnites, apparently because the Lucanians had deserted the Roman alliance for the Samnites. Soon the Samnites allied themselves with the Etruscans and Gauls, and succeeded in uniting the forces of the three peoples in Umbria. But this host was annihilated by the Romans in the battle of Sentinum (295). With this victory all danger for Rome was over. By systematically ravaging the enemy’s country the Roman consuls in 290 B. C. forced the Samnites to sue for peace. They entered the Roman alliance, and a portion of their land was incorporated in the ager publicus of Rome. A similar fate overtook the Sabines and Picentes, who had taken sides with the Samnites.
The war with the Etruscans and the Gauls still dragged on. But in 285, after suffering a severe blow at the hands of the Gallic Senones, the Romans took vigorous action and drove this people from the land between Ancona and the Rubicon—the ager Gallicus. In the same year the tribe of the Boii, with Etruscan allies, penetrated as far as the Vadimonian Lake, where the Romans inflicted upon them a crushing defeat. Another Roman victory in the next year brought the Boii to terms, and soon the Etruscan cities one by one submitted to Rome, until by 280 all were Roman allies.
Italians and Greeks in South Italy. The only parts of the peninsula that had not yet acknowledged the Roman overlordship were the lands of the Lucanians and Bruttians and the few Greek cities in the south that still maintained their independence. Of these latter the chief was Tarentum, a city of considerable commercial importance. From the middle of the fourth century these cities had been engaged in continual warfare with the Lucanians and [pg 40]Messapians, and in the course of their struggles Tarentum had come to assume the rôle of protector of the Hellenes in Italy. But even this city had only been able to make head against its foes through assistance obtained from Greece. In 338, King Archidamus of Sparta, and in 331 Alexander, king of Epirus and uncle of Alexander the Great, fell fighting in the service of the Italian Greeks. In 303, Cleonymus of Sparta, more fortunate than his predecessors, compelled the Lucanians to conclude a peace, which probably included the Romans, at that moment their allies. A little later (c. 300 B. C.) Agathocles, king of Syracuse, assisted the Tarentines against the same foe, and incorporated in his own kingdom the Bruttians and the Greek cities in the southwest. But with his death in 289, his kingdom, like that of Dionysius I, fell apart and the Greeks in the west were left again without a protector. Consequently, when the Lucanians renewed their attacks upon Thurii, that city, being unable to find succor in Greece and distrusting Tarentum, appealed to Rome (282). Rome gave ear to the call, relieved and garrisoned Thurii. But this action brought Roman ships of war into the Gulf of Tarentum contrary to an agreement between the two cities (perhaps that of 303). Enraged, the Tarentines attacked the Roman fleet, sank some Roman triremes, and then occupied Thurii. The ensuing Roman demands for reparation were rejected, their ambassadors insulted, and war began (281).
The war with Pyrrhus and Tarentum. The Tarentines were able to unite against Rome the Messapians, Lucanians, Samnites and Bruttians, but Roman successes in the first campaign forced them to call in the aid of Pyrrhus, king of Epirus. Pyrrhus was probably the most skilful Greek general of the time, and he brought with him into Italy an army organized and equipped according to the Macedonian system of Alexander the Great, which had become the standard in the Greek world. His force comprised 20,000 heavy-armed infantry forming the phalanx, and 3,000 Thessalian cavalry. Besides, he had a number of war elephants; animals which had figured on Greek battlefields since Ipsus (301). The first engagement was fought near Heraclea (280) and after a severe struggle the Romans were driven from the field. The superior generalship of Pyrrhus, and the consternation caused by his war elephants, won the day, but his losses were very heavy, and he himself was wounded. As fighters the Romans had shown themselves the equal of the foe, and their [pg 41]tactical organization, perfected in the Samnite Wars, had proved its value in its first encounter with that developed by the military experts of Greece. As a result of his victory at Heraclea, Pyrrhus was able to advance as far north as Latium, but withdrew again without accomplishing anything of importance. The next year, he won another hard-fought battle near Ausculum in Apulia. Thereupon the Romans began negotiations which Pyrrhus welcomed, sending the orator Cineas to Rome to represent him. But, before an agreement was reached, the Carthaginians, who feared the intervention of Pyrrhus in Sicily, offered the Romans assistance. Their proffer was accepted; the negotiations with Pyrrhus ended; and Rome and Carthage bound themselves not to make a separate agreement with the common foe, while the Carthaginian fleet was to coöperate with the Romans.
Pyrrhus in Sicily, 278–5 B. C. Nevertheless, Pyrrhus determined to answer an appeal from the Sicilian Greeks and to leave Italy for Sicily. After the death of Agathocles, tyrant and king of Syracuse (317–289), who had played the rôle of another Dionysius I, the Greeks in Sicily had fallen upon evil days. The Carthaginians had renewed their attacks upon them, and a new foe had appeared in the Mamertini, Campanian mercenary soldiers who had seized Messana and made it their headquarters for raiding the territory of the Greek cities. Caught between these two enemies, the Greeks appealed to Pyrrhus who came to their aid, possibly with the hope of uniting Sicily under his own control. His success was immediate. The Carthaginians were forced to give up all their possessions except Lilybaeum, and Pyrrhus stood ready to carry the war into Africa. But, at this juncture, the exactions that he laid upon his Sicilian allies and their fear that his victory would make him their permanent master caused them to desert his cause and make peace with their foes. Deprived of their assistance, and seeing that his allies in Italy were hard pressed by the Romans, he abandoned his Sicilian venture.
The end of the war. Pyrrhus returned to Italy, with the loss of his fleet in a naval battle with the Carthaginians, reorganized his forces, and advanced into Lucania or Samnium to meet the Romans. While manœuvering for an attack, one of his divisions sustained a severe repulse at Beneventum (275), whereupon he abandoned the offensive and retired to Tarentum. Leaving a garrison in that city [pg 42]he withdrew the rest of his forces to Greece, with the intention of attacking Antigonus Gonatas in Macedonia. His initial successes in this enterprise led him to withdraw his garrison from Tarentum and abandon the Western Greeks to their fate. Thereupon the Romans soon reduced the Samnites and Lucanians, while Tarentum and the other Greek cities, one after another, were forced to submit and enter the Roman alliance. By 270 B. C., all South Italy had in this way been added to the Roman dominions.
By 265 B. C. after a few more brief struggles with revolting or still unsubdued communities in central and northern Italy, the Romans had completed the subjugation of the entire Italian peninsula.
Roman foreign policy. By wars and alliances Rome had united Italy. But it is not to be supposed that this was a goal consistently pursued through many generations by Roman statesmen. Probably it was not until the end was nearly within sight that the Romans realized whither their policy was leading them. Indeed, it is certain that many of Rome’s wars were waged in defence of Rome’s territory or that of the Roman allies. This seems particularly true of the period prior to the Gallic inroad of 387. According to the ancient Roman formula employed in declaring war, that uttered by the Fetiales, war was looked upon as the last means to obtain reparation for wrongs that were suffered at the hands of the enemy. Yet, although the Roman attitude in such matters was doubtless at one time sincere, we may well question how long this sincerity continued, and whether the injuries complained of were not sometimes the result of Roman provocation. Such attempts to place the moral responsibility for a war upon the enemy are common to all ages and are not always convincing. However, if we may not convict the Romans of aggressive imperialism prior to 265, at any rate the methods which they pursued in their relations with the other peoples of Italy made their domination inevitable in view of the Roman national character and their political and military organization. These methods early became established maxims of Roman foreign policy. The Romans, whenever possible, waged even their defensive wars offensively, and rarely made peace save with a beaten foe. As a rule, the enemy was forced to conclude a treaty with Rome which [pg 43]placed his forces at the disposal of the Roman state. This treaty was regarded as perpetually binding, and any attempt to break off the relationship it established was regarded as a casus belli. Possibly, the Romans looked upon this as the only policy which would guarantee peace on their borders, but it inevitably led to further wars, for it resulted in the continuous extension of the frontiers defended by Rome and so continually brought Rome into contact and conflict with new peoples. Nor were the voluntary allies of Rome allowed to leave the Roman alliance: such action was treated as equivalent to a declaration of war and regularly punished with severity. This practice gradually transformed Rome’s independent into dependent allies. From the middle of the fourth century, it seems that Rome deliberately sought to prevent the development of a strong state in the southern part of Italy, and to this end gladly took under her protection weaker communities that felt themselves threatened by stronger neighbors, although such action inevitably led to war with the latter. Furthermore, a conquered state frequently lost a considerable part of its territory. Portions of this land were set aside for the foundation of fortress colonies to protect the Roman conquests and overawe the conquered. The rest was incorporated in the ager Romanus to the profit of both the rich proprietors and the landless citizens. Usually, the Roman soldiers shared directly in the distribution of the movable spoils of war; sometimes a huge booty, as after the subjugation of the Sabines and Picentes in 290. A long series of successful and profitable wars, for Rome was ultimately victorious in every struggle after 387, had engendered in the Roman people a self-confidence and a martial spirit which soon led them to conquests beyond the confines of Italy. During this period of expansion within Italy, Roman policy had been guided by the Senate, a body of unrecorded statesmen of wide outlook and great determination, who not only made Rome mistress of the peninsula but succeeded in laying enduring foundations for the Roman power.
Rome and Italy. But although Italy was united under the Roman hegemony it by no means formed a single state. Rather it was an agglomerate of many states and many peoples, speaking different tongues and having different political institutions. The largest single element, however, was formed by the Roman citizens. These were to be found not only in the city of Rome and its immediate neighborhood, but also settled in the rural tribal districts (35 in [pg 44]number after 241) organized on conquered territory throughout the peninsula. In addition, groups of 300 citizens had been settled in various harbor towns as a sort of resident garrison to protect Roman interests. In all, down to 183 B. C., 22 of these maritime colonies were established, whose members in view of their special duties were excused from active service with the Roman legions. All these were full Roman citizens, but there were others who, while enjoying the private rights of Roman citizenship, lacked the right to vote or to hold office (cives sine suffragio). Such were the inhabitants of most of the old Latin communities and some others which had been absorbed in the Roman state. Such communities were called municipia (municipalities). Some of these were permitted to retain their own magistrates and city organization: others lacked this privilege of local autonomy. Of the former class, Gabii, conquered during the monarchy, is said to have been the prototype. This municipal system had the advantage of providing for local administration and at the same time reconciling the conquered city to the loss of its freedom. It was a distinctly Roman institution, and shows the wisdom of the early Roman statesmen who thus marked out the way for the complete absorption of the vanquished into the Roman citizen body, which was thus strengthened to meet its continually increasing military burdens. By 265, the Roman territory in Italy had an area of about 10,000 square miles. It extended along the west coast from the neighborhood of Caere southwards to the southern border of Campania, and from the latitude of Rome it stretched northeastwards through the territory of the Sabini to the Adriatic coast, where the lands of the Picentes and the Senones had been incorporated in the ager Romanus.
The Latin colonies. Of the non-Romans in Italy the people most closely bound to Rome by ties of blood and common interests were the Latin allies. Outside the few old Latin cities, that had not been absorbed by Rome in 338, these were the inhabitants of the Latin colonies, of which thirty-five were founded on Italian soil. Prior to the destruction of the Latin League seven of these colonies had been established, whose settlers had been drawn half from the Latin cities and half from Rome. After 338, these colonies remained in alliance with Rome, and those subsequently founded received the same status. But for these the colonists were all supplied by Rome. These colonists had to surrender their Roman citizenship and become [pg 45]Latins, but if any one of them left a son of military age in his place he had the right to return to Rome. Each colony had its own administration, usually modelled upon that of Rome, and enjoyed the rights of commercium and connubium both with Rome and with the other Latin colonies. These settlements were towns of considerable size, having 2,500, 4,000 or 6,000 colonists, each of whom received a grant of 30 or 50 iugera (20 or 34 acres) of land. Founded at strategic points on conquered territory, they formed one of the strongest supports of the Roman authority: at the same time colonization of this character served to relieve over-population and satisfy land-hunger in Rome and Latium. In all their internal affairs the Latin cities were sovereign communities, possessing, in addition to their own laws and magistrates, the rights of coinage and census. Their inhabitants constituted the nomen Latinum, and, unlike the Roman cives sine suffragio, did not serve in the Roman legions but formed separate detachments of horse and foot.
The Italian allies. The rest of the peoples of Italy, Italian, Greek, Illyrian and Etruscan, formed the federate allies of Rome—the socii Italici. These constituted some 150 separate communities, city or tribal, each bound to Rome by a special treaty (foedus), whereby its specific relations to Rome were determined. In all these treaties, however, there was one common feature, namely, the obligation to lend military aid to Rome and to surrender to Rome the control over their diplomatic relations with other states. Their troops were not incorporated in the legions, but were organized as separate infantry and cavalry units (cohortes and alae), raised, equipped and officered by the communities themselves. However, they were under the orders of the Roman generals, and if several allied detachments were combined in one corps the whole was under a Roman officer. The allied troops, moreover, received their subsistence from Rome and shared equally with the Romans in the spoils of war. In the case of the seaboard towns, especially the Greek cities, this military obligation took the form of supplying ships and their crews, whence these towns were called naval allies (socii navales). All the federate allies had commercium, and the majority connubium also, with Rome. Apart from the foregoing obligations towards Rome, each of the allied communities was autonomous, having its own language, laws and political institutions.
However, a strong bond of sympathy existed between the local [pg 46]aristocracies of many of the Italian towns and the senatorial order at Rome. As we have seen, the foreign relations of Rome were directed by the Senate, which represented the views of the wealthier landed proprietors, and it was only natural that the senators should have sought to ally themselves with the corresponding social class in other states. This class represented the more conservative, and, from the Roman point of view, more dependable element, while the support of Rome assured to the local aristocracies the control within their own communities. Consequently there developed a community of interest between the Senate and the propertied classes among the Roman allies.
Thus Rome was at the head of a military and diplomatic alliance of many separate states, whose sole point of contact was that each was in alliance with Rome. As yet there was no such thing as an Italian nation. Still it was from the time that this unity was effected that the name Italia began to be applied to the whole of the peninsula and the term Italici was employed, at first by foreigners, but later by themselves, to designate its inhabitants.1