[9.1] After Romulus had distinguished those of superior rank from their inferiors, he next established laws by which the duties of each were prescribed. The patricians were to be priests, magistrates and judges, and were to assist him in the management of public affairs, devoting themselves to the business of the city. The plebeians were excused from these duties, as being unacquainted with them and because of their small means wanting leisure to attend to them, but were to apply themselves to agriculture, the breeding of cattle and the exercise of gainful trades. This was to prevent them from engaging in seditions, as happens in other cities when either the magistrates mistreat the lowly, or the common people and the needy envy those in authority. [2] He placed the plebeians as a trust in the hands of the patricians, by allowing every plebeian to choose for his patron any patrician whom he himself wished. In this he improved upon an ancient Greek custom that was in use among the Thessalians for a long time and among the Athenians in the beginning. For the former treated their clients with haughtiness, imposing on them duties unbecoming to free men; and whenever they disobeyed any of their commands, they beat them and misused them in all other respects as if had been slaves they had purchased. The Athenians called their clients thêtes or “hirelings,” because they served for hire, and the Thessalians called theirs penestai or “toilers,” by the very name reproaching them with their condition. [3] But Romulus not only recommended the relationship by a handsome designation, calling this protection of the poor and lowly a “patronage,” but he also assigned friendly offices to both parties, thus making the connexion between them a bond of kindness befitting fellow citizens.
[10] The regulations which he then instituted concerning patronage and which long continued in use among the Romans were as follows: It was the duty of the patricians to explain to their clients the laws, of which they were ignorant; to take the same care of them when absent as present, doing everything for them that fathers do for their sons with regard both to money and to the contracts that related to money; to bring suit on behalf of their clients when they were wronged in connexion with contracts, and to defend them against any who brought charges against them; and, to put the matter briefly, to secure for them both in private and in public affairs all that tranquillity of which they particularly stood in need. [2] It was the duty of the clients to assist their patrons in providing dowries for their daughters upon their marriage if the fathers had not sufficient means; to pay their ransom to the enemy if any of them or of their children were taken prisoner; to discharge out of their own purses their patrons’ losses in private suits and the pecuniary fines which they were condemned to pay to the State, making these contributions to them not as loans but as thank-offerings; and to share with their patrons the costs incurred in their magistracies and dignities and other public expenditures, in the same manner as if they were their relations. [3] For both patrons and clients alike it was impious and unlawful to accuse each other in law-suits or to bear witness or to give their votes against each other or to be found in the number of each other’s enemies; and whoever was convicted of doing any of these things was guilty of treason by virtue of the law sanctioned by Romulus, and might lawfully be put to death by any man who so wished as a victim devoted to the Jupiter of the infernal regions. For it was customary among the Romans, whenever they wished to put people to death without incurring any penalty, to devote their persons to some god or other, and particularly to the gods of the lower world; and this was the course what Romulus then adopted. [4] Accordingly, the connexions between the clients and patrons continued for many generations, differing in no wise from the ties of blood-relationship and being handed down to their children’s children. And it was a matter of great praise to men of illustrious families to have as many clients as possible and not only to preserve the succession of hereditary patronages but also by their own merit to acquire others. And it is incredible how great the contest of goodwill was between the patrons and clients, as each side strove not to be outdone by the other in kindness, the clients feeling that they should render all possible services to their patrons and the patrons wishing by all means not to occasion any trouble to their clients and accepting no gifts of money. So superior was their manner of life to all pleasure; for they measured their happiness by virtue, not by fortune.
[11] It was not only in the city itself that the plebeians were under the protection of the patricians, but every colony of Rome and every city that had joined in alliance and friendship with her and also every city conquered in war had such protectors and patrons among the Romans as they wished. And the senate has often referred the controversies of these cities and nations to their Roman patrons and regarded their decisions binding. [2] And indeed, so secure was the Romans’ harmony, which owed its birth to the regulations of Romulus, that they never in the course of six hundred and thirty years proceeded to bloodshed and mutual slaughter, though many great controversies arose between the populace and their magistrates concerning public policy, as is apt to happen in all cities, whether large or small; [3] but by persuading and informing one another, by yielding in some things and gaining other things from their opponents, who yielded in turn, they settled their disputes in a manner befitting fellow citizens. But from the time that Gaius Gracchus, while holding the tribunician power, destroyed the harmony of the government they have been perpetually slaying and banishing one another from the city and refraining from no irreparable acts in order to gain the upper hand. However, for the narration of these events another occasion will be more suitable.
[12.1] As soon as Romulus had regulated these matters he determined to appoint senators to assist him in administering the public business, and to this end he chose a hundred men from among the patricians, selecting them in the following manner. He himself appointed one, the best out of their whole number, to whom he thought fit to entrust the government of the city whenever he himself should lead the army beyond the borders. [2] He next ordered each of the tribes to choose three men who were then at the age of greatest prudence and were distinguished by their birth. After these nine were chosen he ordered each curia likewise to name three patricians who were the most worthy. Then adding to the first nine, who had been named by the tribes, the ninety who were chosen by the curiae, and appointing as their head the man he himself had first selected, he completed the number of a hundred senators. [3] The name of this council may be expressed in Greek by gerousia or “council of elders,” and it is called by the Romans to this day; but whether it received its name from the advanced age of the men who were appointed to it or from their merit, I cannot say for certain. For the ancients used to call the older men and those of greatest merit gerontes or “elders.” The members of the senate were called Conscript Fathers, and they retained that name down to my time. This council, also, was a Greek institution. [4] At any rate, the Greek kings, both those who inherited the realms of their ancestors and those who were elected by the people themselves to be their rulers, had a council composed of the best men, as both Homer and the most ancient of the poets testify; and the authority of the ancient kings was not arbitrary and absolute as it is in our days.
[13.1] After Romulus had also instituted the senatorial body, consisting of the hundred men, he perceived, we may suppose, that he would also require a body of young men whose services he could use both for the guarding of his person and for urgent business, and accordingly he chose three hundred men, the most robust of body and from the most illustrious families, whom the curiae named in the same manner that they had named the senators, each curia choosing ten young men; and these he kept always about his person. [2] They were all called by one common name, celeres; according to most writers this was because of the “celerity” required in the services they were to perform (for those who are ready and quick at their tasks the Romans call celeres), but Valerius Antias says that they were thus named after their commander. [3] For among them, also, the most distinguished man was their commander; under him were three centurions, and under these in
turn were others who held the inferior commands. In the city these celeres constantly attended Romulus, armed with spears, and executed his orders; and on campaigns they charged before him and defended his person. And as a rule it was they who gave a favourable issue to the contest, as they were the first to engage in battle and the last of all to desist. They fought on horseback where there was level ground favourable for cavalry manoeuvres, and on foot where it was rough and inconvenient for horses. [4] This custom Romulus borrowed, I believe, from the Lacedaemonians, having learned that among them, also, three hundred of the noblest youths attended the kings as their guards and also as their defenders in war, fighting both on horseback and on foot.
[14.1] Having made these regulations, he distinguished the honours and powers which he wished each class to have. For the king he had reserved these prerogatives: in the first place, the supremacy in religious ceremonies and sacrifices and the conduct of everything relating to the worship of the gods; secondly, the guardianship of the laws and customs of the country and the general oversight of justice in all cases, whether founded on the law of nature or the civil law; he was also the judge in person the greatest crimes, leaving the lesser to the senators, but seeing to it that no error was made in their decisions; he was to summon the senate and call together the popular assembly, to deliver his opinion first and carry out the decision of the majority. These prerogatives he granted to the king and, in addition, the absolute command in war. [2] To the senate he assigned honour and authority as follows: to deliberate and give their votes concerning everything the king should refer to them, the decision of the majority to prevail. This also Romulus took over from the constitution of the Lacedaemonians; for their kings, too, did not have arbitrary power to do everything they wished, but the gerousia exercised complete control of public affairs. [3] To the populace he granted these three privileges: to choose magistrates, to ratify laws, and to decide concerning war whenever the king left the decision to them; yet even in these matters their authority was not unrestricted, since the concurrence of the senate was necessary to give effect to their decisions. The people did not give their votes all at the same time, but were summoned to meet by curiae, and whatever was resolved upon by the majority of the curiae was reported to the senate. But in our day this practice is reversed, since the senate does not deliberate upon the resolutions passed by the people, but the people have full power over the decrees of the senate; and which of the two customs is better I leave it open to others to determine. [4] By this division of authority not only were the civil affairs administered in a prudent and orderly manner, but the business of war also was carried on with dispatch and strict obedience. For whenever the king thought proper to lead out his army there was then no necessity for tribunes to be chosen by tribes, or centurions by centuries, or commanders of the horse appointed, nor was it necessary for the army to be numbered or to be divided into centuries or for every man to be assigned to his appropriate post. But the king gave his orders to the tribunes and these to the centurions and they in turn to the decurions, each of whom led out those who were under his command; and whether the whole army or part of it was called, at a single summons they presented themselves ready with arms in hand at the designated post.
[15.1] By these institutions Romulus sufficiently regulated and suitably disposed the city both for peace and for war: and he made it large and populous by the following means. [2] In the first place, he obliged the inhabitants to bring up all their male children and the first-born of the females, and forbade them to destroy any children under three years of age unless they were maimed or monstrous from their very birth. These he did not forbid their parents to expose, provided they first showed them to their five nearest neighbours and these also approved. Against those who disobeyed this law he fixed various penalties, including the confiscation of half their property. [3] Secondly, finding that many of the cities in Italy were very badly governed, both by tyrannies and by oligarchies, he undertook to welcome and attract to himself the fugitives from these cities, who were very numerous, paying no regard either to their calamities or to their fortunes, provided only they were free men. His purpose was to increase the power of the Romans and to lessen that of their neighbours; but he invented a specious pretext for his course, making it appear that he was showing honour to a god. [4] For he consecrated the place between the Capitol and the citadel which is now called in the language of the Romans “the space between the two groves,” — a term that was really descriptive at that time of the actual conditions, as the place was shaded by thick woods on both sides where it joined the hills, — and made it an asylum for suppliants. And built a temple there, — but to what god or divinity he dedicated it I cannot say for certain, — he engaged, under the colour of religion, to protect those who fled to it from suffering any harm at the hands of their enemies; and if they chose to remain with him, he promised them citizenship and a share of the land he should take from the enemy. And people came flocking thither from all parts, fleeing from their calamities at home; nor had they afterwards any thought of removing to any other place, but were held there by daily instances of his sociability and kindness.
[16.1] There was yet a third policy of Romulus, which the Greeks ought to have practised above all others, it being, in my opinion, the best of all political measures, as it laid the most solid foundation for the liberty of the Romans and was no slight factor in raising them to their position of supremacy. It was this: not to slay all the men of military age or to enslave the rest of the population of the cities captured in war or to allow their land to go back to pasturage for sheep, but rather to send settlers thither to possess some part of the country by lot and to make the conquered cities Roman colonies, and even to grant citizenship to some of them. [2] By these and other like measures he made the colony great from a small beginning, as the actual results showed; for the number of those who joined with him in founding Rome did not amount to more than three thousand foot nor quite to three hundred horse, whereas he left behind him when he disappeared from among men forty-six thousand foot and about a thousand horse. [3] Romulus having instituted these measures, not alone the kings who ruled the city after him but also the annual magistrates after them pursued the same policy, with occasional additions, so successfully that the Roman people became inferior in numbers to none of the nations that were accounted the most populous.
[17.1] When I compare the customs of the Greeks with these, I can find no reason to extol either those of the Lacedaemonians or of the Thebans or of the Athenians, who pride themselves most on their wisdom; all of whom, jealous of their noble birth and granting citizenship to none or to very few (I say nothing of the fact that some even expelled foreigners), not only received no advantage from this haughty attitude, but actually suffered the greatest harm because of it. [2] Thus, the Spartans after their defeat at Leuctra, where they lost seventeen hundred men, were no longer able to restore their city to its former position after that calamity, but shamefully abandoned their supremacy. And the Thebans and Athenians through the single disaster at Chaeronea were deprived by the Macedonians not only of the leadership of Greece but at the same time of the liberty they had inherited from their ancestors. [3] But Rome, while engaged in great wars both in Spain and Italy and employed in recovering Sicily and Sardinia, which had revolted, at a time when the situation in Macedonia and Greece had become hostile to her and Carthage was again contending for the supremacy, and when all but a small portion of Italy was not only in open rebellion but was also drawing upon her the Hannibalic war, as it was called, — though surrounded, I say, by so many dangers at one and the same time, Rome was so far from being overcome by these misfortunes that she derived from them a strength even greater than she had had before, being enabled to meet every danger, thanks to the number of her soldiers, and not, as some imagine, to the favour of Fortune; [4] since for all of Fortune’s assistance the city might have been utterly submerged by the single disaster at Cannae, where of six thousand horse only
three hundred and seventy survived, and of eighty thousand foot enrolled in the army of the commonwealth little more than three thousand escaped.
[18.1] It is not only these institutions of Romulus that I admire, but also those which I am going to relate. He understood that the good government of cities was due to certain causes which all statesmen prate of but few succeed in making effective: first, the favour of the gods, the enjoyment of which gives success to men’s every enterprise; next, moderation and justice, as a result of which the citizens, being less disposed to injure one another, are more harmonious, and make honour, rather than the most shameful pleasures, the measure of their happiness; and, lastly, bravery in war, which renders the other virtues also useful to their possessors. [2] And he thought that none of these advantages is the effect of chance, but recognized that good laws and the emulation of worthy pursuits render a State pious, temperate, devoted to justice, and brave in war. He took great care, therefore, to encourage these, beginning with the worship of the gods and genii. He established temples, sacred precincts and altars, arranged for the setting up of statues, determined the representations and symbols of the gods, and declared their powers, the beneficent gifts which they have made to mankind, the particular festivals that should be celebrated in honour of each god or genius, the sacrifices with which they delight to be honoured by men, as well as the holidays, festal assemblies, days of rest, and everything alike of that nature, in all of which he followed the best customs in use among the Greeks. [3] But he rejected all the traditional myths concerning the gods that contain blasphemies or calumnies against them, looking upon these as wicked, useless and indecent, and unworthy, not only of the gods, but even of good men; and he accustomed people both to think and to speak the best of the gods and to attribute to them no conduct unworthy of their blessed nature.
Delphi Complete Works of Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Illustrated) (Delphi Ancient Classics Book 79) Page 13
