[27.1] And not even at this point did the Roman lawgiver stop in giving the father power over the son, but he even allowed him to sell his son, without concerning himself whether this permission might be regarded as cruel and harsher than was compatible with a natural affection. And, — a thing which anyone who has been educated in the lax manners of the Greeks may wonder at above all things and look upon as harsh and tyrannical, — he even gave leave to the father to make a profit by selling his son as often as three times, thereby giving greater power to the father over his son than to the master over his slaves. [2] For a slave who has once been sold and has later obtained his liberty is his own master ever after, but a son who had once been sold by his father, if he became free, came again under his father’s power, and if he was a second time sold and a second time freed, he was still, as at first, his father’s slave; but after the third sale he was freed from his father. [3] This law, whether written or unwritten, — I cannot say positively which, — the kings observed in the beginning, looking upon it as the best of all laws; and after the overthrow of the monarchy, when the Romans first decided to expose in the Forum for the consideration of the whole body of citizens all their ancestral customs and laws, together with those introduced from abroad, to the end that the rights of the people might not be changed as often as the powers of the magistrates, the decemvirs, who were authorized by the people to collect and transcribe the laws, recorded it among the rest, and it now stands on the fourth of the Twelve Tables, as they are called, which they then set up in the Forum. [4] And that the decemvirs, who were appointed after three hundred years to transcribe these laws, did not first introduce this law among the Romans, but that, finding it long before in use, they dared not repeal it, I infer from many other considerations and particularly from the laws of Numa Pompilius, the successor of Romulus, among which there is recorded the following: “If a father gives his son leave to marry a woman who by the laws is to be the sharer of his sacred rites and possessions, he shall no longer have the power of selling his son.” Now he would never have written this unless the father had by all former laws been allowed to sell his sons. [5] But enough has been said concerning these matters, and I desire also to give a summary account of the other measures by which Romulus regulated the lives of the private citizens.
[28.1] Observing that the means by which the whole body of citizens, the greater part of whom are hard to guide, can be induced to lead a life of moderation, to prefer justice to gain, to cultivate perseverance in hardships, and to look upon nothing as more valuable than virtue, is not oral instruction, but the habitual practice of such employments as lead to each virtue, and knowing that the great mass of men come to practise them through necessity rather than choice, and hence, if there is nothing to restrain them, return to their natural disposition, he appointed slaves and foreigners to exercise those trades that are sedentary and mechanical and promote shameful passions, looking upon them as the destroyers and corruptors both of the bodies and souls of all who practise them; and such trades were for a very long time held in disgrace by the Romans and were carried on by none of the native-born citizens. [2] The only employments he left to free men were two, agriculture and warfare; for he observed that men so employed become masters of their appetite, are less entangled in illicit love affairs, and follow that kind of covetousness only which leads them, not to injure one another, but to enrich themselves at the expense of the enemy. But, as he regarded each of these occupations, when separate from the other, as incomplete and conducive to fault-finding, instead of appointing one part of the men to till the land and the other to lay waste the enemy’s country, according to the practice of the Lacedaemonians, he ordered the same persons to exercise the employments both of husbandmen and soldiers. [3] In time of peace he accustomed them to remain at their tasks in the country, except when it was necessary for them to come to market, upon which occasions they were to meet in the city in order to traffic, and to that end he appointed every ninth day for the markets; and when war came he taught them to perform the duties of soldiers and not to yield to others either in the hardships or advantages that war brought. For he divided equally among them the lands, slaves and money that he took from the enemy, and thus caused them to take part cheerfully in his campaigns.
[29.1] In the case of wrongs committed by the citizens against one another he did not permit the trials to be delayed, but caused them to be held promptly, sometimes deciding the suits himself and sometimes referring them to others; and he proportioned the punishment to the magnitude of the crime. Observing, also, that nothing restrains men from all evil actions so effectually as fear, he contrived many things to inspire it, such as the place where he sat in judgment in the most conspicuous part of the Forum, the very formidable appearance of the soldiers who attended him, three hundred in number, and the rods and axes borne by twelve men, who scourged in the Forum those whose offences deserved it and beheaded others in public who were guilty of the greatest crimes. [2] Such then, was the general character of the government established by Romulus; the details I have mentioned are sufficient to enable one to form a judgment of the rest.
[30.1] The other deeds reported of this man, both in his wars and at home, which may be thought deserving of mention in a history are as follows. [2] Inasmuch as many nations that were both numerous and brave in war dwelt round about Rome and none of them was friendly to the Romans, he desired to conciliate them by intermarriages, which, in the opinion of the ancients, was the surest method of cementing friendships; but considering that the cities in question would not of their own accord unite with the Romans, who were just getting settled together in one city, and who neither were powerful by reason of their wealth nor had performed any brilliant exploit, but that they would yield to force if no insolence accompanied such compulsion, he determined, with the approval of Numitor, his grandfather, to bring about the desired intermarriages by a wholesale seizure of virgins. [3] After he had taken this resolution, he first made a vow to the god who presides over secret counsels to celebrate sacrifices and festivals every year if his enterprise should succeed. Then, having laid his plan before the senate and gaining their approval, he announced that he would hold a festival and general assemblage in honour of Neptune, and he sent word round about to the nearest cities, inviting all who wished to do so to be present at the assemblage and to take part in the increases; for he was going to hold contests of all sorts, both between horses and between men. [4] And when many strangers came with their wives and children to the festival, he first offered the sacrifices to Neptune and held the contests: then, on the last day, on which he was to dismiss the assemblage, he ordered the young men, when he himself should raise the signal, to seize all the virgins who had come to the spectacle, each group taking those they should first encounter, to keep them that night without violating their chastity and bring them to him the next day. [5] So the young men divided themselves into several groups, and as soon as they saw the signal raised, fell to seizing the virgins; and straightway the strangers were in an uproar and fled, suspecting some greater mischief. The next day, when the virgins were brought before Romulus, he comforted them in their despair with the assurance that they had been seized, not out of wantonness, but for the purpose of marriage; for he pointed out that this was an ancient Greek custom and that of all methods of contracting marriages for women it was the most illustrious, and he asked them to cherish those whom Fortune had given them for their husbands. [6] Then counting them and finding their number to be six hundred and eighty-three, he chose an equal number of unmarried men to whom he united them according to the customs of each woman’s country, basing the marriages on a communion of fire and water, in the same manner as marriages are performed even down to our times.
[31.1] Some state that these things happened in the first year of Romulus’ reign, but Gnaeus Gellius says it was in the fourth, which is more probable. For it is not likely that the head of a newly-built city would undertake such an enterprise before esta
blishing its government. As regards the reason for the seizing of the virgins, some ascribe it to a scarcity of women, others to the seeking of pretext for war; but those who give the most plausible account — and with them I agree — attribute it to the design of contracting an alliance with the neighbouring cities, founded on affinity. [2] And the Romans even to my day continued to celebrate the festival then instituted by Romulus, calling it the Consualia, in the course of which a subterranean altar, erected near the Circus Maximus, is uncovered by the removal of the soil round about it and honoured with sacrifices and burnt-offerings of first-fruits and a course is run both by horses yoked to chariots and by single horses. The god to whom these honours are paid is called Consus by the Romans, being the same, according to some who render the name into our tongue, as Poseidon Seisichthon or the “Earth-shaker”; and they say that this god was honoured with a subterranean altar because he holds the earth. [3] I know also from hearsay another tradition, to the effect that the festival is indeed celebrated in honour of Neptune and the horse-races are held in his honour, but that the subterranean altar was erected later to a certain divinity whose name may not be uttered, who presides over and is the guardian of hidden counsels; for a secret altar has never been erected to Neptune, they say, in any part of the world by either Greeks or barbarians. But it is hard to say what the truth of the matter is.
[32.1] When, now, the report of the seizure of the virgins and of their marriage was spread among the neighbouring cities, some of these were incensed at the proceeding itself, though others, considering the motive from which it sprang and the outcome to which it led, bore it with moderation; but, at any rate, in the course of time it occasioned several wars, of which the rest were of small consequence, but that against the Sabines was a great and difficult one. All these wars ended happily, as the oracles had foretold to Romulus before he undertook the task, indicating as they did that the difficulties and dangers would be great but that their outcome would be prosperous. [2] The first cities that made war upon him were Caenina, Antemnae and Crustumerium. They put forward as a pretext the seizure of the virgins and their failure to receive satisfaction on their account; but the truth was that they were displeased at the founding of Rome and at its great and rapid increase and felt that they ought not to permit this city to grow up as a common menace to all its neighbours. [3] For the time being, then, these cities were sending ambassadors to the Sabines, asking them to take command of the war, since they possessed the greatest military strength and were most powerful by reason of their wealth and were laying claim to the rule over their neighbours and inasmuch as they had suffered from the Romans’ insolence quite as much as any of the rest; for the greater part of the virgins who had been seized belonged to them.
[33.1] But when they found they were accomplishing nothing, since the embassies from Romulus opposed them and courted the Sabine people both by their words and by their actions, they were vexed at the waste of time — for the Sabines were forever affecting delays and putting off to distant dates the deliberation concerning the war — and resolved to make war upon the Romans by themselves alone, believing that their own strength, if the three cities joined forces, was sufficient to conquer one inconsiderable city. This was their plan: but they did not all assemble together promptly enough in one camp, since the Caeninenses, who seemed to be most eager in promoting the war, rashly set out ahead of the others. [2] When these men, then, had taken the field and were wasting the country that bordered on their own, Romulus led out his army, and unexpectedly falling upon the enemy while they were as yet off their guard, he made himself master of their camp, which was but just completed. Then following close upon the heels of those who fled into the city, where the inhabitants had not as yet learned of the defeat of their forces, and finding the walls unguarded and the gates unbarred, he took the town by storm; and when the king of the Caeninenses met him with a strong body of men, he fought with him, and slaying him with his own hands, stripped him of his arms.
[34.1] The town being taken in this manner, he ordered the prisoners to deliver up their arms, and taking such of their children for hostages as he thought fit, he marched against the Antemnates. And having conquered their army also, in the same manner as the other, by falling upon them unexpectedly while they were still dispersed in foraging, and having accorded the same treatment to the prisoners, he led his army home, carrying with him the spoils of those who had been slain in battle and the choicest part of the booty as an offering to the gods; and he offered many sacrifices besides. [2] Romulus himself came last in the procession, clad in a purple robe and wearing a crown of laurel upon his head, and, that he might maintain the royal dignity, he rode in a chariot drawn by four horses. The rest of the army, both foot and horse, followed, ranged in their several divisions, praising the gods in songs of their country and extolling their general in improvised verses. They were met by the citizens with their wives and children, who, ranging themselves on each side of the road, congratulated them upon their victory and expressed their welcome in every other way. When the army entered the city, they found mixing bowls filled to the brim with wine and tables loaded down with all sorts of viands, which were placed before the most distinguished houses in order that all who pleased might take their fill. [3] Such was the victorious procession, marked by the carrying of trophies and concluding with a sacrifice, which the Romans call a triumph, as it was first instituted by Romulus. But in our day the triumph had become a very costly and ostentatious pageant, being attended with a theatrical pomp that is designed rather as a display of wealth than as approbation of valour, and it has departed in every respect from its ancient simplicity. [4] After the procession and the sacrifice Romulus built a small temple on the summit of the Capitoline hill to Jupiter whom the Romans call Feretrius; indeed, the ancient traces of it still remain, of which the longest sides are •less than fifteen feet. In this temple he consecrated the spoils of the king of the Caeninenses, whom he had slain with his own hand. As for Jupiter Feretrius, to whom Romulus dedicated these arms, one will not err from the truth whether one wishes to call him Tropaiouchos, or Skylophoros, as some will have it, or, since he excels all things and comprehends universal nature and motion, Hyperpheretês.
[35.1] After the king had offered to the gods the sacrifices of thanksgiving and the first-fruits of victory, before entering upon any other business, he assembled the senate to deliberate with them in what manner the conquered cities should be treated, and he himself first delivered the opinion he thought the best. [2] When all the senators who were present had approved of the counsels of their chief as both safe and brilliant and had praised all the other advantages that were likely to accrue from them to the commonwealth, not only for the moment but for all future time, he gave command for the assembling of all the women belonging to the race of the Antemnates and of the Caeninenses who had been seized with the rest. And when they had assembled, lamenting, throwing themselves at his feet and bewailing the calamities of their native cities, he commanded them to cease their lamentations and be silent, then spoke to them as follows: [3] “Your fathers and brothers and your entire cities deserve to suffer every severity for having preferred to our friendship a war that was neither necessary nor honourable. We, however, have resolved for many reasons to treat them with moderation; for we not only fear the vengeance of the gods, which ever threatens the arrogant, and dread the ill-will of men, but we are also persuaded that mercy contributes not a little to alleviate the common ills of mankind, and we realize that we ourselves may one day stand in need of that of others. And we believe that to you, whose behaviour towards your husbands has thus far been blameless, this will be no small honour and favour. [4] We suffer this offence of theirs, therefore, to go unpunished and take from your fellow citizens neither their liberty nor their possessions nor any other advantages they enjoy; and both to those who desire to remain there and to those who wish to change their abode we grant full liberty to make their choice, not only without danger but wi
thout fear of repenting. But, to prevent their ever repeating their fault or the finding of any occasion to induce their cities to break off their alliance with us, the best means, we consider, and that which will at the same time conduce to the reputation and security of both, is for us to make those cities colonies of Rome and to send a sufficient number of our own people from here to inhabit them jointly with your fellow citizens. Depart, therefore, with good courage; and redouble your love and regard for your husbands, to whom your parents and brothers owe their preservation and your countries their liberty.” [5] The women, hearing this, were greatly pleased, and shedding many tears of joy, left the Forum; but Romulus sent a colony of three hundred men into each city, to whom these cities gave a third part of their lands to be divided among them by lot. [6] And those of the Caeninenses and Antemnates who desired to remove to Rome they brought thither together with their wives and children, permitting them to retain their allotments of land and to take with them all their possessions; and the king immediately enrolled them, numbering not less than three thousand, in the tribes and the curiae, so that the Romans had then for the first time six thousand foot in all upon the register. [7] Thus Caenina and Antemnae, no inconsiderable cities, whose inhabitants were of Greek origin (for the Aborigines had taken the cities from the Sicels and occupied them, these Aborigines being, as I said before, part of those Oenotrians who had come out of Arcadia), after this war became Roman colonies.
[36.1] Romulus, having attended to these matters, led out his army against the Crustumerians, who were better prepared than the armies of the other cities had been. And after he had reduced them both in a pitched battle and in an assault upon their city, although they had shown great bravery in the struggle, he did not think fit to punish them any further, but made this city also a Roman colony like the two former. [2] Crustumerium was a colony of the Albans sent out many years before the founding of Rome. The fame of the general’s valour in war and of his clemency to the conquered being spread through many cities, many brave men joined him, bringing with them considerable bodies of troops, who migrated with their whole families. From one of these leaders, who came from Tyrrhenia and whose name was Caelius, one of the hills, on which he settled, is to this day called the Caelian. Whole cities also submitted to him, beginning with Medullia, and became Roman colonies. [3] But the Sabines, seeing these things, were displeased and blamed one another for not having crushed the power of the Romans while it was in its infancy, instead of which they were now to contend with it when it was greatly increased. They determined, therefore, to make amends for their former mistake by sending out an army of respectable size. And soon afterwards, assembling a general council in the greatest and most famous city in the nation, called Cures, they voted for the war and appointed Titus, surnamed Tatius, the king of that city, to be their general. After the Sabines had come to this decision, the assembly broke up and all returned home to their several cities, where they busied themselves with their preparations for the war, planning to advance on Rome with a great army the following year.
Delphi Complete Works of Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Illustrated) (Delphi Ancient Classics Book 79) Page 15
