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expected; when we see them, after this, increasing in their demands, assuming that arrogance they justly blamed in their superiors, goaded on by the ambition of their leaders to tyrannize in their turn; we view with proper discrimination the love of liberty and its extreme licen tiousness; and treat with just detestation the authors of those pernicious measures which embroiled the state in endless faction, and paved the way for the total loss of that liberty of which this deluded people knew not the value when they actually possessed it.

XXVI.—The Law of Volero.

1. The disorders of the commonwealth, appeased by the creation of the tribunes, were but for a time suspended. It was necessary that the popular magistrates should make an experiment of their powers. In an assembly of the people, one of the consuls, interrupted by a tribune, rashly said, that had the tribunes called that assembly, he would not have interrupted them. This was a concession on the part of the consuls, that the tribunes had the power of assembling the comitia, which from that moment they assumed as their acknowledged right. It was a consequence of this right, that the affairs of the commonwealth should be agitated in those meetings, equally as in the assemblies held in virtue of a consular summons or senatorial decree, and thus there were, in a manner, two distinct legislative powers established in the republic.

2. The trial of Coriolánus for inconsiderately proposing the abolition of the tribunate, an offence interpreted to be treason against the state, threw an additional weight into the scale of the people. The proposal of an Agrarian law, for the division of the lands acquired by recent conquests, resumed at intervals, though never carried into execution, inflamed the passions of the rival orders.

3. Publius Volero, formerly a centurion, and a man distinguished for his military services, had, in the new levies, been ranked as a common soldier. Complaining of this unmerited degradation, he refused his services in that capacity and the consuls having condemned him to corporal punishment, he appealed from their sentence to the people. The contest lasted till the annual term of elections, when Volero himself was chosen a tribune of the people. He had an ample revenge by procuring the

enactment of a most important law. The comitia, by centuries and by curiæ, could not be called but in virtue of a decree of the senate, after consulting the aruspices; and in those comitia the tribunes had hitherto been elected, and the most important public affairs discussed. It was decreed by the law of Volero, that the elections of the tribunes should be made, and the chief public business henceforward discussed, in the comitia held by tribes, which were unfettered by any of those restraints. From this period, the supreme authority in the Roman republic may be considered as having passed completely from the higher order into the hands of the people. The Roman constitution was now plainly a democracy, 471 B.c.

XXVII.-The Decemvirate.

1. The Romans had till this period no body of civil laws. Under the regal government the kings alone administered justice; the consuls succeeded them in this high prerogative; and thus possessed without control the absolute command of the fortunes and civil rights of all the citizens. To remedy this great defect, Terentellus, a tribune, proposed the nomination of ten commissioners, to frame and digest a code of laws for the explanation and security of the rights of all orders of the state. A measure so equitable ought to have met with no opposition. It was, however, strenuously though ineffectually opposed by the patricians, who, by a fruitless contest, only exposed their own weakness. The decemviri were chosen ; but the election being made in the comitia by centuries, the consul Appius Claudius, and his colleague, were at the head of this important commission. The laws were framed, those celebrated statutes known by the name of the Twelve Tables, which are the basis of the great structure of the Roman jurisprudence, 451 B.C.

2. An acquaintance with these ancient laws is therefore of importance. Even in the most flourishing times of the republic, they continued to be of the highest authority. They have the encomium of Cicero himself; and we learn from him, that to commit these laws to memory was an essential part of a liberal education. From the twelve tables the jurisconsulti composed a system of judicial forms, for the regulation of the different tribunals. The number of the laws was likewise from time to time increased

by the Senatusconsulta, Plebiscita, [and their judicial suc cessors, until at length the Roman jurisprudence became so voluminous, as to occasion its being systematized and abridged to the form it has been handed down to us by the emperor Justinian].

3. The decemviri were invested with all the powers of government, for the consulate had ceased on their creation. Each decemvir by turn presided for a day, and had the sovereign authority, with its insignia, the fasces. The nine others officiated solely as judges in the determination of law-suits, and the correction of abuses. An abuse, however, of the most flagrant nature, committed by the chief of their own number, was destined speedily to bring their office to its termination.

4. Appius Claudius, inflamed by lawless passion for the young Virginia, the betrothed spouse of Icilius, formerly a tribune of the people, employed a profligate dependant to claim the maiden as his own property, on the false pretence of her being the daughter of one of his female slaves. The claim was made to the decemvir himself in judgment, who pronounced an infamous decree, which tore from her family this helpless victim, and put her into the hands of his own minion. Her father, to save the honour of his child, plunged a dagger into her breast; and the people, witnesses of this shocking scene, would have massacred Appius on the spot, had he not found means to escape amidst the tumult. Their vengeance, however, was satiated by the instant abolition of this hated magistracy, and by the death of Appius, who [according to Livy chose by his own hand to prevent the stroke of the executioner. The decemvirate had subsisted for three years. The consuls were now restored, together with the tribunes of the people, 449 B.C.

XXVIII.-Increase of the Popular Power.

1. The scale of the people was daily acquiring weight. at the expense of that of the highest order. Two barriers, however, still separated the patricians and plebeians; the one, a law which prevented their intermarriage, and the other, the constitutional limitation of all the higher offices to the order of the patricians. It was now only necessary to remove these restraints, and the patricians and plebeians were on a footing of perfect equality

The

first, after a long but fruitless contest, was at length agreed to by the senate; and this concession had its usual effect of stimulating the people to inflexible perseverance in their struggle for the latter. On an emergence of war, the customary device was practised of refusing to enter the rolls, unless upon the immediate enactment of a law, which should admit their capacity of holding all the offices of the republic. The senate sought a palliative, by the creation of six military tribunes in lieu of the consuls, three of whom should be patricians, and three plebeians. This measure satisfied the people for a time: the consuls, however, were soon restored.

2. The disorders of the republic, and frequent wars, had interrupted the regular survey of the citizens. This was remedied by the creation of a new magistracy. Two officers, under the title of censors, were appointed (437 B.C.) whose duty was not only to make the census ever five years, but to inspect the morals and regulate the duties of all the citizens; an office of dignity equal to its importance, exercised in the latter times of the republic only by consular persons, and afterwards annexed to the supreme function of the emperor.

3. The dissensions between the orders continued with little variation either in their causes or effects. The people generally, as the last resource, refused to enrol themselves t.ll overawed by the supreme authority of a dictator. To obviate the frequent necessity of this measure, which enforced at best an unwilling and compelled obedience, the senate had recourse to a wise expedient; this was to give a regular pay to the troops. To defray this expense, a moderate tax was imposed in proportion to the fortunes of the citizens. From this period the Roman system of war assumed a new aspect. The senate always found soldiers at command; the army was under its control; the enterprises of the republic were more extensive, and its successes more signal and important. Veii, the proud rival of Rome, and its equal in extent and population, was taken by Camillus, after a siege of ten years, 391 B. C. The art of war was improved, as it now became a profession, instead of an occasional occupation. The Romans were, from this circumstance, an overmatch for all their neighbours. Their dominion, hitherto confined to the territory of a few miles, was now rapidly extended. It was impossible but the detached states of Italy must have

given way before a people always in arms, and who, by a perseverance alike resolute and judicious, were equal to every attempt in which they engaged.

4. The taking of Veii was succeeded by a war with the Gauls. This people, a branch of the great nation of the Celta, had opened to themselves a passage through the Alps at four different periods, and were at this time established in the country between those mountains and the Apennines. Under the command of Brennus, they laid siege to the Etruscan Clusium; and this people, of no warlike turn themselves, solicited the aid of the Romans. The circumstances recorded of this war with the Gauls throw over it a cloud of fable and romance. The formidable power of Rome is said to have been in a single campaign so utterly exhausted, that the Gauls entered the city without resistance, and burnt it to the ground, 385 B c. [leaving nothing undestroyed but the capitol, which was garrisoned by the braver portion of the troops and inhabitants, who held out till Brennus was induced to accept a thousand pounds' weight of gold (about £45,000 sterling) as a ransom.] Though thus overpowered, the Romans, in a single engagement, retrieve all their losses, and in one day's time there is not a Gaul left remaining within the Roman territory.*

To the burning of the city by the Gauls, the Roman writers attribute the loss of all the records and monuments of their early history.

5. It is singular, that most of the Roman revolutions should have owed their origin to women. From this cause we have seen spring the abolition of the regal office and the decemvirate. From this cause arose the change of the constitution, by which the plebeians became capable of holding the highest offices of the commonwealth.

There are several stories of the retreat of the Gauls; the one alluded to in the text, although not entirely free from improbability, is most generally adopted. Lactantius tells us a strange story of the Romans being admonished and directed in a dream by Jupiter, tutelary god of the capitol, to make all the corn they had into bread, and throw it into Brennus's camp, not reserving the least morsel of it for their necessities; and that the Gauls being hereby deceived, and despairing to reduce the Romans by famine, raised the siege. In memory of the god's favour, the Romans erected an altar to him, under the name of Jupiter Pistor, Jupiter the Baker. Another version of the affair is, that the Gauls were suddenly called home to defend their own country against the Veniti, who had invaded it, and that on their march thither, they were waylaid by a party of Romans, under Camillus, and so totally vanquished and destroyed, that not a man was left to carry home the news of the disaster.--ED.

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