later times, when no “patrician magistrates” were forthcoming to hold the elections for their successors, a procedure was adopted which was believed to represent the manner in which the early kings had been appointed.[1] In this procedure the ancient privileges of the old gentes and their elders, the importance of maintaining unbroken the continuity of the sacra, on the transmission and observance of which the welfare of the community depended, and thirdly the rights of the freemen, are all recognized. On the death of a king, the auspicia, and with them the supreme authority, revert to the council of elders, the patres, as representing the gentes. By the patres an interrex is appointed, who in turn nominates a second; by him, or even by a third or fourth interrex, a new king is selected in consultation with the patres. The king-designate is then proposed to the freemen assembled by their curiae for their acceptance, and finally their formal acceptance is ratified by the patres, as a security that the sacra of which they are the guardians have been respected.[2] Thus the king is in the first instance selected by the representatives of the old gentes, and they ratify his appointment. In form he is nominated directly by a predecessor from whose hands he receives the auspicia. But it is necessary also that the choice of the patres and the nomination of the interrex should be confirmed by a solemn vote of the community.
It is useless to attempt a precise definition of the prerogatives of the king when once installed in office. Tradition ascribes to him a position and powers closely resembling those of the heroic kings of Greece. He rules for life, and he is the sole ruler, unfettered by written statutes. He is the supreme judge, settling all disputes and punishing wrongdoers even with death. All other officials are appointed by him. He imposes taxes, distributes lands and erects buildings. Senate and assembly meet only when he convenes them, and meet for little else than to receive communications from him. In war he is absolute leader,[3] and finally he is also the religious head of the community. It is his business to consult the gods on its behalf, to offer the solemn sacrifices and to announce the days of the public festivals. Hard by his house was the common hearth of the state, where the vestal virgins cherished the sacred fire.
By the side of the king stood the senate, or council of elders. In the descriptions left us of the primitive senate, as in those The senate. of the rex, we can discover traces of a transition from an earlier state of things when Rome was only an assemblage of clans or village communities, allied indeed, but each still ruled by its own chiefs and headmen, to one in which these groups have been fused into a single state under a common ruler. On the one hand the senate appears as a representative council of chiefs, with inalienable prerogatives of its own, and claiming to be the ultimate depositary of the supreme authority and of the sacra connected with it. The senators are the patres; they are taken from the leading gentes; they hold their seats for life; to them the auspicia revert on the death of a king; they appoint the interrex from their own body, are consulted in the choice of the new king,[4] and their sanction is necessary to ratify the vote of the assembled freemen. On the other hand, they are no longer supreme. They cannot appoint a king but with the consent of the community, and their relation to the king when appointed is one of subordination. Vacancies in their ranks are filled up by him, and they can but give him advice and counsel when he chooses to consult them.
The popular assembly of united Rome in its earliest days was that in which the freemen met and voted by their curiae The assembly. (comitia curiata[5]). The place of assembly was in the Comitium at the north-east end of the Forum,[6] at the summons and under the presidency of the king or, failing him, of the interrex. By the rex or the interrex the question was put, and the voting took place curiatim, the curiae being called up in turn. The vote of each curia was decided by the majority of individual votes, and a majority of the votes of the curiae determined the final result. But the occasions on which the assembly could exercise its power must have been few. Their right to elect magistrates was apparently limited to the acceptance or rejection of the king proposed by the interrex. Of the passing of laws, in the later sense of the term, there is no trace in the kingly period. Dionysius's statement[7] that they voted on questions of war and peace is improbable in itself and unsupported by tradition. They are indeed represented, in one instance, as deciding a capital case, but it is by the express permission of the king and not of right.[8] Assemblies of the people were also, and probably more frequently, convened for other purposes. Not only did they meet to hear from the king the announcement of the high days and holidays for each month, and to witness such solemn religious rites as the inauguration of a priest, but their presence (and sometimes their vote) was further required to authorize and attest certain acts, which in a later age assumed a more private character. The disposal of property by will[9] and the solemn renunciation of family or gentile sacra[10] could only take place in the presence of the assembled freemen, while for adoption[11] (adrogatio) not only their presence but their formal consent was necessary.
A history of this early Roman state is out of the question. The names, dates and achievements of the first four kings are Rome under the kings. all too unsubstantial to form the basis of a sober narrative;[12] a few points only can be considered as fairly well established. If we except the long eventless reign ascribed to King Numa, tradition represents the first kings as incessantly at war with their immediate neighbours. The details of these wars are no doubt mythical; but the implied condition of continual struggle, and the narrow range within which the struggle is confined, may be accepted as true. The picture drawn is that of a small community, with a few square miles of territory, at deadly feud with its nearest neighbours, within a radius of some 12 m. round Rome. Nor, in spite of the repeated victories with which tradition credits Romulus, Ancus and Tullus, does there seem to have been any real extension of Roman territory except towards the sea. Fidenae remains Etruscan; the Sabines continue masters up to the Anio; Praeneste, Gabii and Tusculum are still untouched; and on this side it is doubtful if Roman territory, in spite of the possible destruction of Alba, extended to a greater distance than the sixth milestone from Rome.[13] But along the course
- ↑ Cic. De Legg. iii. 3; Livy iv. 7.
- ↑ “Patres auctores facti,” Livy i. 22; “patres fuere auctores,” ibid. i. 32. In 336 B.C. (Livy viii. 12) the Publilian law directed that this sanction should be given beforehand, “ante initum suffragium,” and thus reduced it to a meaningless form (Livy i. 11). It is wrongly identified by Schwegler with the “lex curiata de imperio,” which in Cicero's day followed and did not precede election. According to Cicero (De Rep. ii. 13, 21), the proceedings included, in addition to the “creation” by the comitia curiata and the sanction of the patres, the introduction by the king himself of a lex curiata conferring the imperium and ausipicia; but this theory, though generally accepted, is probably an inference from the practice of a later time, when the creatio had been transferred to the comitia centuriata.
- ↑ For the references, see Schwegler i. 646 seq.
- ↑ If the analogy of the rex sacrorum is to be trusted, the “king” could only be chosen from the ranks of the patricii. Cic. Pro Domo, 14; Gaius i. 122.
- ↑ Cic. De Rep. ii. 13; Dionys. ii. 14, &c.
- ↑ Varro, L.L. v. 155. For the position of the Comitium, see Smith, Dict. Geog., s.v. “Roma,” and Jordan, Topog. d. Stadt Rom. (Petersen).
- ↑ Dionys. l.c.
- ↑ Livy i. 26; Dionys. iii. 22.
- ↑ Gaius ii. 101.
- ↑ Gell. xv. 27.
- ↑ Gell. v. 19, “Comitia praebentur, quae curiata appellantur.” Cf. Cic. Pro Domo, 13, 14; and see Roman Law.
- ↑ By far the most complete criticism of the traditional accounts of the first four kings will be found in Schwegler's Röm. Geschichte, vol. i.; compare also Ihne's Early Rome and Sir G. C. Lewis's Credibility of Early Roman History. More recently, E. Pais (Storia d'Italia) has subjected the early legends to learned and often suggestive criticism, but without attaining very solid results.
- ↑ The fossa Cluilia, 5 m. from Rome (Livy ii. 39), is regarded by Schwegler (i. 585) and by Mommsen (i. 45) as marking the Roman frontier towards Latium. Cf. Ovid. Fast. ii. 681; Strabo 230, “μεραξὺ γοῦν τοῦ πέμπτου καὶ τοῦ ἔκτου λίθου . . . τόπος Φῆστοι . . . ὄριον τῆς τότε Ῥωμαίων γῆς.”
