state were now included numerous communities with local institutions and government. At their head stood the Roman colonies (coloniae civium Romanorum), Colonies and municipia. founded to guard especially the coasts of Latium and Campania.[1] Next to these eldest children of Rome came those communities which had been invested with the full Roman franchise, such, for instance, as the old Latin towns of Aricia, Lanuvium, Tusculum, Nomentum and Pedum. Lowest in the scale were those which had not been considered ripe for the full franchise, but had, like Caere, received instead the civitas sine suffragio, the civil without the political rights.[2] Their members, though Roman citizens, were not enrolled in the tribes, and in time of war served not in the ranks of the Roman legions but in separate contingents. In addition to these organized town communities, there were also the groups of Roman settlers on the public lands, and the dwellers in the village communities of the enfranchised highland districts in central Italy.
The administrative needs of this enlarged Rome were obviously such as could not be adequately satisfied by the system which had done well enough for a small city state with a few square miles of territory. The old centralization of all government in Rome itself had become an impossibility, and the Roman statesmen did their best to meet the altered requirements of the time. The urban communities within the Roman pale, colonies and municipia, were allowed a large measure of local self-government. In all we find local assemblies, senates and magistrates, to whose hands the ordinary routine of local administration was confided, and, in spite of differences in detail, e.g. in the titles and numbers of the magistrates, the same type of constitution prevailed throughout.[3] But these local authorities were carefully subordinated to the higher powers in Rome. The local constitution could be modified or revoked by the Roman senate and assembly, and the local magistrates, no less than the ordinary members of the community, were subject to the paramount authority of the Roman consuls, praetors and censors. In particular, care was taken to keep the administration of justice well under central control. The Roman citizen in a colony or municipium enjoyed, of course, the right of appeal to the Roman people in a capital case. We may also assume that from the first some limit was placed to the jurisdiction of the local magistrate, and that cases falling outside it came before the central authorities. But an additional safeguard for the Prefects. equitable and uniform administration of Roman law, in communities to many of which the Roman code was new and unfamiliar, was provided by the institution of prefects (praefecti juri dicundo),[4] who were sent out annually, as representatives of the Roman praetor, to administer justice in the colonies and municipia. To prefects was, moreover, assigned the charge of those districts within the Roman pale where no urban communities, and consequently no organized local government, existed. In these two institutions, that of municipal government and that of prefectures, we have already two of the cardinal points of the later imperial system of government.
Lastly, the changes which the altered position and increased responsibilities of Rome had effected in her military system[5] tended to weaken the intimate connexion between the Roman army in the field and the Roman people at home, and thus prepared the way for that complete The military system. breach between the two which in the end proved fatal to the Republic. It is true that service in the legion was still the first duty and the highest privilege of the fully qualified citizen. But this service was gradually altering in character. Though new legions were still raised each year for the summer campaigns, this was by no means always accompanied, as formerly, by the disbandment of those already on foot, and this increase in the length of time during which the citizen was kept with the standards had, as early as the siege of Veii, necessitated a further deviation from the old theory of military service—the introduction of pay.[6] Moreover, while in the early days of the Republic the same divisions served for the soldier in the legion and the citizen in the assembly, in the new manipular system,[7] with its three lines, no regard was paid to civic distinctions, but only to length of service and military efficiency, while at the same time the more open order of fighting which it involved demanded of each soldier greater skill, and therefore a more thorough training in arms than the old phalanx. The Proconsulate. One other change resulted from the new military necessities of the time, which was as fruitful of results as the incipient separation between the citizen and the soldier. Under the early Republic, the chief command of the legions rested with the consuls of the year. But, as Rome’s military operations increased in area and in distance from Rome, a larger staff became necessary, and the inconvenience of summoning home a consul in the field from an unfinished campaign became intolerable. The remedy found, that of prolonging for a further period the imperium of the consul, was first applied in 327 B.C. in the case of Q. Publilius Philo,[8]427–90. and between 327 and 264 instances of this prorogatio imperii became increasingly common. This proconsular authority, originally an occasional and subordinate one, was destined to become first of all the strongest force in the Republic, and ultimately the chief prop of the power of the Caesars.
Period B: Rome and the Mediterranean States, 265–146 B.C.—(a) Conquest of the West.—Though marked out by her geographical position as the natural centre of the Mediterranean, Italy had hitherto played no active part in Mediterranean politics, but, now that she was for the first 489–608. time united, it was felt throughout the Mediterranean world that a new power had arisen, and Rome, as the head and representative of Italy, found herself irresistibly drawn into the vortex of Mediterranean affairs. Egypt sought her alliance, and Greek scholars began to interest themselves keenly in the history, constitution, and character of the Latin Republic which had so suddenly become famous. But Rome looked naturally westward rather than eastward. The western coasts of the peninsula were the most fertile and populous and wealthy; and it was in this direction that the natural openings for Italian commerce were to be found. It was, however, precisely on this side that Rome had serious ground for anxiety. Carthage was now at the height of her power. Her outposts were threateningly near to Italy in Sardinia and in Sicily, while her fleets swept the seas and jealously guarded for the benefit of Carthage alone the hidden treasures of the West. In the east of Sicily, Syracuse still upheld the cause of Greek independence against the hereditary foe of the Greek race; but Syracuse stood alone, and her resources were comparatively small. What Rome had to fear was the establishment, and that at no distant date, of an absolute Carthaginian domination over the Western seas—a domination which would not only be fatal to Italian commerce, but would be a standing menace to the safety of the Italian coasts.
It was above all things essential for Rome that the Carthaginians
should advance no farther eastward. But already
in 272 Tarentum had almost fallen into their grasp,
and seven years later Rome was threatened with the
establishment of Carthaginian rule at Messana, within
First Punic War,
265–41 – 489–513.
sight of the Italian coast. The intervention of both
powers in a quarrel between the Mamertines, a body of
Campanian mercenaries who had occupied Messana, and Hiero II.
- ↑ Ostia, Antium, Tarracina, Minturnae, Sinuessa, and, on the Adriatic, Sena and Castrum Novum.
- ↑ To both these classes the term municipia was applied.
- ↑ For details, see Beloch, Ital. Bund, caps. v., vi., vii. The enfranchised communities in most cases retained the old titles for their magistrates, and hence the variety in their designations.
- ↑ For the praefecti, see Mommsen, Hist. of Rome, ii. 49, 67, and Staatsr. ii. 608; Beloch, 130–33.
- ↑ Mommsen, Hist. of Rome, ii. 72 seq.; Livy viii. 8; Polyb. vi. 17–42.
- ↑ Livy iv. 59.
- ↑ This system was probably introduced in order to meet the charge of the Celtic swordsmen, but it was perfected during the Samnite wars. See Marquardt, Staatsverw. iii. 350 seq.; Daremberg-Saglio, Dictionnaire des antiquités, ssv. “Legio” (Cagnat).
- ↑ Livy viii. 23, “ut pro consule rem gereret quoad debellatum esset.”
