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The Republic Matures HISTORYHISTORY — ROME The Republic Matures The Roman Republic was not built in a day, but was the product of generations of reform and even some serious reverses. by Steve Bonta and wounds, some of them very recent, (all senators and consuls were patricians), from tortures received in debtors’ prison. but providing the bulk of Rome’s military This is the second installment in a series of He had, he explained to the onlookers, forces. Most plebeians depended for their articles on the rise and fall of the Roman been deprived of his livelihood. Having livelihood on farming, an activity that was Republic. served in many wars, he was unable to cul- frequently disrupted by warfare. More- tivate his lands. Enemy armies had burnt over, the new lands annexed by Rome as bout 15 years after the founding his property and driven away his cattle. spoils of war were invariably parceled out of the Roman Republic in 509 Worse still, he had been assessed crip- to patricians, widening the gap between A B.C., an apparition appeared one pling taxes, which he could only pay by the urban gentry, who controlled the ma- day in the Roman Forum. It was no phan- taking on heavy debt. As a result, he had chinery of state and exploited the laws tom or divine portent, though, but a flesh- lost his property and had been delivered to amass more and more wealth, and the and-blood figure, a pale and emaciated old to “a house of correction and a place of rural underclass, who were systematically man dressed in rags who soon attracted a execution” as punishment. divested of their landholdings by war, debt large crowd of curious onlookers. Display- The man’s story was by no means un- and heavy taxes. ing a chest covered with battle scars, the usual. Rome, despite having ousted the wild-haired old man announced that he cruel Etruscan monarch Tarquin the Proud, Discontent and Reforms had fought bravely for Rome during the remained an oligarchic state ruled by the Popular resentment boiled over that day war with the Sabines. Then, to gasps of in- aristocratic patricians. The plebeians or in the Forum, as the wretched old man’s dignation, he displayed his back to his au- underclass remained disenfranchised, with testimony reminded the assembled mass- dience. It was covered with hideous scars little representation in Roman government es of the injustices of Rome’s class-based The Roman Forum: Even the ruins of Rome’s political and social hub still display fragments of the majesty of the Eternal City in her prime. THE NEW AMERICAN • OCTOBER 18, 2004 35 HISTORYHISTORY — ROME system of government. Before long Rome Spurius Cassius. His proposal was blocked great Greek statesman and lawgiver. The was in complete turmoil, as angry mobs by patrician influence, however, and Cas- Romans then appointed a council of 10 demanded political representation and sius himself was eventually tried and ex- men, the Decemvirs. They were charged even threatened to assassinate the consuls. ecuted for alleged treason. During the later with producing a body of laws that would The Roman Republic, in spite of its many history of the republic, the absence of a protect the rights of the Roman people, strengths, had serious flaws that only dras- just “agrarian law” resurfaced periodical- and that would be inscribed in stone and tic reforms could mend. ly. Eventually, during the administrations remain unchanged. After much delibera- Before long, the exasperated plebe- of the Gracchi in the Second Century B.C., tion, the Decemvirs produced the famed ians emigrated en masse from Rome to this contentious issue became the spark Twelve Tables of Roman Law. a nearby mountain in what has come to that lit the fuse leading to a long series of The Twelve Tables are sometimes char- be known as the First Plebeian Secession. civil wars — wars that ended with the rise acterized as a Roman constitution. How- They demanded more active representa- of the Caesars. ever, they had far more in common with tion in the republican government, and ancient legal codes like the Code of Ham- were rewarded with the creation of the The Need for Written Laws murabi and the law books of ancient Israel office of the tribune, a special magistrate Even with the tribunes in place, the ple- than with modern written constitutions like who represented the plebeians. There were beians chafed under another form of legal the U.S. Constitution. The Twelve Tables originally two tribunes, but more were abuse. Rome had no body of written laws. were a code of civil laws that protected the added with the passage of time. The tri- Therefore, the patricians, the self-anointed rights of citizens rather than defining the bunes held veto power over laws, elections guardians of Roman law, interpreted the powers and offices of the Roman state. and actions of all magistrates except dicta- law however they saw fit — and always From a modern perspective, those por- tors, who in the Roman Republic were ap- with their own class interests in mind. The tions of the Twelve Tables that have come pointed for six-month spans to lead Rome plebeians, demanding equal representa- down to us are something of a mixed bag. through extreme military crises. tion under the law, pressed for a written On the one hand, the Tables gave debtors Unfortunately, another cause of plebeian legal code that could be read and under- certain protections, such as a 30-day grace discontent, the inequity of property laws, stood by all. period to pay debts (Table III) and outlaw- particularly regarding newly acquired ter- In response to pressure for a code of ing capital punishment without convic- ritory, was never adequately addressed. An written laws, the Senate, in about 450 tion (Table IX). On the other, the Tables early attempt at a so-called “agrarian law,” B.C., sent a commission of three men to required the killing of deformed infants which would reform the division of public Greece to study the Greek legal code, par- (Table IV), prescribed the death penalty for land, was attempted by a consul named ticularly the laws devised by Solon, the slander and “giving false witness” (Table Turning the Tables: Appius Claudius (center) and the other Decemvirs were appointed by the Senate to produce a written law code for Rome. They produced the celebrated Twelve Tables to protect the rights of Roman citizens, but, refusing to relinquish power once the task was finished, became despots themselves. 36 THE NEW AMERICAN • OCTOBER 18, 2004 VIII), and forbade marriage between patri- cians and hired many of them cians and plebeians (Table XI). But with as personal military escorts. Moral strength has to be accounted the creation of a written code of laws, Thus protected, they were im- which were engraved on 12 stone tablets pervious to popular threats. one of the reasons for Romes rise to and kept in the Forum, the Roman Re- Senators and plebeians alike greatness. In contrast with most of public was solidified. The Twelve Tables found themselves under the became, like the English Magna Carta, a decemviral yoke. Despite the their contemporaries, the Romans were palpable symbol of Roman liberty, and persecutions, many plebeians a moral people, renowned for their they served as an effective restraint on the took great satisfaction in the arbitrary interpretation of Roman law. Decemvirs’ treatment of prom- honorable dealings even with enemies, inent patricians, while others and zealous upholders of family values. From Lawgivers to Despots looked in vain to the patricians The story of the Decemvirs, however, did for leadership against the new not end with the creation of the Twelve oppressors. “Liberty,” wrote Decemvirs, Rome’s salvation came as a re- Tables. Led by the charismatic and am- Livy, “was now deplored as lost forever; sult of the abuse of a woman. In this case, bitious Appius Claudius, the Decemvirs nor did any champion stand forth, or ap- Appius Claudius developed a consuming refused to step down and attempted to pear likely to do so.” lust for a certain virtuous plebeian maiden usurp government power. They managed As with the crisis under Tarquin the named Virginia. After failing to seduce to curry favor with many young patri- Proud, so under Appius Claudius and the the young woman with bribes and other Innocent blood: The persecution of the virtuous Virginia by the Decemvir-turned-despot Appius Claudius led her father to take her life to save her from rape and slavery. The shocking event incited the Romans to rise up and overthrow the tyrannical Decemvirs. THE NEW AMERICAN • OCTOBER 18, 2004 37 HISTORYHISTORY — ROME prompted by attacks on Roman to incur for its sake obligations for base Only when the later Romans succumbed women. For this reason, these and impious acts. A great general should two episodes were often held rely on his own virtue, and not on other to moral depravity did Rome cease up by later historians as evi- men’s vices.’” Having rebuked the man, to produce leaders of the caliber of dence of the moral rectitude of Camillus had him stripped and bound with the early Roman Republic. The ropes, and ordered rods and scourges to Camillus, Poplicola and Scipio. Only dissolute Empire of later cen- be given to the children. The children then then did she become easy prey to turies, which Juvenal famously drove their treasonous schoolmaster back condemned for its addiction to to the city, where the astonished citizens, foreign military powers only then was “bread and circuses,” placed having already discovered the disappear- she wracked with unending civil unrest.
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