Patricians and Plebeians at Rome Author(s): H. J. Rose Source: The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 12 (1922), pp. 106-133 Published by: Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/296175 . Accessed: 08/05/2014 20:55
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
.
Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of Roman Studies.
http://www.jstor.org
This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 20:55:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions PATRICIANS AND PLEBEIANS AT ROME.
By PROFESSOR H. J. ROSE.
It has been widely held since the days of Aretino (I369-1I444) and more scientificallysince those of Niebuhr,that the Patriciansand the Plebeians were in origin two differentpeoples or races. I pro- pose to show, firstly,that the Plebeians were never a people or a race at all; secondly,that the differencesto which attention has been drawnare differenceswithin the Patricianbody itself,the result of its developmentfrom at least three stocks. My groundsfor the formerview are largelynegative-the inadequacy of the arguments adduced by Niebuhr and his supporters,down to and including Binder and Piganiol; forthe latter,I thinkstrong positive arguments may be found,some of which,well observedbut ill interpreted,form the most respectableprops of the view which I discard. The older theories,including those of Niebuhr himself,of Ihne, and of Schwegler,largely cancel each other out, as Binder shows ; and, as he sensiblyremarks, they all have a tendencyto get rid of the ancient traditionby destructivecriticism and then adopt fragments of it for their own foundation.2 They all contain the supposition that there was in early Rome a blend of at least two peoples, the Sabines and the followersof Romulus of the tradition,or the montani and collini, or the original Romans, whoever they were, and conquered populationswho had become their serfsor tenants. As to the rights,if any,possessed by the conquered,their racial name, and their relation to the conquerors(whether as serfs,clientes, or other), these theoriesall differso widely that an impartialobserver is tempted to consider their very divergencyas constitutinga strong argumentagainst their validity. But setting all this aside, and especially the question of the names of the races involved,which seems quite hopeless of solution, we may divide the argumentsfor the general propositionthat the Patricians were one race and the Plebeians another,under three heads, topographical, juristic (or sociological), and religious. Archaeology,while it is invokedby most if not all theoristshere and elsewhere,can clearlygive only subsidiarysupport; it can, that is, give us some groundsfor saying that therewere or were not various races, or at least various types of culture, at Rome, but can hardl) be expected to let us know by what technical names these types
Die Plebs. Leipzig 1909, p. i8i sqq. 2 Ibid. p. zo9.
This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 20:55:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions PATRICIANS AND PLEBEIANS AT ROME. I07 were distinguished. Philology again speaks with a very hesitating voice, and can hardlysay more than that the Latin language is not absolutelyhomogeneous, which no one supposed it was. Of the above classes of evidence, Binder relies mostly on the firstand second; Piganiol, while he uses them all, lays perhaps most stresson the second and third. His theory is, that the Plebeianswere Sabines, who werea Mediterraneanpeople; that the Patricians were northern invaders, whose immediate provenance was the Mons Albanus.1 I now proceed to reviewthe argumentsof these two writersin detail, not only because they are the latest2 with whom I am acquainted, but also because their verylearned and laborious works summarize the earlier theories as well as giving theirown. i. Topographicalarguments. Most theories of this type adopt in one formor another some such view as that of Niebuhr, namely that in very early times there existed (a) a communityon the Palatine, (b) a second communityon the Quirinal or the Quirinal and Capitol. These ultimately coalesced, thus including the Forum in the new combined city. It has been suggestedthat the Volcanal at the foot of the Arx marksthe site of some very ancient shrine erected to commemoratethis union. That the traditions, as given by Livy forinstance, declare Rome to have spread out from the Palatine by successive additions of neighbouring hills and valleys,is of course no argumentagainst this, forthere is no reason to imagine that their framershad any more knowledgeof the facts than we have, or indeed as much. We have thereforeonly the actual sites and what fragmentsof ritual or other evidence may be left, to guide us. That the Palatine settlementis the oldest, or at least one of the oldest, is hardly to be disputed.3 Its boundaries were still rememberedin the time of Tacitus 4; it containsthe sitesof the very earlyworship of Cacus and Caca ; it is the centreof the ceremonial of the Luperci; and it dominates the Forum Boarium with the great altar of Hercules, of whose importanceI shall have more to say later. The only really sound argumentthat can be urged against its priorityis that many of the earliest and most famous cults are not on it, but on the Capitol or in the Forum. For the Forum, I hope to show that the most importantof its cults,that of Vesta, is comparativelylate in the earliest form which we know anything about, and thereforemay well have arisen, and so displaced the worshipof Caca, afterRome as we know it came into existence,i.e., afterthe Seven Hills, or most of them,were united in one settlement
I Essai sur les originesde Romie,Paris 1917; sum- replyto Binder's criticismof his earlierwvork on the mary on p. 313 sqq. stibject. 3The evidence is carefullyreviewed by Binder, 2Except Oberziner, Patsiziato e plebe, in Studi p. X sqq. di filologia,filosofia e storia, I913, which is in part a 4 Tac., Ann. xii, 2, 3.
This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 20:55:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions io8 PATRICIANS AND PLEBEIANS AT ROME. with the Forum valley, more or less drained and reclaimed, for their central market-place. Assuming then that the Palatine was settled very early, what evidence have we that any other hill was also settled at as early a date ? And here I would mentionthat by settledI mean containing somethingof the nature of a tozvn. A mere hill-top fort, such as those which are scattered over a great part of Wales for example, may notoriouslyexist within a very short distance of another-half a mile or less; but a hill-top fort is not a settlement,but a watch-toweror at best a temporaryprotection against sudden raids. A permanent settlement implies a water-supply,access to the surroundingcountry, and in particularaccess to the scene of those activities (trade, farming,pasturage) from which the inhabitants get their livelihood. It also implies defensibility. If we start from the furthesthill down-stream,the Aventine, we must, I think,admit that the occupation of the Palatine put it nearly out of the question for any settlementof an independent and thereforepotentially hostile nature. The Palatini indeed could hardlycut the Auentinioff from water; but as the latter hill stands almoston a peninsula,a blockadewhich would preventits inhabitants gettingat the hinterlandwould have been veryeasy; while a counter- blockade, supposing the Auentini numerically stronger, would have called forthe servicesof a relativelylarge numberof men, if the Palatini were to be preventedboth fromcrossing the Forum valley (with look-outs on the Velia to give warning of the approach of raiders) and from driving their cattle out, or going to till their fields, across the Velabrum and around the Capitol. Moreover, although the Palatine originallywas doubtless less steeply scarped than now, it must always have been a decidedly steep hill on every side but that approached by the Velia, else why go to the trouble of cutting the Scalae Caci ? It thereforewould need relativelyfew men to defendit, leavingmore of the populationfree for raids on the cattle,lands or trade of the enemy; while the Aventinewould almost certainlyneed a larger garrison. In any hostilities,therefore, the Auentini would be doomed fromthe beginningto fail in the long run, given about equal numbersand courage. But in addition there is what appears to me to be a scrap of tradition of a time when the Aventinewas uninhabited. That is Ennius' statementthat Romulus' took his auspices fromit. Now, although there is an admirable view to-day fromthe terrace of the RistorantePalazzo dei Cesari, towards the Palatine, this would be quite unsuitablefor an augur,for it looksneither east nor south. The post of an augur was necessarilyone which commanded an uninter- rupted view; hence the precautionstaken to prevent any building
1 Annales84, Vahlen = Cic. de diuin, i, 107.
This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 20:55:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions PATRICIANS AND PLEBEIANS AT ROME. lO9 interferingwith the line of sightfrom the auguraculum on the Arx.1 What point on the Aventinewould furnishsuch a prospect? The top, no doubt; but as the top is rather flat,this presupposesthat therewere no buildingsat all to get in the way. The Caelian, despite its considerable circumference,is so low that it can hardly put in a serious claim to have been at any time an independent fortifiedsettlement. The name of the Viminal showsthat it was an uninhabited spot where people went to gather uimina to make baskets. The Esquiline is a mere ridge, with no great natural strengthand no trace of the elaborate early fortifica- tion which it would need if it was to be tenable. There remainthe Capitol and the Quirinal. The formerat firstsight looks promising; it is certainlya strong position; it is isolated, or nearlyso 2; and anyone holding it could interferewith the activities of the Palatini in an unwelcome manner,if they tried to cross either the Velabrum or the Forum. But it is verysmall, too small fora town of any size ; its top is extremelyirregular ; and mostimportant of all, its onlywater supply appears to have been at or near the Tullianum, dangerously- accessible to an enemy from below. Moreover,we have again a scrap of positiveevidence that it was originally extra pomerium. The Tarpeian rock was traditionally the site of an ordeal by precipitation; at the other end of the hill lay in historicaltimes the Gemoniae, used for the exposure of the bodies of criminals. Now, although the case-hardened Romans of the Empire and late Republic tolerated such things in the city itself,we have every reason to suppose that their ancestorswere more religiosi in such matters. Just as the existence of a precinct of the god of destroyingfire, the Volcanal, in the Forum goes to prove that that was originallyextra pomerium, so these ill-boding localities on the Mons Capitolinus incline me to the opinion that it also had nothing to do with the inhabited town to start with. Moreover,when firstwe know anythingof it, its whole top is conse- crated, Junoand the auguraculumoccupying the Arx,and the Triad, or rather their predecessors,Terminus, Juuentas,and others, the Capitol proper,while betweenis theinviolable space where tradition puts the asylum of Romulus. The Quirinal then remainsas the one rival of the Palatine in the
I Cic. de of. iii, 66. supplies tani[tisru]pibus, tranislatinig ' pour declarer que d'aussi granide hauteur est un mont,le lieu 2 Binider'sattempt to make out that it was onice auissia ete tire d'aussi granidesroches,' i.e., Trajani's joinied to the Quirinialby a ridge is more than workmenhad to clear away a perfect ' mounitain' doubtful. He deduces from the inscriptionion of rocks,but not a solid hill of aniykinid, for ani Trajan's columni,'ad declaranidumquanitac altitu- anicientroad ranithrough them. This seems much diniismonis et locus tani. . . pibus sit egestus,'that more likelythani to suppose that the road in question therewas an actual nionsthere as highas the Columni. was the Via Fornicata anid was actually tunnielled But it is surelymorc natural to follow Cli. Brustoni through a rocky hill or ridge, as Binider does, (Rev. des etudesanciennes, xxiv, 1922, p. 305) who p. 42 sqq.
This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 20:55:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions IIO PATRICIANS AND PLEBEIANS AT ROME. matter of ancientry. Here there is no direct evidence to refute the suggestion that there may have been a town on it ; for archaeology,which if it could speak at all on this matterwould have the casting vote, on the one hand shows us no veryancient monu- mentsthere, but on the other has had no opportunityto explore the whole hill, occupied as it is by important modern buildings. If we may believe Varro,1 the Capitoline Triad was originallywor- shipped there,at the Capitolium uetus ; but if this is so, it takes us no fartherback than the Etruscan period, when the hill may very well have been part of royal Rome. The fact that Flora had a temple there, or at least a shrineof some kind2 indicates, if any- thing, that it lay rather in the country than in the city. The name Quirinus does not sound Sabine; but the Q may not be original. Kretschmer(Glotta x, p. I47 sqq.) suggestsplausibly that quirites
3 l De lingua Latina v, I 58. Wiss., Op. cit. p. 145. 2 Sec Wissowa, Religion uindKultus der Rinner, p. I98.
This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 20:55:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions PATRICIANS AND PLEBEIANS AT ROME. 11I
(Latin) inhabitantsof Rome itself,conquered but not reduced to slaveryor serfdomby their invading masters. ' Dieses patrizische Urrom ist das npc&rov4z5aoq der r6mischenTradition.' Another formof this-for in such a question the names are hardlymore than traditionallabels-is the theoryof Boni, of long-headedraces, whose bones are to be foundin the Forum necropolis,conquered by a broad- headed, cremating,Indo-European people, whose aristocraticskulls are traceable in the statues of gods ; or the fundamentallysimilar ideas of Oberzinerand of Piganiol, of plebeianswho were hunters (Oberziner) or farmers(Piganiol), conquered by farmingor cattle- breeding patricians. 2. Juristic and sociological argumentsfor diversity of race. Many of these have already been disposed of by supportersof a differentform of the theoryin question. For instance,Binder points out 2 that the alleged differencein speech between patrician and plebeian-which, it is amusingto remember,is the earliestargument of all, for Aretino supposed that the formerspoke classical Latin, the lattervulgar Italian, likethe peasantryof his own day-is no more than the differencebetween sermourbanus and rustic or uneducated speech, sermoplebeius; there is no sign that it was even a different dialect. Indeed, considerabl-econfusion has arisen fromtaking the word plebeius alwaysto mean plebeian in the strict sense,whereas fromat least the time of Cicero it very often means no more than common,vulgar, homely; purpuraplebeia ac paenefusca3iS the native Italian dye, much inferiorto the genuineTyrian in sheen. Binder himselffalls into this trap when he takes at its face value the state- mentof Festus (or ratherPaulus Diaconus) 4 that theflamines minores were plebeian, i.e., they were of little account, mere everyday clerics, in contrast to the really important flamines maiores. Anotherargument is that fromthe traditionaldivision of the people into Ramnes, Luceres and Tities, which Binder well notes to be no more than the familiar division into three, reflectedin the Athenian-rpL-TTU, the Oscan trifu,and (he mighthave added),the word tribusitself and probably the division of the Dorians into Argadeis,Dymaneis, and Pampyhloi.5 It is common,that is, among various people of Wiro speech (I use Dr. Giles' convenient sub- stitutefor the unsatisfactory' Indo-Germaanic' or ' Indo-European'); as to its meaning,I see no basis for even a reasonable guess ; but there seem to be no groundsfor supposingthat it representseither an exogamous classificationor the fusion of three peoples or bands into one. So far as it goes, then,it may well be a patriciandivision, for all the dominant races of Italy, save the Etruscans, were and are of Wiro speech, and the Etruscans clearlv did not found the
I Binder,p. zz6. 4 p. I 51, Muller. 2 p. 322. 3 CiC., pro Sest. 19. 5p. 144.
This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 20:55:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 112 PATRICIANS AND PLEBEIANS AT ROME. patrician institutions,the vocabulary of which is Wiro ; therefore the patricianspresumably spoke Wiro of some kind, Latin, Sabine, or whatever it may have been. Of even less evidentialforce, as it seems to me, are the various statements and inferencesthat this or that quarter of Rome (Aventine,Esquiline, etc.) was plebeian in population. The Rome we know in anythinglike detail had already passed through the long struggleof the orders; and we need only look at London to see how the tone of a quartermay change in comparativelyfew years. As Bloomsbury,for example, now anything but an aristocratic district,bears in its street-namesand other such indications the clearest traces of the days when it was occupied largely by noble- men's houses, so the fact that the Aventine, for example, was a plebeian quarterin Livy's time,and probablyfor a good while before that, leaves us quite free to conjecture if we choose that originally only the pick of the aristocracylived there. When, as occasionally happens, as in the case of the Aventine again, we have some real groundsfor supposing that a quarterwas plebeian fromthe start,good reasonsfor it can, I think,be shownwithout supposing this difference of race. In general, no proof of differenceof race, culture, or original citizenship which falls under this category can be considered cogent if it merelyproves that the patricianshad some rightor some custom, religious or social, which the plebeians had not. That would be perfectlyconsistent with the supposition(which I believe to be the true one) that the latterwere the less importantmembers of a political body which neverthelessfelt itselfmore or less homo- geneous and had no reasonfor supposing itself to consistof an upper and a lower racial stratum. To be of evidential value, the phenomena in question should include some custom, however insignificant,or some right,however trivial,which the plebeians had and the patricianshad not. Thus-to take an example froma people well known to consist of two races, one of which has conquered the other-among the Banyoro, of the Uganda Protectorate,where a pastoraltribe, the Bahuma, rule over a peasant people, the Bairu, the kingused to choose annuallya sort of puppet- monarchwith the title of ' king's father,'who exercised authority for a few days and then was put to death1* The doubtfulprivilege of furnishingthis shadow of royaltybelonged to the peasants, and was the last survivalof their old sovrantyover the country. If it could be shown, for example, that the flamenDialis was of a differentsocial class fromthe actual magistrates,an indication of a like differenceof race would be foundfor Rome. But I findno such proof. That the plebeians had some rightswhich the patricians had I See Man 1920, no. 90 (p. i8i).
This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 20:55:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions PATRICIANS AND PLEBEIANS AT ROME. 113 not, in historicaltimes, is of course a commonplace. No patrician, forexample, might become tribuneof the plebs ; and that mysterious body, the conciliumplebis, points to the existence of an assembly in which the patricians had no share. But the very authorities which tell us of these institutionstell us also that they are incidents of the long fightof the plebeiansfor political recognition. To reject this part of the tradition,and assume that they were original, is the merest special pleading, even if there were not, as I hope to show that there were, featuresof the tribuneshipwhich supportthe tradition. It would be hardly less absurd to use the paucity of membersof the House of Lords who are also shop-stewardsto prove that the English workingclasses are of a differentrace from the peerage. Indeed, many argumentsof the kind referredto vanish when one parallels them frommodern political events. The commonestargument is also, to my mind,one of the weakest. It is drawn fromthe Livian account of the Lex Canuleia,1 and con- sists of the assumption-for it really is nothing more-that the reason why conubiumdid not exist between plebeiansand patricians was, that the formerwere matrilineal,the latter patrilineal. In the firstplace, this is not a uera causa. We have, in the Nairs and their neighbours,the Travancore Brahmins,an example of a fully patrilineal race side by side with one fully matrilineal,which commonlyintermarries with it. The Brahminskeep up the custom of allowingonly the eldest son to marry; the youngersons therefore formwhat they regard as irregularunions with Nair women. But to these women the unions are perfectlyregular; the children born of them belong to the mother's clan,. exactly as they would had their father been a Nair ; and, exactly as if the woman had married one of her own people, the union is not necessarily permanent,nor has the father anythingto do with the children. If then the plebeians had mother-right,we should expect to hear storiesto the effectthat such-and-sucha patrician had a plebeian concubine, and that owing to the immoralityof plebeian women she was none the worse thoughtof; this chargeof immoralitybeing one commonlybrought by patrilinealagainst matrilinealraces, e.g., by both Romans and Greeks against the Etruscans.2 What we do hear, from the time when the story of Verginia was put together downwards,is that the plebeian women were chaste,jealous of their honour, and good wives and mothers; in other words, that they differedin no way from the traditionalpatrician women. The other argumentsfor a matrilinealorganization among the plebeians I have disposed of elsewhere.3 These derived fromsuch featuresof cult as the tabu on the mention of a father'sname in
1 ivi I sqq. 3 Mother-Rightin Anc. Italy, in Folk-Lore xxxi 2 Plautus, Cist. 562 ; Theopompos ap. Athen. (1920), p. 93 sqq. Xii, 517 d.c.
This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 20:55:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions I 14 PATRICIANS AND PLEBEIANS AT ROME. the rites of Ceres, or fromthe supposed prominenceof goddesses ratherthan gods (e.g., Ceres) in plebeian cult,appear to me laughably weak. Even if most of these cults were not demonstrablyinfluenced by those of Magna Graecia, the argumentwould be valueless; in particular,the tabu in the rites of Ceres extended to the name of a daughter(ne quis patrem autfiliam nominet),and if the worship of deities embodying ' das Mutteridee,' as Binder calls it, proves mother-right,then mediaeval Europe, and much of modernEurope also, must surelybe matrilineal,since the Virgin Mary is the most noteworthyand most beautifulembodiment of that idea yet evolved. Equally feeble are argumentsdrawn from such facts as the non- inheritance of the throne by the sons of kings (that the throne descends in the female line, as Piganiol would have it, is an absurd exaggeration),or from the occasional prominenceof a relative on the distaffside, such as the maternal uncles of Lucretia, Verginia and Romulus2; for even if we were to take these tales at their face value, they would merelyshow us what we know already from Cicero and other authors,that at Rome we have not that very rare phenomenon,a people which for everydaypurposes reckonsdescent on one side only; while as to the kings,Binder himselffurnishes the undoubtedlyright explanation,3 namely that they are through- out representedas elected, not as succeeding by hereditaryright of any sort, and therefore,to point the moral,we have cases of the king's own son being set aside in favour of a worthieror more popular claimant. Of more account is the juristic argument, on which Binder naturallylays the most stress,and which he handles with knowledge and skill. It amounts to this; that the plebeians were Latins, because plebeian rightsand Latin rightsare the same. Originally, he supposes, very plausibly,4 the Latini, being one tribe, had one bodyof traditional law. To have a differentlaw would be tantamount to belongingto a differenttribe or perhapsrace. Now the ius Latii of historicaltimes is a certain body of rightswhich Romans and Latins had in common-those rightswhich were possessedby ciues sine suffragio,or municipes. So complete was the solidarityof this body of rights,the fruitof the solidarityof the people to whom it belonged,that an innovation,such as the introductionof the testa- mentumat Rome, would automaticallyspread through the entire body. Now one of the characteristicfeatures about the relationship between Rome and the other cities of the Latin League was that their citizenshipwas to a great extent interchangeable. A Roman might,if he chose, go to a Latin city and become a Latin; a Latin might reciprocallymigrate to Rome and to a certain extent at least acquire citizenshipthere. But-and this is the main point of the
I Servius(Dan.) on Acn. iv, 58; see Binder p. 356. 3 P. 539. 2 Piganiol, p. I56 sqq. 4 P. 351 sqq.; 329 sqq-
This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 20:55:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions PATRICIANS AND PLEBEIANS AT ROME. II5 argument-he acquired the status of a plebeian, not of a patrician, if he did so. Binder deduces fromthe names of one or two well- known familiesthat they were of Latin origin; thus he supposes that C. MViarciusCoriolanus, of the plebeiangens Marcia, was a Latin fromCorioli. Furthermore,he deduces from the claim of the Latins (Liv. viii, I4, I I ; 5, 6) to consulemalterum senatusque partern, the existence of an old organisation of a tribal state (Stammstadt) historicallyearlier than the city state (Stadtstaat) representedby Rome. This, to him, is sufficientproof that the so-called League was no confederacyof cities, but the organizationof a race, whose membershad constructedand lived in more than one town. Had it been a real league, he submits,the Latins could not have based on that fact any tolerable claim to a share in the governingbody of Rome, one of the membersof that league. In his opinion the tradi- tions of the foedus Cassianum-he holds Sp. Cassius to have been tribune of the plebs only, and not consul-of the first secession of the plebs, of the attack upon Rome by Coriolanus, and of the Leges Liciniae Sextiae, are all differentaccounts of the one event, namely the agreementarrived at by the Latin plebs, in Rome and out of it, with the non-Latin (Sabine) patrician body. That a merelyeconomic differencebetween the orders should have led to the strugglefor political supremacyhe thinksout of the question. This is a most ingeniousreconstruction of history; but beyond assent to the original proposition,that the Latini probably had in the earliest times a common body of traditions, one can hardlyagree with it. In the firstplace, the suggestionthat these traditionsaltered automaticallythroughout the whole area receives no support fromanything we know either of ancient leagues or of barbarian peoples (as those of Africa) which have in common a heritageof traditionallaw and custom. Any such sweepingchanges as Binder supposes, for example the introductionof patria potestas where none had existed before,or of the right of makingwills, if they affectmore than one memberof the League at about the same time, are clear proof of the existence of a central legislativebody. In the old days beforeRoman hegemonythe council of the League, meeting ad caput Ferentinaeor elsewhere,would we may suppose be competent to make such changes; but in historicaltimes what body could introducesuch modifications,affecting Rome, save the Senatuspopulusque Romanus ? And that this was patrician-controlled no one denies. Moreover,while it is tru.ethat a Roman could veryeasily acquire Latin status if he wanted it by change of domicile, it is not equally true-witness the occasionalexpulsions of non-Romansfrom Rome I
I See Livy ii, 37, 8; Cic. pro Sest. 30 and Schol. Bob. ad loc.; notice that Cicero specifically mentions the Latini.
This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 20:55:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions II6 PATRICIANS AND PLEBEIANS AT ROME. that a Latin could move to Rome and there become withoutfurther ado a Roman ciuis sine suffragio. And while it is true enoughthat all new citizens, with or without full civic rights, in the fully historical timel were plebeians, it by no means follows that all plebeianswere at any time ciuessine suffragio, or in possessionof Latin rightsonly. The explanationis much simpler; froma quite early date the patrician body ceased to recruititself fromwithout, and so until the emperors assumed the power of giving patents of nobility,every newly admitted Roman citizen,from Latin magistrates to emancipatedslaves, became a plebeian because there was nothing else forhim to become. Moreover, neitherthe claims of the Latins (supposing them to be historicaland not a mere reflexof the similarItalian claims at the beginningof the Social War)2 nor the political claims of the plebs, supposingthem to have been simplythe economicallyinferior body of the citizens, are in the least improbable. The governingbody of Rome had become in fact the governingbody of the League, whose old councilhad dwindledto a mereshadow. Latin officersand men servedin war under a Roman staff. Is it in any way incrediblethat the attitudeof the Latins towardsRome should have been much the same as that of the Americancolonists towards the BritishGovern- ment in I775, or, in later times and with far less ill-feeling,of the modern Dominions, the fruitof which is to be seen in the various conferencesand in the schemes for an Imperial Parliament? As to the likelihoodof a movementarising out of economic difficulties resultingin a campaign for increased political rights,we have to look no furtherthan the historyof the Labour party for a close parallel. 3. Argumentsfrom religious differences. To put the case in a nut-shell,the admittedfacts are as follows: a large numberof cults were in patricianhands as farback as we knowanything about them; thus the flaminesof luppiter, Mars and Quirinus,were of necessity patricians; the augursand pontificeswere so tillrelatively late times; and in general the patriciansalone were credited with the knowv- ledge of how ritual, and in particular officialdivination, should be performed. On the other hand, we know of many other cults, such as that of Ceres, that theywere plebeian, and there are some few of the certainlyancient worships,such as that of the Dea Dia, concerningwhich we are not told in so manywords that the priest- hood was of necessitypatrician to start with. But the impression left on most writerson Roman religionis, that all cults, if old, are patrician,and if plebeian, are recent. This is confirmedby the fact
I That it was not originallyso I hope to prove least, conisiderinigthe relative nLiimbersof Romani later. citizensand socii at the time ; bO6XOvtos 4DXdKKOS 2 The Italianisdid not exactlyask for onieof the 67ra7eswc . .. .JpeLe roi's 'PIrcXoke 47rsOvpeZv consuls to be of their number,but their demands, ris'Pw,uacwv7roXiteiras Us KOwvW)OUS T7lS iryCAovLas if granted, would have produiced that result at &vri u'7raKO6v s?eo,ovovs, Appian, Bell. Ciu. i, 34-
This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 20:55:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions PATRICIANS AND PLEBEIANS AT ROME. 117
that admittedlyplebeian cults, like those of Ceres and Diana, have no footingintra pomerium, but are on the Aventine or other such places ; and this without any indicationthat the deitiesworshipped were of a dangeroustype, as were for instanceVolkanus and Mars, whose originalcult would appear to have been outside the walls. Piganiol, and to a less extent Binder, try to findin the long list of deities and ceremonies examples either of admittedly ancient cults which are plebeian, or of admittedlyplebeian cults which are ancient. The formerauthor cuts the knot in vigorous style. Adoptingthe theory-abandoned by the sanestauthorities on ancient religion-that the Mediterranean peoples always worshipped chthonian powers, the invaders from the north sky-gods(and he would add, fire-gods)he readily arrangesthe Roman deities under these two categories, and proceeds to identifythis division with that into patricianand plebeian cults. Into the detailsof his develop- ment of this theme it is hardly worth while to go ; they will be found in the work already often quoted, Part II, chap. ii. A few samples howeverwill serve to show the wildnessof his ideas on the subject. He considers the stone (Juppiter Lapis, Terminus, the Bona Dea Subsaxana, etc.) a characteristicsymbol of the Mediterranean or chthonian cult. With this he would associate sacrificesmade without fire. To the sky-culton the other hand belong rites in- volving the use of fire.' Consistentlywith this, he supposes that there were two types of altars,representing the two cults: '(i) le tumulus de gazon qui porte un feu allume; dans ce foyeron jette, a destinationdes dieux d'en haut,toutes sortesd'echantillons. (2) la pierrequ'on frottede sang.' He then proceedsto quote the remark of Servius on Aen. III, I34, nec licere uel priuata uel publica sacra sine focofieri and the (quite erroneous) statementof Dion. Hal., ii, 74, 4 that Terminus was worshipped without blood-offerings, as provingdeliberate officialinterference with this ancient state of things,in the interestsof the triumphantcult of fire. That we have no sort of proofthat the Lares, whom everyevidence shows to have been chthonian deities of some kind, were sacrificedto otherwise than by burnt offerings,does not seem to trouble him at all, any more than the fact that burnt sacrificewas so common an accom- paniment of the fixingin place of a terminusthat surveyorswere bidden to look for the layerof ashes under a stone if they were in doubt whetherit was a boundarymark or. not. 2 A little later, he is obliged to suppose that Vesta is a deity later than Volkanus, who supplantedhim; the truthbeing of coursethat the two have nothing what-everto do with one another,being respectivelythe deities of devouringfire and of the hearth; and that the cult of the former
Siculus Flaccuis, adds that the custom was apud 2P. 95. 2 Gromnatici,P. 140 Lachinann. The author, antiquosobservata.
This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 20:55:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions I i8 PATRICIANS AND PLEBEIANS AT ROME. was vigorous from the earliest times. Binder, while he does not flyin the face of factsin this wholesale manner,uses some veryweak proofsfor his contentionthat certainof the older cultswere plebeian. Thus, on the relativepaucity of evidence for the connectionof the Palatine settlementwith old patriciancults he groundshis suggestion that it was an old plebeian settlement; while for the rest of the Septimontiumhe gets rid of the evidence from such facts as the existenceof an ancient shrineof Carna on the Caelius by the mere assumption that they are plebeian forms of worship,there being no direct evidence that they were patrician. He himself admits (P. I38) that his proofsare farfrom cogent. Perhapsthe best example of the truth of this statementis the argument (p. 122-3) that the Arvals must have been a*plebeian college because they are not included in Cicero's famouslist of patriciansacral offices,de domo38. The fact that in Cicero's time the college hardlyexisted is surely reason enough. I have already mentionedthat to a great extent the supporters of the theoryunder discussioncancel each other out. In the case of one famous argument,made much of both by Piganiol and by Ridgeway (in Who were the Romans?), namely that differenceof race between patrician and plebeian is proved by the fact that one inhumed while the other cremated, Binder furnishesa complete and satisfactoryanswer, by calling attention1 to what most anthropologistsnow recognize,that this difference,like most others connected with burial customs,need not indicate differenceeither of race or of belief. For historicalRome we may add that the reason for the differingcustom was chieflyeconomical, a funeral pyre being more than the poorerpeople could as a rule afford. But perhaps the most complete example of the mutual destructivenessof these theories is the circumstancethat whereas most writersshow us Sabine patriciansreigning more or less wisely over Latin plebeians, Piganiol makes the plebs Sabines. It appears then that the argumentsfor all the various forms of the theoryunder discussionare at best inconclusive. It is time now to ask what the ancient theorywas, and whetherrightly under- stood it can hold the field still. That any sure tradition of the early days of Rome existed by the time her historiographybegan is an idea hardly likely to be revived. In the matterof the originof the plebs we have to handle Livy or Dionysios as we do Niebuhr or Binder; as theorists,that is, who must bring forwardfacts to prove their theories. Now these authorsstate in the firstplace that the plebeians were simply those whom Romulus did not choose out to formhis senate in the early days. That they were of the original settlersfrom Alba, or of the miscellaneousfolk who flockedtogether to the Asylum, or 'P. 317, sqq.
This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 20:55:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions PATRICIANS AND PLEBEIANS AT ROME. II9 that they were Ti. Tatius' followers,we are never told.1 Our authorsgo on to tell us that over and above the little originalband of patres and their descendants,there were foreignerswho came and settled in Rome and were admittedto the senatorialor patrician body; the Sabines whose daughters the Romans had kidnapped, the Corinthian-EtruscanTarquinius, the Sabine Attus Clausus. We also hear again and again of conquered populationsbeing fetched to Rome and assigneda dwelling-placethere, presumably as plebeians. In otherwords, it appeared to the Romans that the patricianswere a mixed body, mostly the descendants of original settlersof one race or anotherwho had been in some way superiorto theirfellows, and that therewas and alwayshad been anotherbody, whose original core comprised the hangers-on and dependents-vassals, clients, or whatever one chooses to call them-of these original nobles; that both bodies afterwardswere recruitedfrom without, but that most of the recruitsbecame plebeians. My view is that this theory is quite correct,despite its unhistoricalform and mention of such mythicalfigures as Romulus and such eponyms as Attus Clausus; and that all the evidence, rightlyinterpreted, points that way. I will not contend that the names of the two orders,respectively 'those who possessnatural authority ' and ' the many' do not denote differenceof race ; for it could be replied that Spartiate and helot, baron and villein, do not denote racial differenceeither, yet such a differenceexisted between Spartan and Norman lords and their subjects. But, on the analogy of Norman England and of Sparta after the Messenian wars, we may safelysuppose that the villeins,. whatever their race was, were to some extent at least obliged to followtheir lords to battle, probablyserving in the ranksonly. This is preciselywhat the traditionstell us, over and over again. What they do not tell us is that these villeins had any remnantsof old titles of their own, such as lord and lady in England. And here I wish to discuss two importantpieces of evidence which I have hithertoheld back. One of the bones of contentionin this whole matteris of course the tribunateof the plebs, and plausible attemptshave been made to show that the tribunewas an originalplebeian magistrate-that is, Latin, according to the usual conception of the plebs as Latins- and that he remainedas a sort of parallelto the new magistratesset up by the conquerors,just as some Saxon thegnsremained prominent alongsideof the more potent Norman nobility. In this connection too little attentionhas been paid to the very pertinentremarks of Plutarch, drawing,as he does in the QuaestionefRomanae, on good sources. ' Why' he asks, ' does the tribune of the plebs not wear the praetexta which other magistrateswear ? Is it because he is not a magistrateat all ? The tribuneshave no lictors,they do not I See Livy i, 8, I; Dion. Hal. ii, 7, 8 ; Plutarch Roemi.13.
This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 20:55:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 120 PATRICIANS AND PLEBEIANS AT ROME. sit on the curule chair to transacttheir business; they do not enter upon officeat the beginningof the year as all other magistratesdo; and theydo not abdicate if a dictatoris appointed . . . in short,they behave, not like magistrates,but like functionariesof some other kind.'l There are inaccuracies and irrelevancesin his discussion, but the primaryfact remains; the tribunesdid not use any of the well-known insignia of magistracy. Now if we heard that they wore any other insignia,this would go to prove that they were the magistratesof a people other than the patricians; but as we do not, the impressionleft behind is that they were originallywhat the tradition states, namely soldiers (N.C.O.'s or privates) set up as their leaders by a mutinousarmy. But the most important fact is that they wear neither the purple stripe nor any other insignia ofa priest; and a magistratewho is not a priest as well is a phenomenonforeign to all we knowof ancient cities. The other importantpoint is the statementof Livy that the gens was a patrician institutiononly. 2 Two attitudes have been adopted towardsthis; one that of Binder3 who casts doubts on its historicity,the other that of most modern supportersof the view that the plebeians were raciallydistinct, namely that the plebs had some other organization correspondingto the gens but based on mother-right. How little evidence there is for mother-rightat Rome I have already pointed out. If the statement be wholly unhistorical,we are leftwith the plebeiansorganized exactlylike the patriciansin gentesof their own, which proves nothing,for whether they were the same people as the patriciansor not they mighthave the same social organization. But if it is historical,we mustconsider brieflywhat the genswas. The famous definition of Scaevola4 really tells us little. According to it, gentilesare people who have a common name and can trace a descent through free parents, they being themselves in possessionof full citizen rights (capite non deminuti). This if pressed would exclude the plebs originally,for traditionallythey did not possessfull rights,but were in a permanentstate of capitis deminutio. So far as it goes then it serves to strengthenLivy's statement; but as it is part of the same tradition,that of the lawyers of the late republic,this does not go for much. Somethingmore appearsif we look at the termsof relationship.5 Here we find that father and paternal uncle are regarded as much the same (pater, patruus); that brotheror sister and cousin are
I Quaest. Rorn. 8i ; ta& ri rEptr6pkUpov o 2 x, 8, 2. 77A/capXos ou Oopet, TWp 6XNw apX6V-wV 3P. 159. bopoUpsrwV; TO7 7rapci7racv 0i' ecrrV dpXwY; 4 In Cicero, Topica, z2 ; gentilessunt qui eodem oU5 'ya&p o0' e7rLr 'aI33o6Xous ''Xouovo 6igpou nomine sunt . .. qui ab ingenuisoriundi sunt . . . KacO JuEvot o5' ertovs KaOacrep Xp-quac7-t1ouvTv, adpXV7 quorum maiorumnemo seruituteimiseruiuit . . . qui aL Xot7rol 7ra'PTES eILTOL o0 W lrduovTat dpXopres V, capite non sunt diminuti. cKTrapropos alpeOgVros .... W"orep 0UK 6VrEs ApXovTrEsa\XX' eT'paV TrVp&rdtv gXovrEs. 5 See Gaius in Digest xxxviii, IO, i.
This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 20:55:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions PATRICIANS AND PLEBEIANS AT ROME. I2I differentiated,if at all, only by an added adjective (patruelis)if on the father'sside, i.e., if of the same gens as the speaker; that, of the mother'srelations, her sisteris called by nearlythe same name as herself(matertera), and her brotherby a varietyof the word for grandfather(auonculus) 1; conversely,that nephew,niece and grandson, granddaughter,were not differentiated.We also learn that there was a special name (ianitrices)for women who had marriedbrothers. Finally we gather, from the story of the rewards granted by the senate to Fecenia Hispala for her servicesin laying bare the con- spiracy of the Bacchanalia,2 that a widow could not marryout of her husband's clan without special permission. We learn further that besides frater (soror) patruelis, which signifiesan ortho-cousin3 on the spear side, there are two moreterms for cousin,sobrinus (-a) and consobrinus(-a), qui quaeue ex duabus sorori'busnascuntur, i.e., ortho-cousins on the distaffside; and amitini amitinae, qui quaeue ex fratre et sororepropagantur. With this goes the name forthe wife of one's father'sbrother, amita, i.e., 'mammy' or 'nannie,' see Walde Etym. Wort.s.u. Another interestingpoint is the relationshipof a man to his wife's immediate kin. While adfinis generally means what we colloquially call an ' in-law,' it is noteworthythat Cicero uses it, ad Att. i, 5, i, of a quite distant connectionby marriage,a cousin of a sister'shusband. It is furthernoteworthy that there are no degrees of affinity,and that adfinesdo not marry.4 Let us now compare the relationship-termsof two peoples known to have, in one case actual group-relationship,in the other clear survivalsof its formerexistence. In Central New Ireland the terms are as follows: Mama (or tanagu) signifies indifferentlyfather or father's brother; natigu is son or brother's son, a man speaking in both cases. Makai is mater or matertera; conversely,r'anugu bulu,r'anugu hinasik, (mi puer, mea puella) are used indifferentlyby a woman in addressingher own childrenor her nephewsand neices. Hatatasin (frater,soror) is used not only to a brotheror sister, but to any ortho-cousinhowever remote; di/rlapun is similarlyused to any cross-cousin. Turning now to the Mara tribe of Australia,among whom group relationshipis in full vigour,we find that: Nalaru meanspater or patruus,filius and filiusfratris being alike representedby nitjari. Katjirri is materor matertera.
1 We cannot be sture that the differentiating or two sisters; cross-cotusins,of a brother and a ending was originallya diminutivein either case. sister. The formerNvord is the invention of Sir 2 Livy xxix,I9, 5. JamesFrazer. 3 Ortho-cousinsare the childrenof two brothers 4 See Modestinus in Digest, ibid..4, 5 and Io.
This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 20:55:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions I22 PATRICIANS AND PLEBEIANS AT ROME.
Guauaii and niritja (the formeris used to a senior, the latter to a junior) mean indifferentlyfrater and frater patruelis; the feminineequivalents are gnarali and gnanirritja. Irrimakula is either wife or wife's sister. All the above terms are used by men; a woman calls both her husband and her husband's brotherirrimakula. 1 In other words, in the above societies father signifies' man of my clan, of the age-classabove me' ; 'mother' is 'woman of the clan with which I intermarry,of the age-classabove me' ; ' brother' and ' sister' mean ' man (woman) of my own clan and age-class' and so on. The purpose of these terms is not to name what we should consider blood-relationsor connectionsby marriage,but to classifythose whom a person, or rather a group of persons,may or may not marry. Consider now how these facts fit in with the Roman system. Assume for the purpose of argumentthat the gens Fabia and gens Iulia are two intermarryingclans, living near each other (adfines). Then, if I am a Fabius, every Fabius of the age-class above me2 is my pater or patruus; every Fabius and Fabia of my own age-class is myfrater or soror; those below me in age I perhaps address as pueri. For whilefilius and filia, when not used simplyas words of kindlyaddress to youngerpeople, appear always to mean ' son ' and ' daughter' in our sense (I conjecture that they were originallya woman's words, terms of address to her own sucklings),it is note- worthythat puella (and so presumablypuer also) while very often used of a person'sown child, as Horace Od. iii, II, 23, is used by a woman to her sister'schild, Cicero de diuin. i, IO4. Nowrthe women of this youngerclass are of my clan, and I may not marrythem; they are all in the position of daughtersto me. But if my sister (own or clan-sister)has a daughter, that daughter is not a Fabia but a Julia, since my sister'shusband is necessarilya Julius; her thereforeI may marry. Likewise, if my daughter has a daughter, she is a Julia,and other thingsbeing equal I may marryher. This I suggestexplains why I call them both nepos(neptis is of course a later wvord). My mother's sororesor clan-sistersare all women whom my fathermight have married,and whom his clan-brothers also mightmarry and at least in manycases have married. I naturally call them all, if not ' mother' at least ' motherkin.' Of my cousins (own or clan), there is a class whom I may not marry,namely my sobrinae,children of my mother's sorores and thereforeof my father'sfratres. These are my own sorores, being all Fabiae. But the daughtersof myfather's sorores are Juliae
1 See Frazer, Totem71ism11and Exoganmy,vol. ii, of such a classification(puer, adulescens,inuenis, pp. 129, 302. senex; puella, uirgo, issslier, anus) survives and retainson the whole fairlydefinite meanings; also 2 That age-classesonce existedamong the Romans from the ceremonial of the toga uirilis, and the is reasonablylikely from the factthat the vocabulary centuriesof iunioresand seniores.
This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 20:55:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions PATRICIANS AND PLEBEIANS AT ROME. I23
and I maymarry one of them,probably am in theorythe husband of them all. They have thereforea distinctivename, amitinae, forthey are especiallyeligible as bridesfor me. 1 If now I am a Fabia, myfather is a Fabiusand I maynot marry him; hispatres and fratres likewise are Fabii, and ineligible; but the brothersof mv mother,own or clan,are all Julii; so are herpatres. As any one of themis a possiblehusband, I call them all by the sameterm, auos or auonculus. Lateron theidea growsup thatsome Fabii are moreakin to each otherthan other Fabii are to them; thereis a specialbond between forinstance the membersof thehousehold of Kaeso Fabius. There- forethe idea growsup, as it did in India, thatif thisgeneration of a sub-sectionof the lulii marriedinto the familyof Kaeso Fabius, the householdof Lucius Fabius would be more appropriatefor the next generation; hence the maximof later timesthat adfines did notmarry. The wordhad ceasedto mean' memberof the inter- marryingclan' and come to mean' connectionby marriage'in our sense. The morecomplex relationships thus producedgave rise to suchwords as janitrices. It will be seen that thisreconstruction accounts for every term of relationship,for the amita, being a clan-sisterof the mother, is the same as the materteraoriginally ; the baby name was later foundusefuil when exogamybroke down. It supposesnothing to have happenedin earlyItaly, or in the countryfrom which the ancestorsof the Romans came, which is notknown to havehappened, not once but verymany times, elsewhere. It makestwo conjectures and two only,viz., that auos, auonculus,and nepos(neptis), were originallyused only betweena womanand the fatheror brother (clan or own) of hermother, the classicaluse beinga laterextension. We maytherefore I thinkjustly conclude that the genswas in its originan exogamousclan, one of a groupof two exogamousclans whichregularly married into each other; thoughthe arrangement mayof coursehave been more complicated than this, each clanhaving its choice betweenseveral with which it couldintermarry. The two importantpoints are, that it was exogamousand that it had grouprelationship. This latterpoint, besides being in itselfprobable, as alreadyshown, likewisehelps to explainthe curiousfact that Latin has no wordfor fanmily(since familia means a household,or moreproperly the house- hold slaves,and stirps,besides being a metaphor,is ratherthe direct lineal ascendantsand descendantsof an individual than that individualtogether with his immediate kin of the firstdegree). The formerstatement however needs a little furtherjustification, as
1 For the origin of marriage of cross-cousinis, O.T., vol. ii, p. 193 sqq. Note that sororesare probablyfrom the common exchange of ainown or sobsrinaedifferently vie-wed. clan-sisterfor a wife, see Frazer, Folk-Lorein the
This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 20:55:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 124 PATRICIANS AND PLEBEIANS AT ROME. several writers,from Mommsen to Piganiol, have fancied that they detected traces of endogamyat Rome. The argumentson which this idea seems to be based are (i) the phrase enubereex patribus. As this is spoken of as a thing to be disapproved1 it has been suggested that to marry outside one's gens was originallydisallowed. But an examinationof the context makes it clear that it means to marrya plebeian. This argument is thereforeneglible. (2) The matter of gentis enuptio, already mentioned. Here again we have to look at the context. The Senate's bounty takes the form of giving the patriotic harlot the statusof a respectablewidow, whose husband had lefther the largest measure of freedom a woman could legally have; uti . . . gentis enuptio tutorisoptio item esset, quasi si ei uir testamentodedisset. The Romans practised marriage by purchase (coemptio) whicl originallyno doubt was a reality,not a form. The woman thus bought was the property,not of the husband, but of the clan, which by all analogyalone could have donainiumover any property,though an individual might have usus-even in the developed law, the propertyof an intestatewithout sui heredesescheated to his gens, which also claimed the propertyof a deceased client,as in the famous case of the Claudii and the Claudii Marcelli.2 The widow then was the propertyof the clan, probablythe wife in theoryof all her adines.3 To marryinto another gens was to make offwith their property,and thiscould be allowed onlyby permissionof the gentiles, or, once the right of makingwills came into existence,i.e., when it was felt that the individualcould have not only usus or possessiobut dominium,by the will of the deceased. Gentisenuptio was apparently the only kind of marriage,originally, which a virgincould contract, for the deductioimplies going to live in another house, the various threshold-ritesof the marriage ceremony show clearly that the bride passesfrom one set of sacra to another,and finallythe formula ubi tu Gaius ego Gaia makes sense only if we take it to mean that the bride accepts the husband's gentile name forher own. (3) The ius osculi. Here it should be noted that to kiss meant apparentlv consanguinityand nothing else. To kiss one's wife was felt to be ratherindecent4; it was the proper greetingfor a sisteror cousin, whom one mightnot marry. Endogamy then did not exist except in the sense in which it alwaysexists where exogamyis practised,viz., that the wife must be taken, not from anywhereoutside the clan, but from a particular clan or groupof clans otherthan one's own.
1 See Liv. x, 23, 4. Cat. Mai. 17, 7; dXXovde 3ouX-Mse03&Xev . . . 2 See note at end of article. MavLXXtov,0r, r7iivaurov -yuva?Ka ue6' r,ulpav 3 Hence also the inabilityof a woman to hold or 6pw.C?I r7r/ Ouyarp6s Ka7ec-XA?7oev (KarasLX6ev, transmit property. She was propertyherself, and in Plutarchand Hellenisticwriters generally, means a chattel canniotbe an owner. simply osculari, osculo excipere, not ' embrace ' as 4 See the story told of Cato the Elder, Plut. Perrinrenders it).
This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 20:55:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions PATRICIANS AND PLEBEIANS AT ROME. 125
To return now from this long digression,it is clear that the gentsis a survivalof a very early state of society, earlier than the 'undivided family' to which Maine long ago drew attention,and probablythe organizationout of which the undivided familygrew. If then the plebeians did not have it, one of two things follows; eitherthey were in a much more advanced state of civilizationthan the patricians,of whichthere is no tracewhatever, or theywere with- out social organization,i.e., they were not a people or community at all. That the latter alternativeis infinitelythe more probable seemsto me obvious ; so here again the classicaltheory holds its own. Some attempthas been made to showl that assembliesof a kind not patrician at all or at least not wholly patrician, existed from the earliesttimes. The proofamounts to this; that there is a very uncertaintradition to the effectthat in quite early times plebeians began to be admitted to the Senate, or, at least, that some persons not of the originalpatrician body foundentrance there, on an inferior footing; and also that sundrynotices of the origin of the various comitia, notablythe ancientcoritia centuriata,give us to understand that in some of them at least there was no distinctionof rank. In both cases we have to recollect the notorious tendencyof Roman, and all other, historicaltradition to reflectmore recent times back into less recent. Not one of the ancient historianswas so well equipped on the scientificside as Grote; yet hardly a page of his History, when he discusses constitutionalantiquities, fails to give the impressionthat a Greek democrat was much the same as an English Liberal. How prone classical and post-classical Greece and Rome were to forge evidence fromantiquity is so well known that it needs no illustrationin general; I need only referin parti- cular to the oligarchic paper-constitutionwhich in the 'A0qvxcxv) norXvreLLo masks under the name of Drakon, and to the notorious plebiscite of B.C. 342 Ut liceretambos consules plebeios creari (Livy vii, 42, 2), to remindany one of its frequencyon the part ofconstitu- tional theoristsin particular. Romulean comitiain which all men's votes had the same value, and plebeians in the senate under the kings,are in all probabilityforgeries of just this kind. But assumingthat they are not mere forgeries,what is there to surpriseus in the statementthat there was in very early times an assembly which every free man might attend ; for that is what the statementsabout the comitiaamount to ? Greek and Teutonic antiquityshow us exactlythe same institutionin the Homeric ?xxCabl (in peace-time,as reflectedin the Odyssey; the council of war in the Iliad is a differentmatter), and the folk-mootor thing. If therewas such an institutionin Rome, and if the plebeiansattended it, then the plebeians were not serfs,which rather indicates that
l See Binder pp. I44 sqq., i62, Piganiol pp. 263 p. z6z (senate). The relevant passages are cited sqq. (assemblies); Binder P. 375 sqq., Piganiol by these authors.
This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 20:55:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions i26 PATRICIANS AND PLEBEIANS AT ROME. they were not foreignersor had forgottenthat they were such but that they were clientes,vassals, of the nobles is likelyenough. Binder's statement(p. 225) ' ein H6riger ist kein Burger' is true enough for modern,or classical Greek, ideas of citizenship; it does not apply to the pre-classicalpolity, so far as we can reconstitute it from such documents as the Odyssey and such survivalsas the Spartan assembly. The Roman client as a free vassal may well have had a voice, if not an actual vote in our sense, in the comitia of his day. As to the Senate, the most that can be made out of the most generousinterpretation of our documentsis that the patricians were not always exclusive, and perhaps that Rome in early days welcomed foreignersand readily gave them citizenship. Reinterpretationof the facts. I now offerwhat I hold to be the right reading of the complicated problem before us, and so endeavourto account forthe racial differenceswhich I readilyadmit did exist in Rome, though not between patricians and plebeians as such. Jrchaeologicaland magico-religiousevidence; Pre-Historyof the Romans. In the followingsections I propose to use the word race somewhat loosely, to mean chieflythe participantsin a common civilizationin a given area (in this case generallyLatium), without insistingon identityof physicalcharacteristics. Such of the evidence as is known to me appears to make it rathermore likelythan not that at least the firstand last of the groups I have to speak of were fairlyhomogeneous in this respect also ; but if each of them were shownto have consistedof a dozen disparatephysical types it would not affectmy argument. It is generallyknown that at an early date Italy was occupied by a neolithic race, usually called for convenience, and probably also with substantial historical accuracy, Ligurians. I need not describe their cu]ture, as this has already been done by Peet, in his well-knowntreatise The Stone and Bronze Ages in Italy. They resembled,but were probablynot identical with, the Siculi, as they are commonlycalled, whose culture has left remainsin Sicily from about the same period. Neither race was savage ; they were rather barbarians,living in round huts like the capanne still occasionally used by Italian shepherdsin one or two districts,making good stone tools,and not unskilledin pottery,which theymade withouta wheel. They had possiblysome knowledgeof agriculture.1 Their art, like that of most barbarians,was rudimentary,from which it follows that their religionwas in all probabilityaniconic, or mostlyso. Now the interestingfact for our purposes is that in the very heart of Roman religion,and patricianreligion, we find clear traces of the influenceof the Stone Age. JuppiterLapis is too well known
1 See Peet, op. cit. p. 109.
This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 20:55:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions PATRICIANS AND PLEBEIANS AT ROME. I27 for any descriptionof his cult to be necessary; I have elsewhere reviewed the evidence which convinces me, and many other in- vestigators,that he was a flintknife or knives.1 And, whateverhe was, the lapis silex of the Fetiales and the proverb intersacrum et saxum prove as much. As venerable as Juppiterhimself is Vesta; and she is worshippedin a durable stone replica of the round hut and with pottery of ancient and simple styles. Finally, we have the testimonyof Varro that the oldest Roman cult was aniconic2 which at least means that the cults that seemed to him oldest (perhaps those of Mars Hasta, of the Arma Quirini, Juppiter Lapis, etc.) had no ancient cult-statuesat all. Putting these facts togetherI do not see how we can avoid the inferencethat the patricianscontained a Ligurian element, strong enough to outlast the coming of races which knew metals and could carve images. But the Ligurianswere in time subordinatedto a bronze civiliza- tion of which the best knownrepresentative is found in the culture of the terramare. The race who broughtthis culture with them- we know unfortunatelylittle or nothingof their persons,owing to their regularhabit of crematingtheir dead-lived in templaraised on piles, cultivatedvarious kinds of grain and fruit,including wheat and grapes, and were able to fortifytheir dwvellingsstoutly and to manufactureexcellent weapons and tools. Therefore,despite their disgusting practice of letting all manner of rubbish accumulate under their pile-houses,they were sure to be too much for the neoliths in war; and being tillersof the soil they were bound to make war, in a country already inhabited, in order to get land. Either these people or the bearers of a similar bronze civilization reached Latium,3 where perhaps they founded the Palatine settle- ment as a sort of terramara,(see E. A. Hooten in Re'v. d'Eth. et de Soc., I9I3, p. 238), certainlythey influenced the earlyusers of the Forum cemetery,where some bronze has been found,manufactured into articles of by no means the earliest known types.4 For traces of a bronze civilizationin Rome we have not far to seek. I will not insist on the bronze share of the plough used to trace the sulcus primigenius; Varro5 calls this an Etruscan rite, and it may be that it reached Rome in an Etruscanizedform, possibly under the later kings,though I do not think so; but to find a patricianbronze cult we have but to considerthe tabus of the Flamen Dialis. One of the most interestingis that which forbidshim to have his hair cut with any but a bronze implement.6 But the
I J.R.S. iii, (I 913), p. 237. Its shape, while niotvery elaborate, is niotprimitive, 2 Apud Aug. C.D. iv, 3'. and shows niolittle skill. 3 See rear's Work, I922-I923, for a bronze age aDe ling. Lat. v, 143. settlementon Monte Mario. 6 Serv. on Aen. i, 448. For the flainenDialis in 4See for instanceBoni in Not. degli Scav., I906, general see Wissowa, op. cit. p. 504 sqq., and the p. 30, the fibulafrom one of the cremation-graves. referencesthere given.
This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 20:55:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Iz8 PATRICIANS AND PLEBEIANS AT ROME. flamenhas other thingsof interestin the long list of his tabus and privileges. In outward appearance he is no mere priest but a high magistrate,if not a king. He takes precedence on ceremonial occasionsover all but the rex sacrorum,of whom I shall have some- thing to say later ; he has a lictor; he wears the toga praetexta; he uses the curule chair and has a rightto be presentat the senate; he even has what looks like a remnantof the sovran prerogativeof mercy. For while the fact that a bound man who could get into his house must be unbound and his fetterscast out per impluuiumis to be explained on purely magico-religiousgrounds, the same is not true of the reprievethat was granted for that day to any criminal on his way to executionwho met the flamenand fell at his feet; for religious objections would surel)rhave been met if the execution had taken place as soon as the criminalhad been removed beyond the flamen'sholy gaze. Now the flamenis a patrician if anyone is, and it is worth noticingthat whereashe appears to be a priest- king or at least a king with many sacerdotal functions,we have in the Latin cult of Diana at Aricia another priest-king,the famous rex nemorensis.We may note also that the Salii wore bronze armour,Dion. Hal. ii, 70, 2, Liv. i, 20, 4, Plut. Num. I3. These bronze-usersthen may be reasonablyheld to have invaded Latium and conquered the stone-usinginhabitants, whether those are to be called Ligurians, Siculi or Aborigines,whatever the last word may mean.1 But the conquest was neithersudden, easy, nor complete. The race in possession was tough and enduring; it probably soon learned to use bronze weapons, for fromits position it had not to face the firstshock of an invasion which apparently came fromthe north(Terramara) or east (Illyrian), and so had time partly to adapt itself. Some membersof it no doubt made their way to the hill country,where later generations(see Livy xxxix,i, i) piously supposed the Ligurians to have been placed by Providence to keep the legionsfit between more importantcampaigns. Others, yieldingfinally to the invaders,yet made termswith them, keeping no inconsiderablepart of their religiousrites and no doubt of other customs as well. It is not absurd to suppose however, that they lost their language and adopted the Wiro speech of the conquerors. Intermarriagevery likelytook place, for it is not probable than an invadingrace would have manywomen with it. Here we mayperhaps begin to talk of a Latin people, and to see in them the foundersof the Palatine settlement. Being users of bronze, they were likely to be not only fightersand farmers(or cattle-breeders)but also traders; for with bronze comes the possibilityof having much wealth in a little space ; this produces the comparativelylarge
I After trying every conceivable etymology, thereab origine ; so Binder,p. 294 sqq. The Siculi modernopinion seems to be returningto the classical may have been the invaders,as Siculan is a Wiro Latin view that the word means those who were speech.
This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 20:55:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions PATRICIANS AND PLEBEIANS AT ROME. 129 capitalist, and trade, already in existence before the metals were heard of, is given a great impetus. This ' Latin ' civilization seems to have reached a fairlyhigh level in many respects. To it we may attributethe new form of sacred place, the templum,which was differentboth in its shape' and in the method of its consecrationfrom the old-fashionedround shrine of Vesta. It differedalso in not necessarilycontaining any building,whereas the essentialthing in the old shrineappears to have been a hut for the deity to live in. The chief of the community-- whether he was called rex or not is of little importance-would appear, fromthe phenomena observable at both Rome and Aricia, to have been the chief priestalso. Upon this communityseems to have come a Sabine invasion, concerningwhich our few facts appear to a great extent to con- tradict one another. In the firstplace, we know that an iron civilization,that of the Villanovans,made its way into Italy and apparently destroyed the terramaracivilization in the Po valley. We should thereforeexpect that Villanovanswould arrive in Latium as conquerors. In the second place, philologyshows that the Latin word for iron is not of the native speech, as otherwiseit would be *herrum,not ferrum. On the other hand, we findin historicaltimes the Latins in possessionof the plain, the Sabines in the less desirable hill country,and the words of Sabine, that is Osco-Sabellian, origin in Latin are few, though rather important,for they include the name of the sacred beast of Mars, lupus. It may be that the Villanovan invasion of Latium was on the whole a failure-con- ceivablyEtruscan power had somethingto do with this-and that it attained a measure of success only or chieflyin Rome. For, that it was to a considerableextent successfulthere, is I think highly likely. In the firstplace, the iron culture has in turn left its mark upon religious observances. Whereas the flamen Dialis may not use iron,the Vestals forsome purposesmust; the muriesis prepared by cuttinglumps of salt up with a saw, and Varro specifiesthat the implementwas of iron.2 So once more, in a patrician cult, we find traces of the coming of another race. But more important than this is the existence of the rex sacrorum,the one priest who took precedence of the flamenDialis. As the latter is apparently a king,why are there two such figures? I suggestthat the Sabines (or whateverthey were called; the name of these iron-usersis of minor importance)having conquered the bronze people, still were carefulto respect their rites, and in special let them still have their king, restrictinghis functionsto sacral matters,much as in the case of the Banyoro already mentioned,but with more humanity.
1 It was normally rectangular,although Prof. 2 Varr. ap. NoD. 223 M. A. L. Frothingham(AJ.A. xviii, 302 ff.)makes out a strongcase forits not alwayshaving that shape.
This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 20:55:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions I30 PATRICIANS AND PLEBEIANS AT ROME.
When, much later, they themselvesbecame republicans,they did the same with their own king,who had in the meantimeacquired, or more likelyhad always had, priestlyfunctions of his own, as the king of the Bahuma had. This points to a blend of conquerors and conquered, not to displacementof one by the other; and to a fairlyrapid blending,with no long contestlike the historicalstruggle of the ordersbehind it, since the old and new officesalike were filled by membersof the same body. Sacred numbers. At the riskof seemingrather fanciful, I include what appears to me a strong indication of the meeting of several streamsin patrician cult. It has been well pointed out by Levy- Bruhll that sacred, or limit-numbersvary widely among different peoples, thercbeing apparentlyno systemby which theyare chosen; since names for numberscease long before the point at which the people in question cease to be able to count, and by no means always at such obvious pointsas five,ten, or twenty. The last numberwith a name, howeverarrived at, continuesto be held sacred,long after the practiceof namingother and much higherones has come in; so much so that sometimesthe sacred numberis dropped in counting. I findtraces in Rome of at least two differentsacred numbers, five and three, and I am inclined to add another, four. Three is of course a well-knownand widely-spreadsacred number all over Europe. Diels 2 gives the Roman examples: the 3 X 3 days of the Roman week (nundina) and of the nouendialesacrum; the 3 X 3 torches used in the marriageceremony in Statius, Siluae i, 2, 4; the threefoldsinging of the hymnof the Arvals; the 3 X 3 dies parentalesin February; the 3 X 3 X 3 Argei, and the survival in modern Rome of the same number for the 27 candles of the tenebrae. He might have added the sex crinesof the bride, which ensure her presentingthe sacred number fromeither side, and the tripudiumnin all its forms. In the case of a number used by so many races it is hard to say what is old and what is new. Thus the fact that the dead are thrice called upon is as much Greek as Roman ; the Etruscan triads of gods are well-known. But we have I thinka little negativeevidence. A race is not likelyto have, of its own initiative,two sacrednumbers; and I think it is rather stronglyindicated that the sacrednessof fiveis Sabine ; i.e., belongs to those peoples, or that people, which labialised their pronunciation of Italic. In the first place, tlhe number of names compounded of pumpe of which Pompeii and Pompeius are the most familiar,suggests that five had some sacral meaning; next, the numbersten and fifteenrecur in the various collegia(I 5 pontificesand 15 augurs,until Caesar increasedthe number to i6 ; 15 flamensaltogether, though this may be a mere accident;
I Les fonctionsmnentales, P. 204 sqq. 2 Sibyll. Blaiter p. 40 sqq. I douibtif the iiine torches be really Roman.
This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 20:55:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions PATRICIANS AND PLEBEIANS AT ROME. 131 xuiri,then xvuirisacrisfaciundis). But it is to be noted also that the original number of these colleges, and the numbersof the Vestals, Arvals,Luperci, and Salii at all dates, were multiplesof three. It is then not unreasonableto suppose that the earlierpeoples, or one of them, had three for its sacred number, the iron-usersfive. As I postulate a patricianbody raciallymixed, it is not surprising that the two sacred numbers appear side by side in the marriage rites, along with the two metals. The bride, as already stated, showed the sacred three in the arrangementof her hair, and the threecoins she carriedwere of bronze; but fivetorches were carried in the deductio(Plut., quaest. Rom. 2) and the hasta caelibaris was presumably of iron. Now the wedding ceremony was clearly patrician,involving as it did the transitionfrom one set of gentile sacra to another; thus here again we have evidenceof the composite characterof the patricianbody. As to four,there are but faint traces of its having been sacred; but it is a curious fact that the firstfour monthsand the firstfour sons were named, the numbersbeginning with Quintus and Quintilis respectively.1 Conclusion. We thereforesee that the patricians,being a blend of three quite distinct types, readily account for such differences of a positive nature (i.e., differenceswhich do not simplyamount to one partyhaving some characteristicand the otherhaving nothing to correspond) as we have examined; and of the many other differencesalleged I thinkan examinationwill show that room may be found within the patrician body for all which on critical inspection appear really to have existed from early times. There is no need to invokea raciallydifferent original plebs to account for any of them. How then did the very real opposition between plebeian and patrician arise in early historical times ? Was it simply a quarrel between master and servant, oppressor and oppressed? Such a thing is quite possible, but I think another solution is somewhat more likely. If we examine the boundaries of the Palatine, as recorded by Tacitus,-the credibilityof whose account, in a matterwhere religion furnisheda strongmotive for maintaininga correcttradition, I see no reasonto doubt,-and followthem on the map or on the ground, we see that on all sides but one they come about as near the actual sides of the hill as a plough could be reasonablyexpected to go. The exception is the Forum Boarium, where the pomeriumswings out fromthe foot of the hill to embracethe great altar of Hercules, god of traders. That this foreigndeity should, then and ever after, be included within the sacred enclosure along with the native deities, has rightlyseemed extraordinaryto all modern studentsof
I Add the fouirfoldrepetition of a prayer,Ovid. Fast. iv, 778.
This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 20:55:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 132 PATRICIANS AND PLEBEIANS AT ROME.
Roman religion,and one can understand,though there is no reason to agree with, those who like Preller have sought to show that it was not really Hercules-Heraklesat all. The only explanation, it seemsto me, is that the Palatine citywas above all a trading-place, more anxious to meet its customers than to exclude even the dangerousmagic of the foreigner. A city so liberal in that respect would hardly be very exclusive otherwise; I picture the earliest communitywelcoming to full privileges foreignerswho chose to settle there; and this I take to be embodied in the stories of distinguishedpatrician familieswho were not originally Roman. When the Sabines came, if they came after and not before the foundationof the city,they, as conquerors,would of course have no difficultyin makingtheir way into the patricianclass, while, as we have already found reason to suppose that they did not make too unfavourableterms for the conquered, the originalpatricians would no doubt remain patrician. But the existenceof nobles implies commoners. The relatively importanttraders, whether of the original settlersor of the new comers, must have had men of lesser importancedependent upon them, who were under their orders (clientes)but not slaves. And besides the new citizenswho being men of substance were welcome as fellow-traders,no doubt there came others of more humble origin, broken men for example, outlaws of not too disreputable character,who were glad to make themselvesuseful in handicrafts or the like. Moreover,there was the little stripof hinterland,some fiveRoman miles across; small as it was, some one musthave farmed it, and so there was material for a peasantry,a class probably no more lacking in Italy then than now, or in the time of the Punic Wars. We thus get the nucleus of a plebs rusticaand a plebs urbana, more mixed perhapsthan the mixed patricianbody, but not opposed to it as race to race, still less as communityto community. But sooner or later there grew up that strangesuperstition, so prevalentin the ancient and the modernworld alike, that the only really respectable form of wealth is landed property. The city now-possibly only afterthe expulsion of the kings-was too large and powerfulto be in much need of immigrants,and thus less lavish of its welcome to them. The land was largelytaken up, and the owners were naturally the class which was originallywealthiest, the patricians. Now came exclusiveness,and the closing of the ranksof the nobility. The result of this was that the plebs urbana comprised,not simplythe poor of the town,who mightbe turbulent but hardly a serious danger, but the plebeian merchantsof wealth and standing,who were dissatisfiedto see their cults grudgingly allowed a place on the Aventine,or elsewhereextra pomerium,and themselvesa precariousfooting on the verge of the citizen body. The countryalso, no doubt, was in a state of economic discontent.
This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 20:55:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions PATRICIANS AND PLEBEIANS AT ROME. 133 The frequentwars meant no- more than loss to the richman, with onlypart of hiscapital locked up in fieldswhich could be plundered or stockwhich could be drivenaway. Theywere ruin for the small farmer,with no extracapital ; and thingswere made worse for him becausehe wasforced to borrowfrom the richer landholder, to whom, ratherthan to the moredistant town-dweller, he would be likely to turn. The onlysmall men in the countrywho wouldnot suffer muchwould be the immediateretainers, the clientesin the narrower sense,of the patricians-whotraditionally vote patrician. So we have the materialsfor the traditionalquarrels. On thc one hand, the plebs urbanacould furnishleaders, rich, able, and with a decided grievance. On the otherhand, the plebsrustica couldproduce a sturdyrank and file,probably much more numerous than the townsmen,with still more urgentgrievances to redress. The redistributionof politicalpower became the only alternative to anarchy.
NOTE.-The Claudii and the Claudii Mllarcelli.Quid, qua de re interMarcellos et Claudiospatricios centumuiri indicarunt, cum MlIarcelli ab libertifilio stirpe, Claudii patricii eiusdemhominis hereditatem gente ad se dicerentredisse, etc. (Cic. de orat.i, 176). The man in questionhad clearlydied intestate,or therecould have been no dispute. But by the XII Tables, if he had no sui keredes,this gave his estateto his patronus(Gaius iii,40). It mustbe thereforethat the patronusalso had died, at the sametime, intestate and with no s5uu?sheres; else whatdispute could therebe ? The estateof thelibertinus would now fallto the patron'sgens, and thereforethe Claudii claimedit. The plea of the M'arcelli was that,as the dead patronuswas one of them,they should have his goods by agnatic succession(cf. lMIomm.,Staatsrecht iii, p. 74). That is, they claimed that a groupof adgnati--what we shouldcall a family-havinga separateexistence in fact,should in law also be treatedas a corporation,as if it were a geuls,and be allowed to holdproperty in common.
This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 20:55:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions