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The Historians' History of the World 05 [The Roman Republic]
- Автор: Gutenberg
- Год: 1905
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: История
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[27] [Livyh makes Virginius say: “In this manner, my child, the only one in my power, do I secure your liberty.” Livy continues as follows: “Then looking back on Appius, ‘With this blood, Appius,’ said he, ‘I devote thee and thine head to perdition.’ Appius, alarmed by the cry raised at such a horrid deed, ordered Virginius to be seized. But he, clearing a passage with the weapon wherever he went, and protected also by a great number of young men who escorted him, made his way to the gate. Icilius and Numitorius raised up the lifeless body and exposed it to the view of the people, deploring the villainy of Appius, the fatal beauty of the maiden, and the necessity which had urged the father to the act. The matrons who followed joined their exclamations: ‘Are these the consequences of rearing children? Are these the rewards of chastity?’ with other mournful reflections, such as are suggested by grief to women, and which, from the greater sensibility of their tender minds, are always the most affecting. The discourse of the men, and particularly of Icilius, turned entirely on their being deprived of the protection of tribunes, and consequently of appeals to the people, and on the indignities thrown upon all.”]
[28] [The Twelve Tables were considered as the foundation of all law, and Cicero always mentions them with the utmost reverence. But only fragments remain, and those who have bestowed the greatest labour in examining these can give but an imperfect account of their original form and contents. A few provisions only can be noticed here.
(1) The patricians and their clients should be included in the plebeian tribes. And when we speak of clients, we must now comprehend also the freedmen (libertini), who were a large and increasing class. Further, the three old patrician tribes now, or before this, became obsolete; and henceforth a patrician was known not as a Ramnian, a Titian, or a Lucerian, but as a burgess of the Pollian, Papirian, or some other local tribe.
(2) The law of debt was left in its former state of severity. But the condition of borrowing money was made easier; for it was made illegal to exact higher interest than 10 per cent. For this is the meaning of fœnus unciarium. Uncia (derived from unus) is one of the twelve units into which the as was divided, each being one-twelfth part of the whole. Now ⅟₁₂ of the capital is 8⅓ per cent.; but as the old Roman year was only ten months, we must add two months’ interest at the same rate; and this amounts to 10 per cent. for the year of twelve months.
(3) No private law or privilegium—that is a law to impose any penalty or disability on a single citizen, similar in character to our bills of attainder—was to be made.
(4) There was to be an appeal to the people from the sentence of every magistrate; and no citizen was to be tried for his life except before the centuriate assembly.
(5) The old law or custom prohibiting all intermarriage (connubium) between the two orders was now formally confirmed, and thus a positive bar was put to any equalisation of the two orders. No such consummation could be looked for, when the code of national law proclaimed them to be of different races, unfit to mingle one with the other.
(6) To this may be added the celebrated law by which any one who wrote lampoons or libels on his neighbours was liable to be deprived of civil rights (diminutio capitis). By this law the poet Nævius was punished when he assailed the great family of the Metelli.c]
[29] [As a matter of fact, plebeians were represented in the office for but two or three years; it then fell exclusively into the hands of the patricians. Cf. Herzog.m]
[30] [“After these events,” says Eutropius,f “a census was held in the city, in which the number of the citizens was found to be 119,319.”]
[31] [That is, according to Plutarch.i Other authorities give Veturia as the name of his mother and Volumnia as that of his wife.]
[32] [Eutropiusf writes him this dismal epitaph: “He was the next after Tarquin that acted as general against his country.”]
The Body of Virginia Carried through the Streets of Rome
CHAPTER VII. THE INVASION OF THE GAULS AND ITS SEQUEL
We come now to a period in which Roman courage and fortitude were put to a severe test—when one of the unknown peoples of the north, henceforth to be familiar as Gauls, invaded Italy, and came, at last, to the walls of Rome itself. They were hardy warriors, as full of courage seemingly as the Romans themselves, and accustomed to carry all before them.
The exact details of their conflict with the Romans have been so mingled with tradition that no one, nowadays, pretends to know just what they really were. A full story of their alleged doings is given by Livy,c and may well be reproduced here as showing what has passed for history during all these centuries, and what is, perhaps, as near to history as we can hope to attain in this matter. If for no other reason we must turn to this account because it contains incidents that have become proverbial. It is here, for example, that one finds the tale of the cackling geese which awakened Marcus Manlius, and through him saved the city from the Gauls, who were surreptitiously scaling the heights. Here, again, is the story that the Romans, forced finally to capitulate through famine and pestilence, made complaint of unfair weights used by the Gauls, and that Brennus, the conquering leader, threw his sword into the scale, crying insolently, “Woe to the conquered!” The dramatic climax, with true theatrical precision, makes the once exiled Camillus, now dictator of the Romans, appear just at this moment to offer the insolent Brennus the sword instead of gold, and in the final outcome to conquer him and his hosts, destroying them to the last man.
This is the completion of the story which Livy and his successors have made famous for all time. It matters little now as to just how much of this is true, and how much fable; and even if it did matter, the facts can never be known. We must be content, despite all the bickerings of specialists as to this or that feature of the transaction, to believe that the Gauls actually did invade Italy at this period; that they actually did conquer and ravish Rome, destroying most of its precious records, and that finally, for some reason unknown to us, the conquerors retired, leaving the Romans to rebuild their city and to take up anew the interrupted course of their progress.
The lasting importance of the invasion was, perhaps, due more to the destruction of the Roman records, thus shutting us out from the true history of early Roman times, than to any other direct evils which the Gauls inflicted upon their enemies.a
THE GAULS
[391-390 B.C.]
The course of Roman history, hitherto disturbed only by petty border wars, now suffers a great convulsion. Over her neighbours on the east and north the republic was in the ascendant; on the west the frail oligarchies of Etruria had sunk before Camillus and his hardy soldiers; when, by an untoward union of events, Rome saw her best general banished, and heard of the barbarian host which was wasting the fair land of Italy. The Gauls burst upon Latium and the adjoining lands with the suddenness of a thunderstorm. It swept over the face of Italy, crushing and destroying. The Etruscans were weakened by it; and if Rome herself was laid prostrate, the Latins also suffered greatly, the Volscians trembled, and the Æquians were irrecoverably weakened.
The Gauls were a tribe of that large race of mankind who are known under the name of Celts, and who at the time in question peopled nearly the whole of western Europe, from the heart of Germany to the ocean. The northern and central parts of the continents were already in the hands of various nations, called by the common name of Germans or Teutons, to whom belonged the Goths, Saxons, Danes, Normans, Lombards, Franks, and Alamanni, while the Celts possessed France, a great part of Germany, most of Spain and Portugal, together with the British Isles. Of these Celts there were two great divisions, commonly called Gael and Cymri, differing in habits and language. The ancient inhabitants of France were Gael, those of Britain and Belgica were Cymri; and the Druidical religion, though sometimes adopted by the Gael, was properly and originally Cymric. Gael are still found in Ireland and in the Highlands of Scotland; Cymri in Wales and Low Brittany; and they have left traces of their name in Cumberland.