Chapter 10
Kings? No, Maybe Not – Republicans
In This Chapter
Rome’s mythical origins
The establishment of the Republic
The first written laws
The struggle between the patricians and the plebs
For a civilisation that was built around a republican system of law and government, Rome’s earliest days are pretty foggy, and making sense of the first few decades is difficult. The only historical sources we have were written down much later, and the historians concerned struggled to find detailed information. But what emerged was something that the Romans would spend the rest of their days trying to prevent ever happening again: a monarchy.
Yes, that’s right. Rome, the great republican state of the ancient world, had kings to begin with. But throwing the kings out for the various misdemeanours changed everything. What emerged was a class war, culminating in the rights of ordinary people (known as the plebs) and the first written law code in Roman history. It set the pace for the shape of things to come.
The Founding of Rome
The Romans didn’t start writing history as soon as the city was founded. It wasn’t until a long time afterwards that they became interested in who they were and where they’d come from. Roman historians had to hunt back through what few early records survived, and they pieced together a story that was very largely based on myth. Its most important part was linking the Romans all the way back to the gods, through the legendary hero Aeneas.
The myth
The great Roman legend about the founding of Rome goes back to the Trojan War, set in Greek Mycenaean times.
Aeneas was the mythical son of a Trojan leader called Anchises and the goddess Venus (Aphrodite is her equal in Greek mythology), and belonged to a junior branch of the Trojan royal family. According to prophecy, Aeneas would one day rule the Trojans and, according to Homer’s Iliad (an epic poem recounting the fall of Troy), he was the only Trojan with anything to look forward to after the city was sacked by the Greeks.
After Troy fell to the Greeks, Aeneas escaped, wandered around in search of his destiny, and had grand adventures. When he finally arrived in Italy, Aeneas was greeted by King Latinus who allowed Aeneas to marry his daughter Lavinia. Aeneas founded a city called Lavinium which later became head of the Latin League, multiple cities, other than Rome, in the Latium region (see Chapter 11 for more information on the Latin League).
Aeneas’s son Ascanius (who, according to one legend came with Aeneas to Italy after the fall of Troy, and in another was born after Aeneas married Lavinia) succeeded Aeneas and founded the city of Alba Longa. (Ascanius was also known as Iulus, and the family of that name claimed descent from him and thus Venus. The most famous claimant was none other than Julius Caesar, so you can see just how potent this myth was.)
Later in Alba Longa, 12 kings succeeded Aeneas’s son Ascanius/Iulus. The twelfth was called Numitor, who was deposed by his brother Amulius. To make sure that Numitor’s daughter Rhea Silvia wouldn’t challenge him, Amulius made her into a Vestal Virgin, one of the select virgin priestesses whose main role was to guard Vesta’s undying fire (which signified the permanence of Rome; Vesta was the goddess of the hearth fire). But Amulius hadn’t reckoned with the god Mars, who impregnated Rhea. Rhea gave birth to the twins Romulus and Remus, who Amulius, after discovering their existence, flung into the river Tiber.
The twins were saved and suckled by a she-wolf and then brought up by a herdsman. The boys grew up to be warriors, restored their grandfather Numitor to the throne, and, in 753 BC, founded Rome. They built walls around Rome. Remus leaped over the walls, enraging his brother, who killed him. Eventually Romulus disappeared, only to reappear as the god Quirinus, a little-known ancient god who gave his name to Rome’s Quirinal Hill and was once one of Rome’s three principal gods along with Jupiter and Mars (he had similar powers to Mars).
The true story
Like everywhere in Europe, human history in Italy stretches back over hundreds of thousands of years, deep into the Stone Age. For millennia, early man made use of stone tools in a period called the Palaeolithic (the ‘Old Stone Age’), a time when communities tended to move about according to the season and available resources. But around 5000 BC – which is a very approximate date – the Neolithic (‘New Stone Age’) began to spread throughout Europe. Unlike the hunter-gatherer Palaeolithic, the people of the Neolithic started establishing farms and stayed put instead of wandering about hunting.
Neolithic farmers started appearing in Italy by around 5000 BC. By about 1800 BC, some of these early Italians were making and using bronze – the Bronze Age. Meanwhile, Egypt’s civilisation had already been in existence for more than a thousand years. In fact, Italy was distinctly behind the times. The Bronze Age Greeks, who had strongholds at places like Mycenae and Tiryns in Greece, were already exploring and trading around the Mediterranean. Some of these Greeks had even reached Italy and its surrounding islands.
Around 1000 BC came the Iron Age. Iron, being much stronger than bronze, was the greatest technological discovery of the era. It transformed a society’s military power and made all sorts of tools possible. Iron meant far stronger weapons and equipment. Iron shovels and ploughshares lasted longer and were far more effective. Villanova, a key site in Italy, gave its name to the new culture that was making use of iron.
Early Rome: Hills with huts, and a very big sewer
Rome is famous for being on seven hills close to the river Tiber (see Figure 10-1). Those hills were called:
Capitoline
Palatine
Aventine
Esquiline
Quirinal
Viminal
Caelius
Around at least 1000 BC, little farmsteads, built of wattle and daub, were built on some of the hills: the Palatine, Esquiline, Quirinal and Caelius. (Wattle and daub is a simple and effective way to build houses – it’s a timber frame with a latticework of twigs all covered with a mixture of mud and straw.) These were no more than scattered clusters of thatched huts, just tiny villages.
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Figure 10-1: This map shows the hills of Rome and the Servian Walls, probably built about 390 BC. |
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Some huts and cemeteries have been excavated, showing that by the eighth century BC the early Romans were trading with other places like Etruria and Greece, and were making their own pottery, figurines, and weapons. They grew crops like wheat and barley, raised goats and pigs, and hunted. The later Romans looked back to these simple farming times and idealised it as an era when their virtues of self-discipline, hard work, and organisation were born, and contrasted it with the riches, decadence, and indulgence of days of the Roman Empire (refer to Chapter 4 for more information on the significance of Roman myth to its rural past).
Cemeteries were dug in the marshy valleys, especially in the one that would later become the Roman Forum. The population seems to have done well because the settlements got bigger, and room soon ran out on the hills. So the marshy valleys were drained, and the settlements grew down the slopes and started to merge into one another during the seventh century BC. This was when something like a city, the earliest Rome, started to take shape.
The Romans seem to have had a folk memory of the time when Rome grew out of a collection of villages, preserved in a religious festival in which the priests and Vestal Virgins had a procession to visit shrines in the four regions of the city: the Palatine, Esquiline, Quirinal and Caelius.
During the time of the Roman kings (see the section ‘The Magnificent Eight: The Kings (753–535 BC)’, later in the chapter), Rome was a very primitive settlement by later standards and controlled an area of only about 150 square kilometres (60 square miles). But Rome was the most powerful state in Latium. The kings brought centralised government and organisation. Under their rule, Rome began to evolve from a cluster of villages into a city with defences, services like sewage, and religious precincts that helped foster a sense of identity.
Rome’s neighbours
It’s very important to remember that Rome and her inhabitants made up only one settlement of many in this part of Italy (see Figure 10-2). Some were her allies, some her rivals. Dominating this area was Rome’s first step on the path to world domination.
Aequians
The ferocious Aequians lived north-east of Rome and allied themselves with the Volscians. Little is known about them because their attempts at expanding were thwarted in 431 BC. A further attempt at expanding led Rome to practically exterminate them in 304 BC.
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Figure 10-2: Rome with her immediate neighbours. |
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Etruscans
Rome’s main early rivals for control of the land between the rivers Tiber and Arno, the Etruscans lived in Tuscany and Umbria, but in the late seventh century BC, their pottery started turning up in Rome, along with their style of housing, which was more robust and had tiled roofs rather than the thatched huts the Romans had been building.
The Etruscans remain obscure because no-one has ever been able to make out more than a little of their language, which is unrelated to all the main known groups, though some words survived into Latin. But the later Roman historians recorded what they could of this period. The incredible thing is that their murky version of this remote period does seem to match the archaeology. In the end, Etruscan power was squeezed by the Gaulish Celts to the north, and Rome and the Samnites to the south. The Etruscans had considerable influence on Roman culture. The major Roman goddess Minerva (see Chapter 9) was once an Etruscan deity.
Sabines
The Sabines lived in villages in the Apennine hills to the north-east of Rome. No-one knows where they came from, but they spoke an ancient language called Oscan. Until 449 BC, they were constantly fighting the Romans, even though they had no central leadership, but it’s plain from aspects of their religious belief that they had a strong influence on Roman culture. The ancient god Quirinus (see the earlier section ‘The myth’) was originally a Sabine deity.
Samnites
The Samnites lived in the Appenine hills well to the south of Rome. They were made up of four tribes who formed a confederation to fight their enemies. In the fourth century BC, they became important rivals when Roman power started spreading south, leading to the three Samnite Wars. Samnium stood firm against Rome and wasn’t totally defeated until the early first century BC in the Social War. Pompeii is the most famous Samnite city, becoming a Roman colony in 80 BC.
Volscians
By 500 BC, the Volscians had come out of central Italy and settled south-east of Rome. They fought against Roman expansion but hadn’t reckoned on Rome’s allies, who defeated them in 431 BC. Not much is known about their culture because, once they had been conquered, they comprehensively adopted Roman ways.
The Magnificent Eight: The Kings (753–535 BC)
Early Rome was ruled by kings. Their story is part myth and part true – the challenge is working out which is which. The history of Rome starts off with myth but soon turns into fact, so now you have the opportunity to meet those kings, real or mythical. Three of the first four kings were Latins (with one Sabine), but the last three were Etruscans. The Etruscan kings had a tremendous effect on early Roman culture, the city’s infrastructure, and Rome’s early power.
Romulus (753–716 BC)
Romulus (who founded Rome along with his twin brother Remus) was the surviving grandson of Numitor. Roman tradition credited Romulus with creating various great Roman traditions such as the Senate, which was just a myth that gave the Senate an authority founded in the city’s origins.
The big story of Romulus’s reign was the rape of the Sabine women. Romulus is said to have invited a neighbouring tribe called the Sabines to share in the celebrations of the god Consus (who took care of grain storage). When the Sabines turned up, the Romans stole the Sabine women (the word used was rapere, ‘to seize’; it doesn’t mean ‘rape’). The Sabines attacked Rome in revenge and seized the Capitoline Hill. The Sabine women then stepped in to prevent further bloodshed, and the peace that was negotiated made the Romans and Sabines all one people with Romulus ruling jointly with the Sabine king Tatius.
The Sabine story is a myth, but because the Romans adopted Sabine words and gods, there may be some underlying truth about the Sabines and Romans coming together.
The end of Romulus
Romulus’s end is another myth, which goes as follows: A storm blew up while he was sacrificing by the river, and all the people ran for shelter. Although the senators stayed with Romulus, he somehow disappeared. Only two possibilities existed regarding his disappearance, and no-one knew which one actually occurred. Either Romulus had been killed by the senators who had then cut him up and carried off the pieces hidden under their clothing, or else the gods had gathered him up to heaven.
Numa Pompilius (715–673 BC)
Numa Pompilius is an even more shadowy figure than Romulus. The Sabines in Rome said it was their turn for a king, which the Romans agreed to, so long as they were allowed to choose the candidate. Numa, son of a Sabine king called Tatius, had to be persuaded to become king but eventually agreed. He was said to have set up Rome’s religious cults and priests. He was also said to have invented a 12-month calendar, rather than the 10-month one, and set up Rome’s boundaries. But like the story about Romulus inventing the Senate, these stories are probably just ways of firmly setting Roman customs in the most ancient tradition they could think up.
Numa founded the temple of the two-faced god Janus, who had power over beginnings and doorways. The temple’s doors were open during war and closed during peace, harking back to a time when a gate (ianua) was opened for the army to march out to war. In the years AD 65–7 the emperor Nero (see Chapter 16) issued coins showing the temple with closed doors to commemorate a rare time of peace.
The Vestal Virgins
Numa was said to have brought the Vestal Virgins from Alba Longa to Rome. The Vestal Virgins were women priests who tended the sacred fire of Vesta, goddess of the hearth fire. The state paid for their welfare, and they lived in the Hall of Vesta near the Forum. Originally there were two, then four, and finally six. Each virgin spent 30 years in service: 10 years learning religious rituals, 10 years performing the rituals, and 10 years teaching them to the next generation. The Vestal Virgins were ruthlessly punished by being buried alive in unmarked graves if they lost their virginity (which was particularly unfair when they were raped).
Tullus Hostilius (673–641 BC)
Tullus Hostilius was chosen from the Latins. He had to fight off an invasion by the Alba Longans and destroyed Alba Longa as a punishment. He was believed to have built the Senate house – called the Curia Hostilia – in Rome. Because this Curia Hostilia house actually existed, it’s likely that Hostilius was a real person (remember, distinguishing myth from history isn’t clear-cut with these early kings). What certainly did happen is that Alba Longan families moved to Rome. Amongst them were the members of the Iulus clan, the ancestors of Julius Caesar’s family, who claimed descent from Aeneas’s son Ascanius (see the earlier section ‘The myth’).
Ancus Marcius (641–616 BC)
Like Tullus Hostilius, Ancus Marcius probably was a historical personality. He is said to have taken control of salt pans south of the Tiber. Marcius may have built the first bridge over the river into Rome, called the Pons Sublicius – the name means the ‘wooden-piled bridge’, which has an ‘early’ sound to it. He was also said to have built Rome’s first aqueduct and founded Rome’s port at Ostia. The important thing is that Ancus Marcius increased the control Rome had over territory beyond the city.
Tarquinius Priscus (616–579 BC)
This king, also known as ‘Tarquin the Elder’, was an Etruscan from the city of Tarquinii, 56 miles north of Rome. He was a close friend of Ancus Marcius, and had an excellent reputation for honesty, but when Marcius died, Tarquin persuaded the dead king’s sons to go hunting. While they were out of town, he presented himself as a candidate for the kingship, egged on by his ambitious wife Tanaquil. Because Tarquin was so well thought of as an honest man, he got the job.
Tarquin introduced a proper drainage system in Rome as well as games, both of which were Etruscan interests. He was so successful that Ancius Marcius’s sons were furious with jealousy. Knowing that Tarquin’s children presented a dynastic threat, Marcius’s sons had Tarquin murdered.
How the Romans declared war
Ancus Marcius is credited with Rome’s system for declaring war. Messengers were sent to Rome’s enemy to explain what Rome was angry about and to tell the enemy what compensation Rome wanted. If Rome had to declare war, specialist priests called Fetiales threw a single spear into the enemy’s territory (or into a part of the Roman Forum symbolically treated as Roman territory) before command of the army was given to a general. The idea behind this process was to make sure that the gods would back the Romans, by claiming that war had been declared because the Romans had been done an injustice or an injury by their enemies first. The Fetiales priests also approved treaties at the end of war.
Servius Tullius (579–535 BC)
Servius was Tarquin’s son-in-law and possibly even once his slave, depending on which version of the story you read. He married Tarquin’s daughter, and when Tarquin was murdered, the widowed and ever-pushy Tanaquil made sure Servius became king next. What’s certainly true is that his name was plebeian (lower-class) and is very similar to servus (‘slave’) – which means he was almost certainly a real person. A mythical king would have had a patrician (upper-class) name (refer to Chapter 2 for details on Roman class structure). Servius is said to have made big changes:
He introduced a census (a national register of the population) and divided the people of Rome and the countryside into new tribes according to where they lived, rather than by what family they belonged to or how much property they had. This system automatically integrated newcomers. Eighty thousand Roman citizens who could bear arms were counted in the census; those who couldn’t, including all women and children, weren’t included. To create the census, two censors were appointed, usually chosen from former consuls, by the Comitia Centuriata (a political assembly).
He assessed liability for military service according to wealth by dividing landholders into classes. Each class was divided into centuries (groups of 100 men). Men of the richest class were given funds to buy and keep a horse, while the poorest had literally no more than sticks and stones and served as the infantry.
His new military classes were the basis of the Comitia Centuriata, in which each century submitted the majority vote of its members. The votes of the centuries from the highest class counted the most, but they also had to do most of the fighting.
He was said to have built Rome’s earliest surviving walls (although, in reality, these came after the invasion by the Gauls in 390 BC).
He began Rome’s worship of Diana, equated with Artemis, the Greek goddess of the moon, hunting, and fertility.
Whether or not Servius Tullius personally created the social hierarchy for Roman society, there’s no doubt that that’s what emerged from this period. The Comitia Centuriata gave the richest men the upper hand because their votes took precedence, but it also gave the poorest men a voice, too. But having a voice wasn’t enough. The property-owning Roman upper classes now had a clearer idea of their power, and before long they seized their opportunity and got rid of the Etruscan kings.
Tarquinius Superbus (535–509 BC)
Tarquinius Superbus (‘Tarquin the Proud’) was married to Servius Tullius’s ambitious daughter Tullia. Tullia persuaded her husband to kill Servius, who was now an old man. Tarquin accused Servius of being a trumped-up slave and threw him out of the Senate into the street, where he was killed. As Servius was popular, this was not a good start for Tarquin, who nevertheless had two long-lasting achievements:
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He built the Temple of Capitoline Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill. This became the central state cult of the Roman Empire.
He built Rome’s biggest sewer, the Cloaca Maxima (‘Great Sewer’), which still exists today, though it wasn’t covered over until c. 390 BC.
Tarquinius was the last King of Rome and for the rest of Rome’s history, the Romans fell over themselves to prevent anybody else calling himself king.
The benefits of the Etruscan kings
The kings of Rome, regardless of whether they were mythical or real, brought in some really important changes. Rome’s power originally extended over only about 60 square miles in Latium. By the end of Tarquinius Superbus’s reign, Rome’s power was more like six times as much. The last three Etruscan kings had done a huge amount to set Rome up for the future. They introduced political and military reforms that had started to make Rome work like clockwork.
Military reforms brought in by Servius Tullius – assessing every Roman’s liability for military service according to his personal financial resources, for example – meant that the state could make the most of the resources at its disposal. The drainage of the marshy valleys, especially the one that would become the Forum, made it possible for a collection of settlements on hills to grow into a city.
The Etruscans also brought in valuable skills, such as metal-working, ceramics, and carpentry, that made trade possible. The organisation of state cults and the building of temples gave the state a spiritual identity and a sense of religious destiny. Rome was becoming known as a new force in the Mediterranean world. It’s obvious from the battles with Alba Longa (see the section ‘Tullus Hostilius’, earlier in this chapter) that, as Rome started to flex its muscles, it would run into conflict with its neighbours.
You may get the impression that Rome was on some sort of conveyor belt to world domination and that the Etruscan kings set it in motion. In reality, by the end of the sixth century BC, Rome was becoming important, but it was no more important than anywhere else. And it was a good deal less important than some of the great cities of Greece, such as Athens, Corinth, and Sparta. At this point in its history, Rome could just as easily have disappeared without trace.
The Birth of the Roman Republic
Eventually, the Romans had had enough of being ruled by Etruscans. Tarquinius Superbus was considered to be the last word in tyranny, and the Romans decided he had to go. The traditional story is that the Rape of Lucretia was the catalyst.
The story goes like this: Sextus, son of Tarquinius Superbus, was on a campaign with other young nobles, who decided to head home and see whether their wives were behaving properly. All the wives except Lucretia, wife of Sextus’s cousin, Tarquinius Collatinus, were living it up. However, Sextus was overwhelmed with desire for Lucretia. When he was round for dinner at a later date, he told Lucretia she had to sleep with him or he would rape her and arrange things to look as though she had betrayed her husband by sleeping with the slaves. Lucretia gave in but told her husband. He forgave her, but in her shame she committed suicide. The rape of Lucretia provoked total outrage amongst the Roman nobles. A conspiracy was organised by Lucius Junius Brutus (c. 545–509 BC), Tarquinius Superbus’s nephew. Sextus fled but was killed, and Tarquinius Superbus was ousted from the throne.
There’s no way of knowing whether any of this story is true, but it’s pretty clear that Etruscan influence did start to decline, even though the decline didn’t happen quickly. What’s more, the Etruscans didn’t give up that easily, though the story of what came next (see Chapter 11) is likely to be mostly myth.
Lucius Junius Brutus
Lucius Junius Brutus was a real toughie and the traditional founder of the Roman Republic. He was unbending and ruthlessly severe, with good reason. Tarquinius Superbus was his uncle, but he killed Brutus’s father and older brother so that he could steal the family estate. Brutus got his name because everyone thought he was stupid – but it was just an act so that he could survive. Not surprisingly, Brutus loathed the kings, and he even killed his own sons for trying to have the kings reinstated. Brutus was killed in a battle between the Romans and the Tarquins in 509 BC when Tarquinius Superbus’s Etrsucan allies, led by Tarquinius’s son Arruns, marched on Rome.
The new constitution
With no kings around any longer, a new constitution was needed. No-one knows exactly who was responsible, but Publius Valerius Poplicola (c. 560–503 BC), one of the first Consuls (powerful magistrates who ruled Rome), went down in Roman history as one of the men involved. The constitution included the following:
The office of king was prohibited. No man would ever be king of Rome again (until AD 476 anyway – see Chapter 21).
Two senators were to be elected annually as magistrates called consuls (though originally called praetors) by the Comitia Centuriata to run the state. The consuls had supreme power over the law or going to war, and both consuls had the power of veto (the right to reject the other’s decision). There’s no easy modern equivalent, but the tradition survives in the way each US state has two senators.
Some of the king’s jobs, like chief priest (pontifex maximus) were kept on. The pontifex maximus was in supreme charge of everything to do with Roman religion and ceremony. The closest equivalent today of this position is the Pope or Archbishop of Canterbury.
The constitution allowed for a dictator in times of crisis. If things were really bad, there was no time for two consuls to fall out over what to do. When that happened a magister populi (dictator) was appointed to represent both consuls and to deal with the crisis. A dictator was supposed to resign after six months at the latest.
The fasces
The fasces were a bundle of rods tied up with cords with an axe in the middle. The lictors (assistants to magistrates) carried them. Because the bundle was very strong, the idea was to symbolise the power and unity of Rome – even though individually, the rods could be broken. However, in Rome the axe was never bundled up, a symbol of the right of appeal. The fasces first appeared in the 600s BC. Because the Italian fascists adopted the fasces as their symbol, the fasces gave their name to the fascist parties of the 1920s and 1930s.
Patricians vs. plebs
After Rome had done away with its kings, Roman society was split into two halves: the upper classes, known as the patricians, and the lower classes, known as the plebs. Great tensions existed between the two classes. Most people were plebs, and they did all the ordinary jobs. When called on, plebeian men had to serve in the army without pay. That could mean falling into debt, which could lead to financial ruin. The patricians, on the other hand, nabbed all the prestigious top jobs, like priests, and the new job of consul. (Refer to Chapter 2 for more about Roman class structure.)
The aristocrats: Consolidating power
The new constitution of the Roman Republic showed how the aristocrats were beginning to organise all the power around themselves. The Comitia Centuriata (the Assembly of the Centuries; refer to Chapter 3 for more about this group), which was made up of all men eligible to fight, may have elected the consuls, but the candidates were chosen by the senators from amongst themselves. There was no chance that a brilliant leader from a poor background was ever going to be a consul.
Also, the Senate was getting more powerful. The Senate itself was originally supposed to be just an advisory body to the kings, but after 509 BC, under the Republic, things changed. For a start, the senators were all members of the noble families. In addition, because the consuls were elected annually, no consul could get enough experience or prestige to intimidate the Senate.
The angry mob
The plebs were not particularly pleased by the new set-up at Rome. With the new constitution, it was becoming plain to them that the patricians were sewing up all the power for themselves. The situation was made worse for a variety of reasons.
The Temple of Saturn
The front six columns and part of the pediment of the 496 BC Temple of Saturn still stand in the Roman Forum. They form one of the best-preserved fragments of any building in the Forum, despite their great age. The annual winter festival of the Saturnalia’s main celebrations were held here (Chapter 9 discusses Roman religious practices).
First, early Republican Rome plunged into an economic crisis. The clue is in the pottery. Imports of Greek pottery started to decline, but after c. 450 BC they nosedived. Various new temples were built between 500–450 BC, such as the Temple of Saturn in 496. But all this building work stopped when the money ran out.
Second, Rome was having trouble with its neighbours. Under the kings, Rome had got its hands on new territory, but that had stopped. Worse, attacks by neighbouring enemies disrupted farming, which led to famines. Special purchases of imported grain had to be made, and land had to be found for starving peasants.
Third, the general crisis was plunging people into debt. Ruinous rates of interest crippled families, and the severest penalty for failing to make repayments under a type of contract called a nexum was death. Debtors could try to clear their debts by working for their creditors, but some were sold as slaves.
Needless to say, the plebs spotted that they suffered the most during this crisis. Through the consuls, the patricians were able to impose severe punishments, often as it pleased them.
Conflict of the Orders: A Roman class war
The result of all these grievances and tensions was the so-called Conflict of the Orders, the name given to the class war between the patricians and the plebeians. This conflict lasted for 200 years, and the outcome set a train of events leading up to the civil war and fall of the Republic in the first century BC (covered in Chapters 14 and 15).
The plebs waded in, not with random bouts of mob violence, but in an organised way. They took some of their ideas from Greek traders in Rome who had seen how aristocrats in their own homeland had been toppled. Greek merchants were active in a trading community on the Aventine Hill in Rome, and that’s where the discontented plebs first started getting together and exchanging ideas. After the rural plebs joined in, they had the strength to start getting things changed. The plebs found various ways to flex their muscles:
They organised general strikes to withhold their military services.
They formed an assembly called the Concilium Plebis Tributum (the ‘Council of Plebs Arranged by Tribes’) where the plebs met in their tribes to elect tribunes to represent their interests. Unlike the Comitia Centuriata, only plebs could join the Council of Plebs. (You can read in detail how these councils and their representatives worked in Chapter 3.)
They took an oath to protect their tribunes, come what may (this helped the power of the veto, which played a big role in expanding the plebs’ power through the tribunes).
The patricians were forced to accept what the plebs had done because of the sheer force of numbers and the economic power the plebs wielded. In 471 BC, a law approved the Concilium Plebis Tributum.
One law to rule them all – the Twelve Tables (450 BC)
The plebs knew the only way to protect their interests was to demand a proper code of law that set out their rights and obligations. This law would prevent the patricians making up whatever penalties they liked and setting up unwritten precedents for arbitrary punishments. This principle is key to Roman law.
The plebs turned the heat on for a code of law in 462 BC by maintaining a barrage of demands for ten years. In 451 BC, the patricians gave in and appointed ten commissioners to draw up a law code. Doing so didn’t go smoothly because the commission didn’t finish its work on time, and a second one had to be formed. One commissioner, Appius Claudius, rigged his re-election to the second commission and used his position to carry on ruling as a tyrant even once the commission’s work was done. The plebs had to organise a general strike to force the patricians to imprison Appius and re-establish constitutional government in 449 BC.
The rights and duties of a family and its property were defined.
Traders had a right to get together for a common purpose.
Burials had to take place outside the city walls.
A son sold three times into slavery by his father became free.
Women remained in guardianship even once they reached their majority.
A common-law wife would become her own master when her husband died.
Only a proper law court could order the execution of a man.
The Twelve Tables fell into disuse over the centuries that followed, but they were never repealed. A thousand years later, some of the Code’s original laws were preserved in the emperor Justinian’s Law Code (see Chapter 21 for info on Justinian). But the patricians had clung on to some key powers:
Consuls had the last word over things like military conscription.
Patricians kept secret the legal jargon to be used in civil actions so that they could control how the law was enforced and who benefited from it (which was usually them).
Marriage between patricians and plebs was prohibited, thus making sure that the patrician families would never have to share their powers.
Plebs’ rights – the man with the trump card
Despite the patrician’s efforts to protect their power and influence, after the Twelve Tables were passed, the plebs scored some more goals in the Conflict of the Orders:
Any man who harmed the plebs officers, the tribunes, and/or the aediles (originally temple officials), would be put to death.
The aediles became assistants to the tribunes and were elected in pairs annually.
In 445 BC, the law banning intermarriage between plebs and patricians was overturned, meaning that sons of pleb women could now become patricians. The repeal of the intermarriage ban was significant because tribunes had a very important power: the veto. Through their veto, they were able to obstruct anything against the interests of the plebs. You find more about this, the tribunes, and aediles in Chapter 3.
Next, thanks to the military threats Rome faced in the fifth century, the system of having two consuls was abandoned for most of the time up to 367 BC, when it was restored. In place of the consuls, three (later six) military tribunes were elected annually. Crucially, plebs were eligible for the posts. Plebs also became eligible for a new magistracy called the quaestorship. Quaestors helped the consuls. Eventually plebs were even entitled to be elected as one of the consuls.