The History of Rome - All 5 Volumes in One Edition. Theodor Mommsen
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in future, the character of acts of grace. Instead of the one treaty between Rome on the one hand and the Latin confederacy on the other, there came at best perpetual alliances between Rome and the several confederate towns. To this footing of treaty there were admitted of the old-Latin places, besides Laurentum, also Tibur and Praeneste, which however were compelled to cede portions of their territory to Rome. Like terms were obtained by the communities of Latin rights founded outside of Latium, so far as they had not taken part in the war. The principle of isolating the communities from each other, which had already been established in regard to the places founded after 370,21 was thus extended to the whole Latin nation. In other respects the several places retained their former privileges and their autonomy. The other old-Latin communities as well as the colonies that had revolted lost—all of them—independence and entered in one form or another into the Roman burgess-union. The two important coast towns Antium (416) and Tarracina (425) were, after the model of Ostia, occupied with Roman full-burgesses and restricted to a communal independence confined within narrow limits, while the previous burgesses were deprived in great part of their landed property in favour of the Roman colonists and, so far as they retained it, likewise adopted into the full burgess-union. Lanuvium, Aricia, Momentum, Pedum became Roman burgess-communities after the model of Tusculum.22 The walls of Velitrae were demolished, its senate was ejected -en masse- and deported to the interior of Roman Etruria, and the town was probably constituted a dependent community with Caerite rights.23 Of the land acquired a portion—the estates, for instance, of the senators of Velitrae—was distributed to Roman burgesses: with these special assignations was connected the erection of two new tribes in 422. The deep sense which prevailed in Rome of the enormous importance of the result achieved is attested by the honorary column, which was erected in the Roman Forum to the victorious dictator of 416, Gaius Maenius, and by the decoration of the orators' platform in the same place with the beaks taken from the galleys of Antium that were found unserviceable.
Complete Submission of the Volscian and Campanian Provinces
In like manner the dominion of Rome was established and confirmed in the south Volscian and Campanian territories. Fundi, Formiae, Capua, Cumae, and a number of smaller towns became dependent Roman communities with self-administration. To secure the pre-eminently important city of Capua, the breach between the nobility and commons was artfully widened, the communal constitution was revised in the Roman interest, and the administration of the town was controlled by Roman officials annually sent to Campania. The same treatment was measured out some years after to the Volscian Privernum, whose citizens, supported by Vitruvius Vaccus a bold partisan belonging to Fundi, had the honour of fighting the last battle for the freedom of this region; the struggle ended with the storming of the town (425) and the execution of Vaccus in a Roman prison. In order to rear a population devoted to Rome in these regions, they distributed, out of the lands won in war particularly in the Privernate and Falernian territories, so numerous allotments to Roman burgesses, that a few years later (436) they were able to institute there also two new tribes. The establishment of two fortresses as colonies with Latin rights finally secured the newly won land. These were Cales (420) in the middle of the Campanian plain, whence the movements of Teanum and Capua could be observed, and Fregellae (426), which commanded the passage of the Liris. Both colonies were unusually strong, and rapidly became flourishing, notwithstanding the obstacles which the Sidicines interposed to the founding of Cales and the Samnites to that of Fregellae. A Roman garrison was also despatched to Sora, a step of which the Samnites, to whom this district had been left by the treaty, complained with reason, but in vain. Rome pursued her purpose with undeviating steadfastness, and displayed her energetic and far-reaching policy—more even than on the battlefield—in the securing of the territory which she gained by enveloping it, politically and militarily, in a net whose meshes could not be broken.
Inaction of the Samnites
As a matter of course, the Samnites could not behold the threatening progress of the Romans with satisfaction, and they probably put obstacles in its way; nevertheless they neglected to intercept the new career of conquest, while there was still perhaps time to do so, with that energy which the circumstances required. They appear indeed in accordance with their treaty with Rome to have occupied and strongly garrisoned Teanum; for while in earlier times that city sought help against Samnium from Capua and Rome, in the later struggles it appears as the bulwark of the Samnite power on the west. They spread, conquering and destroying, on the upper Liris, but they neglected to establish themselves permanently in that quarter. They destroyed the Volscian town Fregellae—by which they simply facilitated the institution of the Roman colony there which we have just mentioned —and they so terrified two other Volscian towns, Fabrateria (Ceccano) and Luca (site unknown), that these, following the example of Capua, surrendered themselves to the Romans (424). The Samnite confederacy allowed the Roman conquest of Campania to be completed before they in earnest opposed it; and the reason for their doing so is to be sought partly in the contemporary hostilities between the Samnite nation and the Italian Hellenes, but principally in the remiss and distracted policy which the confederacy pursued.
Notes for Book II Chapter V
1. I. VII. Relation of Rome to Latium
2. The original equality of the two armies is evident from Liv. i. 52; viii. 8, 14, and Dionys. viii, 15; but most clearly from Polyb. vi. 26.
3. Dionysius (viii. 15) expressly states, that in the later federal treaties between Rome and Latium the Latin communities were interdicted from calling out their contingents of their own motion and sending them into the field alone.
4. These Latin staff-officers were the twelve -praefecti sociorum-, who subsequently, when the old phalanx had been resolved into the later legions and -alae-, had the charge of the two -alae- of the federal contingents, six to each -ala-, just as the twelve war-tribunes of the Roman army had charge of the two legions, six to each legion. Polybius (vi. 26, 5) states that the consul nominated the former, as he originally nominated the latter. Now, as according to the ancient maxim of law, that every person under obligation of service might become an officer (p. 106), it was legally allowable for the general to appoint a Latin as leader of a Roman, as well as conversely a Roman as leader of a Latin, legion, this led to the practical result that the -tribuni militum- were wholly, and the -praefecti sociorum- at least ordinarily, Romans.
5. These were the -decuriones turmarum- and -praefecti cohortium- (Polyb. vi. 21, 5; Liv. xxv. 14; Sallust. Jug. 69, et al.) Of course, as the Roman consuls were in law and ordinarily also in fact commanders-in-chief, the presidents of the community in the dependent towns also were perhaps throughout, or at least very frequently, placed at the head of the community-contingents (Liv. xxiii. 19; Orelli, Inscr. 7022). Indeed, the usual name given to the Latin magistrates (-praetores-) indicates that they were officers.
6. Such a —metoikos— was not like an actual burgess assigned to a specific voting district once for all, but before each particular vote the district in which the —metoeci— were upon that occasion to vote was fixed by lot. In reality this probably amounted to the concession to the Latins of one vote in the Roman -comitia tributa-. As a place in some tribe was a preliminary condition of the ordinary centuriate suffrage, if the —metoeci— shared in the voting in the assembly of the centuries-which we do not know-a similar allotment must have been fixed for the latter. In the curies they must have taken part like the plebeians.