The Beginnings of Rome

The maintenance of peace and order in Italy, the defence of the coasts and frontiers, the making of war or peace with foreign Powers, were matters the settlement of which Rome kept entirely in her own hands. Each allied State, in time of war, was called upon for a certain contingent of men, but, though its contingent usually formed a distinct corps under officers of its own, its numerical strength was fixed by Rome, it was brigaded with the Roman legions, and was under the orders of the Roman consul.

The Roman State.

This paramount authority of Rome throughout the peninsula was confirmed and justified by the fact that Rome herself was now infinitely more powerful than any one of her numerous allies. Her territory, as distinct from that of the allied States, covered something like one-third of the penin sula south of the Aesis. Along the west coast it stretched from Caere to the southern borders of Campania. Inland, it included the former territories of the Aequi and Hernici, the Sabine coun try, and even extended eastwards into Picenum, while beyond these limits were outlying districts, such as the lands of the Seno nian Celts, with the Roman colony of Sena, and others elsewhere in Italy, which had been confiscated by Rome and given over to Roman settlers. Since the first important annexation of territory after the capture of Veii (396), 12 new tribes had been formed, and the number of male citizens registered at the census had risen from 152,000 to 290,000. Within this enlarged Roman State were now included numerous communities with local institutions and government. At their head stood the Roman colonies (colonise civium Romanorum), founded to guard especially the coasts of Latium and Campania. Next to these eldest children of Rome came those communities which had been invested with the full Roman franchise, such, for instance, as the old Latin towns of Aricia, Lanuvium, Tusculum, Nomentum and Pedum. Lowest in the scale were those which had not been considered ripe for the full franchise, but had, like Caere, received instead the civitas sine suffragio, the civil without the political rights. Their members, though Roman citizens, were not enrolled in the tribes, and in time of war served not in the ranks of the Roman legions but in separate contingents. In addition to these organized town com munities, there were also the groups of Roman settlers on the public lands, and the dwellers in the village communities of the enfranchised highland districts in central Italy.

The administrative needs of this enlarged Rome were obviously such as could not be adequately satisfied by the system which had done well enough for a small city State with a few square miles of territory. The old centralization of all government in Rome itself had become an impossibility, and the Roman statesmen did their best to meet the altered requirements of the time. The urban communities within the Roman pale, colonies and muni cipia, were allowed a large measure of local self-government. In all we find local assemblies, senates and magistrates, to whose hands the ordinary routine of local administration was confided, and, in spite of differences in detail, e.g., in the titles and num bers of the magistrates, the same type of constitution prevailed. throughout. But these local authorities were carefully subordi nated to the higher powers in Rome. The local constitution could be modified or revoked by the Roman senate and assembly, and the local magistrates, no less than the ordinary members of the community, were subject to the paramount authority of the Roman consuls, praetors and censors. In particular, care was taken to keep the administration of justice well under central control. The Roman citizen in a colony or municipium enjoyed, of course, the right of appeal of the Roman people in a capital case. We may also assume that from the first some limit was placed to the jurisdiction of the local magistrate, and that cases falling outside it came before the central authorities. But an addi tional safeguard for the equitable and uniform administration of Roman law, in communities to many of which the Roman code was new and unfamiliar, was provided by the institution of pre fects (praefecti iuri dicundo), who were sent out annually, as representatives of the Roman praetor, to administer justice in the colonies and inunicipia. To prefects, moreover, were assigned the charge of those districts within the Roman pale where no urban communities, and consequently no organized local govern ment, existed. In these two institutions, that of municipal gov ernment and that of prefectures, we have already two of the cardinal points of the later imperial system of government.