The Beginnings of Rome

Randall-MacIver

, The Etruscans (1927) .

of the American Academy in Rome

, Hi, 112 (1924) to the city, Greek and Etruscan artisans were at work on the public buildings, and it is not unlikely that some of the industries that prospered in Etruria were enticed to Rome.

A

strong army was also organized. Tradition attributes the regal army of nearly 20,000 men to Servius, who came from Etruria and doubtless employed the same methods as other Etruscan princes. Of these, 9,800 belonged to the "first class" of property holders, the rest to the other four classes ; that is to say, all of the "first class" men were liable to army service, but only a diminishing proportion of the lower classes. In any modern industrial city where io,000 males of military age con stitute the highest 20% of taxpayers one would have to assume a population of at least 500,000 souls, or Too,000 male citizens; and that would be a very large population for a city with a rural territory of only about soosq.m. (32o,000ac.). It must, however, be remembered that in early Latium the proportion of property owners was large, that the Latin communities had con sisted chiefly of farmers practising hoe-culture to whom 5--I oac. would not only suffice for a family but would require all its energies for cultivation. In the rural area, at least, property was more evenly divided than would be the case in an industrial community to-day, so that the 9,80o soldiers of the first class need not imply as large a population as it might to-day. Con sidering the extent of the city walls and the intensive cultivation of the Latin soil, we may accept for the last years of the regal period the tradition of the army of 193 centuries (19,30o men), and conjecture an urban population of about 200,000 and a rural population of about the same size. That the Latin country was at that time intensively cultivated we may well believe, when we recall the long underground drainage channels which were driven through the tufa on the Alban slopes to carry off torrential rain waters in order to save the surface soil from erosion. Such ex pensive work of salvage would not have been undertaken unless land had been very much in demand and the population much more dense than in historical times.

The Etruscan princes were also vigorous conquerors, bent on extending their power throughout Latium. Tradition, reported by Livy and Dionysius, dwells long on their wars of conquest with Veii, Latin towns like Gabii, Aricia, Ardea and the Volscians as far as Tarracina. That this tradition happens to be fairly

correct we may conclude from the facts that the region below Velitrae was particularly submitted to agricultural development (Frank, Economic History of Rome, 8 and 35, 2nd ed. 1927), that the colony of Cora existed at the founding of the first Latin league, and that the terms of the first treaty between Carthage and Rome, signed in 509, prove that the principality developed by Tarquin extended as far as Tarracina. This famous treaty re corded by Polybius (III. 22-3) is our oldest genuine document of Roman history. It was signed with the new republic of Rome immediately after the Etruscans had been banished and doubtless to a large extent reiterated the provisions of the previous treaty which the Tarquins had signed when in control of Rome. In the first sections it assumes that the free Romans would continue commerce on the seas to the extent that the Tarquins had, and it therefore makes an effort to safeguard the Punic trade monop oly at Punic ports. That proved to be a needless precaution, for the Romans abandoned the seas soon after they fell out of touch with Etruscan enterprise. A paragraph of the second part of the treaty reveals how far the ambitions of Etruscan Rome had advanced. It reads, "The Carthaginians shall do no injury to the people of Ardea, Antium, Laurentum, Tarracina, nor any other people of the Latins that are subject to Rome. From those townships of Latium which are not subject to Rome they shall hold their hands ; and if they shall take one they shall deliver it unharmed to the Romans." If, as seems to be the case, these clauses remain standing from Tarquin's last treaty with Carthage, they indicate that Tarquin had conquered at least the towns named, and that such towns as Pometia and Satricum, which are not mentioned, are considered within the sphere of Rome's natural interests, so that even if Carthage in some dispute should attack them she must deliver them to Rome. Needless to say the Roman republic which signed this treaty could not long entertain such ambitions, inherited for the time from Tarquin. Rome discovered within a few years that she had to release the Latins from subjection in order to win their support in her struggle with the returning Etruscans.