Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/1199

Rh TULLIUS. reader can fill up by references to the work just mentioned. The two main objects of the consti- tution of Servius were to give the plebs political independence, and to assign to propertj' that in- fluence in tlie state which had previously belonged to birth exclusively ; and it cannot be questioned that the military and financial objects, which he secured by the changes he introduced, were re- garded by him as of secondary importance. In order to carry his purpose into effect Servius made a two-fold division of the Roman people, one ter- ritorial, and the other according to property. He first divided the whole Roman territory into Re- giones, and the inhabitants into Tribiis, the people of eacli region forming a tribe. The city Avas divided into four regions or tribes, and the country around into twenty-six regions or tribes, so that the entire number of Tribus Urhanae and Tribus Rusticae, as they were respectively called, amounted to thirty. (Liv, i. 43 ; Dionys. iv. 14, 15.) Livy does not mention the number of the countr' tribes in his account of the Servian constitution, and we are indebted to Fabius Pictor, the oldest of the Roman annalists (Dionys. /. c), and to Varro (ap. Non. p. 43), for the number of twenty-six. More- over Livj% when he speaks of the whole number of the tribes in B. c. 495, says that they were made twenty-one in that year. (Liv. ii. 21 ; comp. Dionys. vii. 64.) Hence the statements of Fabius Pictor and Varro might appear to be doubtful. But in the first place their account has the greatest in- ternal probability, since the number thirty plays such an important part in the Roman constitution, and the thirty tribes would thus correspond to the thirty curiae ; and in the second place Niebuhr has called attention to the fact that in the Avar Avith Porsena, Rome lost a considerable part of her ter- ritory, and thus the number of her tribes would naturally be reduced. When, hoAvever, Niebuhr proceeds to say that the tribes Avere reduced in the war with Porsena from thirty to twentA> because it was the ancient practice in Italy to deprive a conquered nation of a third part of its territory, he seems to have forgotten, as Becker has remarked, that the four city tribes could not have been taken into account in such a forfeiture, and that conse- quently a third part of the territory Avould not have been ten tribes. Into this question, however, it is unnecessary further to enter. The conquest of Porsena had undoubtedly broken up the Avhole Servian system ; and thus it was all the easier to form a new tribe in b. c. 504, Avhen the gens Claudia migrated to Rome. (LiA^ ii. 16.) It would appear that an entirely new distribution of the tribes became necessary, and this Avas probably carried into effect in b. c. 4.95, soon after the battle of the lake of Regillus. In fact the words of Livy (ii. 21) already referred to state as much, for he does not say that before this year there were twenty tribes, or that the twenty-first was then added for the first time, but simply that twenty- one tribes Avere then formed {Romae tribus una et viginti factae). The subsequent increase in the num- ber of the tribes, till they reached that of thirty-five, is related in the Dictionary of Antiquities (s. v. Tribus). But to return from this digression to the Servian constitution. Each tribe was an organised body, with a magistrate at its head, called *»> Aapxos by Dionysius (iv. 14), and Curator Tribus by Varro {L. L. vi. 86), whose principal duty ap- pears to have consisted in keeping a register of the TULLIUS. 1187 inhabitants in each regio^ and of their property, for purposes of taxation, and for levying the troops for the armies. Further, each country tribe or regio was divided into a certain number of Pagi^ a name Avhich had been given to the divisions of the Roman territory as early as the reign of Numa (Dionys. ii. 76) ; and each Pagus also formed an organised bod}', Avith a Magister Pagi at its head, Avho kept a register of the names and of the pro- perty of all persons in the pagus, raised the taxes, and summoned the people, when necessary, to war. Each pagus had its own sacred rites and common sanctuary, connected with Avhich was a yearly fes- tival called Paganalia^ at Avhich all the Pagani took part. Dionysius says that the Pagi were fortified places, established by Servius TuUius, to which the country people might retreat in case of an hostile in- road ; but this is scarcely correct, for even if Servius Tullius established such fortified places, it is OA'ident that the Avord was used to indicate a local division, and must have been given to the country adjoining the fortified place as Avell as to the fortified place itself. (Dionj^s. iv. 15; Varr. Z. X. vi. 24, 26; Macrob. Saturn, i. 16 ; Ov. Fast. i. 669 ; Did. of Antiq. s. v. Pagi.) As the country tribes Avere divided into Pagi, so were the city tribes divided into Vici, Avith ?i Magister Vici at the head of each, Avho performed duties analogous to those of the Magister Pagi. The Vici in like manner had their own religious rites and sanctuaries, Avhich Avere erected at spots where two or more Avays met {in compitis) ; and consequently their festival, cor- responding to the Paganalia, Avas called Compitalia. (Dionys. iv. 14 ; Did. of Antiq. s. w. Vicus and Compitalia.) The main object Avhich Servius had in view in the institution of the tribes Avas to give an organi- sation to the plebeians, of Avhich they had been entirely destitute before ; but Avhether the patricians were included in the tribes or not, is a subject of great difficulty, and has given rise to great differ- ence of opinion among modern scholars, some regarding the division into tribes as a local division of the Avhole Roman people, and consequently of patricians and their clients as well as of plebeians, Avhile others look upon it as simply an organisation of the second order. The undoubted object of Servius Tullius in the institution of the tribes led Niebuhr to maintain that the patricians could not possibly have belonged to the tribes originally ; but as we find them in the tribes at a later period (Liv. iv. 24, v. 30, 32), he supposed that they were admitted into them by the legislation of the de- cemvirs. But probable as this might appear, all the evidence we possess goes the other Avay, and tends to show that the tribes were a local division of the Avhole Roman people. In the first place, if Servius had created thirty local tribes for the plebs alone, from Avhich the patricians Avere excluded, it is not easy to see why the three ancient tribes of the Ramnes, Titles, and Luceres, should not have continued in existence. This we know Avas not the case ; for it is certain, that the three ancient tribes disappear from the time of the Servian constitution, and that their names alone were retained by the Equites, and that henceforward we read only of the division of the patricians into thirty curiae : indeed it is expressly said that the (pvAoL yeviKoL were abolished by Servius, and that the (jiva tottj- Kol were established in their place. (Dionys. iv. 14.) Secondlv, it is certain that all the tribes of the 4 Q 2