Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/758

Rh 734 ROME [HISTORY than those of the first four, but they describe something like a transformation of the lloman city and state. Under the rule of these latter kings the separate settle- ments are for the first time enclosed with a rampart of colossal size and extent. 1 The low grounds are drained, and a forum and circus elaborately laid out; on the Capitoline Mount a temple is erected, the massive founda- tions of which were an object of wonder even to Pliny. 2 To the same period are assigned the redivision of the city area into four new districts and the introduction of a new military system, The kings increase in power and surround themselves with new splendour. Abroad, too, Rome suddenly appears as a powerful state ruling far and wide over southern Etruria and Latium. These startling changes are, moreover, ascribed to kings of alien descent, who one and all ascend the throne in the teeth of estab- lished constitutional forms. Finally, with the expulsion of the last of them the younger Tarquin comes a sudden shrinkage of power. At the commencement of the republic Rome is once more a comparatively small state, with hostile and independent neighbours at her very doors. It is difficult to avoid the conviction that the true explanation of this phenomenon is to be found in the supposition that Rome during this period passed under the rule of powerful Etruscan lords. 3 In the 7th and 6th centuries B.C., and probably earlier still, the Etruscans appear as ruling widely outside the limits of Etruria proper. They were supreme in the valley of the Po until their power there was broken by the irruption of Celtic tribes from beyond the Alps, and while still masters of the plains of Lombardy they established themselves in the rich lowlands of Campania, where they held their ground until the capture of Capua by the Samnite high- landers in 423 B.C. It is on the face of it improbable that a power which had extended its sway from the Alps to the Tiber, and from the Liris to Surrentum, should have left untouched the intervening stretch of country between the Tiber and the Liris. Nor are we without evidence of Etruscan rule in Latium. 4 According to Dionysius there was a time when the Latins were known to the Greeks as Tyrrhenians, and Rome as a Tyrrhenian city. 5 When JEneas landed in Italy the Latins were at feud with Turnus (Turrhenos? Dionys., i. 64) of Ardea, whose close ally is the ruthless Mezentius, prince of Caere, to whom the Latins had been forced to pay a tribute of wine. 6 Cato declared the Volsci to have been once sub- ject to Etruscan rule, 7 and Etruscan remains found at Velitrae, 8 as well as the second name of the Volscian Auxur, Tarracina (the city of Tarchon), tend to confirm his statement. Nearer still to Rome is Tusculum, with its significant name, and at Alba we hear of a prince Tapxmos, 9 lawless and cruel like Mezentius, who consults the " oracle of Tethys in Tyrrhenia." Thus we find the Etruscan power encircling Rome on all sides, and in Rome itself a tradition of the rule of princes of Etruscan origin. The Tarquinii come from South Etruria ; their name can hardly be anything else than the Latin equivalent of the Etruscan Tarchon, and is therefore possibly a title 1 Livy, L 36. 2 Livy, i. 38, 55 ; Plin., N. H., xxxvi. 15. 8 This is the view of 0. Miiller, and more recently of Deecke, Gardthausen, and Zoller ; it is rejected by Schwegler. Mommsen accepts the Etruscan origin of the Tarquins, but denies thTit it proves an Etruscan rule in Rome. 4 Zoller, Latium u. Rom, 166, 189; Gardthausen, Mastarna (Leipsic, 1882); Cuno's Verbreitung d. Etr. Stammes (Graudenz, 1880) is highly fanciful. 5 Dionya. , i. 29. 8 Livy, i. 2 ; Dionys., i. 64, 65 ; Plut., Q. R, 18. 7 Cato ap. Serv., jEn., xi. 567. 1 Helbig, Ann. d. Inst., 1865. 9 Plut., Rom., 2, vapai/o/j.(i>roLTOS Kal w/j.6raros ; cf. Rutulian Tarquitius, Virg., ^En., x. 550. ( = " lord " or " prince ") rather than a proper name. 10 Even Servius Tullius was identified by Tuscan chroniclers with an Etruscan " Mastarna." n Again, what we are told of Etruscan conquests does not represent them as moving, like the Sabellian tribes, in large bodies and settling down en masse in the conquered districts. We hear rather of military raids led by ambitious chiefs who carve out principalities for themselves with their own good swords, and with their followers rule oppressively over alien and subject peoples. 12 And so at Rome the story of the Tarquins implies not a wave of Etruscan immigration so much as a rule of Etruscan princes over conquered Latins. The achievements ascribed to the Tarquins are not less characteristic. Their despotic rule and splendour contrast with the primitive simplicity of the native kings. Only Etruscan builders, under the direction of wealthy and powerful Etruscan lords, could have built the great cloaca, the Servian wall, or the Capitoline temple, monu- ments which challenged comparison with those of the emperors themselves. Nor do the traces of Greek influ- ence upon Rome during this period 13 conflict with the theory of an Etruscan supremacy ; on the contrary, it is at least possible that it was thanks to the extended rule and wide connexions of her Etruscan rulers that Rome was first brought into direct contact with the Greeks, who had long traded with the Etruscan ports and influenced Etruscan culture. 14 These Etruscan princes are represented, not only as hav- ing raised Rome for the time to a commanding position in Latium and lavished upon the city itself the resources of Etruscan civilization, but also as the authors of important internal changes. They are represented as favouring new men at the expense of the old patrician families, and as reorganizing the Roman army on a new footing, a policy natural enough in military princes of alien birth, and rendered possible by the additions which conquest had made to the original community. From among the lead- ing families of the conquered Latin states a hundred new members were admitted to the senate, and these gentes thenceforth ranked as patrician, and became known as "gentes minores." 15 The changes in the army begun, it is said, by the elder Tarquin and completed by Servius Tullius were more important. The basis of the primitive military system had been the three tribes, each of which furnished 1000 men to the legion and 100 to the cavalry. 16 Tarquinius Priscus, we are told, contemplated the creation of three fresh tribes and three additional centuries of horsemen with new names, 17 though in face of the opposi- tion offered by the old families he contented himself with simply doubling the strength without altering the names of the old divisions. 18 But the change attributed to 10 Miiller-Deecke, i. 69, 70 ; Zoller, Latium u. Rom, 168 ; cf. Strabo, p. 219 ; Serv. on jEn., x. 179, 198. The existence of au independent "gens Tarquinia" of Roman extraction (Sclnvegler, i. 678) is uiiproven and unlikely. Nor can "Tarquinius" mean "of Tarquinii " ; this would require " Tarquiniensis " as a cognomen. 11 See speech of Claudius, Tab. Lugd., A pp. to Nipperdey's edition of the Annals of Tacitus, "Tusce Mastarna ei nomen erat." For the painting in the Fran9ois tomb at Vulci, see Gardthausen, Mastarna, 29 sq. ; Annali dell. Instit., Rome, 1859. 12 Cf. the traditions of Mezentius, of Caeles Vibenna, Porsena, &c. 13 Schwegler, R. G., i. 679 sq. 14 Schwegler, i. 791, 792. He accepts as genuine, and as represent- ing the extent of Roman rule and connexions under the Tarquins, the first treaty between Rome and Carthage mentioned by Polybius (iii. 22) ; see, for a discussion of the question, Vollmer, Rhein. Mus., xxxii. 614 sq. ; Mommsen, Rom. Chronologie, 20 ; Dyer, Journ. of PhiloL, ix. 238. 15 Livy, i. 35 ; Diouys., iii. 67 ; Cic. De Rep., ii. 20. 16 Varro, L. L., v. 89. J7 Livy, i. 36 ; Dionys., iii. 71. 18 The six centuries of horsemen were thenceforward known as "prirni secuudique Ramnes " (Fest., 344 ; cf. Schwegler, i. C85 s//.). It is possible that the reforms of Tarquinius Priscus were limited to the cavalry. The Srrviai: reform!