Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/770

Rh 746 ROME [HISTORY, cipia, were allowed a large measure of local self-govern- ment. 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 numbers of the magistrates, the same type of constitution prevailed throughout. 1 But these local authorities were carefully subordinated to the higher powers in Eome. 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 ol appeal to 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 defects, an additional 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 prefects (" praefecti juri dicundo"), 2 who were sent out annually, as representatives of the Roman praetor, to administer justice in the colonies and municipia. To prefects was, moreover, assigned the charge of those districts within the Roman pale where no urban communities, and consequently no organized local government, existed. In these two institutions, that of municipal government and that of prefectures, we have already two of the cardinal points of the later imperial system of government. rhe A word must lastly be said of the changes which the nilitary altered position and increased responsibilities of Rome had em ' effected in her military system. 3 For the most part these changes tended gradually to weaken the old and intimate connexion between the Roman army in the field and the Roman people at home, and thus prepared the way for that complete breach between the two which in the end proved fatal to the republic. It is true that service in the legion was still the first duty and the highest privilege of the fully qualified citizen. Every " assiduus " was still liable to active military service between the ages of seventeen to forty-five, and "proletarii" and freedmen were still called out only in great emergencies, 4 and then but rarely enrolled in the legions. But this service was gradually altering in character. Though new legions were still raised each year for the summer campaigns, this was by no means always accompanied, as formerly, by the disbandment of those already on foot, and this increase in the length of time during which the citizen was kept with the standards had, as early as the siege of Veii, necessitated a further deviation from the old theory of military service the introduction of pay. 5 Hardly less important than these changes were those which had taken place in the organiza- tion of the legion itself. In the early days of the republic the same divisions served for the soldier in the legion and the citizen in the assembly. The Roman army in the field, and the Roman people in the comitia on the Campus, were alike grouped according to their wealth, in classes and centurise. But by the time of the Latin war the arrangement of the legion had been wholly altered. In 1 For details, see Beloch, Ital. Bund, caps, v., vi. , vii. The enfran- chised communities in most cases retained the old titles for their magistrates, and hence the variety in their designations. 2 For the "praefecti, "see Mommseu, R. (?., i. 419, and Rom, Staats- recht, ii. 569 ; Beloch, 130-133. 3 Mommsen, R. G., i. 438 ; Madvig, Verf. R. Reichs, ii. 467 sq.; Livy, viii. 8 ; Polyb., ri. 17-42. 4 E.g., before the battle of Sentinum (296), Livy, x. 21. 8 Livy, iv. 59. the new manipular system, with its three lines, no regard was paid to civic distinctions, but only to length of service and military efficiency, while at the same time the more open order of fighting which it involved demanded of each soldier greater skill, and therefore a more thorough train- ing in arms than the old phalanx. One other change The pr resulted from the new military necessities of the time, consul which was as fruitful of results as the incipient separation between the citizen and the soldier. The citizen soldiers of early Rome were commanded in the field by the men whom they had chosen to be their chief magistrates at home, and still, except when a dictator was appointed, the chief command of the legions rested with the consuls of the year. But, as Rome's military operations increased in area and in distance from Rome, a larger staff became necessary, and the inconvenience of summoning home a consul in the field from an unfinished campaign became intolerable. The remedy found, that of prolonging for a' further period the imperium of the consul, was first applied in 327 B.C. in the case of Q. Publilius Philo, 6 and between 327 and 264 instances of this " prorogatio imperil " 427-4 became increasingly common. This proconsular authority, originally an occasional and subordinate one, was destined to become first of all the strongest force in the republic, and ultimately the chief prop of the power of the Caesars. Already, within the limits of Italy, Rome had laid the foundation stones of the system by which she afterwards governed the world, the municipal constitutions, the allied states, the proconsuls, and the prefects. PERIOD II : ROME AND THE MEDITERRANEAN STATES, 265-146 B.C. (a) Conquest of the West Though marked 489-6 out by her geographical position as the natural centre of the Mediterranean, Italy had hitherto played no active part in Mediterranean politics, but, now that she was for the first time united, it was felt throughout the Mediter- ranean world that a new power had arisen, and Rome, as the head and representative of Italy, found herself irresistibly drawn into the vortex of Mediterranean affairs. With those of the eastern Mediterranean indeed she was not immediately called upon to concern herself. Her repulse of Pyrrhus, and the news that the Greek cities of South Italy had acknowledged her suzerainty, had, it is true, suddenly revealed to the Eastern world the existence of a powerful Italian state. Egypt sought her alliance, and Greek scholars began to interest them- selves keenly in the history, constitution, and character of the Latin republic which had so suddenly become famous. But this was all, and not until fifty years after the retreat of Pyrrhus did Rome seriously turn her attention eastward. Westward of Italy the case was different. The western coasts of the peninsula were the most fertile and populous and wealthy, and it was west- ward rather than eastward that the natural openings for Italian commerce were to be found. But it was precisely on this side that Rome had serious ground for anxiety. Carthage was now at the height of her power. Her out- posts were threateningly near to Italy in Sardinia and in Sicily, while her fleets swept the seas and jealously guarded for the benefit of Carthage alone the hidden treasures of the West. In the east of Sicily, Syracuse still upheld the cause of Greek independence against the hereditary foe of the Greek race ; but Syracuse stood alone, and her resources were comparatively small. What Rome had to fear was the establishment, and that at no distant date, of an absolute Carthaginian domination over the Western seas a domination which would not only be fatal to Italian commerce but would be a standing menace to the safety of the Italian coasts. Rome had indeed long been 6 Livy, viii. 23, " ut pro consule rem gereret quoad debellatuiu esset."