Tenney Frank - Roman Imperialism (Serapis Classics)

Published 2017

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ROME is situated about fourteen miles from the ancient coast line of the Mediterranean upon the low hills bordering the navigable Tiber. The Latian plain, which the city commands, stretches from the Tiber to the Volscian hills, and from the Sabine ridges to the sea; it may be crossed in either direction in a brisk day's walk. The soil of the plain is productive. It is largely composed of disintegrating tufa and lava which flowed from surrounding volcanoes during the Tertiary period. Since, however, the land of central Latium is rolling, and consequently erodes quickly, whereas the basic tufa is comparatively hard and disintegrates very slowly, the arable soil is apt to wash away when stripped for long periods by the ax and plow. Nevertheless, the whole plain is so superior in productivity to the ragged limestone ridges which border it that its inhabitants were doubtless often compelled to defend their title by force of arms.

Before the Indo-European tribes reached central Italy, Latium was possessed by a race of unknown origin, men of short stature and dark complexion, who had not yet learned the use of metallic implements. They are usually classed as members of the Mediterranean race. The Indo-European invaders began to enter Italy from the north and east during the third millennium B.C., and continued to come in wave after wave until they mastered the greater part of Italy. In the marshes of the Po valley the sites of the earlier of these immigrants can still be identified in the peculiarly formed "terremare" or "pile-dwellings." From a somewhat later period date the "Villanova" cemeteries of Umbria and Tuscany, which have yielded archologists so rich a fund of treasure. It was doubtless a branch of this immigrating race which took possession of Latium some time before the millennium that ended with the birth of Christ.

The peoples of the terremare introduced the use of bronze implements and weapons into Italy. They employed most of the domestic animals and cultivated many of the cereals and fruits which were found in Italy in Cato's day. The men of the Villanova settlements were workers in iron also, and adorned their utensils and weapons with many pleasing, though simple, designs. Even though the excavations in Latium have as yet proved unsatisfactory, we can hardly doubt that the immigrant tribe which took possession of the lower Tiber valley was also far advanced in the arts of a stable agricultural people.

How these invading Aryans disposed of the previous possessors we do not know. In view of the facts that the Romans of historical times practiced inhumation by the side of cremation, that they employed several different marriage ceremonies, and that their language contains a large number of words not of Aryan extraction, it would be futile to insist that the invading Aryan tribe kept itself free from racial contamination. It is more likely that the victors, after having overcome all armed opposition, incorporated the remaining inhabitants, chiefly women and children of course, into their own tribe. If this be true, the Roman people were a mixed race whose chief elements were immigrant Aryans and conquered non-Aryans. However this may be, certainly the predominant element was Aryan, for the Latin language is a close relative of Greek and of Celtic. The names of the more primitive deities, e.g. Jupiter, Janus, Diana, Saturnus, Vesta, Volcanus, Neptunus, contain Indo-European bases, and the characteristic institutions of family, tribe, and city are unmistakably Aryan in type.

By occupation the early Latins must have been shepherds and farmers, as, in fact, their ancestors had been before them, if the conditions revealed by the "terramara" and "Villanova" cemeteries may be drawn upon for evidence. The language of the Romans fairly smells of the soil: egregius, putare, planum facere, saeculum, felix, are all metaphors borrowed from the fields. Many of their noble families bear names like Fabius, Piso, Lentulus, and almost all the gods of the oldest calendar, the di indigetes, the hierarchy of Saturnus and Robigus ("Seed-god" and "Rust-god"), were spirits worshiped by farmer and shepherd. The gods of arts and crafts and commerce, Apollo, Minerva, and Mercury, find no place there. Remarkably few traces of elaborate craftsmanship in Latium, native or borrowed, have been discovered, although the Etruscan towns near by are storehouses of Oriental and Egyptian ware. Apparently the roving instincts of a commercial people, as well as the nervous impulses of a manufacturing folk, were absent or dormant south of the Tiber. These people knew nothing of seacraft, for in their native vocabulary most of the words needed by seafarers are lacking. Nor were they notably warlike. Their army organization was in almost all respects borrowed from their neighbors, and they did not learn the art of making strong fortifications until the Etruscans introduced it from the East. We may infer that they had not extended their conquests far afield during prehistoric times, otherwise they would have come into territorial contact with the Greeks of Cum in a way that must have introduced the arts of Greek civilization into Rome. It is apparent, therefore, that for centuries the Latins were a quiet, unwarlike, non-expanding, agricultural and pastoral people, and that, before the day when Etruscan conquests began to overcrowd central Italy, they had little call to resort to arms except to defend their flocks from the occasional raids of the Sabellic tribes which possessed less desirable land.

Regarding the early political institutions of the Latin tribe, we have only meager data, but there is little reason to believe that the city-state system which prevailed in historic times had long endured. Such a system is not usually found in conjunction with social conditions as primitive as those which must have prevailed in early Latium; for it tends to disintegrate tribal unity by creating strong centers of population. Now we know that the Latin tribe must have long remained a political unit, for no part of it developed a special dialect, and the worship of Jupiter Latiaris, the deity who dwelt upon Latium's highest hill, was recognized throughout the tribe. Harmony was indeed an absolute necessity of existence, since the tribe was small, possessed land much coveted, and was surrounded by hungry hill tribes ready at any moment to take advantage of civil jealousies in Latium. If we keep this fact in mind, we shall understand the import of the so-called Latin league. This league, according to the Roman historians, was based upon a compact formed by the Latian city-states for mutual protection. Such may have been its character in historical times, but it must have existed as a mere tribal union based upon feeling of kinship and common religion long before it was ever expressed in writing. Its origin in fact lies simply in the aboriginal tribal government of the Latin gens. What we may suppose, then, is that the Aryan invaders who took possession of Latium settled the land in village communities, as indeed most Aryan tribes have done in other parts of Europe, that they built their small clusters of houses together on convenient hills, farming the adjacent lands in common, and that the tribal government embraced all the villages of Latium. Such was the system of settlement still in vogue among the kindred hill tribes of Italy at a much later date. And if we attribute this system to Latium for the earlier period, we may understand the source of the tradition repeated by Pliny, that Latium once had fifty cities. It may well be that when the Etruscan invasion rendered life in the unprotected villages precarious, many of them were abandoned, and only such survived as lent themselves to ready fortification. The inhabitants of the many vici thus drifted into a few strong cities, and nothing remained of the numerous villages but the vanishing names of their shrines. Out of these names grew the legend that Latium had once been a land of many cities. Common ownership of land also gave way to private possession, perhaps during the same time of stress -- at least at an early date -- for the decemviral code of the fifth century already recognizes free testamentary right, a right which presupposes a considerable development from the first recognition of private ownership.