The History of Rome, Theodor Mommsen [good english books to read txt] 📗

must still have been provincial land at least in the year after Lucullus' praetorship 679, since the propraetor had nothing to do on Italian soil. But it was only within the -pomerium- that every prolonged -imperium- ceased of itself; in Italy, on the other hand, such a prolonged -imperium- was even under Sulla's arrangement—though not regularly existing—at any rate allowable, and the office held by Lucullus was in any case an extraordinary one. But we are able moreover to show when and how Lucullus held such an office in this quarter. He was already before the Sullan reorganization in 672 active as commanding officer in this very district (p, 87), and was probably, just like Pompeius, furnished by Sulla with propraetorian powers; in this character he must have regulated the boundary in question in 672 or 673 (comp. Appian, i. 95). No inference therefore may be drawn from this inscription as to the legal position of North Italy, and least of all for the time after Sulla's dictatorship. On the other hand a remarkable hint is contained in the statement, that Sulla advanced the Roman -pomerium- (Seneca, de brev. vitae, 14; Dio, xliii. 50); which distinction was by Roman state-law only accorded to one who had advanced the bounds not of the empire, but of the city—that is, the bounds of Italy (i. 128).

28. As two quaestors were sent to Sicily, and one to each of the other provinces, and as moreover the two urban quaestors, the two attached to the consuls in conducting war, and the four quaestors of the fleet continued to subsist, nineteen magistrates were annually required for this office. The department of the twentieth quaestor cannot be ascertained.

29. The Italian confederacy was much older (II. VII. Italy and The Italians); but it was a league of states, not, like the Sullan Italy, a state-domain marked off as an unit within the Roman empire.

30. II. III. Complete Opening Up of Magistracies and Priesthoods

31. II. III. Combination of The Plebian Aristocracy and The Farmers against The Nobility

32. III. XIII. Religious Economy

33. IV. X. Punishments Inflicted on Particular Communities

34. e. g. IV. IV. Dissatisfaction in the Capital, IV. V. Warfare of Prosecutions

35. IV. II. Vote by Ballot

36. IV. III. Modifications of the Penal Law

37. II. II. Intercession

38. IV. III. Modifications of the Penal Law

39. IV. VII. Rejection of the Proposals for an Accomodation

40. II. VII. Subject Communities

41. IV. X. Cisapline Gaul Erected into A Province

42. IV. VII. Preparations for General Revolt against Rome

43. III. XI. Roman Franchise More Difficult of Acquisition

44. IV. IX. Government of Cinna

45. IV. VII. Decay of Military Discipline

46. IV. VII. Economic Crisis

47. IV. VII. Strabo

48. IV. VIII. Flaccus Arrives in Asia

49. IV. IX. Death of Cinna

50. IV. IX. Nola

51. IV. IX. Fresh Difficulties with Mithradates

52. Euripides, Medea, 807:— —Meideis me phaulein kasthenei nomizeto Meid eisuchaian, alla thateron tropou Bareian echthrois kai philoisin eumenei—.

53. IV. IX. Fresh Difficulties with Mithradates

54. IV. IX. Fresh Difficulties with Mithradates, IV. X. Re-establishment of Constitutional Order

55. Not -pthiriasis-, as another account states; for the simple reason that such a disease is entirely imaginary.

Chapter XI

1. IV. V. Transalpine Relations of Rome, IV. V. The Romans Cross the Eastern Alps

2. IV. I. The Callaeci Conquered

3. IV. V. And Reach the Danube

4. -Exterae nationes in arbitratu dicione potestate amicitiave populi Romani- (lex repet. v. i), the official designation of the non-Italian subjects and clients as contrasted with the Italian "allies and kinsmen" (-socii nominisve Latini-).

5. III. XI. As to the Management of the Finances

6. III. XII. Mercantile Spirit

7. IV. III. Jury Courts, IV. III. Character of the Constitution of Gaius Gracchus

8. This tax-tenth, which the state levied from private landed property, is to be clearly distinguished from the proprietor's tenth, which it imposed on the domain-land. The former was let in Sicily, and was fixed once for all; the latter—especially that of the territory of Leontini—was let by the censors in Rome, and the proportion of produce payable and other conditions were regulated at their discretion (Cic. Verr. iii. 6, 13; v. 21, 53; de leg. agr. i. 2, 4; ii. 18, 48). Comp, my Staatsrecht, iii. 730.

9. The mode of proceeding was apparently as follows. The Roman government fixed in the first instance the kind and the amount of the tax. Thus in Asia, for instance, according to the arrangement of Sulla and Caesar the tenth sheaf was levied (Appian. B. C. v. 4); thus the Jews by Caesar's edict contributed every second year a fourth of the seed (Joseph, iv. 10, 6; comp. ii. 5); thus in Cilicia and Syria subsequently there was paid 5 per cent from estate (Appian. Syr. 50), and in Africa also an apparently similar tax was paid—in which case, we may add, the estate seems to have been valued according to certain presumptive indications, e. g. the size of the land occupied, the number of doorways, the number of head of children and slaves (-exactio capitum atque ostiorum-, Cicero, Ad Fam. iii. 8, 5, with reference to Cilicia; —phoros epi tei gei kai tois somasin—, Appian. Pun. 135, with reference to Africa). In accordance with this regulation the magistrates of each community under the superintendence of the Roman governor (Cic. ad Q. Fr. i. 1, 8; SC. de Asclep. 22, 23) settled who were liable to the tax, and what was to be paid by each tributary ( -imperata- —epikephalia—, Cic. ad Att. v. 16); if any one did not pay this in proper time, his tax-debt was sold just as in Rome, i. e. it was handed over to a contractor with an adjudication to collect it (-venditio tributorum-, Cic. Ad Fam. iii. 8, 5; —onas— -omnium venditas-, Cic. ad Att. v. 16). The produce of these taxes flowed into the coffers of the leading communities—the Jews, for instance, had to send their corn to Sidon—and from these coffers the fixed amount in money was then conveyed to Rome. These taxes also were consequently raised indirectly, and the intermediate agent either retained, according to circumstances, a part of the produce of the taxes for himself, or advanced it from his own substance; the distinction between this mode of raising and the other by means of the -publicani- lay merely in the circumstance, that in the former the public authorities of the contributors, in the latter Roman private contractors, constituted the intermediate agency.

10. IV. III. Jury Courts

11. III. VII. Administration of Spain

12. IV. X. Regulation of the Finances

13. For example, in Judaea the town of Joppa paid 26,075 -modii- of corn, the other Jews the tenth sheaf, to the native princes; to which fell to be added the temple-tribute and the Sidonian payment destined for the Romans. In Sicily too, in addition to the Roman tenth, a very considerable local taxation was raised from property.

14. IV. VI. The New Military Organization

15. IV. II. Vote by Ballot

16. III. VII. Liguria

17. IV. V. Province of Narbo

18. IV. V. In Illyria

19. IV. I. Province of Macedonia

20. III. XI. Italian Subjects, III. XII. Roman Wealth

21. IV. V. Taurisci

22. III. IV. Pressure of the War

23. IV. VII. Outbreak of the Mithradatic War

24. IV. IX. Preparations on Either Side

25. III. XII. The Management of Land and of Capital

26. IV. V. Conflicts with the Ligurians. With this may be connected the remark of the Roman agriculturist, Saserna, who lived after Cato and before Varro (ap. Colum. i. 1, 5), that the culture of the vine and olive was constantly moving farther to the north.—The decree of the senate as to the translation of the treatise of Mago (IV. II. The Italian Farmers) belongs also to this class of measures.

27. IV. II. Slavery and Its Consequences

28. IV. VIII. Thrace and Macedonia Occupied by the Pontic Armies.

29. IV. I. Destruction of Carthage, IV. I. Destruction of Corinth

30. IV. V. The Advance of the Romans Checked by the Policy of the Restoration

31. IV. IV. The Provinces

32. IV. VII. Economic Crisis

33. IV. VII. The Sulpician Laws

34. IV. VII. Legislation of Sulla

35. IV. IX. Government of Cinna

36. IV. VIII. Orders Issued from Ephesus for A General Massacre

37. IV. VIII. Thrace and Macedonia Occupied by the Pontic Armies.

38. IV. VI. Roman Intervention

39. III. XII. Roman Wealth

40. IV. V. Taurisci

41. III. VI. Pressure of the War

42. II. VIII. Silver Standard of Value

43. III. VI. Pressure of the War

44. III. I. Comparison between Carthage and Rome

45. IV. X. Proscription-Lists

46. III. III. Autonomy, III. VII. the State of Culture in Spain, III. XII. Coins and Moneys

47. III. XII. Coins and Moneys

48. III. XIII. Increase of Amusements

49. In the house, which Sulla inhabited when a young man, he paid for the ground-floor a rent of 3000 sesterces, and the tenant of the upper story a rent of 2000 sesterces (Plutarch, Sull. 1); which, capitalized at two-thirds of the usual interest on capital, yields nearly the above amount. This was a cheap dwelling. That a rent of 6000 sesterces (60 pounds) in the capital is called a high one in the case of the year 629 (Vell. ii. 10) must have been due to special circumstances.

50. III. I. Comparison between Carthage and Rome

51. IV. II. Tribunate of Gracchus

52. "If we could, citizens"—he said in his speech—"we should indeed all keep clear of this burden. But, as nature has so arranged it that we cannot either live comfortably with wives or live at all without them, it is proper to have regard rather to the permanent weal than to our own brief comfort."

Chapter XII

1. IV. XI. Money-Dealing and Commerce

2. IV. X. The Roman Municipal System

3. IV. I. The Subjects

4. IV. I. The Callaeci Conquered

5. IV. I. The New Organization of Spain

6. IV. VII. Second Year of the War

7. The statement that no "Greek games" were exhibited in Rome before 608 (Tac. Ann. xiv. 21) is not accurate: Greek artists (—technitai—) and athletes appeared as early as 568 (Liv. xxxix. 22), and Greek flute-players, tragedians, and pugilists in 587 (Pol. xxx, 13).

8. III. XIII. Irreligious Spirit

9. A delightful specimen may be found in Cicero de Officiis, iii. 12, 13.

10. IV. VI. Collision between the Senate and Equites in the Administration of the Provinces; IV. IX. Siege of Praeneste

11. In Varro's satire, "The Aborigines," he sarcastically set forth how the primitive men had not been content with the God who alone is recognized by thought, but had longed after puppets and effigies.

12. III. XI. Interference of The Community in War and Administration

13. IV. VI. Political Projects of Marius

14. IV. X. Co-optation Restored in the Priestly Colleges

15. IV. VI. The Equestrian Party

16. III. XIV. Cato's Encyclopedia

17. Cicero says that he treated his learned slave Dionysius more respectfully than Scipio treated Panaetius, and in the same sense it is said in Lucilius:—

-Paenula, si quaeris, canteriu', servu', segestre Utilior mihi, quam sapiens-.

18. IV. XII. Panaetius

Chapter XIII

1. Thus in the -Paulus-, an original piece, the following line occurred, probably in the description of the pass of Pythium (III. X. Perseus Is Driven Back to Pydna):—

-Qua vix caprigeno generi gradilis gressio est-.

And in another piece the hearers are expected to understand the following description—

-Quadrupes tardigrada agrestis humilis aspera, Capite brevi, cervice anguina, aspectu truci, Eviscerata inanima cum animali sono-.

To which they naturally reply—

-Ita saeptuosa dictione abs te datur, Quod conjectura sapiens aegre contuit; Non intellegimus, nisi si aperte dixeris-.

Then follows the confession that the tortoise is referred to. Such enigmas, moreover, were not wanting even among the Attic tragedians, who