One cannot help doubting whether in all that is said of the agrarian law of Cassius there is a single point that comes from any other source than the desire of the later writers to give some account of so important a measure. Since the old chronicles were totally silent about the nine nobles who were condemned to death, they must at all events have been very brief on the fate of Cassius: and what should make them deem it necessary to do more than name his agrarian law? Its purport can have been nothing but a revival of that which I suppose to be the law of Servius. It must have directed that the portion of the populus in the public lands should be set apart, that the rest should be divided among the plebeians, that the tithe should again be levied, and applied to paying the army. Now this is just what Dionysius makes the senate ordain: only by a law meant in earnest, as will be noticed presently, the carrying the measure into effect would have been entrusted to very different hands from those selected in that ordinance of the senate. In trying by induction to restore the purport of the law of Cassius, the only other thing we have to add is that the lands divided between the orders were solely those which the state had acquired since the general assignment by king Servius, and which it still retained.

This volume appears three years later than, when the second edition of the first was publisht, I confidently thought it would have done; and I am bound to explain the occasion of this delay to the friendly reader who may have complained of it.

Ever since the continuation of my history was interrupted, my mind had been in a very different state with regard to the contents of the second volume and to those of the first. With the latter I was incessantly busied: every fresh piece of information I acquired concerning the original institutions of other nations combined itself with the researches there commenced into kindred institutions at Rome; and many of my views were modified by the sight of Rome and of Italy. To the second volume, which relates only to particular points in the condition and laws of the Romans, and was never recalled to my thoughts by any such occasions, I had become a stranger. At the same time I knew very well that the dissertations comprised in it were incomparably more mature and complete than those in the first: in the former, especially in that on the agrarian institutions, the investigation of which had been gone through before the design of treating the history of Rome arose in my mind, there was nothing to correct, little to add.

No truce, even though it was for a long series of years, could remove the causes of war, like a treaty of peace and alliance: when that concluded with Veii after the taking of Fidenæ had expired, the Romans demanded satisfaction for the crime of Tolumnius. The Veientines were afraid of war. Even seventy years before this it was only after they had collected succours from the whole of Etruria, and so long as these remained with them, that they carried it on with success, at a time when the confederates of Rome had to exert all their strength in their own defense. At present though many of these confederate towns had been destroyed or alienated from Rome, the cohorts of the rest were bound to accompany the legions whenever the senate commanded them to do so; while in more than one congress at the temple of Voltumna the Etruscans refused to send any aid. They cannot have failed to perceive that the town they were thus abandoning to its fate was the bulwark of their whole nation: and though unfortunately in the history of ill-connected confederacies there never was, nor ever will be, a want of examples where one of them, on the preservation of which the prosperity of all the rest depends, is abandoned to destruction by their envy and jealousy, still at all events the election of a king at Veii cannot possibly have excited any senseless ill humour among the other Etruscans: for Tolumnius had also been king: and indeed we have no ground whatever to suppose that any city of the whole nation ever had a chief magistrate of any other kind.

There was the stronger necessity for trying to dissolve the union between the two Ausonian nations, since the Sabines were continually making inroads into the Roman territory: nay the Æquians by themselves were strong enough to bring the Romans to repent that they had deemed a single consular army able to withstand their power. L. Minucius was defeated on the Algidus in 296, and besieged in his camp: from this strait he was rescued by aid sent to him from Rome, his collegue being in the field against the Sabines: as the battle however had been lost through his fault, he was forced to resign; and Q. Fabius took the command of the army in his stead.

This colourless outline is the utmost share that history takes in the narrative of this campaign. One annalist indeed ascribes the command of the troops that relieved the army to T. Quinctius; but this assuredly is merely a transfer of his name to this year from 290. According to the system explained above, the reserve, which must have brought the relief, was headed by a general with consular authority: but it is exceedingly improbable that this command should have been committed to one of the quæstors of blood, which office T. Quinctius filled at this very time. Either a dictator was actually appointed, or Q. Fabius, who afterward took the command of the army, was also the person who saved it.

When the envoys had executed their commission, a delay nevertheless took place in the appointment of the lawgivers: nor would the point have been settled peacefully, had not the plebeians given up their original demand that the board should be composed of both orders. The arrangement the ruling order agreed to was, that the consulship should be suspended, and that in the mean while ten senators, like a college of interrexes, should be invested with consular, and at the same time with legislative power. Among the ten appointed by virtue of this agreement we find both the consuls of the year 302: and as these were indemnified for the dignity they were forced to resign, so it is probable that the quaestors of blood and the warden of the city, whose offices were likewise transferred to the decemvirate obtained seats in it. Thus the patricians would have four deputies appointed exclusively by themselves, and one whose election they had confirmed; while five places were left open for the free choice of the centuries. Livy evidently must have heard a faint report of an election by which a certain number were added to others previously appointed.

The patricians were the more determined to allow the plebeians no share in this decemvirate, because it was understood as of course, that it was not only to draw up a scheme of laws, but to enact them, and to be the sole magistracy of the state: for in the ancient, commonwealths, when legislators were appointed, they were always entrusted with the whole government; as was the case with Solon, and with that body which from its actions received the name of the Thirty Tyrants.

The population of the greatest part of Italy was probably as much lessened by the two great pestilences, as it was forty years after Charles VIII undertook his disastrous expedition across the Alps, in comparison with its state at that epoch. But depopulation is everywhere soon repaired by an increase of births and a diminution of deaths, except where the vital energy of a people is checkt by the influence of deeprooted general distress; and thus at Rome it was not so lasting as the effects which the mortality had on the proportion between the two orders. It affected the close body far more sensibly than that which was open to fresh supplies; and thus it necessarily weakened the houses in comparison with the commonalty. Many of them must have become utterly extinct at this time, as in the fifth century was the case with the Potitii at a similar season: after these years of mortality no Larcius, Cominius, or Numicius, no patrician Tullius, Sicinius, or Volumnius, occurs in the Fasti: three of the houses have a consul at the end of the third century for the first and last time: for the first, because perhaps the decay of such a number of houses had made room for theirs; for the last, because theirs too had been reduced to a single representative or a few more, and soon afterward failed: several others, though they are found in the Fasti till toward the time of the Gallic invasion, disappear then, or shortly after; so that they probably numbered very few families.

The old commonalty was no less anxious for the reelection of the tribunes than of the consuls; nor could the former be prevented by any interference from without. But M. Duilius, whose lot it was to preside at this election, declared that he would take no vote either for his collegues or himself. This resolution was met by one equally firm on the part of the old plebeians, not to vote for anybody except the tribunes who were going out: and their superiority in number to the newly admitted tribesmen was so decided, that the latter, and such individuals as may have joined them, could not supply more than five candidates with the requisite votes in the majority of the tribes. Now it being necessary that all proceedings of the plebs should be completed in one day, an election which had not furnisht the full number might have been held void; and those who were desirous to carry the reelection of the late tribunes insisted that it ought to be so: Duilius on the other hand maintained that it was enough if there were any tribunes elected to begin the new year, and that these had a legal right to fill up the vacant places. The people was forced to acquiesce in this decision: but the majority of the new tribunes, as might have been lookt for from the mode of their election, were so entirely devoted to the patricians, that among the new members with whom they made up the complement of their college, two were even taken from that order,—Sp. Tarpeius and A. Aternius, to whom, it is true however, the commonalty was indebted for their law to regulate fines.

When the remnant of the Romans were collected in the city, and able to look about them again, they found that the state was bereft of its subjects, and had shrunk within its own limits; like Florence after the expulsion of the Duke of Athens. The towns which after the fall of Latium had placed themselves under the soverainty of Rome for the sake of enjoying her protection, now disdained to submit to her. Even under the year 366 we already find mention of the revolt of the Latins and Hernicans: which however only means that the league then subsisting was dissolved. Still even if the Latins were not animated by any hostile feelings at the time of their separation, some such must are long have inevitably taken root in their minds. As soon as the remains of that people had resumed its independence, its national assembly was of course restablisht. To this assembly the Roman senate complained in 369 that no aid had been afforded them for the last three years; and the sense of their own weakness compelled them to take up with an empty evasion. Still the union among the Latins at this time must have been very lax: several towns were induced by their situation or by other circumstances to stand by the Romans; and this affords an explanation how Latin colonies subject to Rome came to be founded during this period, such as Sutrium and Nepete, as well as Setia, which probably was one of the towns taken from the Volscians before the year 365.

I Have already intimated in the former volume that the Veientine war cannot have been the occasion on which the practice of giving the troops pay was first introduced; that the serarians must undoubtedly have always continued to pay pensions to the infantry, as single women and minors did to the knights; that the change consisted in this, that every legionary now became entitled to pay, whereas previously the number of pensions had been limited by that of the persons liable to be charged with them; and hence that the deficiency was supplied out of the ærarium, from the produce of the tithe, and, when this failed, by a tribute levied even from those plebeians who were themselves bound to serve. Not only however is it utterly inconceivable that the paternal legislation which introduced the census, should have allowed that, while the wealthiest knights were to receive pay, the infantry was to serve without any kind of wages: I can also bring forward unequivocal indications that both services were originally paid according to the same system.

Polybius, it is well known, states the daily pay of a legionary to have been two obols: which,—since he takes a drachm as equivalent to a denary, and since the latter, in paying the soldiers, even after the introduction of a small currency, was not reckoned, as in all other transactions, at 16 ases, but at 10—are equal to uses, and in 30 days amount to 100.

The league of Rome with the Latins and that with the Hernicans are parted by an interval of seven years, and by events which our history must not pass over: but it would shew a slavish adherence to the order of time to let the internal connexion between the two subjects be broken by this separation. The same Sp. Cassius concluded both the treaties as consul, and the tenour of both was precisely the same: the alliance was common to the three states, and they were all placed on an equality; so that when their forces took the field conjointly, a third of the spoil and of the conquered territory fell to the lot of each, and each took an equal share in the colonies they sent forth. Now for the subsistence of this equality it was necessary there should be no marked disproportion between the allies in power, even if they were not exactly balanced; and the Hernicans must have occupied a compass far wider than their later history assigns to them. They, like the Latins, were overpowered by the Volscians and Æquians, who conquered a part of their towns: some of these, as was the case with Ferentinum, were recovered; others perhaps were destroyed; others, when peace was concluded and the possessions of the parties secured by treaties, may have remained in the hands of the Volscians.

Cnæus Marcius was in the camp before Corioli when the Volscians came from Antium to relieve it. While the two armies were fighting, the garrison made a sally: Marcius attackt them, routed them, rusht through the gates with them, and took the place. The cries of the defenseless captives, and the flames that rose from the town, announced the result to the armies; and the Antiates retreated from the bootless conflict. Thus Rome was indebted for two victories in one day to Coriolanus; which surname was supposed in afterages to have been derived from that conquest. Henceforward he was greatly looked up to by the senate and burgesses; but his haughty bearing offended the commonalty. On one occasion, when the tribunes prevented the consuls from levying troops, he called his clients together, and invited volunteers to join him: with this body he made an inroad into the territory of the Antiates, carried off much booty, and divided it among his followers. Hence the plebeians dreaded him, and refused him the consulship: this inflamed him with implacable anger.

After this it came to pass that there was a famine in the city: many of the commonalty sold themselves along with their children; others threw themselves into the river; not a few went into forein lands: the patricians did not suffer, and took care to provide for their clients.

The incessant wars with these Ausonian nations, which for more than a century occur almost every year, have induced Livy to express a fear that, as he cannot write of them without weariness, he shall excite a like feeling in his readers. How much more reason then has a foreiner to expect this, living eighteen hundred years after, with very few among his contemporaries who reflect that the glory of Arpinum and its sons belonged to the Volscian name, or who are familiar with the noble hills, the scene of those wars; and not one who takes interest in them from any of the feelings connected with his birthplace! Hence the endless uniformity of occurrences, few of which are even distinguisht by the mention of the spot where they took place, and which look like mere predatory inroads, passing away and perpetually recurring without any result, must to us be intolerably tedious. But this appearance of intrinsic insignificance has only been occasioned by the dishonesty of the Roman annalists, which has studiously thrown the conquests of these nations into oblivion, as their narrowness of mind has the wholesome and politic treaties with them at which the vanity of the later Romans took offense.

Whether Rome was considered as a colony from Alba, or as planted by the son of Mars, who stood in the place of a parent city, its foundation was supposed, and related as from tradition, to have been accompanied by all the solemnities usual in new colonies. As Romulus was made to trace the pomœrium with a plough, so to him was ascribed the assignment of two jugers a-piece to each of the citizens, as inheritable property; and it cannot be doubted that in very early times the Roman territory was actually divided into such small allotments. A hundred such formed an ancient century, of two hundred jugers of arable, inclosed by strips that were drawn according to the rules of augury as immovable limits. This was the district of a cury: that each possest an equal one, is among the traditions of the old law: and that a hundred householders were assigned to each cury is clear, because three thousand warriors were reckoned for the three tribes, as the colonists of Antium are designated as a thousand soldiers: and hence the statement that at the first there were a thousand householders in Rome was unquestionably understood of the Ramnes, though it may originally have related to a state of things the remembrance of which was studiously obliterated. A cury is also shewn to have contained a hundred citizens by the ten decuries it consisted of.

The campaigns during this period begin to be in many instances so important both from what was achieved in them and from the consequences they led to, that a circumstantial relation of them could no longer be censured as a tedious recital of petty occurrences proceeding from a fond predilection for the subject: but almost all the details in our accounts are still of a very suspicious character. Thus we must content ourselves with saying that in 306 M. Horatius gained a glorious victory over the Sabines: an extremely memorable event, since the Sabine wars, which for more than twenty years had been continually breaking out afresh, cease from this time forward, till after the lapse of a century and a half, when the powerless state was madly roused to take up arms, and sank in a few days into final ruin. During the whole of this period the Sabines are never named in history, though the cities on their borders, at one time Tibur, at another Falerii, are waging war against Rome: in the second and third Samnite wars the Roman troops pass through their territory without any obstruction; nor could an army have been sent into Apulia, had not their friendship been completely secured.

In the investigations concerning the agrarian institutions I have made frequent and considerable use of the works and fragments which treat of the art of dividing lands. The collection of these works, at least in the latest of the three different editions which were publisht during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, each subsequent one containing fresh matter derived from manuscripts, is by no means rare even in common private libraries; yet at the same time, as has been remarkt already, it is less known than any other work of ancient profane literature. One would hardly believe that in books on literary history it is classed under the head of agriculture: and although a few quotations here and there seem to shew that in our days these writings are rather less neglected than they used to be, yet it is quite plain that they are still a sealed mysterious book, wherein only such scattered passages are noticed as are intelligible when taken apart from the rest, such as may be found even in the volumes of the cabbalists.

For me these writings from several causes have had a peculiar charm. There is always some kind of attraction in whatever is mysterious and difficult: and as I derived much instruction from them when I learnt in some degree to understand them, they called forth a feeling of gratitude, which excites a particularly lively interest even in neglected books.

Some privileges might be exercised by an outlying freeman without changing his relation to his native country; but of others he could not avail himself without becoming a citizen of the pale: and these were determined not by the higher dignity of the privilege, but by the nature of the case. Without quitting Capua Pacuvius Calavius had wedded a Claudia, and had given his daughter in marriage to a Roman: this bred no confusion: but if he had purchased Roman lands subject to the land-tax, the republic would have lost the tribute due upon them, which was assest not on the objects, but on the persons liable to it. Thus the higher right, the connubium, was open to every isopolite; the commercium was reserved for those who settled in their adopted country.

It is mentioned as one feature in the relation between Rome and Alba, that the connubium subsisted between them: and however all pretended statements concerning the earliest times may be rejected, perhaps with needless rigour, this at all events was meant to explain the origin of the same right among the Latins, and therefore deserves attention. The right of intermarriage with Alba is exprest in the legend of the mothers of the Horatii and Curiatii; that with the Priscans and Latins, in the story of the matrons who before the battle of Regillus were allowed to part from their husbands; and on such matters tradition cannot deviate from the truth: the marriage of the last king's daughter with the dictator Mamilius may certainly pass for a historical fact.