The Historians' History of the World 05

Before the Punic Wars the aristocracy had to a certain extent formed itself into a party against which the people soon gathered in opposition.

A Roman Noble

The nobility used their influential position to appropriate the whole administration of the state. In the senate the exclusive circle of noble families ruled, and the highest official positions were given only to men of their party. The censorship, a position of the greatest power and consideration, was an important office in their hands; it was regarded as the chief of all state dignities. Hence the aristocracy used every means to prevent a man of the plebeian order from acquiring that position. The duty of the censors was to keep the senate as free as possible from all unaristocratic elements, for they were empowered to nominate the members of the senate and to disqualify for admission to it. There was another way of entering the senate besides that of nomination by the censor; anyone who had occupied a curule chair was entitled to a seat and a voice in the senate. But the choice of the higher officials was in a certain degree in the hands of the consul, who generally belonged to the aristocracy; and as president of the centuriate assembly he could reject any candidate of whom he did not approve.

The censors also appointed the knights and therefore formed them into a purely aristocratic body. As long as they cast the earliest vote in the centuriate assembly, the nobility had a considerable advantage there. Even after this ceased, the knights formed in the assembly a distinct and distinguished party, and as the flower of the nobility they likewise formed in the army a brilliant cavalry corps. As in this corporation the nobility regarded itself as something quite distinct from the rest of the people, the ruling class tried by other external signs to distinguish themselves from the masses and to represent themselves as a superior caste.

So from the year 194 the seats of the senatorial class were kept separate from those of other people at the public festivals.

When the nobility got the government into their hands, they moulded it in conformity with their own interests. In order to raise the position of the officials as high as possible they only increased the number when absolutely necessary, and never in proportion to the increase of business consequent on the extension of the territories of the republic. It was only from the most pressing necessity that in the year 242 the work of a single prætor, the director of judicial business, was divided between two, so that the town prætor (prætor urbanus) had the judicial business of the Roman citizens, and the foreign prætor (prætor peregrinus

) settled questions between aliens or between aliens and Roman citizens. After the conquest of Sicily, Sardinia, and the two Spains, four more prætors were added for the management of those provinces.

But after the year 149 they remained as a rule in Rome during their year of office to preside at the commission of inquiry respecting criminal matters introduced during that time, and then they went in the following year as pro-prætors to the provinces.

The choice of officials was, moreover, limited by the avoidance as much as possible of the re-election to the consulate. From 265 the censor was never twice the same, and the custom was made a law whereby the curule (lex annalis of year 180) officials were appointed in a certain degree by grade and after a certain interval.

An ædile, as we have seen, must be at least thirty-seven, a prætor forty, a consul forty-three. The right was therefore withdrawn from the voters, in case of need, to take the most competent and serviceable man without regard to seniority. The measure of worth for the selection of officials was no longer competence but birth and seigniority, and the nobility regarded office as its due right, not disdaining, however, to get from the people all they could by the arts of flattery.

The government of this official nobility exhibited in foreign policy all its time-worn energy, which was only too often united with unworthy cunning and untrustworthiness, but the administration of internal affairs became torpid and bad. The majority belied the claims of their office, mostly careful on the one hand not to forfeit by any inconsiderate or stern measure the favour of the people to whom they were indebted for their posts and from whom they expected future favours, while on the other hand they did not hesitate to run counter to such of their colleagues as might occasionally wish to render the people reciprocal service.

The late wars had shown the weakness of the generals and the consequent lack of military discipline. In the wars of this period so much leave and furlough had been granted for money that the forces were not ready for any undertaking. Instead of fighting the enemy, generals and soldiers laid their allies and friends under contribution.