But the rights, which belonged and could not but belong to Rome as the leading community - the supreme conduct of war-affairs, and the superintendence of the whole administration - were exercised in a way which was almost as bad as if the allies had been directly declared to be subjects devoid of rights. The numerous modifications of the fearfully severe martial law of Rome, which were introduced there in the course of the seventh century, seem to have remained on the whole limited to the Roman burgess-soldiers: this is certain as to the most important, the abolition of executions by martial law[1], and we may easily conceive the impression which was produced when, as happened in the Jugurthine war, Latin officers of repute were beheaded by sentence of the Roman council of war, while the lowest burgess-soldier had in the like case the right of presenting an appeal to the civil tribunals of Rome. The proportions in which the burgesses and Italian allies were to be drawn for military service had, as was fair, remained undefined by treaty; but, while in earlier times the two had furnished on an average equal numbers of soldiers[2], now, although the proportions of the population had changed probably in favour of the burgesses rather than to their disadvantage, the demands on the allies were by degrees increased disproportionately[3], so that on the one hand they had the chief burden of the heavier and more costly service imposed on them, and on the other hand there were two allies now regularly levied for one burgess. In like manner with this military supremacy the civil superintendence, which (including the supreme administrative jurisdiction which could hardly be separated from it) the Roman government had always and rightly reserved to itself over the dependent Italian communities, was extended in such a way that the Italians were hardly less than the provincials abandoned without protection to the caprice of any one of the numberless Roman magistrates. In Teanum Sidicinum, one of the most considerable of the allied towns, a consul had ordered the chief magistrate of the town to be scourged with rods at the stake in the marketplace, because, on the consul's wife expressing a desire to bathe in the men's bath, the municipal officers had not driven forth the bathers quickly enough, and the bath appeared to her not to be clean.
Similar scenes had taken place in Ferentinum, likewise a town holding the best position in law, and even in the old and important Latin colony of Cales. In the Latin colony of Venusia a free peasant had been seized by a young Roman diplomatist not holding office but passing through the town, on account of a jest which he had allowed himself to make on the Roman's litter, had been thrown down, and whipped to death with the straps of the litter. These occurrences are incidentally mentioned about the time of the Fregellan insurrection; it admits of no doubt that similar outrages frequently occurred, and of as little that no real satisfaction for such misdeeds could anywhere be obtained, whereas the right of appeal - not lightly violated with impunity - protected in some measure at least the life and limbs of the Roman burgess. In consequence of this treatment of the Italians on the part of the Roman government, the variance, which the wisdom of their ancestors had carefully fostered between the Latin and the other Italian communities, could not fail, if not to disappear, at any rate to undergo abatement[4]. The curb-fortresses of Rome and the districts kept to their allegiance by these fortresses lived now under the like oppression; the Latin could remind the Picentine that they were both in like manner "subject to the fasces"; the overseers and the slaves of former days were now united by a common hatred towards the common despot.
While the present state of the Italian allies was thus transformed from a tolerable relation of dependence into the most oppressive bondage, they were at the same time deprived of every prospect of obtaining better rights. With the subjugation of Italy the Roman burgess-body had closed its ranks; the bestowal of the franchise on whole communities was totally given up, its bestowal on individuals was greatly restricted[5]. They now advanced a step farther: on occasion of the agitation which contemplated the extension of the Roman franchise to all Italy in the years 628, 632, the right of migration to Rome was itself attacked, and all the non-burgesses resident in Rome were directly ejected by decree of the people and of the senate from the capital[6] - a measure as odious on account of its illiberality, as dangerous from the various private interests which it injuriously affected. In short, while the Italian allies had formerly stood to the Romans partly in the relation of brothers under tutelage, protected rather than ruled and not destined to perpetual minority, partly in that of slaves tolerably treated and not utterly deprived of the hope of manumission, they were now all of them subject nearly in equal degree, and with equal hopelessness, to the rods and axes of their Roman masters, and might at the utmost presume like privileged slaves to transmit the kicks received from their masters onward to the poor provincials.
It belongs to the nature of such differences that, restrained by the sense of national unity and by the remembrance of dangers surmounted in common, they make their appearance at first gently and as it were modestly, till the breach gradually widens and the relation between the rulers, whose might is their sole right, and the ruled, whose obedience reaches no farther than their fears, manifests at length undisguisedly the character of force. Down to the revolt and razing of Fregellae in 629, which as it were officially attested the altered character of the Roman rule, the ferment among the Italians did not properly wear a revolutionary character. The longing after equal rights had gradually risen from a silent wish to a loud request, only to be the more decidedly rejected, the more distinctly it was put forward. It was very soon apparent that a voluntary concession was not to be hoped for, and the wish to extort what was refused would not be wanting; but the position of Rome at that time hardly permitted them to entertain any idea of realizing that wish. Although the numerical proportions of the burgesses and non-burgesses in Italy cannot be properly ascertained, it may be regarded as certain that the number of the burgesses was not very much less than that of the Italian allies; for nearly 400,000 burgesses capable of bearing arms there were at least 500,000, probably 600,000 allies[7]. So long as with such proportions the burgesses were united and there was no outward enemy worthy of mention, the Italian allies, split up into an endless number of isolated urban and cantonal communities, and connected with Rome by a thousand relations public and private, could never attain to common action; and with moderate prudence the government could not fail to control their troublesome and indignant subjects partly by the compact mass of the burgesses, partly by the very considerable resources which the provinces afforded, partly by setting one community against another.
1. IV. III. Modifications of the Penal Law.
2. I. VII. Relation of Rome to Latium, II. V. As to the Officering of the Army.
3. II. VII. Furnishing of Contingents; III. XI. Latins.
4. III. XI. Roman Franchise More Difficult of Acquisition.
5. III. XI. Roman Franchise More Difficult of Acquisition.
6. IV. III. Democratic Agitation under Carbo and Flaccus, IV. III. Overthrow of Gracchus.
7. These figures are taken from the numbers of the census of 639 and 684; there were in the former year 394, 336 burgesses capable of bearing arms, in the latter 910,000 (according to Phlegon Fr. 12 Mull., which statement Clinton and his copyists erroneously refer to the census of 668; according to Liv. Ep. 98 the number was - by the correct reading - 900,000 persons). The only figures known between these two - those of the census of 668, which according to Hieronymus gave 463,000 persons - probably turned out so low only because the census took place amidst the crisis of the revolution. As an increase of the population of Italy is not conceivable in the period from 639 to 684, and even the Sullan assignations of land can at the most have but filled the gaps which the war had made, the surplus of fully 500,000 men capable of bearing arms may be referred with certainty to the reception of the allies which had taken place in the interval. But it is possible, and even probable, that in these fateful years the total amount of the Italian population may have retrograded rather than advanced: if we reckon the total deficit at 100,000 men capable of bearing arms, which seems not excessive, there were at the time of the Social War in Italy three non-burgesses for two burgesses.