A History of Rome to 565 A. D Part 2

*Etruria.* About the opening of the eighth century, the region to the north of the Tiber, west and south of the Apennines, was occupied by the people whom the Greeks called Tyrseni or Tyrreni, the Romans Etrusci or Tusci, but who styled themselves Rasenna. Their name still clings to this section of Italy (_la Toscana_), which to the Romans was known as Etruria.

*The origin of the Etruscans.* Racially and linguistically the Etruscans differed from both Italians and h.e.l.lenes, and their presence in Italy was long a problem to historians. Now, however, it is generally agreed that their own ancient tradition, according to which they were immigrants from the sh.o.r.es of the Aegean Sea, is correct. They were probably one of the pre-h.e.l.lenic races of the Aegean basin, where a people called Tyrreni were found as late as the fifth century B. C., and it has been suggested that they are to be identified with the _Tursha_, who appear among the Aegean invaders of Egypt in the thirteenth century. Leaving their former abode during the disturbances caused by the h.e.l.lenic occupation of the Aegean islands and the west coast of Asia Minor, they eventually found a new home on the western sh.o.r.e of Italy. Here they imposed their rule and their civilization upon the previous inhabitants. The subsequent presence of the two elements in the population of Etruria is well attested by archaeological evidence.

*Walled towns.* The Etruscans regularly built their towns on hill-tops which admitted of easy defence, but, in addition, they fortified these towns with strong walls of stone, sometimes constructed of rude polygonal blocks and at other times of dressed stone laid in regular courses.

*Tombs.* However, the most striking memorials of the presence of the Etruscans are their elaborate tombs. Their cemeteries contain sepulchres of two types-trench tombs (_tombe a fossa_) and chamber tombs (_tombe a camera_). The latter, a development of the former type, are hewn in the rocky hillsides. The Etruscans practised inhumation, depositing the dead in a stone sarcophagus. However, under the influence of the Italian peoples with whom they came into contact, they also employed cremation to a considerable extent. Their larger chamber tombs were evidently family burial vaults, and were decorated with reliefs cut on their rocky walls or with painted friezes, from which we derive most of our information regarding the Etruscan appearance, dress, and customs. Objects of Phoenician and Greek manufacture found in these tombs show that the Etruscans traded with Carthage and the Greeks as early as the seventh century.

*Etruscan industries.* The Etruscans worked the iron mines of Elba and the copper deposits on the mainland. Their bronzes, especially their mirrors and candelabra, enjoyed high repute even in fifth-century Athens. Their goldsmiths, too, fashioned elaborate ornaments of great technical excellence. Etruria also produced the type of black pottery with a high polish known as _bucchero nero_.

*Etruscan art.* In general, Etruscan art as revealed in wall paintings and in the decorations of vases and mirrors displays little originality in choice of subjects or manner of treatment. In most cases it is a direct and not too successful imitation of Greek models, rarely attaining the grace and freedom of the originals.

*Architecture.* In their architecture, however, although even here affected by foreign influences, the Etruscans displayed more originality and were the teachers of the Romans and other Italians. They made great use of the arch and vault, they created distinctive types of column and _atrium_ (both later called Etruscan) and they developed a form of temple architecture, marked by square structures with a high _podium_ and a portico as deep as the _cella_. Their mural architecture has been referred to already.

*Writing.* Knowledge of the art of writing reached the Etruscans from the Greek colony of Cyme, whence they adopted the Chalcidian form of the Greek alphabet. Several thousand inscriptions in Etruscan have been preserved, but so far all attempts to translate their language have failed.

*Religion.* The religion of the Etruscans was characterized by the great stress laid upon the art of divination and augury. Certain features of this art, especially the use of the liver for divination, appear to strengthen the evidence that connects the Etruscans with the eastern Mediterranean. For them the after-world was peopled by powerful, malicious spirits: a belief which gives a gloomy aspect to their religion. Their circle of native G.o.ds was enlarged by the addition of h.e.l.lenic and Italian divinities and their mythology was greatly influenced by that of Greece.

*Commerce.* The Etruscans were mariners before they settled on Italian soil and long continued to be a powerful maritime people. They early established commercial relations with the Carthaginians and the Greeks, as is evidenced by the contents of their tombs and the influence of Greece upon their civilization in general. But they, as well as the Carthaginians, were jealous of Greek expansion in the western Mediterranean, and in 536 a combined fleet of these two peoples forced the Phoceans to abandon their settlement on the island of Corsica. For the Greeks their name came to be synonymous with pirates, on account of their depredations which extended even as far as the Aegean.

*Government.* In Etruria there existed a league of twelve Etruscan cities.

However, as we know of as many as seventeen towns in this region, it is probable that several cities were not independent members of the league.

This league was a very loose organization, religious rather than political in its character, which did not impair the sovereignty of its individual members. Only occasionally do several cities seem to have joined forces for the conduct of military enterprises. The cities at an early period were ruled by kings, but later were under the control of powerful aristocratic families, each backed by numerous retainers.

*Expansion north of the Apennines, in Latium and in Campania.* In the course of the sixth century the Etruscans crossed the Apennines and occupied territory in the Po valley northwards to the Alps and eastwards to the Adriatic. Somewhat earlier, towards the end of the seventh century, they forced their way through Latium, established themselves in Campania, where they founded the cities of Capua and Nola, and gradually completed the subjugation of Latium itself. This marks the extreme limits of their expansion in Italy, and before the opening of the fifth century their power was already on the wane.

*The decline of the Etruscan power.* It was about this time that Rome freed itself from Etruscan domination, while the other Latins, aided by Aristodemus, the Greek tyrant of Cyme, inflicted a severe defeat upon the Etruscans at Aricia (505 B. C.). A land and sea attack upon Cyme itself, in 474, resulted in the destruction of the Etruscan fleet by Hieron, tyrant of Syracuse. The year 438 B. C. saw the end of the Etruscan power in Campania with the fall of Capua before a Samnite invasion. Not long afterwards, as we shall see, a Celtic invasion drove them from the valley of the Po. The explanation of this rapid collapse of the Etruscan power outside Etruria proper is that, owing to the lack of political unity, these conquests were not national efforts but were made by independent bands of adventurers. These failed to a.s.similate the conquered populations and after a few generations were overthrown by native revolutions or outside invasions, especially since there was no Etruscan nation to protect them in time of need. Thus failure to develop a strong national state was the chief reason why the Etruscans did not unite Italy under their dominion, as they gave promise of doing in the course of the sixth century.

*The significance of the Etruscans in the history of Italy.* Our general impression of the Etruscans is that they were a wealthy, luxury-loving people, quick to appreciate and adopt the achievements of others, but somewhat lacking in originality themselves. Cruel, they took delight in gladiatorial combats, especially in Campania, where the Romans learned this custom. Bold and energetic warriors, as their conquests show, they lacked the spirit of discipline and cooperation, and were incapable of developing a stable political organization. Nevertheless, they played an important part in the cultural development of Italy, even though here their chief mission was the bringing of the Italian peoples into contact with h.e.l.lenic civilization.

III. THE GREEKS

*Greek colonization.* As early as the eighth century the Greeks had begun their colonizing activity in the western Mediterranean, and, in the course of the next two centuries, they had settled the eastern and southern sh.o.r.es of Sicily, stretched a chain of settlements on the Italian coast from Tarentum to the Bay of Naples, and established themselves at the mouth of the Rhone and on the Riviera. The opposition of Carthage shut them out from the western end of Sicily, and from Spain; the Etruscans closed to them Italy north of the Tiber; while the joint action of these two peoples excluded them from Sardinia and Corsica.

In the fifth century these Greek cities in Sicily and Italy were at the height of their power and prosperity. In Sicily they had penetrated from the coast far into the interior where they had brought the Sicels under their domination. By the victory of Himera, in 480 B. C., Gelon of Syracuse secured the Sicilian Greeks in the possession of the greater part of the island and freed them from all danger of Carthaginian invasion for over seventy years. Six years later, his brother and successor, Hieron, in a naval battle off Cyme, struck a crushing blow at the Etruscan naval power and delivered the mainland Greeks from all fear of Etruscan aggression. The extreme southwestern projection of the Italian peninsula had pa.s.sed completely under Greek control, but north as far as Posidonia and east to Tarentum their territory did not extend far from the seaboard.

In these areas they had occupied the territory of the Itali and Oenotrians, while on the north of the Bay of Naples Cyme, Dicaearchia, and Neapolis (Naples) were established in the land of the Opici (Osci). The name Great Greece, given by the h.e.l.lenes to South Italy, shows how firmly they were established there.

*Lack of political unity.* However, the Greeks possessed even less political cohesion than did the Etruscans. Each colony was itself a city-state, a sovereign independent community, owning no political allegiance to its mother city. Thus New Greece reproduced all the political characteristics of the Old. Only occasionally, in times of extreme peril, did even a part of the Greek cities lay aside their mutual jealousies and unite their forces in the common cause. Such larger political structures as the tyrants of Syracuse built up by the subjugation of other cities were purely ephemeral, barely outliving their founders. The individual cities also were greatly weakened by incessant factional strife within their walls. The result of this disunion was to restrict the Greek expansion and, eventually, to pave the way for the conquest of the western Greeks by the Italian "barbarians."

*The decline of the Greek power in Italy and Sicily.* Even before the close of the fifth century, the decline of the Western Greeks had begun.

In Italy their cities were subjected to repeated a.s.saults from the expanding Samnite peoples of the central Apennines. In 421, Cyme fell into the hands of a Samnite horde, and from that time onwards the Greek cities further south were engaged in a struggle for existence with the Lucanians and the Bruttians, peoples of Samnite stock. In Sicily the Carthaginians renewed their a.s.sault upon the Greeks in 408 B. C. For a time (404367) the genius and energy of Dionysius I, tyrant of Syracuse, welded the cities of the island and the mainland into an empire which enabled them to make head against their foes. But his empire had only been created by breaking the power of the free cities, and after his death they were left more disunited and weaker than ever. After further warfare, by 339, Carthage remained in permanent occupation of the western half of the island of Sicily, while in Italy only a few Greek towns, such as Tarentum, Thurii, and Rhegium, were able to maintain themselves, and that with ever increasing difficulty, against the rising tide of the Italians. Even by the middle of the fourth century an observant Greek predicted the speedy disappearance of the Greek language in the west before that of the Carthaginians or Oscans. However, their final struggles must be postponed for later consideration.

*The role of the Greeks in Italian history.* It was the coming of the Greeks that brought Italy into the light of history, and into contact with the more advanced civilization of the eastern Mediterranean. From the Greek geographers and historians we derive our earliest information regarding the Italian peoples, and they, too, shaped the legends that long pa.s.sed for early Italian history. The presence of the Greek towns in Italy gave a tremendous stimulus to the cultural development of the Italians, both by direct intercourse and indirectly through the agency of the Etruscans. In this spreading of Greek influences, Cyme, the most northerly of the Greek colonies and one of the earliest, played a very important part. It was from Cyme that the Romans as well as the Etruscans took their alphabet. The more highly developed Greek political inst.i.tutions, Greek art, Greek literature, and Greek mythology found a ready reception among the Italian peoples and profoundly affected their political and intellectual progress. Traces of this Greek influence are nowhere more noticeable than in the case of Rome itself, and the cultural ascendancy which Greece thus early established over Rome was destined to last until the fall of the Roman Empire.

PART II

THE PRIMITIVE MONARCHY AND THE REPUBLIC: FROM PREHISTORIC TIMES TO 27 B. C.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Environs of Rome]

CHAPTER IV

EARLY ROME TO THE FALL OF THE MONARCHY

I. THE LATINS

*Latium and the Latins.* The district to the south of the Tiber, extending along the coast to the promontory of Circeii and from the coast inland to the slopes of the Apennines, was called in antiquity Latium. Its inhabitants, at the opening of the historic period, were the Latins (_Latini_), a branch of the Italian stock, perhaps mingled with the remnants of an older population.

They were mainly an agricultural and pastoral people, who had settled on the land in _pagi_, or cantons, naturally or artificially defined rural districts. The _pagus_ const.i.tuted a rude political and religious unit.

Its population lived scattered in their homesteads. If some few of the homesteads happened to be grouped together, they const.i.tuted a _vicus_, which, however, had neither a political nor a religious organization.

At one or more points within the cantons there soon developed small towns (_oppida_), usually located on hilltops and fortified, at first with earthen, later with stone, walls. These towns served as market-places and as points of refuge in time of danger for the people of the _pagus_. There developed an artisan and mercantile element, and there the aristocratic element of the population early took up their abode, i. e., the wealthier landholders, who could leave to others the immediate oversight of their estates. And so these _oppida_ became the centers of government for the surrounding _pagi_. It is very doubtful if the Latins as a whole were ever united in a single state. But even if that had once been the case, this loosely organized state must early have been broken up into a number of smaller units. These were the various _populi_; that is, the cantons with their _oppida_. The names of some sixty-five of these towns are known, but before the close of the sixth century many of the smaller of them had been merged with their more powerful neighbors.

*The Latin League.* The realization of the racial unity of the Latins was expressed in the annual festival of Jupiter Latiaris celebrated on the Alban Mount. For a long time also the Latin cities formed a league, of which there were thirty members according to tradition. Actually, about the middle of the fifth century there were only some eight cities partic.i.p.ating in the a.s.sociation upon an independent footing. The central point of the league was the grove and temple of Diana at Aricia, and it was in the neighborhood of Aricia that the meetings of the a.s.sembly of the league were held. The league possessed a very loose organization, but we know of a common executive head-the Latin dictator.

II. THE ORIGINS OF ROME

*The site of Rome.* Rome, the Latin _Roma_, is situated on the Tiber about fifteen miles from the sea. The Rome of the later Republic and the Empire, the City of the Seven Hills, included the three isolated eminences of the Capitoline, Palatine and Aventine, and the spurs of the adjoining plateau, called the Quirinal, Viminal, Esquiline, and Caelian. Other ground, also on the left bank of the river, and likewise part of Mount Janiculum, across the Tiber, were included in the city. But this extent was only attained after a long period of growth, and early Rome was a town of much smaller area.

*The growth of the city.* Late Roman historians placed the founding of Rome about the year 753 B. C., and used this date as a basis for Roman chronology. However, it is absolutely impossible to a.s.sign anything like a definite date for the establishment of the city. Excavations have revealed that in the early Iron Age several distinct settlements were perched upon the Roman hills, separated from one another by low, marshy ground, flooded by the Tiber at high water. These were probably typical Latin walled villages (_oppida_).

At a very early date some of these villages formed a religious union commemorated in the festival of the Septimontium or Seven Mounts. These _montes_ were crests of the Palatine, Esquiline and Caelian hills, perhaps each the site of a separate settlement.

But the earliest city to which we can with certainty give the name of Rome is of later date than the establishment of the Septimontium. It is the Rome of the Four Regions-the Palatina, Esquilina, Collina and Sucusana (later Suburana)-which included the Quirinal, Viminal, Esquiline, Caelian and Palatine hills, as well as the intervening low ground. Within the boundary of this city, but not included in the four regions, was the Capitoline, which had separate fortifications and served as the citadel (_arx_). It may be that the organization of this city of the Four Regions was effected by Etruscan conquerors, for the name Roma seems to be of Etruscan origin, and, for the Romans, an _urbs_, as they called Rome, was merely an _oppidum_ of which the limits had been marked out according to Etruscan ritual. The consecrated boundary line drawn in this manner was called the _pomerium_.

The Aventine Hill, as well as the part of the plateau back of the Esquiline, was only brought within the city walls in the fourth century, and remained outside the _pomerium_ until the time of Claudius.

The location of Rome, on the Tiber at a point where navigation for sea-going vessels terminated and where an island made easy the pa.s.sage from bank to bank, marked it as a place of commercial importance. It was at the same time the gateway between Latium and Etruria and the natural outlet for the trade of the Tiber valley. Furthermore, its central position in the Italian peninsula gave it a strategic advantage in its wars for the conquest of Italy. But the greatness of Rome was not the result of its geographic advantages: it was the outgrowth of the energy and political capacity of its people, qualities which became a national heritage because of the character of the early struggles of the Roman state.

Although it is very probable that the historic population of Rome was the result of a fusion of several racial elements-Latin, Sabine, Etruscan, and even pre-Italian, nevertheless the Romans were essentially a Latin people.