The integration of patrician and plebeian and the relatively smooth transition to a republican society was largely a response to continuous outside pressure. Under the kings Rome had been a successful military state and in 509 controlled about 800 square kilometres, a third of Latium. Its population has been estimated as between
20,000 and 25,000, very much bigger than that of any other Latin community, and comparable to the larger Greek cities of southern Italy. Soon after the fall of the monarchy, however, the city was challenged by the surrounding Latin tribes, who were suspicious of her continued expansion. Rome defeated them at the Battle of Lake Regillus in 499 bc, but the victory was overshadowed by increasing pressures of the mountain peoples on the Latin plains. In 493 Rome agreed with the Latin communities to face the intruders together.
The most persistent enemies were two peoples, the Aequi and the Volscii, who began launching a series of raids on the outlying Latin settlements. They successfully disrupted the economy of the plain, and in Rome itself there is a significant gap in public building in the middle of the fifth century. Even though the Hernici, whose land lay between the Aequi and Volscii, were added as allies of Rome, it took until the end of the century to restore order. With the situation more stable, Rome now moved on her own initiative against a very different enemy, an old rival, the once wealthy Etruscan city of Veii. The city was only 15 kilometres to the north, but its prosperity, fine hilltop position, and control of the upper Tiber through Fidenae, its outpost 9 kilometres upstream from Rome, made it a coveted prize. The legends recount ten years of siege, on the epic scale of the Trojan War, before the city fell in 396 bc.
For later generations, this was the moment when Rome’s rise to greatness began. So also began the tradition of evocatio, the bringing of a foreign god, in this case the Etruscan Juno, from Veii into Rome where her cult was established strictly under Roman control by merging her with Jupiter. Hercules (the Greek Heracles) was to be brought in from the east and adopted as a state cult, Hercules the Invincible, in 312. In 291, Apollo’s ‘son’, Asclepius, the god of healing, was imported and a temple to him erected on the Tiber island (where a hospital stands even today). Roman religion became a series of interlocking cults and festivals whose rituals became sacrosanct. As with the Greeks and Romans, games played a part in these festivals and already the valley of the Circus Maximus, to the west of the Palatine Hill, was being used for chariot-racing. By 329 bc it had permanent starting gates for the chariots. The games offered a particularly open form of display for the elite, who were given seats according to their status, but the rest of the audience would also vent their
Support or disapproval of individual senators so the games became a political forum as well.
Rome’s success against Veii probably reflected its ability to mobilize its manpower in a way the Etruscan cities could never do. The war brought an enlargement of both infantry and cavalry forces. Poorer classes were now enlisted and a daily cash allowance, the stipendium, was paid while a man was away from his farm. (Only those who owned land were eligible for the army.) As the poorer citizens could not afford a full covering of armour, an oblong shield, the scutum, was adopted instead of the smaller circular ‘hoplite’ shield.
In this new atmosphere a ‘sack’ of Rome by Celtic raiders in 390 was probably no more than a temporary setback caused by a band of mercenaries who were heading south to Dionysius’ Syracuse. Even so, the episode haunted the imagination of later generations. Livy presents it as a devastating experience and one cannot help comparing it to the shock effect of the sack of Rome of ad 410 almost exactly 800 years later (see below, p. 632). One response was the so-called Servian Walls of the early fourth century, sections of which are still extant in Rome. Their very extent, a circle of some 11 kilometres, shows what energy the city could divert to such a major building project.
Few sources survive for this period of Roman history but it appears to have been one of consolidation. Over 500 square kilometres of land confiscated from Veii had to be integrated into the ager Romanus (Roman territory). There was continual low level warfare against surrounding tribes and the fortification of Ostia at the mouth of the Tiber, which archaeological evidence dates to 380-350 Bc, suggests a growing interest in the sea, although no Roman navy was to exist for another hundred years. Successful trade was probably as important a factor in boosting the prosperity of Rome as successful conquest.
A new period of more intensive warfare began in 343 with a short war against the Samnites, the most formidable and best organized of the inland mountain peoples. By the middle of the fourth century they had become the largest political grouping in Italy with territory covering perhaps 15,000 square kilometres. They had a well-developed system of agriculture, fortified mountain strongholds, and a history of successful expansion. (Two of the major peoples of southern Italy, the Lucanians and Bruttians, were descendants of earlier Samnite migrations.) Rome declared war on the Samnites in 343 after appeals for help by the cities of Campania. The Samnites were quickly defeated but, to the fury of the Campanians, Rome made peace with them. It was just at the moment that the Latin states were also becoming resentful of the arrogance of Roman rule. Rome suddenly found herself facing a coalition of enemies, Latins, Campanians, and once again the Volscii. Rome’s reputation as a military power was confirmed when she defeated them.
It was the settlement of 338, after this war, which showed Rome’s political acumen. Her enemies were not destroyed but instead reorganized into what has been described as a ‘commonwealth’ of states that stretched across the coastal plains from the Tiber to the bay of Naples. All accepted the dominance of Rome and agreed to
Provide armed support when called upon. Some Latin cities close to Rome now lost their independence and were incorporated into the Roman state. The ships of the coastal city of Antium, for instance, had their prows (rostra, literally ‘beaks’) cut off and displayed as trophies on the speaker’s platform in Rome. (Hence the word rostrum still used in English for a platform.) The members of these communities became full Roman citizens and could vote in the Roman assemblies. Other Latin communities kept their Latin rights, of intermarriage and commercial dealings, with Rome but not with each other. Their inhabitants were not made Roman citizens and remained self-governing.
The system provided opportunities, even a share of plunder, for those prepared to acquiesce in Roman hegemony. There was a chance of an evolution towards greater participation. Among the defeated non-Latin communities, the Volscii and the Campanians, for instance, Rome developed the status of civitas sine suffragio, a form of Roman citizenship which involved communities in the obligations of citizenship, notably military service, but without any of the advantages, such as voting or the right to stand for office in Rome. Each of these cities was known as a muni-cipium. In the passage of time the citizens of these municipia were given full citizenship, the last by the end of the second century Bc. (For municipia in the empire, see further p. 511.)
In addition Rome now began to establish colonies. (The word derives from the Latin verb colere, to cultivate.) The citizens of each colony, who could be Romans or other Latins, gave up Roman citizenship if they had it but maintained Latin rights and formed self-governing communities. They had every incentive to defend themselves, and hence Roman hegemony, against attack, and many colonies were established in strategically vulnerable areas. Two early colonies, Cales and Fregellae, were set up in the Liris valley on the main route from Rome to the important muni-cipium of Capua. The site of another, Interamna Lirenas, founded in ad 312 in the same area, has recently been identified. Colonies could be used to settle former soldiers or remove surplus populations and proved a superb way of spreading the Roman way of life. Some, Aquileia in north-eastern Italy, for instance, grew into major cities in their own right.
Often given less importance in the Roman sources but no less crucial were allies. By 250 Rome had made alliances with over 150 Italian communities who had either been defeated or forced through fear into surrender. Technically the allies maintained full independence, but they had to provide manpower for wars and Rome in effect decided when these wars should take place and how many men were needed. In many major battles, that of Sentinum in 295, for instance, allies provided more than half the Roman army. The soldiers of allies had, in theory, the right to share the fruits of victory on an equal basis with the legionaries.
The essence of the settlement of 338 was its flexibility. Rome could draw on a large reserve of manpower at almost no cost to herself while the defeated communities retained enough independence to dampen any desire for revolt. In any case many were controlled by aristocratic cliques who depended on Roman support for their own survival. Rome herself was not burdened with vast areas of new territory.
She had evolved a system of government and control that was to prove astonishingly resilient in the years to come.
Rome was soon at war again. The setting up of the new colony at Fregellae provoked the Samnites to attack. It took forty years (conventionally divided into two periods, 327-304 and 298-290, the Second and Third Samnite Wars) before they were defeated. This was guerrilla warfare in difficult mountain territory and Rome suffered a number of humiliating defeats when she ventured off the plains. A more successful long-term strategy involved consolidating a network of allies (among them, in 327, Neapolis (Naples), the first Greek city to make an alliance with Rome) around Samnite territory so that the Samnite heartland could be isolated. The first of Rome’s great military roads, the Appian Way, between Rome and Capua, put in hand by the censor Appius Claudius in 312 Bc, was part of the process of control. New fighting techniques had also to be developed to fight in hilly country. The hop-lite formation of the Greeks was no good on rough ground so the legions were split into smaller groups, the maniples, or ‘handfuls, of two centuries, each man armed relatively lightly with a pilum, a javelin which could be thrown, and a sword, gladius.
The last years of the Second Samnite War were marked by an expansion of Rome into the central highlands of Italy. In 304, Rome’s enemies of the fifth century, the Aequi, were suppressed once and for all in a campaign of fifty days in which the inhabitants of each stronghold were massacred as it was captured. In 298 the Sam-nites were at war with Rome again and now they could draw on a mass of allies, Celts, Etruscans, and Umbrians, who had all been antagonized by Rome’s aggression. Rome faced them at Sentinum in Umbria in 295. It was the greatest battle yet seen on Italian soil, with the Romans and their allies fielding perhaps 35,000 men. If the Romans had not diverted the Etruscans and Umbrians from the main battlefield, they might well have been defeated, but their hard-won victory broke up the alliance. After a final desperate battle at Aquilonia in 293 the Samnites were crushed and Rome was able to mop up the remaining opposition in central Italy. The defeated communities were made municipia or allies. In some cases their land was distributed among settlers from Rome and their populations made slaves. (The Romans argued that those who had been defeated were at the absolute mercy of the victors and thus could be made into slaves if they were not killed.)
With Rome dominant in central Italy and the Celts hemmed in through a network of Roman alliances with the cities of Etruria, Roman attention turned south. The Greek cities were now in decline and in the 280s several began to call for help from Rome against the attacks of native populations. As Rome responded, the most prosperous Greek city of the south, Tarentum, grew alarmed at this intrusion. When a Roman war fleet (the first ever recorded) ventured into Tarentum’s waters in 282 it was attacked. Rome counter-attacked and Tarentum was close to being taken. The city appealed in desperation to Pyrrhus, the king of Epirus, an ambitious ruler on the lookout for conquest and glory. Pyrrhus arrived with a large and well-equipped army of some 20,000 men. This was the first Hellenistic army the Romans had ever seen and they proved vulnerable to its power and experience. At two
Battles, Heraclea (280 Bc) and Ausculum (279), the Romans were defeated but in each case Pyrrhus lost thousands of his own precious troops (hence the term ‘Pyrrhic victory’). Rome’s allies stood firm. Even with mercenaries (and the riches of the Greek cities would have allowed him to recruit many thousands) Pyrrhus realized he could not hope to wear down the Romans. After another check at the Battle of Beneventum in 275, Pyrrhus withdrew. Tarentum fell to Rome in 272 and Roman domination of the south of the peninsula was complete. There was now no area below a line between the modern cities of Pisa and Rimini (where a Roman colony, Ariminum, was established in 268) that was free of Roman control, as the city of Falerii found to its cost when it offended Rome in 241. It was crushed in a campaign lasting only six days.
Direct Roman influence over much of this territory was still limited. By 264 perhaps 20 per cent of the land surface of Italy had been made part of the ager Romanus, the directly controlled territory of Rome. In much of this land the local population had been enslaved or killed and it was now open to Roman settlement. Between
20.000 and 30,000 adult males may have been given plots of land to farm. Another
70.000 men and their families may have been involved in settling the nineteen new colonies recorded between 334 and 263 BC. Several of them controlled land of over
5.000 square kilometres in extent. However, these colonies and settlements lay in between cities and cultures that still retained their own languages and customs. Even though new Roman roads were soon striking their way over plains and mountains, it was to be another 200 years before Latin became the dominant language of the peninsula. Meanwhile local pride and traditions remained strong.
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