Niebuhr's lectures on Roman history, Vol. 1 (of 3)Niebuhr, Barthold Georg
History
Niebuhr's lectures on Roman history, Vol. 1 (of 3)
Niebuhr, Barthold Georg
Rome -- History
from ancient sources, from which we may with much trouble guess the
truth. To take an example from our own times, I really believe that
there are not now ten people at Cologne, who know what the constitution
of their city was two hundred years ago. How many are there, who still
know any thing about the constitution of their own town before the
French revolution?
The division of such a country population was local. This was not
peculiar to Rome, we find it also to have been the case in Greece:
Clisthenes took the _ager Atticus_ as the basis for the division of
the Athenian people. The whole was divided into certain definite
parts, to effect which they did not reckon together several large
places, but they chose a particular number which seemed suitable, for
instance, one hundred, into which the division was to be made; and for
this purpose some large places were to be parcelled into districts,
and other smaller ones to be combined. These divisions according to a
number fixed before hand, were so general among the Romans, that, when
Augustus divided the city into fourteen regions, he did not count how
many _Vici_ there were, but to each region he assigned a certain number
of _Vici_. Now the lawgiver whom we call Servius Tullius took all those
portions of the city of Rome which were inhabited by burghers of the
pale, and the country around, and divided the former into four and the
latter into twenty-six regions. This must be assumed as true: the proof
that this statement of Fabius is correct would lead us too far. Every
_Populus_ presupposes almost as its necessary counterpart a _Plebes_;
in a certain sense therefore there was already a _Plebes_ before the
reign of Ancus, although an insignificant one. Roma, Quirium, Lucerum
had each of them their commonalty; these and the settlement on the
Esquiliæ in the time of Servius Tullius constituted the four first
tribes, the first of which, the Palatina, corresponds to the Palatine;
the second, the Collina, to the Quirinal; the third, the Suburana, to
the Cælius with the Carinæ and Subura; the fourth, the Esquilina to
the Esquiline and Viminal. This organization is to be dated before
the _Murus Servii_, as is proved to a certainty by the existence of
the Esquilina. Each of these regions had a corresponding local tribe,
so that all those who, at the time of their being established, were
living in a place, were inscribed there on the register of the local
tribes, and their descendants after them.[74] This continued so during
the first generation; but in the course of time it was changed, as
the descendants did not always remain in the same place. The names
of the country tribes were not taken originally from the districts,
but from heroes, being at the same time surnames for the tribes and
for the clans; for it was evidently the object of this legislation
to amalgamate the different elements of the people. The remembrance
of olden times, when those places had been independent, was to be
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