The History of Rome, Book I: The Period Anterior to the Abolition of the MonarchyMommsen, Theodor
History
The History of Rome, Book I: The Period Anterior to the Abolition of the Monarchy
Mommsen, Theodor
Rome -- History
and second ranks; and it may be conjectured that the pair of Lares
worshipped in each street had a similar origin. This arrangement
is especially apparent in the army: after the union each half-tribe
of the tripartite community furnished a hundred horsemen, and the
Roman burgess cavalry was thus raised to six "hundreds," and the
number of its captains probably from three to six. There is no
tradition of any corresponding increase to the infantry; but to
this origin we may refer the subsequent custom of calling out the
legions regularly two by two, and this doubling of the levy probably
led to the rule of having not three, as was perhaps originally
the case, but six leaders-of-division to command the legion. It
is certain that no corresponding increase of seats in the senate
took place: on the contrary, the primitive number of three hundred
senators remained the normal number down to the seventh century;
with which it is quite compatible that a number of the more prominent
men of the newly annexed community may have been received into the
senate of the Palatine city. The same course was followed with
the magistracies: a single king presided over the united community,
and there was no change as to his principal deputies, particularly
the warden of the city. It thus appears that the ritual institutions
of the Hill-city were continued, and that the doubled burgess-body
was required to furnish a military force of double the numerical
strength; but in other respects the incorporation of the Quirinal
city into the Palatine was really a subordination of the former to
the latter. If we have rightly assumed that the contrast between
the Palatine old and the Quirinal new burgesses was identical
with the contrast between the first and second Tities, Ramnes, and
Luceres, it was thus the -gentes-of the Quirinal city that formed
the "second" or the "lesser." The distinction, however, was
certainly more an honorary than a legal precedence. At the taking
of the vote in the senate the senators taken from the old clans
were asked before those of the "lesser." In like manner the Colline
region ranked as inferior even to the suburban (Esquiline) region
of the Palatine city; the priest of the Quirinal Mars as inferior
to the priest of the Palatine Mars; the Quirinal Salii and Luperci
as inferior to those of the Palatine. It thus appears that the
--synoikismos--, by which the Palatine community incorporated that
of the Quirinal, marked an intermediate stage between the earliest
--synoikismos-- by which the Tities, Ramnes, and Luceres became
blended, and all those that took place afterwards. The annexed
community was no longer allowed to form a separate tribe in the new
whole, but it was permitted to furnish at least a distinct portion
of each tribe; and its ritual institutions were not only allowed to
subsist--as was afterwards done in other cases, after the capture
of Alba for example--but were elevated into institutions of the
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