The History of Rome, Book II: From the Abolition of the Monarchy in Rome to the Union of ItalyMommsen, Theodor
History
The History of Rome, Book II: From the Abolition of the Monarchy in Rome to the Union of Italy
Mommsen, Theodor
Rome -- History
But the more decided the successes that the league of Romans, Latins,
and Hernici achieved against the Etruscans, Aequi, Volsci, and Rutuli,
the more that league became liable to disunion. The reason lay
partly in the increase of the hegemonic power of Rome, of which
we have already spoken as necessarily springing out of the existing
circumstances, but which nevertheless was felt as a heavy burden in
Latium; partly in particular acts of odious injustice perpetrated by
the leading community. Of this nature was especially the infamous
sentence of arbitration between the Aricini and the Rutuli in Ardea
in 308, in which the Romans, called in to be arbiters regarding a
border territory in dispute between the two communities, took it to
themselves; and when this decision occasioned in Ardea internal
dissensions in which the people wished to join the Volsci, while
the nobility adhered to Rome, these dissensions were still more
disgracefully employed as a pretext for the--already mentioned
--sending of Roman colonists into the wealthy city, amongst whom the
lands of the adherents of the party opposed to Rome were distributed
(312). The main cause however of the internal breaking up of the
league was the very subjugation of the common foe; forbearance ceased
on one side, devotedness ceased on the other, from the time when they
thought that they had no longer need of each other. The open breach
between the Latins and Hernici on the one hand and the Romans on the
other was more immediately occasioned partly by the capture of Rome
by the Celts and the momentary weakness which it produced, partly by
the definitive occupation and distribution of the Pomptine territory.
The former allies soon stood opposed in the field. Already Latin
volunteers in great numbers had taken part in the last despairing
struggle of the Antiates: now the most famous of the Latin cities,
Lanuvium (371), Praeneste (372-374, 400), Tusculum (373), Tibur (394,
400), and even several of the fortresses established in the Volscian
land by the Romano-Latin league, such as Velitrae and Circeii, had to
be subdued by force of arms, and the Tiburtines were not afraid even
to make common cause against Rome with the once more advancing hordes
of the Gauls. No concerted revolt however took place, and Rome
mastered the individual towns without much trouble.
Tusculum was even compelled (in 373) to give up its political
independence, and to enter into the burgess-union of Rome as a
subject community (-civitas sine suffragio-) so that the town
retained its walls and an--although limited--self-administration,
including magistrates and a burgess-assembly of its own, whereas
its burgesses as Romans lacked the right of electing or being elected
--the first instance of a whole burgess-body being incorporated as
a dependent community with the Roman commonwealth.
Renewal of the Treaties of Alliance
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