The History of Rome, Book IV: The RevolutionMommsen, Theodor
History
The History of Rome, Book IV: The Revolution
Mommsen, Theodor
Rome -- History
Considerable as these concessions were, if we compare them with the
rigid exclusiveness which the Roman burgess-body had retained for
more than a hundred and fifty years, they were far from involving a
capitulation with the actual insurgents; they were on the contrary
intended partly to retain the communities that were wavering and
threatening to revolt, partly to draw over as many deserters as
possible from the ranks of the enemy. To what extent these laws and
especially the most important of them--that of Caesar--were applied,
cannot be accurately stated, as we are only able to specify in general
terms the extent of the insurrection at the time when the law was
issued. The main matter at any rate was that the communities hitherto
Latin--not only the survivors of the old Latin confederacy, such as
Tibur and Praeneste, but more especially the Latin colonies, with the
exception of the few that passed over to the insurgents--were thereby
admitted to Roman citizenship. Besides, the law was applied to the
allied cities that remained faithful in Etruria and especially in
Southern Italy, such as Nuceria and Neapolis. It was natural that
individual communities, hitherto specially privileged, should hesitate
as to the acceptance of the franchise; that Neapolis, for example,
should scruple to give up its former treaty with Rome--which
guaranteed to its citizens exemption from land-service and their
Greek constitution, and perhaps domanial advantages besides--for
the restricted rights of new burgesses. It was probably in virtue of
conventions concluded on account of these scruples that this city, as
well as Rhegium and perhaps other Greek communities in Italy, even
after their admission to Roman citizenship retained unchanged their
former communal constitution and Greek as their official language.
At all events, as a consequence of these laws, the circle of Roman
burgesses was extraordinarily enlarged by the merging into it of
numerous and important urban communities scattered from the Sicilian
Straits to the Po; and, further, the country between the Po and the
Alps was, by the bestowal of the best rights of allies, as it were
invested with the legal expectancy of full citizenship.
Second Year of the War
Etruria and Umbria Tranquillized
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