which contained his name could not have recognised the preceding account of the election of two patricians. A variation in so important a matter as the name of a consul, and a doubt as to whether he was a patrician or plebeian, at a moment when this was the chief point in dispute between the two orders, shows that no account of this year, recognised as authentic by the later historians, could have been in existence.

The appointment of the first plebeian dictator, in 356 B.C., ten years after the passing of the Licinian laws, was a natural consequence of the admission of plebeians to the consulship :(95) for the dictator was named by one of the consuls, and if the choice fell to the lot of the plebeian consul, he might naturally select one of his own order.(96) It seems that the discretion of the consul in the choice of a dictator was unlimited, and therefore that no legislative act was necessary in order to make this change.

The law for the remission of interest upon subsisting loans carried by Licinius did not prove an adequate remedy for the evil of insolvency; for in 357 B.C. a rogation de unciario fenore was carried by two of the tribunes, to the great satisfaction of the plebs.(7) The precise nature of the unciarium fenus has not been explained by the ancients, and is a matter of conjectural dispute among modern scholars: (98) but from the context it appears to have been a reduction of the market rate of interest. Livy likewise adds, in a subsequent year, that although the interest was reduced, the plebs were still unable to repay the principal of the loans.(9) The chief settlement seems however to have been effected in 352 B.C., when five commis

(95) Livy, vii. 17. The name of the first plebeian dictator was C.

Marcius Rutilus, and he named a plebeian master of the horse. (96) See Niebuhr, Hist. vol. iii. p. 47.

(97) Livy, vii. 16.

(98) There are three hypotheses respecting the Fenus unciarium: 1, that it is one per cent. per annum; 2, that it is a hundred per cent. per annum; 3, that it is 8 per cent per annum. To these, Niebuhr adds a fourth, viz., that it is 83 per cent. for ten months, or ten per cent. per annum. See Hist. vol. iii. p. 54-62.

(99) vii. 19.

398 ROME, FROM THE REBUILDING OF THE [CHAP. XIII.

sioners were appointed, who constituted a Court of Insolvency, and extinguished a great mass of private debts, partly by equitable reductions of the principal, and partly by payments from the public treasury. These commissioners, says Livy, discharged their duties with so much diligence and justice, that their names were recorded in all the histories of the time.(100) Even this measure, however, did not suffice; for five years afterwards, 347 B.C., the unciarium fenus was reduced to a half, and the repayment of the principal was deferred to four annual instalments; (101) and Livy adds, that according to some of his authorities, Genucius the tribune, in 342 B.C., either carried or proposed a law abolishing interest upon money altogether.(102) An entirely different origin for the unciarium fenus is assigned by Tacitus he traces it to a law of the Twelve Tables, and states that this rate was afterwards reduced to a half by a tribunician rogation. (103)

§ 12 The Licinian rogations were followed by a great

(100) Meriti æquitate curâque sunt, ut per omnium annalium monumenta celebres nominibus essent; vii. 21.

(101) Livy, vii. 27. This was called semunciarium fenus.

(102) Præter hæc, invenio apud quosdam, L. Genucium, tribunum plebis, tulisse ad populum ne fenerare liceret; vii. 42. Appian, B. C. i. 54, mentions the existence of an ancient law, which prohibited lending money upon interest, and imposed a fine upon the lender. An attempt to enforce this law, contrary to the usage, which had sanctioned the taking of interest, was made by A. Sempronius Asellio, the prætor, in 89 B.C.; it led to a riot, and to his murder by the money-lenders. Compare Val. Max. ix. 7, 4; Livy, Epit. 74. Usurers are fined at the prosecution of the ediles, in 296 B.C. (Livy, x. 23); which seems to imply that usury was then illegal. Livy, xxxv. 7, mentions under 193 B.C. that there were many laws for the repression of usury among Roman citizens, but that they were evaded by inserting the name of allies. The laws were accordingly extended to them. Compare Drumann, vol. ii. p. 159. See also Dirksen, Zwölf-Tafel-Fragmente, p. 594, who cites Cato de Re Rust. præf.: Majores nostri sic habuerunt, et ita in legibus posuerunt, furem dupli condemnari, feneratorem quadrupli. Quanto pejorem civem existimarint feneratorem quam furem, hinc licet existimari.' This passage shows that the prohibition of usury was of old standing in Cato's time.

(103) Sane vetus urbi fenebre malum et seditionum discordiarumque creberrima causa, eoque cohibebatur, antiquis quoque et minus corruptis moribus. Nam primo duodecim tabulis sanctum, ne quis unciario fenore amplius exerceret, cum antea ex libidine locupletium agitaretur; dein rogatione tribuniciâ ad semuncias redacta, postremo vetita versura; Ann. vi. 16. Compare Niebuhr's remarks on this contradiction; ib. p. 54.

pestilence, which was fatal to many distinguished persons, and among them to the great Camillus. Although he was now much advanced in years, he is stated to have been deeply regretted by his countrymen. (104) His reputation, both in civil and military affairs, exceeded that of all his contemporaries; but the accounts of his life are singularly perplexing. His two great military exploits are the capture of Veii and the relief of Rome: yet the former city is related to have been taken by a mine, which implies little generalship in the commander; and the fact of his relieving Rome from the Gauls is impliedly negatived by some of the ancient accounts. In Camillus (says Dr. Arnold) we seem to lose the last relic of early Rome, the last hero whose glory belongs rather to romance than to history. But the fame of the stories connected with him proves the high estimation in which he was held when living.'(105)

§ 13 The Gallic invasion in 390 B.C. was the first of a series of conflicts in which the Romans were engaged with the Gauls; and which ended, not only in the entire subjugation of Cisalpine Gaul, but also in the reduction, by Cæsar, of Transalpine Gaul to the form of a Roman province. For a time, however, the memory of the rout at Allia, kept alive by a solemn anniversary, was fresh in the minds of the people : (10%) the report of a Gallic

(104) Livy, vii. 1; Plut. Cam. 43; Zon. vii. 24. ad fin.

;

(105) Ib. p. 81. A singular story respecting Camillus is told in one of the fragments of Dio Cassius; viz., that a certain Februarius, being jealous of Camillus, accused him of an attempt to make himself king; that he was banished, assisted his countrymen during his exile, and was afterwards recalled, when Februarius was prosecuted and banished in his turn. Hence Camillus made the month which bore his name shorter than the others Fragm. xxvii. It is repeated, with some expansion, in Suidas, in deẞpovápios and Bonvvos, where Februarius is said to be of Gallic descent. The fullest version of it, however, is in Joannes Malalas, p. 183-7; cf. p. 544, ed. Bonn, who recites it from the work of Brunichius, a Roman chronologist. Compare also Cedrenus, vol. i. p. 263. In this version Mallio Capitolinus is substituted for Camillus. The story is a clumsy legend to explain the shortness of the month February, to which is added, in the later version, a custom of carrying about a figure covered with mats, and beating it, in this month. Brunichius, as Niebuhr, vol. ii. p. 615, has remarked, must be a Gothic name. Ovid makes no allusion to this legend, under the month February, in his Fasti, and probably had not heard of it.

(106) Livy says, of the Gallic inroad in 367 B.C., Ingentem Galli terrorem memoriâ pristine cladis attulerant;' vi. 42; cf. c. 28, 29. Livy says,

tumult, as it was called, of an inroad of wild and headlong barbarians, filled Rome with consternation; the immunity from military service which was accorded to persons charged with pontifical functions was suspended only in case of a Gallic war:(107) in repelling the Gauls, the Romans fought not for glory, but for existence. (108) We will now examine the accounts of Gallic invasions, which fall within the period of a hundred and ten years, comprised in this chapter.

According to Livy and Plutarch, the first irruption of the Gauls after the capture of the city took place in 367 B.C., twenty-three years after that event. (109) Camillus, though now nearly eighty years old, was appointed dictator: he gained a great victory over the Gauls, took their camp, and dispersed their army: the remnants of it chiefly escaped to Apulia. Livy and Dionysius(110) represent the Alban territory as the scene of this battle: whereas Plutarch places it on the Anio. Claudius Quadrigarius likewise, as we learn from Livy, described the Romans as having fought against the Gauls upon the Anio, in this year; and he referred to this occasion the single combat of T. Manlius and the Gaul, which most writers assigned to a later

of the battle of Cannæ: Hæc est pugna Cannensis, Alliensi cladi nobilitate par;' xxii. 50. The great height of the Gauls, as compared with the Romans, is dwelt on by the ancient writers; Dion. Hal. xiv. 14, 18; Cæsar, B. G. ii. 30; Dio Cass. xxxviii. 47, 49. The large size of the Germans is also mentioned by Casar; ib. i. 39.

(107) Plut. Cam. 41. According to Cic. Phil. viii. 1, a tumultus was more dangerous than a war. Livy describes the impetuosity of the first onset of the Gauls: Gens ferox et ingenii avidi ad pugnam ;' vii. 23; 'Prima eorum prælia plus quam virorum, postrema minus quam feminarum esse ;' x. 28.

(108) Per idem tempus adversum Gallos ab ducibus nostris Q. Cæpione et Cn. Manlio male pugnatum [105 B.c.], quo metu Italia omnis contremuerat. Illique et inde usque ad nostram memoriam Romani sic habuere, alia omnia virtuti suæ prona esse, cum Gallis pro salute non pro gloriâ certare; Sallust, Jug. 114. This remark is equally true of the previous time.

(109) Plutarch, Cam. 41, states that this battle was thirteen years after the capture of Rome. But he mentions the fifth dictatorship of Camillus (c. 40, agreeing with Livy, vi. 42, and Zon. vii. 24), and his great age: and from its place in his narrative, he appears to assign it to the same year as Livy. The number 13 instead of 23 is probably therefore an error of computation.

(110) xiv. 12-19.

date. This version is followed by Zonaras, who however places the battle in the Alban territory.(11) Plutarch describes Camillus as making certain changes in the armour of the Roman soldiers, for this particular occasion :(112) Dionysius however represents him as merely contrasting the Roman and Gallic arms, and pointing out to his soldiers the superiority of the former, without any allusion to a change.(113)

The next Gallic war is placed by Livy six years later, 361 B.C. Camillus was now dead, and T. Quinctius Pennus was appointed dictator.(114) The Gauls were stationed on the Salarian road, three miles from Rome, beyond the bridge over the Anio. At this bridge, the famous single combat between T. Manlius and the Gaul took place, which ended in the Roman being victorious, and spoiling his fallen enemy of his golden collar (torquis); whence he and his descendants bore the name of Torquatus. This event produced so great an effect upon the Gauls, that during the night, they removed hastily to Tibur, and thence to Campania.(115) In the following year, however, they returned to the neighbourhood of Tibur, and a battle was

(112) Plut. Cam. 40.

(111) Zon. vii. 24. (113) Dion. Hal. xiv. 13. Appian, H. R. iii. 1, briefly alludes to this expedition, and says that the Gauls were defeated by Camillus.

The

(114) Livy states that, according to Licinius Macer, T. Quinctius was appointed dictator only in order to hold the comitia: he thinks it however more probable that the dictator was appointed for the Gallic war. hesitation of his language, however, and his recourse to indirect argument, on a point which must have been well known at the time, are remarkable: Dictatorem T. Quinctium Pennum eo anno fuisse satis constat, et magistrum equitum Ser. Cornelium Maluginensem. Macer Licinius comitiorum habendorum causâ, et ab Licinio consule dictum scribit, quia, collegâ comitia bello præferre festinante, ut continuaret consulatum, obviam eundum pravæ cupiditati fuerit. Quæsita ea propriæ familiæ laus leviorem auctorem Licinium facit; quum mentionem ejus rei in vetustioribus annalibus nullam inveniam, magis ut belli Gallici causâ dictatorem creatum arbitrer inclinat animus;' vii. 9.

(115) Livy, vii. 9-12; Florus, i. 13, § 20; Eutrop. ii. 4; Dio Cass. Fragm. xxxi., who says that Manlius fought with the Gaulish king; Zon. vii. 24; Suidas, in TopkovaTos; Claudius Quadrigarius ap. Gell. ix. 13, § 6. The passage in Suidas appears to be taken from a Greek paraphrase of Eutropius; but it calls the Gaul a king; which circumstance is not in the original. Appian, H. R. iii. 1, says that the third expedition of the Gauls was destroyed by the Romans under T. Quinctius. Cic. de Off. iii. 31, and Servius, Æn. vi. 825, state that the battle between T. Manlius and the Gaul took place on the Anio.

VOL. II.

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