When the Latins, and their congeners the Sabellians, the Oscans and the Umbrians, entered the Italian peninsula probably as one people, they were in possession of domestic animals, and probably cultivated cereals and plants.[1]At the least they were well advanced in the Middle Status of barbarism; and when they first came under historical notice they were in the Upper Status, and near the threshold of civilization.
The traditionary history of the Latin tribes, prior to the time of Romulus, is much more scanty and imperfect than that of the Grecian, whose earlier relative literary culture and stronger literary proclivities enabled them to preserve a larger proportion of their traditionary accounts. Concerning their anterior experience, tradition did not reach beyond their previous life on the Alban hills, and the ranges of the Appenines eastward from the site of Rome. For tribes so hr advanced in the arts of life it would have required a long occupation of Italy to efface all knowledge of the country from which they came. In the time of Romulus[2] they had already fallen by segmentation into thirty independent tribes, still united in a loose confederacy far mutual protection. They also occupied contiguous territorial areas.
The Sabellians, Oscans, and Umbrians were in the same general condition; their respective tribes were in the same relations; and their territorial circumscriptions, as might have been expected, were founded upon dialect. All alike, including their northern neighbours the Etruscans, were organized in gentes, with institutions similar to those of the Grecian tribes. Such was their general condition when they first emerged from behind the dark curtain of their’ previous obscurity, and the light of history fell upon them. Roman history has touched but slightly the particulars of a vast experience anterior to the founding of Rome (about 753 B. C.).
The Italian tribes had then become numerous and populous; they had become strictly agricultural in their habits, possessed flocks and herds of domestic animals, and had made great progress in the arts of life. They had also attained the monogamian family. All this is shown by their condition when first, made known to us; but the particulars of their progress from a lower to a higher state had, in the main; fallen out of knowledge. They were backward in the growth of the idea of government; since the confederacy of tribes was stillthe full extent of their advancement. Although the thirty tribes were confederated, it was in the nature of a
league for mutual defence, and neither sufficiently close or intimate to tend to a nationality.
The Etruscan tribes were confederated; and the same was probably true of the Sabellian, Oscan and Umbrian tribes. While the Latin tribes possessed numerous fortified towns and country strongholds, they were spread over the surface of the country for agricultural pursuits, and for the maintenance of their flocks and herds.
Concentration and coalescence had not occurred to any marked extent’ until the great movement ascribed to Romulus which resulted in the foundation of Rome.
These loosely united Latin tribes furnished the principal materials from which the new city was to draw its strength. The accounts of these tribes from the time of the supremacy of the chiefs of Alba down to the time of Servius Tullius, were made up to a great extent of fables and traditions; but certain facts remained in the institutions and social usages transmitted to the historical period which tend, in a remarkable manner, to illustrate their previous condition. They are even more important than an outline history of actual events.
Among the institutions of the Latin tribes existing at the commencement of the historical period were the gentes, curiae and tribes upon which Romulus and his successors established the Roman power. The new government was not in all respects a natural growth; but modified in the upper members of the organic series by legislative procurement. The gentes, however, which formed the basis of the organization, were natural growths, and in the main either of common or cognate lineage. That is, the Latin gentes were of the same lineage, while the Sabine and other gentes, with the exception of the Etruscans, were of cognate descent. In the time of Tarquinius Priscus, the fourth in succession from Romulus, the organization had been brought to a numerical scale, namely: ten gentes to a curia, ten curia to a tribe, and three tribes of the Romans; giving a total of three hundred gentes integrated in one gentile society.
Romulus had the sagacity to perceive that a confederacy of tribes, composed of gentes and occupying separate areas, had neither the unity of purpose nor sufficient strength to accomplish more than the maintenance of an independent, existence.
The tendency to disintegration counteracted the advantages of the federal principle.
Concentration and coalescence were the remedy proposed by Romulus and the wise men of his time. It was a remarkable movement for the period, and still more remarkable in its progress from the epoch of Romulus to the institution of political society under Servius Tullius. Following the course of the Athenian tribes and concentrating in one city, they wrought out in five generations a similar and complete change in the plan of government, from a gentile into a political organization.
It will be sufficient to remind the reader of the general facts that Romulus united upon and around the Palatine Hill a hundred Latin gentes, organized as a tribe, the Ramnes; that by a fortunate concurrence of circumstances a large body of Sabines were added to the new community whose gentes, afterwards increased to one hundred, were organized as a second tribe, the Tities; and that in the time of Tarquinius Priscus a third tribe, the Luceres, had been formed, composed of a hundred gentes drawn from surrounding tribes, including the Etruscans. Three
hundred gentes, in about the space of a hundred years, were thus gathered at Rome, and completely organized under a council of chiefs now called the Roman Senate, an assembly of the people now called the comitia curiata, and one military commander, the rex; and with one purpose, that of gaining a military ascendancy in Italy.
Under the constitution of Romulus, and the subsequent legislation of Servius Tullius, the government was essentially a military democracy, because the military spirit predominated in the government. But it may be remarked in passing that a new and antagonistic element; the Roman senate, was now incorporated in the centre of the social system, which conferred patrician rank upon its members and their posterity. A privileged class was thus created at a stroke, and intrenched first, in the gentile and afterwards in the political system, which ultimately overthrew the democratic principles inherited from the gentes, It was the Roman senate, with the patrician class it created, that, changed the institutions and the destiny of the Roman people, and turned them from a career, analogous to that of the Athenians, to which their inherited principles naturally and logically tended. In its main features the new organization was a masterpiece of wisdom for military purposes. It soon carried them entirely beyond the remaining Italian tribes, and ultimately into supremacy over the entire peninsula.
The organization of the Latin and other Italian tribes into gentes has been investigated by Niebuhr, Hermann, Mommsen, Long and others; but their several accounts fall short of a clear and complete exposition of the structure and principles of the Italian gens. This is due in part to the obscurity in which portions of the subject are enveloped, and to the absence of minute details in the Latin writers. It is also in part due to a misconception, by some of the first named writers, of the relations of the family to the gens. They regard the gens as composed of families, whereas it was composed of parts of families; so that the gens and not the family was the unit of the social system. It may be difficult to carry the investigation much beyond the point where they have left it; but information drawn from the archaic constitution of the gens may serve to elucidate some of its characteristics which are now obscure.
Concerning the prevalence of the organization into gentes among the Italian tribes, Niebuhr remarks as follows: ‘Should any one still contend that no conclusion is to be drawn from the character of the Athenian genetes to that of the Roman gentiles, he will be bound to show how an institution which runs through the whole ancient world came to have a completely different character in Italy and in Greeee… Every body of citizens was divided in this manner; the Gephyraeans and Salaminians as well as the Athenians, the Tusculans as well: as the Romans.[3]
Besides the existence of the Roman gens, it is desirable to know the nature of the organization; its rights, privileges and obligations, and the relations of the gentes to each other, as members of. a social system. After these have been considered, their relations to the curiae tribes, and resulting people of which they formed a part, will remain for consideration in the next ensuing chapter.
After, collecting the accessible information from various sources upon these
subjects it will be found incomplete in many respects, leaving some of the attributes and functions of the gens a matter of inference. The powers of the gentes were withdrawn, and transferred to new political bodies before historical composition among the Romans had fairly commenced. There was therefore, no practical necessity resting upon the Romans for preserving the special features of a system substantially set aside. Gaius, who wrote his Institutes in the early part of the second century of our era, took occasion to remark that the whole jus gentilicium had fallen into desuetude, and that it was then superfluous to treat the subject.[4]
But at the foundation of Rome, and for several centuries thereafter, the gentile organization was in vigorous activity.
The Roman definition of a gens and of a gentilis, and the line in which descent was traced should be presented before the characteristics of the gens are considered. In the Topics of Cicero a gentilis is defined as follows: “Those are gentiles who are of the same name among themselves. This is insufficient. Who were born of free parents. Even that is not sufficient. No one of whose ancestors has been a slave.
Something still is wanting. Who have never suffered capital diminution. This perhaps may do; for I am not aware that Scaevola, the Pontiff, added anything to this definition.” There is one by Festus: “A gentilis is described as one both sprung from the same stock, and who is called by the same name.”[6] Also by Varro: “As from an Aemilius men are born Aemilii, and gentiles; so from the name Aemilius terms are derived pertaining to gentilism.”[7]
Cicero does not attempt to define a gens, but rather to furnish certain tests by which the right to the gentile connection might be proved, or the loss of it be detected.
Neither of these definitions show the composition of a gens; that is, whether all, or a part only, of the descendants of a supposed genarch were entitled to bear the gentile name; and, if a part only, what part. With descent in the male line the gens would include those only who could trace their descent through males exclusively;
and if in the female line, then through females only. If limited to neither, then all the descendants would be included. These definitions must have assumed that descent in the male line was a fact known to all. From other sources it appears that those only belonged to the gens who could trace their descent through its male members. Roman genealogies supply this proof. Cicero omitted the material fact that, those were gentiles who could trace their descent through males exclusively from an acknowledged ancestor within the gens. It is in part supplied by Festus and Varro. From an Aemilius, the latter remarks, men are born Aemilii, and gentiles;
each must be born of a male bearing the gentile name. But Cicero’s definition also shows that a gentilis must bear the gentile name.
In the address of the Roman tribune Canuleius (445 B. C.), on his proposition to repeal an existing law forbidding intermarriage between patricians and plebeians, there is a statement implying descent in the male line. “For what else is there in the matter, he remarks, if a patrician man shall wed a plebeian woman, or a plebeian man a patrician woman? What right in the end is thereby changed? The children surely follow the father.”[8] A practical illustration, derived from transmitted gentile names, will show conclusively that descent was in the male line. Julia, the sister of Caius Julius Caesar, married Marcus Attius Balbus. Her name shows that
she belonged to the Julian gens. Her daughter Attia, according to custom, took the gentile name of her father and belonged to the Attian gens.[9] Attia married Caius Octavius, and became the mother of Caius Octavius; the first Roman emperor. The son, as usual, took the gentile name of his father, and belonged to the Octavian gens.[10] After becoming emperor he added the names Caesar Augustus.
In the Roman gens descent was in the male line from Augustus back to Romulus, and for an unknown period back of the latter. None were gentiles except such as could trace their descent through males exclusively from some acknowledged ancestor within the gens. But it was unnecessary, because impossible, that all should be able to trace their descent from the same common ancestor; and much less from the eponymous ancestor.
It will be noticed that in each of the above cases, to which a large number might be added, the persons married out of the gens. Such was undoubtedly the general usage by customary law. The Roman gens was individualized by the following tights, privileges and obligations:
I. Mutual rights of succession to the property of deceased gentiles.
II. The possession of a common burial place.
III. Common religious rites; sacra gentilicia.
IV. The obligation not to marry in the gens.
V. The possession of land in common;
VI. Reciprocal obligations of help, defence, and redress of injuries.
VII. The right to bear the gentile name.
VIII. The right to adopt strangers into the gens.
IX. The right to elect end depose its chiefs; query.
These several characteristics will be considered in the order named.
I. Mutual rights of succession to the property of deceased gentiles.
When the law of the Twelve Tables was promulgated (451 B. C.), the ancient rule, which presumptively distributed the inheritance among the gentiles, had been superseded by more advanced regulations. The estate of an intestate now passed, first, to his sui heredes, that is, to his children; and, in default of children, to his lineal descendants through males.[11] The living children took equally, and the children of deceased sons took the share of their father equally. It will be noticed that the inheritance remained in the gens; the children of the female descendants of the intestate, who belonged to other gentes, being excluded. Second, if there were no sui heredes, by the same law, the inheritance then passed to the agnates.[12] The agnatic kindred comprised all those persons who could trace their descent through males from the same common ancestor with the intestate. In virtue of such a
descent they all bore the same gentile name, females as well as males, and were nearer in degree to the decedent than the remaining gentiles. The agnates nearest, in degree had the preference; first, the brothers and unmarried sisters; second, the paternal uncles and unmarried aunts of the intestate, and so on until the agnatic relatives were exhausted. Third, if there were no agnates of the intestate, the same law called the gentiles to the inheritance.[13] This seems at first sight remarkable;
because the children of the intestate’s sisters were excluded from the inheritance, and the preference given to gentile kinsmen so remote that their relationship to the intestate could not be traced at all, and: only existed in virtue of an ancient lineage preserved by a common gentile name. The reason, how- ever, is apparent; the children of the sisters of the intestate belonged to another gens, and the gentile right predominated over greater nearness of consanguinity, because the principle which retained the property in the gens was fundamental. It is a plain inference from the law of the ‘Twelve Tables’ that inheritance began in the inverse order, and that the three classes of heirs represent the three successive rules of inheritance; namely, first, the gentiles; second, the agnates, among whom were the children of the decedent after descent was changed to the male line; and third, the children, to the exclusion of the remaining agnates.
A female, by her marriage, suffered what was technically called a loss of franchise or capital diminution (deminutio capitis) by which she forfeited her agnatic rights.
Here again the reason is apparent. If after her marriage she could inherit as an agnate it would transfer the property inherited from her own gens to that of her husband. An unmarried sister could inherit; but a married sister could not.
With our knowledge of the archaic principles of the gens, we are enabled to glance backward to the time when descent in the Latin gens was in the female line, when property was inconsiderable, and distributed among the gentiles; not necessarily within the life-time of the Latin gens, for its existence reached back of the period of their occupation of Italy. That the Roman gens had passed from the archaic into its historical form is partially indicated by the reversion of property in certain cases to the gentiles.
“The right of succeeding to the property of members who died without kin and intestate,” Niebuhr remarks, “was that which lasted the longest; so long indeed, as to engage the attention of the jurists, and even - though assuredly not as anything more than a historical question - that of Gaius, the manuscript of whom is unfortunately illegible in this part.”[15]
II. A common burial place.
The sentiment of gentilism seems to have been stronger in the Upper Status of barbarism than in earlier conditions, through a higher organization of society, and through mental and moral advancement. Each gens usually had a burial place for the exclusive use of its members as a place of sepulture. A few illustrations will exhibit Roman usages with respect to burial.
Appius Claudius, the chief of the Claudian gens, removed from Regili, a town of
Appius Claudius, the chief of the Claudian gens, removed from Regili, a town of