I apologize to (the m?)any readers of this blog for the great deal of crap pasted here from dictionaries recently. It’s just such lovely stuff. Here’s one more mound of quotes culled from hither and yon and deposited in this notebook, also on themes connected to Tullius etc.

(The actual themes of course are not Tullius, but property, inclusion/exclusion, counting…)

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Our word proletariat comes from the lowest ancient Roman class of citizen known as proletarii. The proletarii were too poor to pay property taxes and perform military service. The word proletarii and proletariat comes from the Latin proles offspring or child. The proletarii were expected to do their part to serve Rome by having children.

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A class division originally based on military service became more important. Membership of these classes was determined periodically by the Censors, according to property. The wealthiest were the Senatorial class, who dominated politics and command of the army. Next came the equestrians (equites, sometimes translated “knights”), originally those who could afford a warhorse, who formed a powerful mercantile class. Several further classes, originally based on what military equipment their members could afford, followed, with the proletarii, citizens who had no property at all, at the bottom. Before the reforms of Marius they were ineligible for military service and are often described as being just barely above freed slaves in terms of wealth and prestige.

Voting power in the Republic was dependent on class. Citizens were enrolled in voting “tribes”, but the tribes of the richer classes had fewer members than the poorer ones, all the proletarii being enrolled in a single tribe. Voting was done in class order and stopped as soon as a majority of the tribes had been reached, so the poorer classes were often unable even to cast their votes.

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PROLETARIUS, civil law. One who has no property to be taxed; and paid a tax only on account of his cliildren, proles; a person of mean or common extraction. The word has become Frenchified, proletaire signifying one of the common people.

from Bouvier’s Law Dictionary, 1856 Edition, http://www.constitution.org/bouv/bouvier_p.htm

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“the fourth sort or classe amongst us,” says Sir Thomas Smith (de Repub. Anglorum, ch. 34), “is of those which the old Romans called ‘capite sensu proletarii or operarii,’ day laborer, poor husbandmen; yea, merchants or retailers which have no free land, copy-holders, and all artificers, as tailers, shoemakers, carpenters, brick-makers, bricklayers, masons, etc. These have no voice nor authoritie in our commonwealth, and no account is made of them but only to be ruled and not to rule others,” etc. (p. 66 of the ed. of 1640).

Note 37, here http://www.dinsdoc.com/sherman-1.htm

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http://homepage.eircom.net/~odyssey/Quotes/History/Tom_Holland.html
From Rubicon – The Triumph and Tragedy of the Roman Republic

“Until Sulla’s legions had broken the taboo in 88 BC the only men in arms ever to have entered the city had been citizens marching in triumphal parades. Otherwise, Rome had always been off limits to the military. Since as far back as the time of kings civilians had first to gather on the Campus Martinus – the Plain of Mars – before taking the oath that transformed them into soldiers. Here they had been ranked according to their wealth and status, for in war, as in peace, every citizen had to know his place. At the summit of the hierarchy there had been those rich enough to afford their own horses the ‘equites’; below the equestrian class were five further classes of infantry; at the bottom of the heap were citizens too poor even to buy even a sling and a few slingstones, the ‘proletarii’. These seven classes had in turn been divided into further units, known as centuries. Long after classes and centuries had ceased to provide the basis of their army the Romans could not bring themselves to abandon so eminently satisfying a system. Instead, it remained at the heart of their political life.

Since votes had to be delivered in person the practical effect was to ensure that only the wealthiest out-of-towner could afford to travel to Rome to exercise his right. Inevitably, this served to skew the voting in favour of the rich. To most Romans, this seemed only fair. After all, the rich were the ones who contributed most to the Republic, and so it was generally conceded that their opinions should carry the greatest weight. Disproportionate voting power was yet another perk of rank.

Citizens assembled to vote for the consuls in the same way that their earliest ancestors had massed to go to war. The citizens would line up as though for battle, with the richest at the front and the poorest at the rear. So heavily weighted were the votes of the senior classes that they usually served to decide an election. As a result, there was often little point in the other classes even turning out. Their votes were worth a fraction of those of the equestrians and would only rarely be called on to register them anyway.

Legionaries fought, not merely to test themselves, in the approved Roman manner, against the savagery of the enemy and the fear of a violent death, but to reclaim a status that poverty had caused them to lose. The armies of the Republic had not always been filled with penniless volunteers. When the citizens assembled for elections on the Campus Marties, ranked strictly according to their wealth, they were preserving the memory of a time when men of every class had been drafted, when a legion had indeed embodied the Republic at war. For centuries the all-conquering Roman infantry had consisted of yeoman-farmers, their swords cleaned of chaff, their ploughs left behind, following their magistrates obediently to war. For as long as Rome’s power had been confined to Italy, campaigns had been of manageably short duration. But with the expansion of the Republic’s interests overseas, they had lengthened, often into years. During a soldier’s absence, his property might become easy prey. Small farms had increasingly been swallowed up by the rich. In the place of a tapestry of fields and vineyards worked by free men, great stretches of Italy had been given over to vast estates, filled with chain-gangs, lacking free-born citizens.

Tiberius Gracchus had warned his fellow citizens that the foundations of their military greatness was being eroded. Every peasant who lost his farm had meant a soldier lost to Rome. The crisis in Italian agriculture was so overwhelming as to prove virtually intractable, but the crisis in military recruitment, at least, had begged an obvious reform. In 107 Marius had bowed to the inevitable: the army was opened to every citizen, regardless of whether he owned property or not. Weapons and armour had begin to be supplied by the state. The legions had turned professional. From that moment on, possession of a farm was no longer the qualification for military service, but the reward.”

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http://web.mac.com/heraklia/Dominae/Forgotten/index.html

“During the Republic and throughout the Empire, even while so many upper-class women were gaining individual power and influence, the great majority of women lived short, brutish, uneducated lives under the authority of their husbands or male relatives. The poorest of the poor men – those without property – could not vote in elections, and were contemptuously referred to as the capite censi or “head count.” Another term, proletarii (from which the word proletariat derives) literally meant those who produce children for the state, in default of other contributions – children who were fuel for the endless demands of the Roman military system. A poor Roman had few political rights, his wife less.”

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http://www.cix.co.uk/~awhitec/History/Rome.htm

Finer – The History of Government from the Earliest Times, S. E. Finer, 1997, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0 19 820664 X. A three-volume comparative review of all significant government systems in world history. A huge achievement; immensely important.

Finer (pp. 432-433) mentions the stinginess of the Senate – how they were reluctant to hand out public domain lands to poorer Roman citizens, how they were reluctant to reduce the price of grain to poorer citizens. He also says of the armies:

They were fast becoming a mercenary force manned by proletarii, men with no stake in the country and simply there to make money. But their pay was very low … The troops had to rely on their generals to promote their interests and in their turn the generals relied on these troops to enforce their will on the Senate.

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http://www.annourbis.com/Story-of-Rome/rome_the_rise_of_the.html

The inhabitants within the walls were divided into four “regions” or districts–the Palatine, the Colline, the Esquiline, and the Suburran. The subjected districts outside, which were inhabited by plebeians, were divided into twenty-six other regions, thus forming thirty tribes containing both plebeians and patricians. The census gave Servius a list of all the citizens and their property, and upon the basis of this information he separated the entire population into six classes, comprising one hundred and ninety-three subdivisions or “centuries,” thus introducing a new principle, and placing wealth at the bottom of social distinctions, instead of birth. This naturally pleased the plebeians, but was not approved by the citizens of high pedigree, who thus lost some of their prestige. The newly formed centuries together constituted the Comitia Centuriata (gathering of the centuries), or National Assembly, which met for business on the Campus Martius, somewhat after the manner of a New England “Town Meeting.” In these conclaves they elected certain magistrates, gave sanction to legislative acts, and decided upon war or peace. This Comitia formed the highest court of appeal known to Roman law.

Besides this general assembly of the entire Populus Romanus, Servius established a Comitia in each tribe, authorized to exercise jurisdiction in local affairs.

The first of the six general classes thus established comprised the Horsemen, Equites, Knights, or Cavalry, consisting of six patrician centuries of Equites established by Romulus, and twelve new ones formed from the principal plebeian families. Next in rank to them were eighty centuries composed of persons owning property (not deducting debts) to the amount of one hundred thousand ases (æs, copper, brass, bronze), and two centuries of persons not possessed of wealth, but simply Fabrûm, or workmen who manufactured things out of hard material, so important to the state were such considered at the time. One would not think it very difficult to get admission to this high class, when it is remembered that an as (originally a pound of copper in weight) [Footnote: The English word ace gets its meaning, “one,” from the fact that in Latin as signified the unit either of weight or measure. Two and a half ases were equal to a sestertius, and ten ases (or four sesterces) equalled one denarius, worth about sixteen cents.] was worth but about a cent and a half, and that a hundred thousand such coins would amount to only about fifteen hundred dollars; though, of course, we should have to make allowance for the price of commodities if we wished to arrive at the exact value in the money of our time. The second, third, and fourth centuries were arranged on a descending grade of property qualification, and the fifth comprised those persons whose property was not worth less than twelve thousand five hundred ases, or about two hundred dollars. The sixth class included all whose possessions did not amount to even so little as this. These were called Proletarii or Capite Censorum; caput, the Latin for head, being used in reference to these unimportant citizens for “person,” as farmers use it nowadays when they enumerate animals as so many “head.”

(While Tarquinius was thus adding to the greatness of Rome, there appeared in the palace one of those marvels that the early historians delighted to relate, such as, indeed, mankind in all ages has been pleased with. A boy was asleep in the portico when a flame was seen encircling his little head, and the attendants were about to throw water upon it, when the queen interfered, forbidding the boy to be disturbed. She then brought the matter to the notice of her husband, saying: “Do you see this boy whom we are so meanly bringing up? He is destined to be a light in our adversity, and a help in our distress. Let us care for him, for he will become a great ornament to us and to the state.” Tarquinius knew well the importance of his wife’s advice, and educated the boy, whose name was Servius Tullius, in a way befitting a royal prince. In the course of time he married the king’s daughter, and found himself in favor with the people as well as with his royal father-in-law.

For all the forty years of the prosperous reign of Tarquinius, the traditions would have us believe, the two sons of Ancus had been nursing their wrath and inwardly boiling over with indignation because they had been deprived of the kingship, and now, as they saw the popularity of young Servius, they determined to wrench the crown from him after destroying the king. They therefore sent two shepherds into his presence, who pretended to wish advice about a matter in dispute. While one engaged Tarquin’s attention, the other struck him a fatal blow with his axe. The queen was, however, quick-witted enough to keep them from enjoying the fruit of their perfidy, for she assured the people from a window that the king was not killed but only stunned, and that for the present he desired them to obey the directions of Servius Tullius. She then called upon the young man to let the celestial flame with which the gods had surrounded his head in his youth arouse him to action. “The kingdom is yours!” she exclaimed; “if you have no plans of your own, then follow mine!” For several days the king’s death was concealed, and Servius took his place on the throne, deciding some cases, and in regard to others pretending that he would consult Tarquinius (B.C. 578). Thus he made the senate and the people accustomed to seeing him at the head of affairs, and when the actual fact was allowed to transpire, Servius took possession of the kingdom with the consent of the senate, but without that of the people, which he did not ask. This was the first king who ascended the throne without the suffrages of the Populus Romanus. The sons of Ancus went into banishment, and the royal power, which had passed from the Romans to the Etruscans, now fell into the hands of a man of unknown citizenship, though he has been described as a native of Corniculum, one of the mountain towns to the northeast of Rome, which is never heard of excepting in connection with this reign. [from http://www.annourbis.com/Story-of-Rome/rome_how_corinth_gave_rome.html#how_corinth_gave_rome_a_new_dynasty. ])

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http://members.aol.com/hsauertieg/institutes/intro1.htm

REFORMS OF SERVIUS TULLIUS

The importance of the plebs, on account no less of its wealth and military use as infantry than of its numbers, became daily more obvious; it was clear that the time at which its political position should be recognised could not long be deferred. It was of Servius, of whom it is related (Cic. de Republ. ii. 21) that he attained the royal dignity by plebeian support, who practically effected its recognition.

The plebs could not possibly be brought within the political constitution by means of the personal principle of family, gentile, and tribal connection. Servius thus had to cast about for a new system of political association, and a basis for this was found in the principle of local contiguity. He divided the territory of Rome into local tribes (or rather ‘parishes’), each with its own president, each occupying a certain district, and each responsible for a certain quota of taxation and a certain military contingent. Four of these were ‘tribus urbanae,’ other, the number of which seems to have fluctuated with circumstances, ‘tribus rusticae’; but the formerly only had any political influence until the plebeian succession, though it is possible that for political purposes the members of the country belonged to the town tribes also. Nor can it reasonably be doubted — despite the dissent of Niebuhr — that this tribal arrangement comprehended the patricians, the old populus in its three tribes. Its very object was to make the plebs an integral element in the state, and this could not have been done unless the reform of Servius had embraced every citizen, every inch of Roman soil.

The second reform of Servius Tullius in its origin was military, but it eventually led to an important constitutional development… To reduce the prominence of the distinction between plebs and patricians, if not to sweep it away altogether, it was necessary to disconnect the military organization from the old constitution of curiae and gentes; to substitute for this principle a new one; to base the military system on a new idea. This new principle, this new idea, were those of timocracy. The leading feature in Servius’ second reform was his division of the whole body of freeholders (assidui), which could be called on for infantry service, into five classes, in which each man’s position was determined by the amount of his property: at first, no doubt, of his property in land only… To this proprietary classification corresponded an arrangement of the fighting men in centuries or companies of a hundred. Of cavalry there were eighteen centuries, six of which were drawn from the old populus, in accordance with the plan of Tarquinius Priscus, and twelve from the plebs…

It is, however, the political side of the centurial organization which is of most interest in the history of Roman law, though this was not a working reality until after the expulsion of the kings. The principle which underlay its application to this branch of the national life was this — that a man ought to have an influence in public affairs proportioned to the burdens which he bore in defending the state against its external foes. On the expulsion of the kings we find the centurial organization adapted to a new political assembly, the comitia centuriata, which was destined to throw the old assembly of the patricians at once into the shade, and so engross the discussion of public questions, such as war and peace, legislation as to matters affecting the constitution, the choice of magistrates, and the decision of all judicial proceedings which involved the ‘caput’ of a Roman citizen… The political, however, were not precisely identical with the military centuries; the proportion between the classes was the same, but by the addition of a proletariate suffrage the number of military companies was exceeded by the number of votes in the comitia by one.

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On equite
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/secondary/SMIGRA*/Equites.html

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Wright, F. A., Lemprière’s Classical Dictionary of Proper Names mentioned in Ancient Authors Writ Large, Third Edition, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London et al., 1984, ISBN 0-7102-0068-4, under Centuria.
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articles

Moyle
http://www.forumromanum.org/history/morey05.html

Engels
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1884/origin-family/ch06.htm#1.1

Montesquieu (sp?)
http://www.constitution.org/cm/sol_02.htm
http://www.constitution.org/cm/sol_27.htm

Madison
http://www.founding.com/library/lbody.cfm?id=270&parent=53

Gaius
http://oll.libertyfund.org/Home3/HTML.php?recordID=0533

Encyclopedic Dictionary of Roman Law
Adolf Berger
Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, New Ser., Vol. 43, No. 2 (1953), pp. 333-809
doi:10.2307/1005773

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0065-9746(1953)2%3A43%3A2%3C333%3AEDORL%3E2.0.CO%3B2-Y

Roman Concepts of Equality
Max Radin
Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 38, No. 2 (Jun., 1923), pp. 262-289
doi:10.2307/2142636

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0032-3195(192306)38%3A2%3C262%3ARCOE%3E2.0.CO%3B2-A

The Classes of the “Servian” Constitution
Edward F. D’Arms
American Journal of Philology, Vol. 64, No. 4 (1943), pp. 424-426
doi:10.2307/291632

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-9475(1943)64%3A4%3C424%3ATCOT%22C%3E2.0.CO%3B2-7

Review: [Untitled]
Reviewed Work(s):
* Ancient Legends of Roman History by Ettore Pais, Mario E. Cosenza
Review author[s]: G. J. Laing
American Journal of Philology, Vol. 27, No. 2 (1906), pp. 209-214
doi:10.2307/288828

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-9475(1906)27%3A2%3C209%3AALORH%3E2.0.CO%3B2-W

Review: [Untitled]
Reviewed Work(s):

* History of Roman Legal Science by Fritz Schulz

Review author[s]: Eberhard F. Bruck
Harvard Law Review, Vol. 60, No. 6 (Jul., 1947), pp. 1002-1006

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0017-811X(194707)60%3A6%3C1002%3AHORLS%3E2.0.CO%3B2-M

Nathan Rosenstein, Marriage and Manpower in the Hannibalic War: Assidui, proletarii and Livy 24.14.7-8