historical and political thought in the seventeenth - RePub - Erasmus ...

226
Chapter 7. The mistress of life
was a great influx of men. However, Rome lacked women, which explains
the robbery of the Sabine virgins since without them Rome would have died
out before it got even started. Romulus’s greatest merit was the founding of
the Senate. This enabled him to bind the majority of the people to his rule,
because ‘those things that the multitude holds to be ordained by the decision
of the many are easier accepted’. 133
Romulus’s successors all contributed to Rome’s early growth and success.
Numa famously instituted ‘a complete form of worship of the Gods, with
priests’. 134 This religion was the ‘chain of the commonwealth’ (vinculum Reipublicae).
Tullus Hostilius was the founder of Rome’s legendary military discipline, 135
while Servius Tullius introduced laws that gave the people a share in government
and bounded even the kings themselves. 136 Just as in the Theatrum, then,
we see a gradual descent from a patrimonial principate to a legal principate, where
slowly but progressively the people became a participant in the body politic. 137
Tarquinius Superbus, the last Roman king, turned out to be a tyrant because
he had willingly transgressed the laws that he had sworn to uphold. 138
An enemy of all, Superbus ceased to be a prince. He was, therefore, justly
deposed. 139
tores, latrones, alii facinorosi. Et quosvis Romulus excepit, nec servum domino, nec creditori nexum, nec
Magistratui reum, quanquam rogatus, reddit, ut in ejus vita author est Plutarchus.’ See Plutarch, Lives.
With an English Translation by Bernadotte Perrin, Vol. 1 (William Heinemann/G.P. Putnam’s Sons;
London/New York, 1914), Romulus, 9, pp. 112-15.
133 Ibidem, I.10, p. 149. ‘Praecipuum Romuli domi institutum est Senatum … Nam & sic plures
demereri potuit sibi, quod in novo praesertim imperio necesse; & quae ex plurium consilio decreta
vulgo videntur, facilius admittuntur.’
134 Ibidem, II.8, p. 159. ‘At cum inclyta esset religio viri, omnis Deorum cultus, cum Sacerdotis,
institutis ac distinctus, omnium ejus operum pulcherrimum & maximè necessarium fuit.’
135 Ibidem, III.2-3, pp. 165-66.
136 Ibidem, VI.4, pp. 206-7. ‘Dehinc consilia omnia eò convertit, ut populo placeret; primusque
omnium regum condidit leges, quibus partem imperii cum populo communicavit; iisque observandis
non se modò, sed & sequuturos reges.’
137 This in contrast to the views held by ancient observers of Rome’s political constitution. The
Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus (c.60 BC-after 7), for example, contended that Romulus
had already granted the people three privileges: ‘to choose magistrates, to ratify laws, and to decide
concerning war whenever the king left the decision to them …’ Dionysius, Roman Antiquities, II.14.1-3.
See Fergus Millar, The Roman Republic in Political Thought (Brandeis University Press/Historical Society
of Israel; Hanover/London, 2002), pp. 13, 42, 186, with quote on p. 42, and reference on p. 186. Although
Boxhorn did not deny that the people of Rome possessed some sort of freedom under Romulus’s ‘legitimate
supreme command’, he followed Tacitus’s claim that ‘the command of Romulus had depended
merely on whim’. Boxhorn, Emblemata politica: accedunt dissertationes politicae de Romanorum Imperio et
quaedamaliae, I.2, p. 141. ‘Auctor est idem lib. Ann. III. Nobis, inquit, Romulus ut libitum, imperitaverat
… Certe in quovis legitimo imperio, subditis sua esse debet libertas; ac proinde etiam in illo summo.’
Tacitus, The Annals, III.26.4, p. 96. In a footnote to this sentence Anthony Woodman points out that it ‘is
unclear’ ‘whether the whim is Romulus’ or his subjects’’. Ibidem.
138 Tarquinius Superbus’s greatest crime was that he denied his subjects a fair trial. Boxhorn, Emblemata
politica: accedunt dissertationes politicae de Romanorum Imperio et quaedamaliae, VII.4, p. 222. Boxhorn
quotes here Livy, The History of Rome from its Foundation, I.49.
139 Boxhorn, Emblemata politica: accedunt dissertationes politicae de Romanorum Imperio et quaedamaliae,
VII.7, p. 229. ‘Talis enim, princeps esse desiit.’ The analogy with Philip II of Spain is obvious.