Opinions—
Table of Formulae for Actions
While the mass of written legal documents thus increased, the foundations of jurisprudence in the proper sense were also firmly laid. It was necessary that both the magistrates who were annually changed and the jurymen taken from the people should be enabled to resort to men of skill, who were acquainted with the course of law and knew how to suggest a decision accordant with precedents or, in the absence of these, resting on reasonable grounds. The pontifices who were wont to be consulted by the people regarding court-days and on all questions of difficulty and of legal observance relating to the worship of the gods, delivered also, when asked, counsels and opinions on other points of law, and thus developed in the bosom of their college that tradition which formed the basis of Roman private law, more especially the formulae of action proper for each particular case. A table of formulae which embraced all these actions, along with a calendar which specified the court-days, was published to the people about 450 by Appius Claudius or by his clerk, Gnaeus Flavius. This attempt, however, to give formal shape to a science, that as yet hardly recognized itself, stood for a long time completely isolated.
That the knowledge of law and the setting it forth were even now a means of recommendation to the people and of attaining offices of state, may be readily conceived, although the story, that the first plebeian pontifex Publius Sempronius Sophus (consul 450), and the first plebeian pontifex maximus Tiberius Coruncanius (consul 474), were indebted for these priestly honours to their knowledge of law, is probably rather a conjecture of posterity than a statement of tradition.
Language
That the real genesis of the Latin and doubtless also of the other Italian languages was anterior to this period, and that even at its commencement the Latin language was substantially an accomplished fact, is evident from the fragments of the Twelve Tables, which, however, have been largely modernized by their semi-oral tradition. They contain doubtless a number of antiquated words and harsh combinations, particularly in consequence of omitting the indefinite subject; but their meaning by no means presents, like that of the Arval chant, any real difficulty, and they exhibit far more agreement with the language of Cato than with that of the ancient litanies. If the Romans at the beginning of the seventh century had difficulty in understanding documents of the fifth, the difficulty doubtless proceeded merely from the fact that there existed at that time in Rome no real, least of all any documentary, research.
Technical Style
On the other hand it must have been at this period, when the indication and redaction of law began, that the Roman technical style first established itself—a style which at least in its developed shape is nowise inferior to the modern legal phraseology of England in stereotyped formulae and turns of expression, endless enumeration of particulars, and long-winded periods; and which commends itself to the initiated by its clearness and precision, while the layman who does not understand it listens, according to his character and humour, with reverence, impatience, or chagrin.
Philology
Moreover at this epoch began the treatment of the native languages after a rational method. About its commencement the Sabellian as well as the Latin idiom threatened, as we saw,215 to become barbarous, and the abrasion of endings and the corruption of the vowels and more delicate consonants spread on all hands, just as was the case with the Romanic languages in the fifth and sixth centuries of the Christian era. But a reaction set in: the sounds which had coalesced in Oscan, -d and -r, and the sounds which had coalesced in Latin, -g and -k, were again separated, and each was provided with its proper sign; -o and -u, for which from the first the Oscan alphabet had lacked separate signs, and which had been in Latin originally separate but threatened to coalesce, again became distinct, and in Oscan even the -i was resolved into two signs different in sound and in writing; lastly, the writing again came to follow more closely the pronunciation—the -s for instance among the Romans being in many cases replaced by -r. Chronological indications point to the fifth century as the period of this reaction; the Latin -g for instance was not yet in existence about 300 but was so probably about 500; the first of the Papirian clan, who called himself Papirius instead of Papisius, was the consul of 418; the introduction of that -r instead of -s is attributed to Appius Claudius, censor in 442. Beyond doubt the re-introduction of a more delicate and precise pronunciation was connected with the increasing influence of Greek civilization, which is observable at this very period in all departments of Italian life; and, as the silver coins of Capua and Nola are far more perfect than the contemporary asses of Ardea and Rome, writing and language appear also to have been more speedily and fully reduced to rule in the Campanian land than in Latium. How little, notwithstanding the labour bestowed on it, the Roman language and mode of writing had become settled at the close of this epoch, is shown by the inscriptions preserved from the end of the fifth century, in which the greatest arbitrariness prevails, particularly as to the insertion or omission of -m, -d and -s in final sounds and of -n in the body of a word, and as to the distinguishing of the vowels -o -u and -e -i.216 It is probable that the contemporary Sabellians were in these points further advanced, while the Umbrians were but slightly affected by the regenerating influence of the Hellenes.
Instruction
In consequence of this progress of jurisprudence and grammar, elementary school-instruction also, which in itself had doubtless already emerged earlier, must have undergone a certain improvement. As Homer was the oldest Greek, and the Twelve Tables was the oldest Roman, book, each became in its own land the essential basis of instruction; and the learning by heart the juristico-political catechism was a chief part of Roman juvenile training. Alongside of the Latin "writing-masters" (-litteratores-) there were of course, from the time when an acquaintance with Greek was indispensable for every statesman and merchant, also Greek "language-masters" (-grammatici-)217—partly tutor-slaves, partly private teachers, who at their own dwelling or that of their pupil gave instructions in the reading and speaking of Greek. As a matter of course, the rod played its part in instruction as well as in military discipline and in police.218 The instruction of this epoch cannot however have passed beyond the elementary stage: there was no material shade of difference, in a social respect, between the educated and the non-educated Roman.
Exact Sciences—
Regulation of the Calendar
That the Romans at no time distinguished themselves in the mathematical and mechanical sciences is well known, and is attested, in reference to the present epoch, by almost the only fact which can be adduced under this head with certainty—the regulation of the calendar attempted by the decemvirs. They wished to substitute for the previous calendar based on the old and very imperfect -trieteris-219 the contemporary Attic calendar of the -octaeteris-, which retained the lunar month of 29 1/2 days but assumed the solar year at 365 1/4 days instead of 368 3/4, and therefore, without making any alteration in the length of the common year of 354 days, intercalated, not as formerly 59 days every 4 years, but 90 days every 8 years. With the same view the improvers of the Roman calendar intended—while otherwise retaining the current calendar—in the two inter-calary years of the four years' cycle to shorten not the intercalary months, but the two Februaries by 7 days each, and consequently to fix that month in the intercalary years at 22 and 21 days respectively instead of 29 and 28. But want of mathematical precision and theological scruples, especially in reference to the annual festival of Terminus which fell within those very days in February, disarranged the intended reform, so that the Februaries of the intercalary years came to be of 24 and 23 days, and thus the new Roman solar year in reality ran to 366 1/4 days. Some remedy for the practical evils resulting from this was found in the practice by which, setting aside the reckoning by the months or ten months of the calendar 220 as now no longer applicable from the inequality in the length of the months, wherever more accurate specifications were required, they accustomed themselves to reckon by terms of ten months of a solar year of 365 days or by the so-called ten-month year of 304 days. Over and above this, there came early into use in Italy, especially for agricultural purposes, the farmers' calendar based on the Egyptian solar year of 365 1/4 days by Eudoxus (who flourished 386).
Structural and Plastic Art
A higher idea of what the Italians were able to do in these departments is furnished by their works of structural and plastic art, which are closely associated with the mechanical sciences. Here too we do not find phenomena of real originality; but if the impress of borrowing, which the plastic art of Italy bears throughout, diminishes its artistic interest, there gathers around it a historical interest all the more lively, because on the one hand it preserves the most remarkable evidences of an international intercourse of which other traces have disappeared, and on the other hand, amidst the well-nigh total loss of the history of the non-Roman Italians, art is almost the sole surviving index of the living activity which the different peoples of the peninsula displayed. No novelty is to be reported in this period; but what we have already shown221 may be illustrated in this period with greater precision and on a broader basis, namely, that the stimulus derived from Greece powerfully affected the Etruscans and Italians on different sides, and called forth among the former a richer and more luxurious, among the latter—where it had any influence at all—a more intelligent and more genuine, art.
Architecture—
Etruscan
We have already shown how wholly the architecture of all the Italian lands was, even in its earliest period, pervaded by Hellenic elements. Its city walls, its aqueducts, its tombs with pyramidal roofs, and its Tuscanic temple, are not at all, or not materially, different from the oldest Hellenic structures. No trace has been preserved of any advance in architecture among the Etruscans during this period; we find among them neither any really new reception, nor any original creation, unless we ought to reckon as such the magnificent tombs, e. g. the so-called tomb of Porsena at Chiusi described by Varro, which vividly recalls the strange and meaningless grandeur of the Egyptian pyramids.
Latin—
The Arch
In Latium too, during the first century and a half of the republic, it is probable that they moved solely in the previous track, and it has already been stated that the exercise of art rather sank than rose with the introduction of the republic.222 There can scarcely be named any Latin building of architectural importance belonging to this period, except the temple of Ceres built in the Circus at Rome in 261, which was regarded in the period of the empire as a model of the Tuscanic style. But towards the close of this epoch a new spirit appeared in Italian and particularly in Roman architecture;223 the building of the magnificent arches began. It is true that we are not entitled to pronounce the arch and the vault Italian inventions. It is well ascertained that at the epoch of the genesis of Hellenic architecture the Hellenes were not yet acquainted with the arch, and therefore had to content themselves with a flat ceiling and a sloping roof for their temples; but the arch may very well have been a later invention of the Hellenes originating in more scientific mechanics; as indeed the Greek tradition refers it to the natural philosopher Democritus (294-397). With this priority of Hellenic over Roman arch-building the hypothesis, which has been often and perhaps justly propounded, is quite compatible, that the vaulted roof of the Roman great -cloaca-, and that which was afterwards thrown over the old Capitoline well-house which originally had a pyramidal roof,224 are the oldest extant structures in which the principle of the arch is applied; for it is more than probable that these arched buildings belong not to the regal but to the republican period,225 and that in the regal period the Italians were acquainted only with flat or overlapped roofs.226 But whatever may be thought as to the invention of the arch itself, the application of a principle on a great scale is everywhere, and particularly in architecture, at least as important as its first exposition; and this application belongs indisputably to the Romans. With the fifth century began the building of gates, bridges, and aqueducts based mainly on the arch, which is thenceforth inseparably associated with the Roman name. Akin to this was the development of the form of the round temple with the dome-shaped roof, which was foreign to the Greeks, but was held in much favour with the Romans and was especially applied by them in the case of the cults peculiar to them, particularly the non-Greek worship of Vesta.227
Something the same may be affirmed as true of various subordinate, but not on that account unimportant, achievements in this field. They do not lay claim to originality or artistic accomplishment; but the firmly-jointed stone slabs of the Roman streets, their indestructible highways, the broad hard ringing tiles, the everlasting mortar of their buildings, proclaim the indestructible solidity and the energetic vigour of the Roman character.
Plastic and Delineative Art
Like architectural art, and, if possible, still more completely, the plastic and delineative arts were not so much matured by Grecian stimulus as developed from Greek seeds on Italian soil. We have already observed228 that these, although only younger sisters of architecture, began to develop themselves at least in Etruria, even during the Roman regal period; but their principal development in Etruria, and still more in Latium, belongs to the present epoch, as is very evident from the fact that in those districts which the Celts and Samnites wrested from the Etruscans in the course of the fourth century there is scarcely a trace of the practice of Etruscan art. The plastic art of the Tuscans applied itself first and chiefly to works in terra-cotta, in copper, and in gold-materials which were furnished to the artists by the rich strata of clay, the copper mines, and the commercial intercourse of Etruria. The vigour with which moulding in clay was prosecuted is attested by the immense number of bas-reliefs and statuary works in terra-cotta, with which the walls, gables, and roofs of the Etruscan temples were once decorated, as their still extant ruins show, and by the trade which can be shown to have existed in such articles from Etruria to Latium. Casting in copper occupied no inferior place. Etruscan artists ventured to make colossal statues of bronze fifty feet in height, and Volsinii, the Etruscan Delphi, was said to have possessed about the year 489 two thousand bronze statues. Sculpture in stone, again, began in Etruria, as probably everywhere, at a far later date, and was prevented from development not only by internal causes, but also by the want of suitable material; the marble quarries of Luna (Carrara) were not yet opened. Any one who has seen the rich and elegant gold decorations of the south-Etruscan tombs, will have no difficulty in believing the statement that Tyrrhene gold cups were valued even in Attica. Gem-engraving also, although more recent, was in various forms practised in Etruria. Equally dependent on the Greeks, but otherwise quite on a level with the workers in the plastic arts, were the Etruscan designers and painters, who manifested extraordinary activity both in outline-drawing on metal and in monochromatic fresco-painting.
Campanian and Sabellian
On comparing with this the domain of the Italians proper, it appears at first, contrasted with the Etruscan riches, almost poor in art. But on a closer view we cannot fail to perceive that both the Sabellian and the Latin nations must have had far more capacity and aptitude for art than the Etruscans. It is true that in the proper Sabellian territory, in Sabina, in the Abruzzi, in Samnium, there are hardly found any works of art at all, and even coins are wanting. But those Sabellian stocks, which reached the coasts of the Tyrrhene or Ionic seas, not only appropriated Hellenic art externally, like the Etruscans, but more or less completely acclimatized it. Even in Velitrae, where probably alone in the former land of the Volsci their language and peculiar character were afterwards maintained, painted terra-cottas have been found, displaying vigorous and characteristic treatment. In Lower Italy Lucania was to a less degree influenced by Hellenic art; but in Campania and in the land of the Bruttii, Sabellians and Hellenes became completely intermingled not only in language and nationality, but also and especially in art, and the Campanian and Bruttian coins in particular stand so entirely in point of artistic treatment on a level with the contemporary coins of Greece, that the inscription alone serves to distinguish the one from the other.
Latin
It is a fact less known, but not less certain, that Latium also, while inferior to Etruria in the copiousness and massiveness of its art, was not inferior in artistic taste and practical skill. Evidently the establishment of the Romans in Campania which took place about the beginning of the fifth century, the conversion of the town of Cales into a Latin community, and that of the Falernian territory near Capua into a Roman tribe,229 opened up in the first instance Campanian art to the Romans. It is true that among these the art of gem-engraving so diligently prosecuted in luxurious Etruria is entirely wanting, and we find no indication that the Latin workshops were, like those of the Etruscan goldsmiths and clay-workers, occupied in supplying a foreign demand. It is true that the Latin temples were not like the Etruscan overloaded with bronze and clay decorations, that the Latin tombs were not like the Etruscan filled with gold ornaments, and their walls shone not, like those of the Tuscan tombs, with paintings of various colours. Nevertheless, on the whole the balance does not incline in favour of the Etruscan nation. The device of the effigy of Janus, which, like the deity itself, may be attributed to the Latins,230 is not unskilful, and is of a more original character than that of any Etruscan work of art. The beautiful group of the she-wolf with the twins attaches itself doubtless to similar Greek designs, but was—as thus worked out—certainly produced, if not in Rome, at any rate by Romans; and it deserves to be noted that it first appears on the silver moneys coined by the Romans in and for Campania. In the above-mentioned Cales there appears to have been devised soon after its foundation a peculiar kind of figured earthenware, which was marked with the name of the masters and the place of manufacture, and was sold over a wide district as far even as Etruria. The little altars of terra-cotta with figures that have recently been brought to light on the Esquiline correspond in style of representation as in that of ornament exactly to the similar votive gifts of the Campanian temples. This however does not exclude Greek masters from having also worked for Rome. The sculptor Damophilus, who with Gorgasus prepared the painted terra-cotta figures for the very ancient temple of Ceres, appears to have been no other than Demophilus of Himera, the teacher of Zeuxis (about 300). The most instructive illustrations are furnished by those branches of art in which we are able to form a comparative judgment, partly from ancient testimonies, partly from our own observation. Of Latin works in stone scarcely anything else survives than the stone sarcophagus of the Roman consul Lucius Scipio, wrought at the close of this period in the Doric style; but its noble simplicity puts to shame all similar Etruscan works. Many beautiful bronzes of an antique chaste style of art, particularly helmets, candelabra, and the like articles, have been taken from Etruscan tombs; but which of these works is equal to the bronze she-wolf erected from the proceeds of fines in 458 at the Ruminal fig-tree in the Roman Forum, and still forming the finest ornament of the Capitol? And that the Latin metal-founders as little shrank from great enterprises as the Etruscans, is shown by the colossal bronze figure of Jupiter on the Capitol erected by Spurius Carvilius (consul in 461) from the melted equipments of the Samnites, the chisellings of which sufficed to cast the statue of the victor that stood at the feet of the Colossus; this statue of Jupiter was visible even from the Alban Mount. Amongst the cast copper coins by far the finest belong to southern Latium; the Roman and Umbrian are tolerable, the Etruscan almost destitute of any image and often really barbarous. The fresco-paintings, which Gaius Fabius executed in the temple of Health on the Capitol, dedicated in 452, obtained in design and colouring the praise even of connoisseurs trained in Greek art in the Augustan age; and the art-enthusiasts of the empire commended the frescoes of Caere, but with still greater emphasis those of Rome, Lanuvium, and Ardea, as masterpieces of painting. Engraving on metal, which in Latium decorated not the hand-mirror, as in Etruria, but the toilet-casket with its elegant outlines, was practised to a far less extent in Latium and almost exclusively in Praeneste. There are excellent works of art among the copper mirrors of Etruria as among the caskets of Praeneste; but it was a work of the latter kind, and in fact a work which most probably originated in the workshop of a Praenestine master at this epoch,231 regarding which it could with truth be affirmed that scarcely another product of the graving of antiquity bears the stamp of an art so finished in its beauty and characteristic expression, and yet so perfectly pure and chaste, as the Ficoroni -cista-.
Character of Etruscan Art
The general character of Etruscan works of art is, on the one hand, a sort of barbaric extravagance in material as well as in style; on the other hand, an utter absence of original development. Where the Greek master lightly sketches, the Etruscan disciple lavishes a scholar's diligence; instead of the light material and moderate proportions of the Greek works, there appears in the Etruscan an ostentatious stress laid upon the size and costliness, or even the mere singularity, of the work. Etruscan art cannot imitate without exaggerating; the chaste in its hands becomes harsh, the graceful effeminate, the terrible hideous, and the voluptuous obscene; and these features become more prominent, the more the original stimulus falls into the background and Etruscan art finds itself left to its own resources. Still more surprising is the adherence to traditional forms and a traditional style. Whether it was that a more friendly contact with Etruria at the outset allowed the Hellenes to scatter there the seeds of art, and that a later epoch of hostility impeded the admission into Etruria of the more recent developments of Greek art, or whether, as is more probable, the intellectual torpor that rapidly came over the nation was the main cause of the phenomenon, art in Etruria remained substantially stationary at the primitive stage which it had occupied on its first entrance. This, as is well known, forms the reason why Etruscan art, the stunted daughter, was so long regarded as the mother, of Hellenic art. Still more even than the rigid adherence to the style traditionally transmitted in the older branches of art, the sadly inferior handling of those branches that came into vogue afterwards, particularly of sculpture in stone and of copper-casting as applied to coins, shows how quickly the spirit of Etruscan art evaporated. Equally instructive are the painted vases, which are found in so enormous numbers in the later Etruscan tombs. Had these come into current use among the Etruscans as early as the metal plates decorated with contouring or the painted terra-cottas, beyond doubt they would have learned to manufacture them at home in considerable quantity, and of a quality at least relatively good; but at the period at which this luxury arose, the power of independent reproduction wholly failed—as the isolated vases provided with Etruscan inscriptions show—and they contented themselves with buying instead of making them.
North Etruscan and South Etruscan Art
But even within Etruria there appears a further remarkable distinction in artistic development between the southern and northern districts. It is South Etruria, particularly in the districts of Caere, Tarquinii, and Volci, that has preserved the great treasures of art which the nation boasted, especially in frescoes, temple decorations, gold ornaments, and painted vases. Northern Etruria is far inferior; no painted tomb, for example, has been found to the north of Chiusi. The most southern Etruscan cities, Veii, Caere, and Tarquinii, were accounted in Roman tradition the primitive and chief seats of Etruscan art; the most northerly town, Volaterrae, with the largest territory of all the Etruscan communities, stood most of all aloof from art While a Greek semi-culture prevailed in South Etruria, Northern Etruria was much more marked by an absence of all culture. The causes of this remarkable contrast may be sought partly in differences of nationality—South Etruria being largely peopled in all probability by non-Etruscan elements232—partly in the varying intensity of Hellenic influence, which must have made itself very decidedly felt at Caere in particular. The fact itself admits of no doubt. The more injurious on that account must have been the early subjugation of the southern half of Etruria by the Romans, and the Romanizing—which there began very early—of Etruscan art. What Northern Etruria, confined to its own efforts, was able to produce in the way of art, is shown by the copper coins which essentially belong to it.
Character of Latin Art
Let us now turn from Etruria to glance at Latium. The latter, it is true, created no new art; it was reserved for a far later epoch of culture to develop on the basis of the arch a new architecture different from the Hellenic, and then to unfold in harmony with that architecture a new style of sculpture and painting. Latin art is nowhere original and often insignificant; but the fresh sensibility and the discriminating tact, which appropriate what is good in others, constitute a high artistic merit. Latin art seldom became barbarous, and in its best products it comes quite up to the level of Greek technical execution. We do not mean to deny that the art of Latium, at least in its earlier stages, had a certain dependence on the undoubtedly earlier Etruscan;233 Varro may be quite right in supposing that, previous to the execution by Greek artists of the clay figures in the temple of Ceres,234 only "Tuscanic" figures adorned the Roman temples; but that, at all events, it was mainly the direct influence of the Greeks that led Latin art into its proper channel, is self-evident, and is very obviously shown by these very statues as well as by the Latin and Roman coins. Even the application of graving on metal in Etruria solely to the toilet mirror, and in Latium solely to the toilet casket, indicates the diversity of the art-impulses that affected the two lands. It does not appear, however, to have been exactly at Rome that Latin art put forth its freshest vigour; the Roman -asses- and Roman -denarii- are far surpassed in fineness and taste of workmanship by the Latin copper, and the rare Latin silver, coins, and the masterpieces of painting and design belong chiefly to Praeneste, Lanuvium, and Ardea. This accords completely with the realistic and sober spirit of the Roman republic which we have already described—a spirit which can hardly have asserted itself with equal intensity in other parts of Latium. But in the course of the fifth century, and especially in the second half of it, there was a mighty activity in Roman art. This was the epoch, in which the construction of the Roman arches and Roman roads began; in which works of art like the she-wolf of the Capitol originated; and in which a distinguished man of an old Roman patrician clan took up his pencil to embellish a newly constructed temple and thence received the honorary surname of the "Painter." This was not accident. Every great age lays grasp on all the powers of man; and, rigid as were Roman manners, strict as was Roman police, the impulse received by the Roman burgesses as masters of the peninsula or, to speak more correctly, by Italy united for the first time as one state, became as evident in the stimulus given to Latin and especially to Roman art, as the moral and political decay of the Etruscan nation was evident in the decline of art in Etruria. As the mighty national vigour of Latium subdued the weaker nations, it impressed its imperishable stamp also on bronze and on marble.