Ancient Rome: An Introductory History by Paul A. Zoch Read Free Book Online Page A

plebiscite , "a vote by the people").
The Priests
Rome had a state religion. Under the monarchy the king was in charge of religion; during the early republic religious duties were overseen by the rex sacrorum (king for the sacred rites). Eventually this official was superseded by the college of priests, the pontifices . Chief among them was the pontifex maximus, who lived in a state-owned house called the Regia. The pontifices were advisory to the consuls and Senate; they had no formal power, but the magistrates were expected to heed their advice. The pontifices had power over the Vestal Virgins, the augurs, the haruspices (who examined the vital organs of animals to foretell the future), and the flamines , who were priests serving one god in particular.

 

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Chapter 7
Traitors and Heroes of the Early Republic
Once Tarquin the Proud had been expelled, in 509 B.C. , Brutus and Collatinus assumed the leadership of the infant republic, as Rome's first consuls. Brutus promptly added three hundred members of the equestrian class to the Senate, whose numbers had been depleted by Tarquin's political murders. These senators were called conscripts (in Latin, partes conscripti ) to distinguish them from the original senatorial families.
Collatinus served only a part of his term. His name, Tarquinius Collatinus, so frightened the citizens with their newly acquired liberty that they asked him to resign; although stunned by the request, Collatinus complied and went into voluntary exile.
Publius Valerius replaced Collatinus, but he too came under suspicion of aiming for monarchy. First, he began building a house set high on a hill, which could be made into a fortress and used for looking down upon the citizens. Second, when his colleague Brutus died (see below), he did not seek a replacement for him. To reassure the common people, Valerius had his house torn down and rebuilt on the lowest part of the hill, so they could all look down upon him, and he also started the custom of having the fasces lowered in the presence of the people, to show that the power and greatness of the people were greater than that of the consul. Later Romans also believed (contrary to modern scholarship) that Valerius passed a law guaranteeing that a citizen convicted of a capital offence could appeal the sentence to the citizens. For the respect and love that Valerius showed the common people, he earned the nickname Poplicola (Lover of the People).

 

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Brutus Executes His Sons
During his consulship Brutus faced an attempt by some Romans to recall Tarquin, the exiled former king. Tarquin had sent a mission to Rome ostensibly to recover his property, but in reality to stir up unrest among the nobles, who (according to the members of the mission) would suffer the most under the rule of law of the republic: Under the rule of a friendly king, the nobles could be forgiven for petty violations of the law, but blind justice in a community ruled by law was incapable of showing favor. The conspiracy succeeded in drawing Brutus' sons, Titus and Tiberius, into the conspiracy. The members of the conspiracy signed letters pledging their support for Tarquin. A loyal slave, however, overheard their plans and reported the conspiracy to the consuls, to whom the signed letters gave absolute proof of the members' involvement in the conspiracy.
The consuls took immediate action, arresting and imprisoning the conspirators. The punishment for conspiring to bring back the kings was death, and since one of the duties of the consuls was to administer justice, Brutus was required to pass judgment on his own sons. The prisonersincluding Titus and Tiberiuswere stripped, flogged, and beheaded. The slave who had reported the conspiracy was rewarded with freedom and Roman citizenship.
Brutus did not need his consular powers to execute his sons: As paterfamilias , or "father of the family," he had the father's absolute power of life and death, called patria potestas , over his