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for its freedom , is that of the plebeian consulate ; nearly 365 years B . C . ; when it was enacted that , of the two chief yearly magistrates , one should always be a plebeian Henceforward , the interests of the plebeians were constantly looked after , their grievances were gradually redressed , the two orders were fully amalgamated , and a vast increase of internal strength rapidly ensued . The immediate res ult was , that , instead of the equal alliance which Home had formerly had with her Latin brethren , she disdainfully spurned their claims of equality , and subdued Latium after a fierce and doubtful struggle . Upon this followed in steady succession , with enormous effort and horrible bloodshed , the conquest of all Italy . The Roman commonalty obtained a more and more secure and satisfactory ' social position , until the state became prepared for its dreadful contests with Carthage , out of which it came politically victorious , but fatally
deranged in its social and moral interests . In modern times , great and successful wars are apt to leave behind them , ( like the wounds endured by a conquering champion ) great national debts ; evils embarrassing for the present , and exceedingly threatening for the future . The Romans had not invented this device , and in no case could have carried it out far . But their war with Hannibal left on them a permanent crippling in the ruin of their small proprietors , who had been the moral strength of the nation . These were the true commonalty of Rome ; the upright , independent , simple
plebeian freeholders , who possessed enough and to spare , on the condition of regular industry . Their votes made them the real sovereigns of the state in any matters affecting the general welfare ; and their wishes and influence were for peace , order , and good government . Hannibal for seventeen years was master of the field in Italy . Such an enemy , and the perpetual demand for men to fill the ranks , were very disastrous to the Roman farmers : one vast number was slain , another was hopelessly ruined : and , when the victory was won , the Rome which remained to enjoy it was no longer the same Rome as had commenced the war . The rustic middle class of pure Romans was enormously lessened .
Over all Italy , wherever the population had sympathized with Hannibal , the incensed conquerors confiscated large masses of land to the state , and ejected the free Italian proprietors ; so that , instead of being in the hands of freehold cultivators , Italy was very disproportionately occupied by domain land , nominally belonging to the state , but practically held in masses by the aristocracy , and tended by slaves . To this calamitous result of the second Punic war the later disorders of the Roman state can be mainly traced . How instructive it is for free and powerful nations to learn that the evils which war inflicts upon them are not to be measured by the immediate visible losses ! Internal disorganization is often a more fatal consequence than carnage and prodigious waste of substance .
One great event has profitably arrested victorious England , to which there is nothing similar in the Roman history : ( let us hope that it will save us from the fate of Rome !)—I mean , the successful revolt of our American colonies . Sir James Mackintosh has called this the greatest event in modern history ; probably because he regarded it as determining that the New World shall be filled with great Republics ; as also , because it so vehemently contributed towards the first French Revolution . But I here regard it in another point of view , viz ., as raising up a second great naval power by the side of England , and , by its example to our other colonies , making it morally impossible for us to turn our empire into a despotism . If England had been victorious in the American war , she might , indeed , afterwards have conceded all that was under contest , as we have done in the case of Canada . But we probably should not : rather , we
should have tried to enforce our rule , we should have been more rigorous towards the other colonies , and have set up a great despotism : we must have kept powerful armies for this purpose , with great danger to our own liberties at home . A dread of this heightened the sympathies of our great Whig party with the colonists during the struggle , and greatly aided the ultimate result . We may now regard it as happily decided , that England is not , like Rome , to lose her liberties through her conquests . One Roman war there is , in its moral aspects , not dissimilar to this American war of England . I mean the war against the Italian allies ( B . C . 90 ) , who demanded equal civil rights with the Romans . The Italians were at that time virtually but one nation with Rome . They had ( except Etruria ) the same
language , religion , manners , sentiments , capacities . They were in no respect inferior , and their demand was as just to make as it would have been wise to concede . But the concession had been delayed by selfishness so long that the Italians at last demanded it with arms in their hands ; and then the Romans were too proud to concede until they should have disarmed the revolters . Every thing was granted to those who had , as yet , stood aloof;—a confession that Rome knew her cause to be bad . Then ensued a deadly war , in which 180 , 000 men of both sides are estimated to have perished , until at last the scale turned in favour of Rome . After this the allies , with some exceptions , were admitted to the franchise which they had claimed , and sadly late attempts were made to heal the ravages of Italy .
If the Italian allies had made a successful resistance ( a supposition nowise extreme ) , they would have established a second or northern Italian Republic in Corfinium , with two yearly consuls , similar to those in Rome ; for , in fact , they had already so organized themselves . Had such a power existed for but one generation , it would have forced Rome to enfranchise Sicily and Spain and the Carthaginian territory , which they called Africa , as the solo way to repair her strength ; and even if ( ns is almost certain ) the two Republics had afterwords coalesced by conquest or by goodwill , the temporary success of the Italians might nevertheless hnve saved freedom . But ( alas for Europe , and for Home herself !) the inveterate military system , backed by long-experienced wily policy , prevailed . Freedom could nowhere stand against Rome , and therefore it did not long stand within Home .
While , in this respect , the fortunes of England have been happily di'Iercnt , it is of interest to compare our British Empire in India with that which the Romans eroded beyond Italy . The original circumstances of the conquerors were exceedingly contrasted . The Romans rested on the territorial basis ol Italy , and had a largo homogeneous population of native soldiers . The East India Company had a few fbrtiiicd factories for the purposes of trade on Indian
soil—no sovereignty anywhere to fall back upon—no troops but mercenaries * and for their support no appropriate funds . Nearly all the empire of republican Rome was conquered by strictly Italian soldiers ; but British India has been conquered chiefly with Indian sepoys , acting under British officers . In a military point of view , the English victories in India may appear more marvellous than those of Rome ; but such comparisons are superficial and rather uninstructive . It is more to the purpose to consider the policy pursued during war and after conquest . In each case the conqueror owed at least as much to policy ( which was deep and versatile , often cunning or treacherous ) as to the force of arms . As the English gained help from petty chieftains in India and from Indian soldiers , and by a series of alliances won battles , and from victories formed new alliances , so did the Roaians abroad . Thus , when they first set foot on Greece against the Macedonian power , they entered into league with the vEtolians , who were hostile to Macedon . They used the JEtolian force as long as it proved convenient . They affected to liberate Southern Greece from Philip , the Macedonian King , and by such arts succeeded in crippling him . They farther got aid from the Rhodians and from Attalus , King of Pergamus , against Antiochus the Great , who crossed from Asia to oppose them : but no sooner had they repelled him than they neglected , insulted , and crushed the JEtolians , not without pleasure to Philip and to the southern Greeks , who were , in their turn , presently attacked ; and , in time , the Rhodians also , and all who were foolish enough to expect from Rome any other gratitude than that which Polyphemus promised Ulysses—viz ., to reserve him for his last mouthful .
Such a description of Roman conquest is very revolting ; but there is one consideration that a little softens it , as in the parallel case of England , or is at least instructive—namely , such conquest would have been impossible , had not the conquerors possessed one great virtue in which the conquered were deficient ; viz ., mutual trust and mutual faithfulness . The Greeks , as the nations of India in modern times , were full of mutual distrust , and with too good reason . I will not venture to enter into the comparison how much less treacherous towards the foreigner has been our course in India than that of Rome ; but it is clear that the military strength of every people depends far more on having a single idea , and a full devotion to that idea , than on all other virtues ; and , though this is no virtue in itself , it generally gives rise to a thousand virtues in detail through the heroism which self-abandonment inspires .
After their first successes against a small power , the Romans generally inflicted cruel slaughters or expatriations . In theory , the State was generally left free and independent , only protected by Rome . It had its own laws , and constitution , and native magistrates , as before ; and Rome seemed still to stand outside . Yet , in fact , the magistrates dared to do nothing without the approval of a Roman commissioner . In this way the nation served apprenticeship of obedience , until all the men were dead who remembered freedom ; after which , as soon as convenient , the country was absorbed in a Roman province . This implied
that no natives were henceforth to bear rule , but only Roman officers . Martial dominion was made the permanent system . The civil judge had at his side lictors with axes , to tell plainly that the life of every provincial was at his mercy . Native law was annihilated . The business of the Roman governor generally was to enrich himself in his year of office ; a task not difficult in a wealthy province , by accepting bribes in the infinite mass of lawsuits which this system brought before him . So infernal a system of oppression , under the mask of law , was perhaps never before invented by civilized conquerors .
If we compare this with our proceedings in British India , we find many similarities , with many happy advantages on our side . We never disgrace our conquests by personal cruelties or resentments against classes of men . We have generally looked out for princes of a conquered dynasty , not to imprison or kill them , but to give them a princely salary and royal title ; and we have generally taken pains not to reduce our enemy to despair . Our military system is subordinated to the civilian ; nor does the judge make the law at pleasure ; nor have
we ever forced English law upon the natives . If our rule is in fact oppressive , it is not through individual wickedness so much as by its intrinsic unsuitability . Nevertheless , with us , as with the Romans , the states which are protected , whether they have been enemies or allies , infallibly lose their independence , and arc at length absorbed in the great empire . Loyalty then becomes am impossible virtue , and patriotism can take no form but that of rebellion ; which are evils of first-rate magnitude .
But when the conquered state was at all considerable , the Romans often , adopted the intermediate step of breaking it up into smaller states . Thus , after their first victories over Philip of Macedon , they were satisfied with stripping him of all his extraneous resources , so as to shut him up into his own kingdom . Meanwhile , they devoured the rest of Greece in detail . When this had been done , they entered into a new war with his son Perseus ; and , after conquering him , divided his kingdom into four parts or tetrarchies , which were nonprotected in nominal independence , but with a jealous prohibition of any common plans and counsels . About two generations later came the final throwing off of the mask , and the absorbing of all four into the Roman Province of Macedonia It is impossible for an Englishman to avoid thinking how we have subdivided the kingdom of our ally , Runject Singh , because we arc not yet ready to incorporate it with our empire . But the instructiveness of the comparison is this : it teaches us to judge Roman statesmen rather more mildly . I freely avow , that to mo the rise and advance of Roman empire appears the direst calamity -which ancient Europe over endured ; and I regard the admiration lavished on the civilization which their arms extended as a gross and pernicious blunder . The individual statesmen of Home were often cruel and brutal towards foreigners ; so that on all sides J can have no sympathy with the conquering Roman . Nevertheless , I believe the great and unmanageable evil was in the conquest itself , the conquest of nations that have a homosprunij civilization by uncongenial foreigners ; and if , instead of Motellu-es , Scipios , Catos , and Mariuses , men like Lord Like , Lord Cornwallis , Lord Auckland , Lord Hardinge had been at the head of the 1 toman empire , though many details of cruelty would have been avoided , yet ( I suspect ) the general series of events would not have been very different . Pretences for now and new wars would not have been wanting , and would have been grasped at . The steps of policy which strike us as so insidious
Untitled Article
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Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 5, 1850, page 668, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1855/page/20/
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