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The Property Qualifications of the Roman Classes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

H. Mattingly
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Extract

It is rapidly coming to be agreed among scholars that a re-dating of the earliest Roman coinage, centring round the transference of the denarius from 269 to circa 187 B.C., is now inevitable. Such a re-dating is bound to have very wide effects outside the coinage. The whole question of the expression of values in terms of money must come up for reconsideration. It is my object in this paper to concentrate on one part of the general question—the property qualifications of the Roman classes. The evidence is scanty and, for the earlier period, of problematic value. The figures of the Servian constitution, in particular, even if we admit them to have any real reference to early Roman history, must have been expressed in terms of money at a comparatively late date. Until we know when they began to be so expressed, we do not know what they really mean in value. Even our scanty records, however, if critically examined in their correct historical order, will yield definite results of a somewhat surprising character.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 27 , Issue 1: Papers Presented to Sir Henry Stuart Jones , 1937 , pp. 99 - 107
Copyright
Copyright ©H. Mattingly 1937. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 The evidence is collected in P-W, s.v. ‘Lex Voconia,’ col. 2418 ff. Gellius, Aulus (Noctes Atticae vi, 13Google Scholar) writes:‘Classici dicebantur non omnes qui in classibus erant, sed primae tantum classis homines qui c et xxv millia aeris ampliusve censi erant; infra classem autem appellabantur secundae classis ceterarumque omnium classium, qui minore summa aeris quamsupra dixi censebantur. hoc eo strictim notavi, quoniam in M. Catonis oratione, qua Voconiamlegem suasit,quaeri solet quid sit classicus, quid infra classem.’ The conclusion usually drawn from this passage, that it was precisely the ‘classici’ who were forbidden to leave their inheritances to women, seems to be assured. Gaius, ii, 274, writes ‘item mulier, quae ab eo, qui centum milia aeris census est, per legem Voconiam heres institui non potest, tamen fideicommisso relictam sibi hered itatem capere potest.’ Cf. also pseudo-Asconius on Cicero, in Verrem ii, 1, 41; Cassius Dio lvi, 10.

2 Metrologische Untersuchungen, pp. 427 ff.

3 See below.

4 Boeckh acutely observes that, according to the exact wording of Aulus Gellius, Cato must have spoken of ‘classici,’ without stating their property qualification.

5 It remains an interesting speculation why Gaius should use the ambiguous ‘aeris,’ in place of the unambiguous ‘sestertii.” See below.

6 vi, 28, 15.

7 ii, 15, 6.

8 A frequency table of 280 specimens in the British Museum shows a curve, rising sharply from 34 gr. (2.20 gn.) to a plateau between 35.5 (2.30 gn.) and 37 gr. (2.40 gn.) and falling sharply from 38 gr. (2.46 gn.). The normal weight indicated is round about 37 gr. (2.40 gn.). Hill (Num. Chron. 1923, p. 365) finds for 283 denarii of the period 269–124 B.C. (Grueber's dating) a frequency summit at 58.7 (3.8). Our theoretical drachm, then, if equal to 12 asses, should weigh 58.7×=70.44 gr. (4.56 gn.), its half 35.2 gr. (2.28 gn.); if equal to 12 ½ asses it should weigh 58.7×=73.4gr. (4.76 gn.), its half 36.7 gr. (2.38 gn.). The agreement of the second equation with the weight deduced above for the Achaean coin is amazingly close.

9 Livy xxii, 52–3; Polybius vi, 58, 5. In another passage (xxii, 23) Livy gives the ransom price agreed upon between Rome and Carthage as two-and-a half pounds of silver, the same amount as in the first Punic War. If these are Roman pounds of 240 scruples, the amount is far too low—600 scruples, or only 100 quadrigati. It seems to be certain that, ‘pound’ here is a tradition of mina and that the sum involved is 250 drachmae. But what are we to make of 250 drachmae against the 300 of the other passage ? Did Polybius express the same amount twice, once in Roman, once in Greek money, and has Livy simply misunderstood him ? 250 quadrigati of 6 sestertii, 15 asses, each, are exactly equal to 300 drachmae of 12½ asses each.

10 Livy xxxiv, 50; cf. Plutarch, Titus Flamininus, 13.

11 Livy xxxiv, 52.

12 ‘Infra classem significantur, qui minore summa quam centum et viginti milium aeris censi sunt (p. 113 M).

13 The census of the Senate seems to be reckoned as 1,000,000 aeris. The gap between first class (50,000) and Senate (1,000,000) is, in that case, wider now than it was later (100,000 sestertii and 800,000 or 1,000,000). This does not seem to constitute any serious difficulty to our view.

14 Dionysius actually states the amounts in minae—100 to 12½—a mina containing 100 drachmae, equal to denarii of ten asses each: except for the fifth class his agreement with Livy is complete.

15 It is not admissible to quote Livy xlv, 5 as evidence for 75,000 asses as the qualification of the second class. He tells us that freedmen who had landed property above the value of 30,000 sestertii, were allowed to enrol in the census. No doubt 30,000 sestertii do equal 75,000 asses. But we are concerned here, not with the whole of a census, but only with that part of it which was invested in land.

16 Mommsen, Römisches Münzwesen, 302, 303Google Scholar, n. 40.

17 Num. Chron. 1934, 81 ff.

18 It would explain much, if we could suppose that the old word ‘aeris’ was at first carried over to the reckoning in sestertii. In 86 B.C., when thelaw of C. Flaccus cancelled three-fourths of all debts, the ambiguity of the term would have been turned to account. Amounts reckoned in sestertii would have been paid in asses; in fact, as Sallust makes C. Manlius say in the Bellum Catilinae (33), ‘argentum’ would have been paid with ‘aes.’ The suggestion goes back to Mommsen.

19 Die römische Timokratie, Berlin, 1906. Piganiol in Annales d'histoire ėconomique et sociale, 1933, 133 ff. develops the argument on similar lines, For other considerations, which I cannot accept, see Cavaignac, Revue de Philologie, 1934, 72 ff.

20 BC i, 59, 266.