gods one worshipped the better.
Apart from the creation of the militarily successful patrician-plebeian state, one other consequence of the struggle of the orders
requires mention. Among the demands of the lower orders was the demand that the provisions of the Roman civil law be codified
and recorded, in order that their interpretation should not be at the fancy of patrician office-holders. The result was the so-called
Twelve Tables (traditionally C.450BC), whose provisions still formed the basis of the Roman civil law in the age of Cicero. As a
result of citations by writers of this and later periods, we have a fair idea of the original contents of the Twelve Tables; they reveal a
society which is still that of a small agricultural community, but one in which the importance of the kin-group is already
diminishing and in which there are already substantial numbers of slaves.
The Early Republic
The early years of the Republic were marked by an attempt on the part of the patrician families to achieve a monopoly of secular
and sacred office. The fall of the monarchy also meant the partial loss of the superiority which Rome had achieved vis-a-vis her
immediate neighbours. Furthermore, in the fifth century the Volscians emerged from the upper Liris valley and conquered most of
the Trera valley and the coastal plain south of Rome. The first century and a half of the Republic saw first the re-assertion of
Roman leadership of the other Latin communities and then a long sequence of wars against the southern Etruscan cities, principally
Veii (captured and destroyed in 396), and against the Volscians to the south. In the latter struggles Rome and the Latins could
usually rely on the Hernicans, who had also suffered from Volscian expansion.
It was undoubtedly a period of economic difficulties which weighed heavily on the lower orders and exacerbated their resentment
at patrician exclusiveness. At the same time the fact that some of the lower orders (not the very poor) contributed the manpower on
which Roman military success depended conferred bargaining power which they were not slow to use. The erosion of patrician
privileges went hand in hand with the steady acquisition of land by conquest, which was used to satisfy the economic aspirations of
the lower orders. Such land either formed the territory of a new community, or colonia, possessing local self-government, or
provided isolated plots of land for settlers not organized as a group. The Gallic sack of Rome in 390, traumatic though it must have
been at the time, had little effect either on internal developments at Rome or on the process of conquest. The land acquired as a
result of the capture of Veii was distributed to the poor at Rome, resulting in the creation of an enormous new reserve of peasant
soldiers. By the middle of the fourth century Rome dominated south Etruria, no longer had anything to fear from incursions by
tribes in the upper Anio valley, and was poised on the northern edge of Campania.
The crucial moment in the history of the Roman conquest of Italy came in 338. Most of the Latin communities around Rome,
viewing her growing preponderance with alarm, attempted to reassert their independence. They were rapidly defeated and all,
except the largest and most distant, incorporated in the Roman citizen body. From this time on, the original cities of Latium and the
coloniae founded by them in association with Rome ceased individually or as a group to have any destiny separate from that of
Rome. But Rome made the momentous decision to continue to found new communities with the status of Latin cities. Certainly
later, and probably by now, Latin status vis-a-vis Rome and other Latin communities was defined essentially as involving rights of
intermarriage, the enforceability of contractual obligations, and the right to change domicile, with the acquisition of the citizenship
appropriate to the new domicile. The first of the Latin coloniae founded after 338 was Cales in northern Campania, founded in 334.
The primary function of this and later coloniae was defensive, to hold down conquered territory or guard Roman territory against
invasion. The foundation of a colonia was one way in which land acquired by conquest was used to relieve the poverty of the lower
orders in Roman (and Latin) society; but coloniae of Latin status were also powerful factors making for the Romanization of Italy.
They possessed from the outset constitutions modeled on that of Rome, and by their mere presence in an area previously without
significant contact with Rome served to spread the Roman model of government. Recent archaeological evidence from Cosa
(founded 273) suggests very strongly that Rome exported to the Latin coloniae her peculiar practice of voting in groups. But there
is an even more important side to the foundation of Latin coloniae; it seems that membership was not limited to those who were
already citizens of Rome or a Latin community, but that any Italian ally was eligible. The Latin coloniae thus served to elevate
large numbers of Italians to a status close to that of Roman citizenship. Neither this fact, however, nor the fact that Latin coloniae
provided a context in which land was assigned to the poor meant that the coloniae were egalitarian or democratic foundations. A
significant part of the population of Latin coloniae was more richly endowed with land than the rest, to provide a social elite and a
governing class.
Both before and after 338 Rome also founded a number of coloniae, the members of which possessed Roman citizenship. These
coloniae tended when founded to be smaller than coloniae of Latin status and to have guard duties of a very limited and precise