The work of the census was accelerated by an enactment in which Servius
denounced imprisonment and even capital punishment against those who
evaded assessment. On its completion he issued an order that all the
citizens of Rome, knights and
infantry alike, should appear in the Campus
Martius, each in their centuries.
After the whole army had been drawn up there, he purified it by the
triple sacrifice of a swine, a sheep, and an ox.As in the case of Tullus
Hostilius (see note 9). This sacrifice was afterwards regularly
offered on the completion of each five-year period (lustrum). This was called “a
closed lustrum,” because with it the
census was completed. Eighty thousand citizens are said to have been
included in that census. Fabius Pictor, the oldest of our historians
states that this was the number of those who could bear arms.
ToEnlargement of the City. contain that population it was
obvious that the City would have to be enlarged. He added to it the two
hills —the Quirinal and the Viminal —and then made a further addition by
including the Esquiline, and to
give it more importance he lived there himself. He surrounded the City
with a mound and moats and wall; in this way he extended the “
pomoerium.”
Looking only to the etymology of the word, they explain “
pomoerium ” as “ postmoerium;” but it is rather a “
circamoerium.” For the space
which the Etruscans of old, when founding their cities, consecrated in
accordance with auguries and marked off by boundary stones at intervals
on each side, as the part where the wall was to be carried, was to be
kept vacant so that no buildings might connect with the wall on the
inside (whilst now they generally touch), and on the outside some ground
might remain virgin soil untouched by cultivation.
This space, which it was forbidden either to build upon or to plough,
and which could not be said to be behind the wall any more than the wall
could be said to be behind it, the Romans called the “ pomoerium.” As the City grew, these
sacred boundary stones were always moved forward as far as the walls
were advanced.
AfterLeague
with the Latins. the State was augmented by the expansion of
the City and all domestic arrangements adapted to the requirements of
both peace and war, Servius endeavoured to extend his dominion by
state-craft, instead of aggrandising it by arms, and at the same time
made an addition to the adornment of the City.
The temple of the Ephesian Diana was famous at that time, and it was
reported to have been built by the cooperation of the states of
Asia. Servius had been
careful to form ties of hospitality and friendship with the chiefs of
the Latin nation, and he used to speak in the highest praise of that
cooperation and the common recognition of the same deity. By constantly
dwelling on this theme he at length induced the Latin tribes to join
with the people of Rome in
building a temple to Diana in
Rome.
Their doing so was an admission of the predominance of Rome; a question which had so often
been disputed by arms. Though the Latins, after their many unfortunate
experiences in war, had as a nation laid aside all thoughts of success,
there was amongst the Sabines one man who believed that an opportunity
presented itself of recovering the supremacy through his own individual
cunning.
The story runs that a man of substance belonging to that nation had a
heifer of marvellous size and beauty. The marvel was attested in after
ages by the horns which were fastened up in the vestibule of the temple
of Diana.
The creature was looked upon as-what it really was-a prodigy, and the
soothsayers predicted that, whoever sacrificed it to Diana, the state of which he was a
citizen should be the seat of empire.
This prophecy had reached the ears of the official in charge of the
temple of Diana. When the first
day on which the sacrifice could properly be offered arrived the
Sabine drove the heifer to
Rome, took it to the temple
and placed it front of the altar. The official in charge was a Roman,
and, struck by the size of the victim which was well known by report he
recalled the prophecy and addressing the Sabine said, “Why, pray, are you, stranger,
preparing to offer a polluted sacrifice to Diana? Go and bathe yourself first in running water.
The Tiber is flowing down there
at the bottom of the valley.”
Filled with misgivings, and anxious for everything to be done properly
that the prediction might be fulfilled, the stranger promptly went down
to the Tiber. Meanwhile the
Roman sacrificed the heifer to Diana. This was a cause of intense gratification to the
king and to his people.