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some of the states of Greece bear some analogy to the counties, cities, and towns in our American States," the analogy, it must be confessed, is remote, uncertain, and without practical value in the inquiries we are to prosecute.

§ 3. Municipal Corporations, as well as Private Corporations, were familiar to the Roman Law. The learned Savigny, under the style of Juristical Persons, has traced the origin and stated the nature of Corporations in the Roman law with great clearness. It corresponds in essentials almost exactly with our own conceptions of corporations. Thus, he says, "The essential quality of all Corporations consists in this, that the Subject of the right does not exist in the individual members thereof (not even in all the Members taken collectively;) but in the ideal Whole; hence, by a change of an individual member, indeed even of all the members, the Essence and Unity of a Corporation is not affected."1 Communities, towns, and villages are, he says, mostly older than the State, and have therefore a natural existence. Their Unity is of a geographical character, since it is based upon the local condition of dwelling and ownership of land. The governing body represents the collective Whole. Such corporations are to be distinguished from the State, since the State is not the subject of private law relations.2 The communities (i. e., municipal corporations as we style them) "had on the one hand need of property, and the opportunity for its acquisition, but, on the other hand, such a dependent character that they could be arraigned (unlike the State) before a court of justice." In the required sanction of the State to their existence, in the power of the majority, in responsibility for the obligations and frauds of their representatives,5 in their property rights, it is interesting to observe the close analogy between the concept of the Roman Corporations and our own.

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Other aspects of the subject may be briefly noticed. "To conceive," says a modern author, "of ancient Rome as the capital of Italy in the same sense that London is the capital of England, or Paris of France, would be a great mistake. London and Paris are the chief cities of their respective countries, because they are the seat of government. The people of these cities and their surrounding districts have no privileges superior to those of other English or French citizens. But the city of ancient Rome, with her surrounding territory, was a great corporate body or community.

1 Jural Relations, by Rattigan, sec. 86. 2 Ib. sec. 86.

3 Ib. sec. 87; post, sec. 556.

4 Tb. sec. 97.
5 Ib. secs. 92, 95.

6 Ib. secs. 90, 91.

holding sovereignty over the whole of Italy and the provinces. None but persons enrolled on the lists of the tribes had a vote in the popular assemblies or any share in the government or legislation of the city." "1 The commou division of civic communities established by the Roman government was three,-prefectures, municipal towns, and colonies. The prefectures did not enjoy the right of selfgovernment, but were under the rule of prefects, and the inhabitants were subjected to the burdens without enjoying the privileges of Roman citizens. But with the municipal towns it was different. They at length received the full Roman franchise; "and hence," says the writer just named, "arose the common conception of a municipal town; that is, a community of which the citizens are members of the whole nation, all possessing the same rights, and subject to the same burdens, but retaining the administration of law and government in all local matters which concern not the nation at large," a description which answers almost perfectly to municipal organizations in England and America. The colonies, composed of Roman citizens, were established by the parent city, sometimes to reward public services, but generally as a means of securing and holding the country which had been subdued by Roman arms. The constitution of these colonies, and the rights of the citizens and communities composing them, varied; but it is not necessary for our purpose to trace these differences. The colonies were obliged to provide for the erection of a city, and cities thus erected were called municipia. We thus perceive the justness of the observations of a distinguished modern historian and statesman, who says that "the history of the conquest of the world by Rome is the history of the conquest and foundation of a vast number of cities. In the Roman world in Europe there was an almost exclusive preponderance of cities and an absence of country populations and dwellings." "2

1 Dr. Liddell, Rome, chap. xxvii. sec. 8. 2 M. Guizot, History Civilization in Europe, Lect. II. "Rome, in its origin, was a mere municipality, a corporation. In Italy, around Rome, we find nothing but cities, no country places, no villages. The country was cultivated, but not peopled. The proprietors dwelt in cities. If we follow the history of Rome, we find that she founded or conquered a host of cities. It was with cities that she fought, it was with cities she treated, into cities she sent colonies. In the Gauls and Spain we meet with nothing but cities; the country around is marsh and forest. In the monuments left us of ancient

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Rome we find great roads extending from city to city; but the thousands of little by-paths now intersecting every part of the country were unknown. Neither do we find traces of the immense number of churches, castles, country seats, and villages which were spread all over the country during the Middle Ages. The only bequests of Rome consist of vast monuments impressed with a municipal character, destined for a numerous population, crowded into a single spot. municipal corporation like Rome might be able to conquer the world, but it was a much more difficult task to mould it into one compact body." Ib. See also 2

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nation was a vast congeries of municipalities bound together by the central power of Rome. When the Romans colonized and settled the countries they had conquered they established fixed governments, and carried with them, and to some extent necessarily imparted their arts, sciences, language, and civilization to their new subjects. Although the political condition of the vanquished people was far from being desirable, still the immediate residence. among them of the civilized Roman did not fail to produce effects more or less beneficial; and thus the municipia, securing what the Roman arms had achieved, became the efficient means of spreading civilization throughout the Roman world.

§ 3 a. The City of Ancient ROME had, in what we would call its municipal aspects, many features which correspond with those of the large cities of our own day, and whose study will afford us lessons of interest and value, since it shows that large and compact aggregations of people necessarily give rise to conditions and create wants peculiar to such circumstances, and which, as pointed out in the preceding section, are not common to rural populations and to the state at large. Special provisions are therefore necessary for the health, safety, convenience, and good government of populous communities crowded within a narrow space, and these must be supplied. In its essential municipal wants and in the means of meeting them Ancient Rome bears a close analogy to London, Paris, or New York. To secure the comfort and health of the city, and to prevent and extinguish fires, Rome in the course of time provided. itself with a magnificent water supply. Its system consisted of fourteen aqueducts whose aggregate length was 359 miles, of which 304 miles were underground, often through mountains and along valleys, and 55 miles were above ground, the channel being carried on what is really triumphal arcades, sometimes rising to the height of more than 100 feet. As a sanitary necessity, the city constructed drains to carry off the sewage. The Cloaca Maxima is not only a large but it is a wonderful work-"an immense sewer, built twenty-five centuries ago, on unstable ground, under enormous practical difficulties, which still answers its purpose well, and which ranks among the greatest triumphs of engineering skill." For the health and pleasure of the people Rome also supplied itself with public places of resort more adequately, perhaps, than have any of the great modern cities. Lanciani, as the result of explorations and of his own examinations and researches, says that "towards the Kent's Com. 270, note; Dr. Adam Smith's Book III. chap. ii.; Hearn, Government interesting chapter, Wealth of Nations, of England, chap. xvii. p. 468 et seq.

end of the third century after Christ, there were in Rome eight campi or commons, green spaces set apart mostly for foot-races and gymnastic exercises; eighteen fora or public squares, and about thirty parks or gardens, which, first laid out by wealthy citizens for their private comfort or that of their friends, had been absorbed into the imperial domain by purchase, by bequest, or by confiscation. The city was not only surrounded and enclosed by them, but intersected by them in every direction." Modern cities have nothing fully answering to these forums or public squares, either in cost, area, or magnificence. They gave to the people of Rome more than twenty-five acres in extent for various public uses. In the public baths 62,800 citizens could bathe at the same moment. Rome had also its Police and Fire Departments. The public safety was entrusted to a select body of 7,500 men, whose function corresponds to that of the 9,000 policemen of London. The Roman policeman, however, performed the double duty of fireman and policeman.

In a most important particular, however, Rome suffers by comparison with modern cities. Its public places were not lighted. All business closed with the daylight. The streets at night were dangerous. Property was insecure. No attempt at public illumination was made. The idea does not seem to have occurred to them. Persons who ventured abroad on dark nights were dimly lighted by lanterns and torches.1 Its condition was similar to that of London two hundred years ago, so graphically described by Macaulay, and whose description is partly given in the note. No more forcible

1 The data for this section so far as relates to Ancient Rome, are derived from Professor Lanciani's late work (1889), Ancient Rome in the light of Recent Discoveries. Indeed the text is simply an abridgment or transcript of those portions of his work which treat of the Sanitary Condition of Ancient Rome (chap. iii.), of Public Places of Resort (chap. iv.), and of the Police and Fire Department (chap. viii). Modern excavations and archæological researches have enabled us to see for the first time Ancient Rome as it was, and have invested it with an interest more intense and absorbing than ever. principal cause of disorder was that the metropolis was kept in perfect darkness at night. Why the idea of a system of public illumination was not conceived and adopted, is a mystery hard to solve. Excavations fully confirm the fact. Not a trace of a bracket fixed to the front of a

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house, or of a rope or small chain drawn across the street to support lamps or lanterns, has as yet been found, and probably none ever will be." Ib., chap. viii.

2 Macaulay's History of England, vol. I, chap. iii., entitled "The State of England in 1685." "When the evening closed in, the difficulty and danger in walking about London became serious indeed. The garret windows were opened, and pails were emptied, with little regard to those passing below. Falls, bruises and broken

bones were of constant occurrence. For
till the last year of the reign of Charles II.
most of the streets were left in profound
darkness. Thieves and robbers plied their
trade with impunity; yet they were hardly
so terrible as another class of ruffians.
was a favorite amusement of dissolute young
gentlemen to swagger by night about the
town, breaking windows, upsetting sedans,
beating quiet men, and offering rude ca-

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illustration of the necessity and advantages of lighting a city can be given than the pictures drawn by Lanciani and Macaulay of the state of a great city buried in the darkness of night; and they show how clearly the power to provide for this is essentially and peculiarly one pertaining to municipal rule and regulation. Nor are these studies, and the facts that they reveal, without practical value to the jurist. They demonstrate that a large and dense collection of human beings occupying a limited area have needs peculiar to themselves, which create the necessity for municipal or local government and regulation, and this in its turn the necessity for corporate organization. The body thus organized, as it has duties, so it acquires rights peculiar to itself as distinguished from the Nation or State at large, which rights, especially those that pertain to property acquired under legislative sanction, it is a mistake to suppose have nothing individual in their nature, and that they are subject to the absolute and unlimited power of the legislature. Subject they are indeed to the largest measure of legislative regulation for the general good, but not subject to absolute destruction. Modes of life, modes of thought, conceptions of rights and of duties, and the essential conditions of existence, precede constitutions, whose resses to pretty women. I am confident that Milton was thinking of these pests when he dictated the noble lines:

'And in luxurious cities, when the noise

Of riot ascends above their loftiest towers, And injury and outrage, and when night Darkens the streets, then wander forth the sons Of Belial, flown with insolence and wine.' The machinery for keeping the peace was utterly contemptible. There was an Act of the Common Council, which provided that more than a thousand watchmen should be constantly on the alert in the city from sunset to sunrise, and that every inhabitant should take his turn of duty. But this act was negligently executed. Few of those who were summoned left their homes; and those few generally found it more agreeable to tipple in the ale-houses than to pace the streets.

"In the last year of the reign of Charles II. began a great change in the police of London, a change which has, perhaps, added as much to the happiness of the body of the people as revolutions of much greater fame. An ingenious projector, named Edward Heming, obtained letters-patent conveying to him, for a term of years, the exclusive right of lighting up

London. He undertook, for a moderate consideration, to place a light before every tenth door, on moonless nights from Michaelmas to Lady Day, and from six to twelve of the clock. Those who now see the capital all the year round, from dusk to dawn, blazing with a splendor be side which the illuminations for La Hogue and Blenheim would have looked pale, may smile perhaps to think of Heming's lanterns, which glimmered feebly before one house in ten, during a small part of one night in three. But such was not the feeling of his contemporaries. There were quarters of London peopled by the outcasts of society where even the warrant of the Chief Justice of England could not be executed without the help of a company of musketeers. Such relics of the barbarism of the darkest ages [sanctuaries for criminals] were to be found within a short walk of the chambers where Somers was studying history and law, of the chapel where Tillotson was preaching, of the coffee-house where Dryden was passing judgment on poems and plays, and of the hall where the Royal Society was examining the astronomical system of Isaac Newton."

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