public. Structures like the temples on the Capitol
and on the Aventine and the great Circus were probably as obnoxious to
the frugal fathers of the city as to the burgesses who gave their
task-work; and it is remarkable that perhaps the most considerable
building of the republican period before the Samnite wars, the temple
of Ceres in the Circus, was a work of Spurius Cassius (261) who in
more than one respect, sought to lead the commonwealth back to the
traditions of the kings. The governing aristocracy moreover repressed
private luxury with a rigour such as the rule of the kings, if
prolonged, would certainly not have displayed. But at length even
the senate was no longer able to resist the superior force of
circumstances. It was Appius Claudius who in his epoch-making
censorship (442) threw aside the antiquated rustic system of
parsimonious hoarding, and taught his fellow-citizens to make a worthy
use of the public resources. He began that noble system of public
works of general utility, which justifies, if anything can justify,
the military successes of Rome even from the point of view of the
welfare of the nations, and which even now in its ruins furnishes some
idea of the greatness of Rome to thousands on thousands who have never
read a page of her history. To him the Roman state was indebted for
its great military road, and the city of Rome for its first aqueduct.
Following in the steps of Claudius, the Roman senate wove around Italy
that network of roads and fortresses, the formation of which has
already been described,(39) and without which, as the history of all
military states from the Achaemenidae down to the creator of the road
over the Simplon shows, no military hegemony can subsist. Following in
the steps of Claudius, Manius Curius built from the proceeds of the
Pyrrhic spoil a second aqueduct for the capital (482); and some years
previously (464) with the gains of the Sabine war he opened up for the
Velino, at the point above Terni where it falls into the Nera, that
broader channel in which the stream still flows, with a view to drain
the beautiful valley of Rieti and thereby to gain space for a large
burgess settlement along with a modest farm for himself. Such works,
in the eyes of persons of intelligence, threw into the shade the
aimless magnificence of the Hellenic temples.

Embellishment of the City

The style of living also among the citizens now was altered. About
the time of Pyrrhus si