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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/11256-0.txt b/11256-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fb0c08d --- /dev/null +++ b/11256-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10671 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11256 *** + +SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME IN THE AGE OF CICERO + +BY W. WARDE FOWLER, M.A. + + 'Ad illa mihi pro se quisque acriter intendat animum, + quae vita, quae mores fuerint.'--LIVY, _Praefatio_. + + + + +AMICO VETERRIMO + +I.A. STEWART + +ROMAE PRIMUM VISAE + +COMES MEMOR + +D.D.D. + + + + +PREFATORY NOTE + +This book was originally intended to be a companion to Professor +Tucker's _Life in Ancient Athens_, published in Messrs. Macmillan's +series of Handbooks of Archaeology and Art; but the plan was abandoned +for reasons on which I need not dwell, and before the book was quite +finished I was called to other and more specialised work. As it +stands, it is merely an attempt to supply an educational want. At our +schools and universities we read the great writers of the last age of +the Republic, and learn something of its political and constitutional +history; but there is no book in our language which supplies a picture +of life and manners, of education, morals, and religion in that +intensely interesting period. The society of the Augustan age, which +in many ways was very different, is known much better; and of late my +friend Professor Dill's fascinating volumes have familiarised us with +the social life of two several periods of the Roman Empire. But the +age of Cicero is in some ways at least as important as any period of +the Empire; it is a critical moment in the history of Graeco-Roman +civilisation. And in the Ciceronian correspondence, of more than nine +hundred contemporary letters, we have the richest treasure-house of +social life that has survived from any period of classical antiquity. + +Apart from this correspondence and the other literature of the time, +my mainstay throughout has been the _Privatleben der Römer_ of +Marquardt, which forms the last portion of the great _Handbuch der +Römischen Altertümer_ of Mommsen and Marquardt. My debt is great also +to Professors Tyrrell and Purser, whose labours have provided us with +a text of Cicero's letters which we can use with confidence; the +citations from these letters have all been verified in the new Oxford +text edited by Professor Purser. One other name I must mention with +gratitude. I firmly believe that the one great hope for classical +learning and education lies in the interest which the unlearned public +may be brought to feel in ancient life and thought. We have just lost +the veteran French scholar who did more perhaps to create and +maintain such an interest than any man of his time; and I gladly here +acknowledge that it was Boissier's _Cicéron et ses amis_ that in my +younger days made me first feel the reality of life and character +in an age of which I then hardly knew anything but the perplexing +political history. + +I have to thank my old pupils, Mr. H.E. Mann and Mr. Gilbert Watson, +for kind help in revising the proofs. + +W.W.F. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER I + +TOPOGRAPHICAL + +Virgil's hero arrives at Rome by the Tiber: we follow his example; +justification of this; view from Janiculum and its lessons; advantages +of the position of Rome, for defence and advance; disadvantages as to +commerce and salubrity; views of Roman writers; a walk through the +city in 50 B.C.; Forum Boarium and Circus maximus; Porta Capena; via +Sacra; summa sacra via and view of Forum; religious buildings at +eastern end of Forum; Forum and its buildings in Cicero's time; ascent +to the Capitol; temple of Jupiter and the view from it. + + +CHAPTER II + +THE LOWER POPULATION + +Spread of the city outside original centre; the plebs dwelt mainly +in the lower ground; little known about its life: indifference +of literary men; housing: the insulae; no sign of home life; bad +condition of these houses; how the plebs subsisted; vegetarian diet; +the corn supply and its problems; the corn law of Gaius Gracchus; +results, and later laws; the water-supply; history of aqueducts; +employment of the lower grade population; aristocratic contempt for +retail trading; the trade gilds; relation of free to slave labour; +bakers; supply of vegetables; of clothing; of leather; of iron, etc.; +gave employment to large numbers; porterage; precarious condition of +labour; fluctuation of markets; want of a good bankruptcy law. + + +CHAPTER III + +THE MEN OF BUSINESS AND THEIR METHODS + +Meaning of equester ordo; how the capitalist came by his money; +example of Atticus; incoming of wealth after Hannibalic war; +suddenness of this; rise of a capitalist class; the contractors; the +public contracting companies; in the age and writings of Cicero; their +political influence; and power in the provinces; the bankers and +money-lenders; origin of the Roman banker; nature of his business; +risks of the money-lender; general indebtedness of society; Cicero's +debts; story of Rabirius Postumus; mischief done by both contractors +and money-lenders. + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE GOVERNING ARISTOCRACY + +The old noble families; their exclusiveness; Cicero's attitude +towards them; new type of noble; Scipio Aemilianus: his "circle"; its +influence on the Ciceronian age in (1) manners; (2) literary capacity; +(3), philosophical receptivity; Stoicism at Rome; its influence on the +lawyers; Sulpicius Rufus, his life and work; Epicureanism, its general +effect on society; case of Calpurnius Piso; pursuit of pleasure and +neglect of duty; senatorial duties neglected; frivolity of the younger +public men; example of M. Caelius Rufus; sketch of his life and +character; life of the Forum as seen in the letters of Caelius. + + +CHAPTER V + +MARRIAGE AND THE ROMAN LADY + +Meaning of matrimonium: its religious side; shown from the oldest +marriage ceremony; its legal aspect; marriage cum manu abandoned; +betrothal; marriage rites; dignified position of Roman matron; the +ideal materfamilias; change in the character of women; its causes; the +ladies of Cicero's time; Terentia; Pomponia; ladies of society and +culture: Clodia; Sempronia; divorce, its frequency; a wonderful Roman +lady: the Laudatio Turiae; story of her life and character as recorded +by her husband. + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE EDUCATION OF THE UPPER CLASSES + +An education of character needed; Aristotle's idea of education; +little interest taken in education at Rome; biographies silent; +education of Cato the younger; of Cicero's son and nephew; Varro +and Cicero on education; the old Roman education of the body and +character; causes of its breakdown; the new education under Greek +influence; schools, elementary; the sententiae in use in schools; +arithmetic; utilitarian character of teaching; advanced schools; +teaching too entirely linguistic and literary; assumption of toga +virilis; study of rhetoric and law; oratory the main object; results +of this; Cicero's son at the University of Athens: his letter to Tiro. + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE SLAVE POPULATION + +The demand for labour in second century B.C.; how it was supplied; the +slave trade; kidnapping by pirates, etc.; breeding of slaves; prices +of slaves; possible number in Cicero's day; economic aspect of +slavery: did it interfere with free labour?; no apparent rivalry +between them; either in Rome; or on the farm; the slave-shepherds +of South Italy; they exclude free labour; legal aspect of slavery: +absolute power of owner; prospect of manumission; political results of +slave system; of manumission; ethical aspect: destruction of family +life; no moral standard; effects of slavery on the slave-owners. + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE HOUSE OF THE RICH MAN IN TOWN AND COUNTRY + +Out-of-door life at Rome; but the Roman house originally a home; +religious character of it; the atrium and its contents; development of +atrium: the peristylium; desire for country houses: crowding at Rome; +callers, clients, etc.; effects of this city life on the individual; +country house of Scipio Africanus; watering-places in Campania; +meaning of villa in Cicero's time: Hortensius' park; Cicero's villas: +Tusculum; Arpinum; Formiae; Puteoli; Cumae; Pompeii; Astura; constant +change of residence, and its effects. + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE DAILY LIFE OF THE WELL-TO-DO + +Roman division of the day; sun-dials; hours varied according to the +season; early rising of Romans; want of artificial light; Cicero's +early hours; early callers; breakfast, followed by business; morning +in the Forum; lunch (prandium); siesta; the bath; dinner: its hour +becomes later; dinner-parties: the triclinium; drinking after dinner; +Cicero's indifference to the table; his entertainment of Caesar at +Cumae. + + +CHAPTER X + +HOLIDAYS AND PUBLIC AMUSEMENTS + +The Italian festa, ancient and modern; meaning of the word feriae; +change in its meaning; holidays of plebs; festival of Anna Perenua; +The Saturnalia; the ludi and their origin; ludi Romani and plebeii; +other ludi; supported by State; by private individuals; admission +free; Circus maximus and chariot-racing; gladiators at funeral games; +stage-plays at ludi; political feeling expressed at the theatre; +decadence of tragedy in Cicero's time; the first permanent theatre, 55 +B.C.; opening of Pompey's theatre; Cicero's account of it; the great +actors of Cicero's day: Aesopus; Roscius; the farces; Publilius Syrus +and the mime. + + +CHAPTER XI + +RELIGION + +Absence of real religious feeling; neglect of worship, except in the +family; foreign cults, e.g. of Isis; religious attitude of Cicero and +other public men: free thought, combined with maintenance of the ius +divinum; Lucretius condemns all religion as degrading: his failure to +produce a substitute for it; Stoic attitude towards religion: Stoicism +finds room for the gods of the State; Varro's treatment of theology on +Stoic lines; his monotheistic conception of Jupiter Capitolinus; +the Stoic Jupiter a legal rather than a moral deity; Jupiter in the +Aeneid; superstition of the age; belief in portents, visions, etc.; +ideas of immortality; sense of sin, or despair of the future. + + +EPILOGUE + + +INDEX + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + +PLAN OF HOUSE OF THE SILVER WEDDING AT POMPEII + +MAP TO ILLUSTRATE THE POSITION OF CICERO'S VILLAS + +PLAN OF THE VILLA OF DIOMEDES AT POMPEII + +PLAN OF A TRICLINIUM + + + + +MAP + + +ROME IN THE LAST YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC _At end of Volume_ + + + + +Translations of passages in foreign languages in this book will be +found in the Appendix following page 362. + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +TOPOGRAPHICAL + +The modern traveller of to-day arriving at Rome by rail drives to his +hotel through the uninteresting streets of a modern town, and thence +finds his way to the Forum and the Palatine, where his attention +is speedily absorbed by excavations which he finds it difficult to +understand. It is as likely as not that he may leave Rome without once +finding an opportunity of surveying the whole site of the ancient +city, or of asking, and possibly answering the question, how it +ever came to be where it is. While occupied with museums and +picture-galleries, he may well fail "totam aestimare Romam."[1] +Assuming that the reader has never been in Rome, I wish to transport +him thither in imagination, and with the help of the map, by an +entirely different route. But first let him take up the eighth book of +the _Aeneid_, and read afresh the oldest and most picturesque of all +stories of arrival at Rome;[2] let him dismiss all handbooks from his +mind, and concentrate it on Aeneas and his ships on their way from the +sea to the site of the Eternal City. + +Virgil showed himself a true artist in bringing his hero up the Tiber, +which in his day was freely used for navigation up to and even above +the city. He saw that by the river alone he could land him exactly +where he could be shown by his friendly host, almost at a glance, +every essential feature of the site, every spot most hallowed by +antiquity in the minds of his readers. Rowing up the river, which +graciously slackened its swift current, Aeneas presently caught sight +of the walls and citadel, and landed just beyond the point where +the Aventine hill falls steeply almost to the water's edge. Here in +historical times was the dockyard of Rome; and here, when the poet was +a child, Cato had landed with the spoils of Cyprus, as the nearest +point of the river for the conveyance of that ill-gotten gain to the +treasury under the Capitol.[3] Virgil imagines the bank clothed with +wood, and in the wood--where afterwards was the Forum Boarium, a +crowded haunt--Aeneas finds Evander sacrificing at the Ara maxima of +Hercules, of all spots the best starting-point for a walk through the +heart of the ancient city. To the right was the Aventine, rising to +about a hundred and thirty feet above the river, and this was the +first of the hills of Rome to be impressed on the mind of the +stranger, by the tale of Hercules and Cacus which Evander tells his +guest. In front, but close by, was the long western flank of the +Palatine hill, where, when the tale had been told and the rites of +Hercules completed, Aeneas was to be shown the cave of the Lupercal; +and again to the left, approaching the river within two hundred yards, +was the Capitol to be: + + Hinc ad Tarpeiam sedem et Capitolia ducit, + Aurea nunc, olim silvestribus horrida dumis. + +Below it the hero is shown the shrine of the prophetic nymph Carmenta, +with the Porta Carmentalis leading into the Campus Martius; then the +hollow destined one day to be the Forum Romanum, and beyond it, in +the valley of the little stream that here found its way down from the +plain beyond, the grove of the Argiletum. Here, and up the slope of +the Clivus sacer, with which we shall presently make acquaintance, +were the lowing herds of Evander, who then takes his guest to repose +for the night in his own dwelling on the Palatine, the site of the +most ancient Roman settlement.[4] + +What Evander showed to his visitor, as we shall presently see, +comprised the whole site of the heart and life of the city as it was +to be, all that lay under the steep sides of the three almost isolated +hills, the Capitoline, Palatine, and Aventine. The poet knew that he +need not extend their walk to the other so-called hills, which come +down as spurs from the plain of the Campagna,--Quirinal, Esquiline, +Caelian. Densely populated as those were in his own day, they were not +essential organs of social and politics life; the pulse of Rome was to +be felt beating most strongly in the space between them and the river +where too the oldest and most cherished associations of the Roman +people, mythical and historical, were fixed. I propose to take the +reader, with a single deviation, over the same ground, and to ask him +to imagine it as it was in the period with which we are concerned in +this book. But first, in order to take in with eye and mind the whole +city and its position, let us leave Aeneas, and crossing to the right +bank of the Tiber by the Pons Aemilius,[5] let us climb to the fort of +the Janiculum, an ancient outwork against attack from the north, by +way of the via Aurelia, and here enjoy the view which Martial has made +forever famous: + + Hinc septem dominos videre montes + Et totam licet aestimare Romam, + Albanos quoque Tusculosque colles + Et quodcunque iacet sub urbe frigus. + +No one who has ever stood on the Janiculum, and looked down on the +river and the city, and across the Latin plain to the Alban mountain +and the long line of hills--the last spurs of the Apennines--enclosing +the plain to the north, can fail to realise that _Rome was originally +an outpost of the Latins_, her kinsmen and confederates, against the +powerful and uncanny Etruscan race who dwelt in the undulating hill +country to the north. The site was an outpost, because the three +isolated hills make it a natural point of defence, and of attack +towards the north if attack were desirable; no such point of similar +vantage is to be found lower down the river, and if the city had been +placed higher up, Latium would have been left open to attack,--the +three hills would have been left open to the enemy to gain a firm +footing on Latin soil. It was also, as it turned out, an admirable +base of operations for carrying on war in the long and narrow +peninsula, so awkward, as Hannibal found to his cost, for working out +a definite plan of conquest. From Rome, astride of the Tiber, armies +could operate on "interior lines" against any combination--could +strike north, east, and south at the same moment. With Latium faithful +behind her she could not be taken in the rear; the unconquerable +Hannibal did indeed approach her once on that side, but fell away +again like a wave on a rocky shore. From the sea no enemy ever +attempted to reach her till Genseric landed at Ostia in A.D. 455. + +Thus it is not difficult to understand how Rome came to be the leading +city of Latium; how she came to work her conquering way into Etruria +to the north, the land of a strange people who at one time threatened +to dominate the whole of Italy; how she advanced up the Tiber valley +and its affluents into the heart of the Apennines, and southward into +the Oscan country of Samnium and the rich plain of Campania. A glance +at the map of Italy will show us at once how apt is Livy's remark that +Rome was placed in the centre of the peninsula.[6] That peninsula +looks as if it were cleft in twain by the Tiber, or in other words, +the Tiber drains the greater part of central Italy, and carries the +water down a well-marked valley to a central point on the western +coast, with a volume greater than that of any other river south of the +Po. A city therefore that commands the Tiber valley, and especially +the lower part of it, is in a position of strategic advantage with +regard to the whole peninsula. Now Rome, as Strabo remarked, was the +only city actually situated on the bank of the river; and Rome was not +only on the river, but from the earliest times astride of it. She held +the land on both banks from her own site to the Tiber mouth at Ostia, +as we know from the fact that one of her most ancient priesthoods[7] +had its sacred grove five miles down the river on the northern bank. +Thus she had easy access to the sea by the river or by land, and an +open way inland up the one great natural entrance from the sea into +central Italy.[8] Her position on the Tiber is much like that of +Hispalis (Seville) on the Baetis, or of Arles on the Rhone, cities +opening the way of commerce or conquest up the basins of two great +rivers. In spite of some disadvantages, to be noticed directly, there +was no such favourable position in Italy for a virile people apt to +fight and to conquer. Capua, in the rich volcanic plain of Campania, +had far greater advantages in the way of natural wealth; but Capua was +too far south, in a more enervating climate, and virility was never +one of her strong points. Corfinium, in the heart of the Apennines, +once seemed threatening to become a rival, and was for a time the +centre of a rebellious confederation; but this city was too near the +east coast--an impossible position for a pioneer of Italian dominion. +Italy looks west, not east; almost all her natural harbours are on her +western side; and though that at Ostia, owing to the amount of silt +carried down by the Tiber, has never been a good one, it is the only +port which can be said to command an entrance into the centre of the +peninsula. + +No one, however, would contend that the position of Rome is an ideal +one. Taken in and by itself, without reference to Italy and the +Mediterranean, that position has little to recommend it. It is too far +from the sea, nearly twenty miles up the valley of a river with an +inconveniently rapid current, to be a great commercial or industrial +centre; and such a centre Rome has never really been in the whole +course of her history. There are no great natural sources of wealth in +the neighbourhood--no mines like those at Laurium in Attica, no vast +expanse of corn-growing country like that of Carthage. The river too +was liable to flood, as it still is, and a familiar ode of Horace +tells us how in the time of Augustus the water reached even to the +heart of the city.[9] Lastly, the site has never really been a healthy +one, especially during the months of July and August,[10] which are +the most deadly throughout the basin of the Mediterranean. Pestilences +were common at Rome in her early history, and have left their mark in +the calendar of her religious festivals; for example, the Apolline +games were instituted during the Hannibalic war as the result of a +pestilence, and fixed for the unhealthy month of July. Foreigners from +the north of Europe have always been liable to fever at Rome; invaders +from the north have never been able to withstand the climate for long; +in the Middle Ages one German army after another melted away under her +walls, and left her mysteriously victorious. + +There are some signs that the Romans themselves had occasional +misgivings about the excellence of their site. There was a tradition, +that after the burning of the city by the Gauls, it was proposed that +the people should desert the site and migrate to Veii, the conquered +Etruscan city to the north, and that it needed all the eloquence of +Camillus to dissuade them. It has given Livy[11] the opportunity of +putting into the orator's mouth a splendid encomium on the city and +its site; but no such story could well have found a place in Roman +annals if the Capitol had been as deeply set in the hearts of the +people as was the Acropolis in the hearts of the Athenians. At a later +time of deep depression Horace[12] could fancifully suggest that the +Romans should leave their ancient home like the Phocaeans of old, and +seek a new one in the islands of the blest. Some idea was abroad that +Caesar had meant to transfer the seat of government to Ilium, and +after Actium the same intention was ascribed to Augustus, probably +without reason; but the third ode of Horace's third book seems to +express the popular rumour, and in an interesting paper Mommsen[13] +has stated his opinion that the new master of the Roman world may +really have thought of changing the seat of government to Byzantium, +the supreme convenience and beauty of which were already beginning to +be appreciated.[14] + +Virgil, on the other hand, though he came from the foot of the Alps +and did not love Rome as a place to dwell in, is absolutely true to +the great traditions of the site. For him "rerum facta est pulcherrima +Roma" (_Georg_. ii. 534); and in the _Aeneid_ the destiny of Rome is +so foretold and expressed as to make it impossible for a Roman reader +to think of it except in connexion with the city. He who needs to be +convinced of this has but to turn once more to the eighth _Aeneid_, +and to add to the charming story of Aeneas' first visit to the seven +hills, the splendid picture of the origin and growth of Roman dominion +engraved on the shield which Venus gives her son. Cicero again, though +he was no Roman by birth, was passionately fond of Rome, and in his +treatise _de Republica_, praised with genuine affection her "nativa +praesidia."[15] He says of Romulus, "that he chose a spot abounding in +springs, healthy though in a pestilent region; for her hills are open +to the breezes, yet give shade to the hollows below them." And Livy, +in the passage already quoted, in language even more perfect than +Cicero's, wrote of all the advantages of the site, ending by +describing it as "regionum Italiae medium, ad incrementum urbis natum +unice locum." It is curious that all these panegyrics were written by +men who were not natives of Rome; Virgil came from Mantua, Livy from +Padua, Cicero from Arpinum. They are doubtless genuine, though in +some degree rhetorical; those of Cicero and Livy can hardly be called +strictly accurate. But taken together they may help us to understand +that fascination of the site of Rome, to which Virgil gave such +inimitable expression. + +On this site, which once had been crowded only when the Roman farmers +had taken refuge within the walls with their families, flocks, and +herds on the threatening appearance of an enemy, by the time of Cicero +an enormous population had gathered. Many causes had combined to bring +this population together, which can be only glanced at here. As in +Europe and America at the present day, so in all the Mediterranean +lands since the age of Alexander, there had been a constantly +increasing tendency to flock into the towns; and the rise of huge +cities, such as Antioch, Alexandria, Carthage, Corinth, or Rhodes, +with all the inevitably ensuing social problems and complications, is +one of the most marked characteristics of the last three centuries +B.C. In Italy in particular, apart from the love of a pleasant social +life free from manual toil, with various convenient resorts and +amusements, the long series of wars had served to increase the +population, in spite of the constant loss by the sword or pestilence; +for the veteran soldier who had been serving, perhaps for years, +beyond sea, found it hard to return to the monotonous life of +agriculture, or perhaps found his holding appropriated by some +powerful landholder with whom it would be hopeless to contest +possession. The wars too brought a steadily increasing population +of slaves to the city, many of whom in course of time would be +manumitted, would marry, and so increase the free population. These +are only a few of the many causes at work after the Punic wars which +crammed together in the site of Rome a population which, in the latter +part of the last century B.C., probably reached half a million or even +more.[16] + +Let us now descend from the Janiculum, and try to imagine ourselves in +the Rome of Cicero's time, say in the last year of the Republic, 50 +B.C., as we walk through the busy haunts of this crowded population. +We will not delay on the right bank of the Tiber, which had probably +long been the home of tradesmen in their gilds,[17] and where farther +down the rich were buying land for gardens[18] and suburban villas; +but cross by the Pons Aemilius, with the Tiber island on our left, and +the opening of the Cloaca maxima, which drained the water from the +Forum, facing us, as it still does, a little to our right. We find +ourselves close to the Forum Boarium, an open cattle-market, with +shops (tabernae) all around it, as we know from Livy's record of +a fire here, which burnt many of these shops and much valuable +merchandise.[19] Here by the river was in fact the market in the +modern sense of the word; the Forum Romanum, which we are making for, +was now the centre of political and judicial business, and of social +life. + +We might go direct to the great Forum, up the Velabrum, or valley +(once a marsh), right in front of us between the Capitol on the left +and the Palatine on the right. But as we look in the latter direction, +we are attracted by a long low erection almost filling the space +between the Palatine and the Aventine, and turning in that direction +we find ourselves at the lower end of the Circus Maximus, which as +yet is the chief place of amusement of the Roman people. Two famous +shrines, one at each end of it, remind us that we are on historic +ground. At the end where we stand, and where are the _carceres_, the +starting-point for the competing chariots, was the Ara maxima of +Hercules, which prompted Evander to tell the tale of Cacus to his +guest; at the other end was the subterranean altar of Consus the +harvest-god, with which was connected another tale, that of the rape +of the Sabines. All the associations of this quarter point to the +agricultural character of the early Romans; both cattle and harvesting +have their appropriate myth. But nothing is visible here now, except +the pretty little round temple of a later date, which is believed to +have been that of Portunus, the god of the landing-place from the +river.[20] + +The Circus, some six hundred yards long, at the time of Cicero was +still mainly a wooden erection in the form of a long parallelogram, +with shops or booths sheltering under its sides; we shall visit it +again when dealing with the public entertainments.[21] Above it on the +right is the Aventine hill, a densely populated quarter of the lower +classes, crowned with the famous temple of Diana, a deity specially +connected with the plebs.[22] The Clivus Patricius led up to this +temple; down this slope, on the last day of his life, Gaius Gracchus +had hurried, to cross the river and meet his murderers in the grove of +Furrina, of which the site has lately been discovered. If we were to +ascend it we should see, on the river-bank below and beyond it, +the warehouses and granaries for storing the corn for the city's +food-supply, which Gracchus had been the first to extend and organise. + +But to ascend the Aventine would take us out of our course. Pushing +on to the farther end of the Circus, where the chariots turned at the +_metae_, we may pause a moment, for in front of us is a gate in the +city wall, the Porta Capena, by which most travellers from the south, +using the via Appia or the via Latina, would enter the city.[23] +Outside the wall there was then a small temple of Mars, from which the +procession of the Equites started each year on the Ides of Quinctilis +(July) on its way to the Capitol, by the same route that we are about +to take. We shall also be following the steps of Cicero on the happy +day September 4, 57 B.C., when he returned from exile. "On my arrival +at the Porta Capena," he writes to Atticus, "the steps of the temples +were already crowded from top to bottom by the populace; they showed +their congratulations by the loudest applause, and similar crowds and +applause followed me right up to the Capitol, and in the Forum and on +the Capitol itself there was again a wonderful throng" (_ad Att._ iv. +1). + +We are now, as the map will show, at the south-eastern angle of the +Palatine, of which, in fact, we are making the circuit;[24] a and here +we turn sharp to the left, by what is now the via di San Gregorio, +along a narrow valley or dip between the Palatine and Caelian +hills--the latter the first we have met of the "hills" which are not +isolated, but spurs of the plain of the Campagna. The Caelian need not +detain us; it was thickly populated towards the end of the Republican +period, but was not a very fashionable quarter, nor one of the chief +haunts of social life. It held many of those large lodging-houses +(insulae) of which we shall hear more in the next chapter; one of +these stood so high that it interfered with the view of the augur +taking the auspices on the Capitol, and was ordered to be pulled +down.[25] Going straight on reach the north-eastern angle of the +Palatine, where now stands the arch of Constantine, with the Colosseum +beyond it, and turning once more to the left, we begin to ascend a +gentle slope which will take us to a ridge between the Palatine and +the Esquiline[26]--another of the spurs of the plain beyond--known by +the name of the Velia. And now we are approaching the real heart of +the city. + +At this point starts the Sacra via,[27] so called because it is the +way to the most sacred spots of the ancient Roman city,--the temples +of Vesta and the Penates, and the Regia, once the dwelling of the Rex, +now of the Pontifex Maximus; and it will lead us, in a walk of about +eight hundred yards, through the Forum to the Capitol. It varied in +breadth, and took by no means a straight course, and later on was +crowded, cramped, and deflected by numerous temples and other +buildings; but as yet, so far as we can guess, it was fairly free and +open. We follow it and ascend the slope till we come to a point known +as the _summa sacra via_, just where the arch of Titus now stands, and +where then was the temple of Jupiter Stator, and where also a shrine +of the public Penates and another of the Lares (of which no trace is +now left) warn us that we are close on the penetralia of the Roman +State. Here a way to the left leads up to the Palatine the residence +then of many of the leading men of Rome, Cicero being one of them. + +But our attention is not long arrested by these objects; it is soon +riveted on the Forum below and in front of us, to which the Sacred Way +leads by a downward slope, the Clivus sacer. At the north-western end +it is closed in by the Capitoline hill, with its double summit, the +arx to the right, and the great temple of Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva +facing south-east towards the Aventine. It is of this view that +Virgil must have been thinking when he wrote of the happy lot of the +countryman who + + nec ferrea iura + insanumque forum aut populi tabularia vidit.[28] + +For the Forum is crowded with bustling human figures, intent on the +business of politics, or of the law-courts (ferrea iura), or of +money-making, and just beyond it, immediately under the Capitol, are +the record-offices (tabularia) of the Roman Empire. The whole Sacra +via from this point is crowded; here Horace a generation later was to +meet his immortal "bore," from whom he only escaped when the "ferrea +iura" laid a strong hand on that terrible companion. Down below, at +the entrance to the Forum by the arch of Fabius (fornix Fabiana), the +jostling was great. "If I am knocked about in the crowd at the arch," +says Cicero, to illustrate a point in a speech of this time, "I do not +accuse some one at the top of the via Sacra, but the man who jostles +me."[29] + +The Forum--for from this point we can take it all in, geologically and +historically--lies in a deep hollow, to the original level of which +excavation has now at last reached. This hollow was formed by a stream +which came down between the Esquiline and the Quirinal beyond it, +and made its exit towards the river on the other side by way of the +Velabrum. As the city extended itself, amalgamating with another +community on the Quirinal, this hollow became a common meeting-place +and market, and the stream was in due time drained by that Cloaca +which we saw debouching into the Tiber near the bridge we crossed. +The upper course of this stream, between Esquiline and Quirinal, is a +densely populated quarter known as the Argiletum, and higher up as the +Subura,[30] where artisans and shops abounded. The lower part of its +course, where it has become an invisible drain, is also a crowded +street, the vicus Tuscus, leading to the Velabrum, and so to our +starting-point at the Forum Boarium. + +Let us now descend the Clivus sacer, crossing to the right-hand side +of the slope, which the via Sacra now follows, and reach the Forum by +the fornix Fabiana. Close by to our left is the round temple of +Vesta, where the sacred fire of the State is kept ever burning by its +guardians, the Vestal Virgins, and here too is their dwelling, the +Atrium Vestae, and also that of the Pontifex Maximus (Regia), in whose +potestas they were; these three buildings, then insignificant to look +at, constituted the religious focus of the oldest Rome.[31] A little +farther again to the left is the temple of Castor and the spring of +Juturna, lately excavated, where the Twins watered their steeds after +the battle of the lake Regillus. In front of us we can see over the +heads of the crowd the Rostra at the farther end of the Forum, where +an orator is perhaps addressing a crowd (_contio_) on some political +question of the moment, and giving some occupation to the idlers +in the throng; and to the right of the Rostra is the Comitium +or assembling-place of the people, with the Curia, the ancient +meeting-hall of the senate. In Cicero's day the mere shopman had been +got rid of from the Forum, and his place is taken by the banker and +money-lender, who do their business in _tabernae_ stretching in rows +along both sides of the open space. Much public business, judicial and +other, is done in the Basilicae,--roofed halls with colonnades, of +which there are already five, and a new one is arising on the south +side, of which the ground-plan, as it was extended soon afterwards by +Julius Caesar, is now completely laid bare. But it is becoming evident +that the business of the Empire cannot be much longer crowded into +this narrow space of the Forum, which is only about two hundred yards +long by seventy; and the next two generations will see new Fora +laid out larger and more commodious, by Julius and Augustus in the +direction of the Quirinal. + +Now making our way towards the Capitol, we pass the famous temple or +rather gate of the double-headed Janus, standing at the entrance +to the Forum from the Argiletum and the Porta Esquilina; then the +Comitium and Curia (which last was burnt by the mob in 52 B.C., at the +funeral of Clodius), and reach the foot of the Clivus Capitolinus, +just where was (and is) the ancient underground prison, called +Tullianum, from the old word for a spring (_tullus_), the scene of the +deaths of Jugurtha and many noble captives, and of the Catilinarian +conspirators on December 5, 63. Here the via Sacra turns, in front of +the temple of Concordia, to ascend the Capitol. Behind this temple, +extending farther under the slope, is the Tabularium, already +mentioned, which is still much as it was then; and below us to the +south is the temple of Saturnus, the treasury (_aerarium_) of the +Roman people. Thus at this end of the Forum, under the Capitol, +are the whole set of public offices, facing the ancient religious +buildings around the Vesta temple at the other end. + +The way now turns again to the right, and reaches the depression +between the two summits of the Capitoline hill. Leaving the arx on the +left, we reach by a long flight of steps the greatest of all Roman +temples, placed on a long platform with solid substructures of +Etruscan workmanship, part of which is still to be seen in the garden +of the German Embassy. The temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, with +his companions Juno and Minerva, was in a special sense the religious +centre of the State and its dominion. Whatever view he might take of +the gods and their cults, every Roman instinctively believed that this +great Jupiter, above all other deities, watched over the welfare of +Rome, and when a generation later Virgil placed the destiny of Rome's +mythical hero in the hands of Jupiter, every Roman recognised in this +his own inherited conviction. Here, on the first day of their office, +the higher magistrates offered sacrifice in fulfilment of the vows of +their predecessors, and renewed the same vows themselves. The consul +about to leave the city for a foreign war made it his last duty to +sacrifice here, and on his return he deposited here his booty. Here +came the triumphal procession along the Sacred Way, the conquering +general attired and painted like the statue of the god within the +temple; and upon the knees of the statue he placed his wreath of +laurel, rendering up to the deity what he had himself deigned to +bestow. Here too, from a pedestal on the platform, a statue of Jupiter +looked straight over the Forum,[32] the Curia, and the Comitium; and +Cicero could declare from the Rostra, and know that in so declaring he +was touching the hearts of his hearers, that on that same day on which +it had first been so placed, the machinations of Catiline and his +conspirators had been detected.[33] "Ille, ille Iupiter restitit; +ille Capitolium, ille haec templa, ille cunctam urbem, ille vos omnes +salvos esse voluit." + +The temple had been destroyed by fire in the time of Sulla, and its +restoration was not as yet finally completed at the time of our +imaginary walk.[34] It faced towards the river and the Aventine, i.e. +south-east, according to the rules of augural lore, like all Roman +public buildings of the Republican period. From the platform on which +it stands we look down on the Forum Boarium, from which we started, +connected with the Forum by the Velabrum and the vicus Tuscus; and +more to the right below us is the Campus Martius, with access to the +city by that Porta Carmentalis which Evander showed to Aeneas. This +spacious exercise-ground of Roman armies is already beginning to be +built upon; in fact the Circus Flaminius has been there for more than +a century and a half, and now the new theatre of Pompeius, the first +stone theatre in Rome, rises beyond it towards the Vatican hill. But +there is ample space left; for it is nearly a mile from the Capitol +to that curve of the Tiber above which the Church of St. Peter now +stands; and on this large expanse, at the present day, the greater +part of a population of nearly half a million is housed. I do not +propose to take the reader farther. We have been through the heart of the +city, as it was at the close of the Republican period, and from the +platform of the great temple we can see all else that we need to keep +in mind in these chapters. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +THE LOWER POPULATION (PLEBS URBANA) + +The walk we have been taking has led us only through the heart of +the city, in which were the public buildings, temples, basilicas, +porticos, etc., of which we hear so much in Latin literature. It was +on the hills which are spurs of the plain beyond, and which look down +over the Forum and the Campus Martius, the Caelian, Esquiline, and +Quirinal, with the hollows lying between them, and also on the +Aventine by the river, that the mass of the population lived. The most +ancient fortification of completed Rome, the so-called Servian wall +and _agger_, enclosed a singularly large space, larger, we are told, +than the walls of any old city in Italy;[35] it is likely that a +good part of this space was long unoccupied by houses, and served to +shelter the cattle of the farmers living outside, when an enemy was +threatening attack. But in Cicero's time, as to-day, all this space +was covered with dwellings; and as the centre of the city came to be +occupied with public buildings, erected on sites often bought from +private owners, the houses were gradually pushed out along the roads +beyond the walls. Exactly the same process has been going on for +centuries in the University city of Oxford where the erection of +colleges gradually absorbed the best sites within the old walls, so +that many of the dwelling-houses are now quite two miles from the +centre of the city. The fact is attested for Rome by the famous +municipal law of Julius Caesar, which directs that for a mile outside +the gates every resident is to look after the repair of the road in +front of his own house.[36] + +As a general rule, the heights in Rome were occupied by the better +class of residents, and the hollows by the lower stratum of +population. This was not indeed entirely so, for poor people no doubt +lived on the Aventine, the Caelian, and parts of the Esquiline. But +the Palatine was certainly an aristocratic quarter; the Carinae, the +height looking down on the hollow where the Colosseum now stands, had +many good houses, e.g. those of Pompeius and of Quintus Cicero, and +we know of one man of great wealth, Atticus, who lived on the +Quirinal.[37] It was in the narrow hollows leading down from these +heights to the Forum, such as the Subura between Esquiline and +Quirinal, and the Argiletum farther down near the Forum, that we meet +in literature what we may call the working classes; the Argiletum, for +example, was famous both for its booksellers and its shoemakers,[38] +and the Subura is the typical street of tradesmen. And no doubt the +big lodging-houses in which the lower classes dwelt were to be found +in all parts of Rome, except the strictly aristocratic districts like +the Palatine. + +The whole free population may roughly be divided into three classes, +of which the first two, constituting together the social aristocracy, +were a mere handful in number compared with the third. At the top of +the social order was the governing class, or _ordo senatorius_: then +came the _ordo equester_, comprising all the men of business, bankers, +money-lenders, and merchants (_negotiatores_) or contractors for the +raising of taxes and many other purposes (_publicani_). Of these two +upper classes and their social life we shall see something in later +chapters; at present we are concerned with the "masses," at least +320,000 in number,[39] and the social problems which their existence +presented, or ought to have presented, to an intelligent Roman +statesman of Cicero's time. + +Unfortunately, just as we know but little of the populous districts of +Rome, so too we know little of its industrial population. The upper +classes, including all writers of memoirs and history, were not +interested in them. There was no philanthropist, no devoted inquirer +like Mr. Charles Booth, to investigate their condition or try to +ameliorate it. The statesman, if he troubled himself about them at +all, looked on them as a dangerous element of society, only to be +considered as human beings at election time; at all other times merely +as animals that had to be fed, in order to keep them from becoming an +active peril. The philosopher, even the Stoic, whose creed was by far +the most ennobling in that age, seems to have left the dregs of the +people quite out of account; though his philosophy nominally took the +whole of mankind into its cognisance, it believed the masses to be +degraded and vicious, and made no effort to redeem them.[40] The Stoic +might profess the tenderest feeling towards all mankind, as Cicero +did, when moved by some recent reading of Stoic doctrine; he might say +that "men were born for the sake of men, that each should help the +other," or that "Nature has inclined us to love men, for this is the +foundation of all law";[41] but when in actual social or political +contact with the same masses Cicero could only speak of them with +contempt or disgust. It is a melancholy and significant fact that what +little we do know from literature about this class is derived from the +part they occasionally played in riots and revolutionary disorders. +It is fortunately quite impossible that the historian of the future +should take account of the life of the educated and wealthy only; but +in the history of the past and especially of the last three centuries +B.C., we have to contend with this difficulty, and can only now and +then find side-lights thrown upon the great mass of mankind. The +crime, the crowding, the occasional suffering from starvation and +pestilence, in the unfashionable quarters of such a city as Rome, +these things are hidden from us, and rarely even suggested by the +histories we commonly read. + +The three questions to which I wish to make some answer in this +chapter are: (1) how was this population housed? (2) how was it +supplied with food and clothing? and (3) how was it employed? + +1. It was of course impossible in a city like Rome that each man, +married or unmarried, should have his own house; this is not so even +in the great majority of modern industrial towns, though we in England +are accustomed to see our comparatively well-to-do artisans dwelling +in cottages spreading out into the country. At Rome only the wealthy +families lived in separate houses (_domus_), about which we shall have +something to say in another chapter. The mass of the population lived, +or rather ate and slept (for southern climates favour an out-of-door +life), in huge lodging-houses called islands (_insulae_), because they +were detached from other buildings, and had streets on all sides of +them, as islands have water.[42] These _insulae_ were often three or +four stories high;[43] the ground-floor was often occupied by shops, +kept perhaps by some of the lodgers, and the upper floors by single +rooms, with small windows looking out on the street or into an +interior court. The common name for such a room was _coenaculum_, or +dining-room, a word which seems to be taken over from the _coenaculum_ +of private houses, i.e. an eating-room on the first floor, where there +was one. Once indeed we hear of an _aedicula_, in an insula, which was +perhaps the equivalent of a modern "flat"; it was inhabited by a young +bachelor of good birth, M. Caelius Rufus, the friend of Cicero, and +in this case the insula was probably one of a superior kind.[44] +The common lodging-house must have been simply a rabbit-warren, the +crowded inhabitants using their rooms only for eating and sleeping, +while for the most part they prowled about, either idling or getting +such employment as they could, legitimate or otherwise. + +In such a life there could of course have been no idea of home, or of +that simple and sacred family life which had once been the ethical +basis of Roman society.[45] When we read Cicero's thrilling language +about the loss of his own house, after his return from exile, and then +turn to think of the homeless crowds in the rabbit-warrens of Rome, we +can begin to feel the contrast between the wealth and poverty of that +day. "What is more strictly protected," he says, "by all religious +feeling, than the house of each individual citizen? Here is his altar, +his hearth, here are his Di Penates: here he keeps all the objects +of his worship and performs all his religious rites: his house is +a refuge so solemnly protected, that no one can be torn from it by +force."[46] The warm-hearted Cicero is here, as so often, dreaming +dreams: the "each individual citizen" of whom he speaks is the citizen +of his own acquaintance, not the vast majority, with whom his mind +does not trouble itself. + +These insulae were usually built or owned by men of capital, and were +often called by the names of their owners. Cicero, in one of his +letters,[47] incidentally mentions that he had money thus invested; +and we are disposed to wonder whether his insulae were kept in good +repair, for in another letter he happens to tell his man of business +that shops (tabernae) belonging to him were tumbling down and +unoccupied. It is more than likely that many of the insulae were badly +built by speculators, and liable to collapse. The following passage +from Plutarch's _Life of Crassus_ suggests this, though, if Plutarch +is right, Crassus did not build himself, but let or sold his sites and +builders to others: "Observing (in Sulla's time) the accidents that +were familiar at Rome, conflagrations and tumbling down of houses +owing to their weight and crowded state, he bought slaves who were +architects and builders. Having collected these to the number of more +than five hundred, it was his practice to buy up houses on fire, and +houses next to those on fire: for the owners, frightened and anxious, +would sell them cheap. And thus the greater part of Rome fell into +the hands of Crassus: but though he had so many artisans, he built no +house except his own, for he used to say that those who were fond of +building ruined themselves without the help of an enemy."[48] The +fall of houses, and their destruction in the frequent fires, became +familiar features of life at Rome about this time, and are alluded to +by Catullus in his twenty-third poem, and later on by Strabo in his +description of Rome (p. 235). It must indeed have often happened that +whole families were utterly homeless;[49] and in those days there +were no insurance offices, no benefit societies, no philanthropic +institutions to rescue the suffering from undeserved misery. As we +shall see later on, they were constantly in debt, and in the hands of +the money-lender; and against his extortions their judicial remedies +were most precarious. But all this is hidden from our eyes: only now +and again we can hear a faint echo of their inarticulate cry for help. + +2. The needs of these poorer classes in respect of food and drink were +very small; it was only the vast number of them that made the supply +difficult. The Italians, like the Greeks,[50] were then as now almost +entirely vegetarians; cattle and sheep were used for the production +of cheese, leather, and wool or for sacrifices to the gods; the only +animal commonly eaten, until luxury came in with increasing wealth, +was the pig, and grain and vegetables were the staple food of the poor +man, both in town and country. Among the lesser poems ascribed to +Virgil there is one, the _Moretum_, which gives a charming picture of +the food-supply of the small cultivator in the country. He rises very +early, gropes his way to the hearth, and stirs the embers into flame: +then takes from his meal-bin a supply of grain for three days and +proceeds to grind it in a hand-mill, knead it with water, shape it +into round cakes divided into four parts like a "hot-cross bun," and, +with the help of his one female slave, to bake these in the embers. He +has no sides of smoked bacon, says the poet, hanging from his roof, +but only a cheese, so to add to his meal he goes into his garden and +gathers thence a number of various herbs and vegetables, which he then +makes into the hotch-potch, or _pot-au-feu_ which gives the name to +the poem. This bit of delicate genre-painting, which is as good in its +way as anything in Crabbe's homely poems, has indeed nothing to tell +us of life in an insula at Rome; but it may serve to show what was the +ordinary food of the Italian of that day.[51] The absence of the sides +of bacon ("durati sale terga suis," line 57) is interesting. No doubt +the Roman took meat when he could get it; but to have to subsist on +it, even for a short time, was painful to him, and more than once +Caesar remarks on the endurance of his soldiers in submitting to eat +meat when corn was not to be had.[52] + +The corn which was at this time the staple food of the Romans of the +city was wheat, and wheat of a good kind; in primitive times it had +been an inferior species called _far_, which survived in Cicero's day +only in the form of cakes offered to the gods in religious ceremonies. +The wheat was not brought from Italy or even from Latium; what each +Italian community then grew was not more than supplied its own +inhabitants,[53] and the same was the case with the country villas +of the rich, and the huge sheep-farms worked by slaves. By far the +greater part of Italy is mountainous, and not well suited to the +production of corn on a large scale; and for long past other causes +had combined to limit what production there was. Transport too, +whether by road or river, was full of difficulty, while on the other +hand a glance at the map will show that the voyage for corn-ships +between Rome and Sicily, Sardinia, or the province of Africa (the +former dominion of Carthage), was both short and easy--far shorter and +easier than the voyage from Cisalpine Gaul or even from Apulia, where +the peninsula was richest in good corn-land. So we are not surprised +to find that, according to tradition, which is fully borne out by more +certain evidence,[54] corn had been brought to Rome from Sicily as +early as 492 B.C. to relieve a famine, or that since Sicily, Sardinia, +and Africa had become Roman provinces, their vast productive capacity +was utilised to feed the great city. + +Nor indeed need we be surprised to find that the State has taken over +the task of feeding the Roman population, and of feeding it cheaply, +if only we are accustomed to think, not merely to read, about life in +the city at this period. Nothing is more difficult for the ordinary +reader of ancient history than to realise the difficulty of feeding +large masses of human beings, whether crowded in towns or soldiers in +the field. Our means of transport are now so easily and rapidly set +in action and maintained, that it would need a war with some great +sea-power to convince us that London or Glasgow might, under certain +untoward circumstances, be starved; and as our attention has never +been drawn to the details of food-supply, we do not readily see why +there should have been any such difficulty at Rome as to call for the +intervention of the State. Perhaps the best way to realise the problem +is to reflect that every adult inhabitant needed about four and a half +pecks of corn per month, or some three pounds a day; so that if the +population of Rome be taken at half a million in Cicero's time, a +million and a half pounds would be demanded as the daily consumption +of the people.[55] I have already said that in the last three +centuries B.C. there was a universal tendency to leave the country for +the towns; and we now know that many other cities besides Rome +not only felt the same difficulty, but actually used the same +remedy--State importation of cheap corn.[56] Even comparatively small +cities like Dyrrhachium and Apollonia in Epirus, as Caesar tells us +while narrating his own difficulty in feeding his army there, used for +the most part imported corn.[57] And we must remember that while some +of the greatest cities on the Mediterranean, such as Alexandria and +Antioch, were within easy reach of vast corn-fields, this was not the +case with Rome. Either she must organise her corn-supply on a secure +basis, or get rid of her swarms of poor inhabitants; the latter +alternative might have been possible if she had been willing to let +them starve, but probably in no other way. To attempt to put them out +upon the land again was hopeless; they knew nothing of agriculture, +and were unused to manual labour, which they despised. + +Thus ever since Rome had been a city of any size it had been the duty +of the plebeian aediles to see that it was adequately supplied with +corn, and in times of dearth or other difficulty these magistrates had +to take special measures to procure it. With a population steadily +rising since the war with Hannibal, and after the acquisition of two +corn-growing provinces, to which Africa was added in 146 B.C., it was +natural that they should turn their attention more closely to the +resources of these; and now the provincial governors had to see that +the necessary amount of corn was furnished from these provinces at a +fixed price, and that a low one.[58] In 123 B.C. Gaius Gracchus took +the matter in hand, and made it a part of his whole far-reaching +political scheme. The plebs urbana had become a very awkward element +in the calculations of a statesman, and to have it in a state of +starvation, or even fearing such a state, was dangerous in the +extreme, as every Roman statesman had to learn in the course of the +two following centuries. The aediles, we may guess, were quite unequal +to the work demanded of them; and at times victorious provincial +governors would bring home great quantities of corn and give it away +gratis for their private purposes, with bad results both economic +and moral. Gracchus saw that the work of supply needed thorough +organisation in regard to production, transport, warehousing, and +finance, and set about it with a delight in hard work such as no Roman +statesman had shown before, believing that if the people could be +fed cheaply and regularly, they would cease to be "a troublesome +neighbour."[59] We do not know the details of his scheme of +organisation except in one particular, the price at which the corn +was to be sold per _modius_ (peck): this was to be six and one-third +_asses_, or rather less than half the normal market-price of the day, +so far as it can be made out. Whether he believed that the cost of +production could be brought down to this level by regularity of demand +and transport we cannot tell; it seems at any rate probable that he +had gone carefully into the financial aspect of the business.[60] But +there can hardly be a doubt that he miscalculated, and that the result +of the law by which he sought to effect his object was a yearly +loss to the treasury, so that after his time, and until his law was +repealed by Sulla, the people were really being fed largely at the +expense of the State, and thus lapsing into a state of semipauperism, +with bad ethical consequences. + +One of these consequences was that inconsiderate statesmen would only +too readily seize the chance of reducing the price of the corn still +lower, as was done by Saturninus in 100 B.C., for political purposes. +To prevent this Sulla abolished the Gracchan system _in toto_; but it +was renewed in 73 B.C., and in 58 the demagogue P. Clodius made the +distribution of corn gratuitous. In 46 Caesar found that no less than +320,000 persons were receiving corn from the State for nothing; by a +bill, of which we still possess a part,[61] he reduced the number to +150,000, and by a rigid system of rules, of which we know something, +contrived to ensure that it should be kept at that point. With the +policy of Augustus and his successors in regard to the corn-supply +(_annona_) I am not here concerned; but it is necessary to observe +that with the establishment of the Empire the plebs urbana ceased to +be of any importance in politics, and could be treated as a petted +population, from whom no harm was to be expected if they were kept +comfortable and amused. Augustus seems to have found himself compelled +to take up this attitude towards them, and he was able to do so +because he had thoroughly reorganised the public finance and knew what +he could afford for the purpose. But in time of Cicero the people were +still powerful legislation and elections, and the public finance was +disorganised and in confusion; and the result was that the corn-supply +was mixed up with politics,[62] and handled by reckless politicians +in a way that was as ruinous to the treasury as it was to the moral +welfare of the city. The whole story, from Gracchus onwards, is a +wholesome lesson on the mischief of granting "outdoor relief" in any +form whatever, without instituting the means of inquiry into each +individual case. Gracchus' intentions were doubtless honest and good; +but "ubi semel recto deerratum est, in praeceps pervenitur." + +The drink of the Roman was water, but he mixed it with wine whenever +he had the chance. Fortunately for him he had no other intoxicating +drink; we hear neither of beer nor spirits in Roman literature. Italy +was well suited to the cultivation of the vine; and though down to the +last century of the Republic the choice kinds of wine came chiefly +from Greece, yet we have unquestionable proof that wine was made in +the neighbourhood of Rome at the very outset of Roman history. In the +oldest religious calendar[63] we find two festivals called Vinalia, +one in April and the other in August; what exactly was the relation of +each of them to the operations of viticulture is by no means clear, +but we know that these operations were under the protection of +Jupiter, and that his priest, the Flamen Dialis, offered to him the +first-fruits of the vintage. The production of rough wine must indeed +have been large, for we happen to know that it was at times remarkably +cheap. In 250 B.C., in many ways a wonderfully productive year, wine +was sold at an _as_ the _congius_, which is nearly three quarts;[64] +under the early Empire Columella (iii. 3. 10) reckoned the amphora +(nearly 6 gallons) at 15 sesterces, i.e. about eightpence That the +common citizen did expect to be able to qualify his water with wine +seems proved by a story told by Suetonius, that when the people +complained to Augustus that the price of wine was too high, he +curtly and wisely answered that Agrippa had but lately given them an +excellent water-supply.[65] It looks as though they were claiming to +have wine as well as grain supplied them by the government at a low +price or gratuitously; but this was too much even for Augustus. For +his water the Roman, it need hardly be said, paid nothing. On the +whole, at the time of which we are speaking he was fairly well +supplied with it; but in this, as in so many other matters of urban +administration, it was under Augustus that an abundant supply was +first procured and maintained by an excellent system of management. +Frontinus, to whose work _de Aqueductibus_ we owe almost all that we +know about the Roman water-supply, tells us that for four hundred and +forty-one years after the foundation of the city the Romans contented +themselves with such water as they could get from the Tiber, from +wells, and from natural springs, and adds that some of the springs +were in his day still held in honour on account of their health-giving +qualities.[66] Cicero describes Rome, in his idealising way, as "locum +fontibus abundantem," and twenty-three springs are known to have +existed; but as early 312 B.C. it was found necessary to seek +elsewhere for a purer and more regular supply. More than six miles +from Rome, on the via Collatina, springs were found and utilised for +this purpose, which have lately been re-discovered at the bottom of +some stone quarries; and hence the water was brought by underground +pipes along the line of the same road to the city, and through it to +the foot of the Aventine, the plebeian quarter. This was the Aqua +Appia, named after the famous censor Appius Claudius Caecus, whom +Mommsen has shown to have been a friend of the people.[67] Forty years +later another censor, Manius Curius Dentatus, brought a second supply, +also by an underground channel, from the river Anio near Tibur +(Tivoli), the water of which, never of the first quality, was used for +the irrigation of gardens and the flushing of drains. In 144 B.C. +it was found that these two old aqueducts were out of repair and +insufficient, and this time a praetor, Q. Marcius Rex (probably +through the influence of a family clique), was commissioned to set +them in order and to procure a fresh supply. He went much farther than +his predecessors had gone for springs, and drew a volume of excellent +and clear cold water from the Sabine hills beyond Tibur, thirty-six +miles from the city, which had the highest reputation at all times; +and for the last six miles of its course it was carried above ground +upon a series of arches.[68] One other aqueduct was added in 125 B.C. +the Aqua Tepula, so called because its water was unusually warm; and +the whole amount of water entering Rome in the last century of the +Republic is estimated at more than 700,000 cubic metres per diem, +which would amply suffice for a population of half a million. At the +present day Rome, with a population of 450,000, receives from all +sources only 379,000.[69] Baths, both public and private, were already +beginning to come into fashion; of these more will be said later +on. The water for drinking was collected in large _castella_, or +reservoirs, and thence distributed into public fountains, of which +one still survives--the "Trofei di Mario," in the Piazza Vittorio +Emmanuele on the Esquiline.[70] When the supply came to be large +enough, the owners of insulae and domus were allowed to have water +laid on by private pipes, as we have it in modern towns; but it is not +certain when this permission was first given. + +3. But we must return to the individual Roman of the masses, whom we +have now seen well supplied with the necessaries of life, and try +to form some idea of the way in which he was employed, or earned a +living. This is by no means an easy task, for these small people, as +we have already seen, did not interest their educated fellow-citizens, +and for this reason we hear hardly anything of them in the literature +of the time. Not only a want of philanthropic feeling in their +betters, but an inherited contempt for all small industry and retail +dealing, has helped to hide them away from us: an _inherited_ +contempt, because it is in fact a survival from an older social +system, when the citizen did not need the work of the artisan and +small retailer, but supplied all his own wants within the circle of +his household, i.e. his own family and slaves, and produced on his +farm the material of his food and clothing. And the survival was all +the stronger, because even in the late Republic the abundant supply of +slaves enabled the man of capital still to dispense largely with the +services of the tradesman and artisan. + +Cicero expresses this contempt for the artisan and trading classes in +more than one striking passage. One, in his treatise on Duties, is +probably paraphrased from the Greek of Panaetius, the philosopher who +first introduced Stoicism to the Romans, and modified it to suit +their temperament, but it is quite clear that Cicero himself entirely +endorses the Stoic view. "All gains made by hired labourers," he says, +"are dishonourable and base, for what we buy of them is their labour, +not their artistic skill: with them the very gain itself does but +increase the slavishness of the work. All retail dealing too may be +put in the same category, for the dealer will gain nothing except +by profuse lying, and nothing is more disgraceful than untruthful +huckstering. Again, the work of all artisans (_opifices_) is sordid; +there can be nothing honourable in a workshop."[71] + +If this view of the low character of the work of the artisan and +retailer should be thought too obviously a Greek one, let the reader +turn to the description by Livy[72]--a true gentleman--of the low +origin of Terentius Varro, the consul who was in command at Cannae; he +uses the same language as Cicero. "He sprang from an origin not merely +humble but sordid: his father was a butcher, who sold his own meat, +and employed his son in this slavish business." The story may not be +true, and indeed it is not a very probable one, but it well represents +the inherited feeling towards retail trade of the Roman of the higher +classes of society,--a feeling so tenacious of life, that even in +modern England, where it arose from much the same causes as in the +ancient world, it has only within the last century begun to die +out.[73] + +Yet in Rome these humble workers existed and made a living for +themselves from the very beginning, as far as we can guess, of real +city life. They are the necessary and inevitable product of the growth +of a town population, and of the resulting division of labour. The +following passage from a work on industrial organisation in England +may be taken as closely representing the same process in early +Rome:[74] "The town arose as a centre in which the surplus produce of +many villages could be profitably disposed of by exchange. Trade +thus became a settled occupation, and trade prepared the way for +the establishment of the handicrafts, by furnishing capital for the +support of the craftsmen, and by creating a regular market for their +products. It was possible for a great many bodies of craftsmen,--the +weavers, tailors, butchers, bakers, etc., to find a livelihood, each +craft devoting itself to the supply of a single branch of those wants +which the village household had attempted very imperfectly to satisfy +by its own labours." + +As in mediaeval Europe, so in early Rome, the same conditions produced +the same results: we find the craftsmen of the town forming themselves +into _gilds_, not only for the protection of their trade, but from a +natural instinct of association, and providing these gilds, on the +model of the older groups of family and gens, with a religious centre +and a patron deity. The gilds (_collegia_) of Roman craftsmen were +attributed to Numa, like so many other religious institutions; they +included associations of weavers, fullers, dyers, shoemakers, doctors, +teachers, painters, etc.,[75] and were mainly devoted to Minerva as +the deity of handiwork. "The society that witnessed the coming of +Minerva from Etruria ... little knew that in her temple on the +Aventine was being brought to expression the trade-union idea."[76] +These _collegia opificum_, most unfortunately, pass entirely out +of our sight, until they reappear in the age of Cicero in a very +different form, as clubs used for political purposes, but composed +still of the lowest strata of the free population (_collegia +sodalicia_).[77] The history and causes of their disappearance and +metamorphosis are lost to us; but it is not hard to guess that the +main cause is to be found in the great economic changes that followed +the Hannibalic war,--the vast number of slaves imported, and +the consequent resuscitation of the old system of the economic +independence of the great households; the decay of religious practice, +which affected both public and private life in a hundred different +ways; and that steady growth of individualism which is characteristic +of eras of town life, and especially of the last three centuries B.C. +It is curious to notice that by the time these old gilds emerge into +light again as clubs that could be used for political purposes, a new +source of gain, and one that was really sordid, had been placed within +the reach of the Roman plebs urbana: it was possible to make money by +your vote in the election of magistrates. In that degenerate when the +vast accumulation of capital made it possible for a man to purchase +his way to power, in spite of repeated attempts to check the evil by +legislation, the old principle of honourable association was used to +help the small man to make a living by choosing the unprincipled and +often the incompetent to undertake the government of the Empire. + +Apart, however, from such illegal means of making money, there was +beyond doubt in the Rome of the last century B.C. a large amount of +honest and useful labour done by free citizens. We must not run away +with the idea that the whole labour of the city was performed by +slaves, who ousted the freeman from his chance of a living. There was +indeed a certain number of public slaves who did public work for the +State; but on the whole the great mass of the servile population +worked entirely within the households and on the estates of the rich, +and did not interfere to any sensible degree with the labour of the +small freeman. As has been justly observed by Salvioli,[78] never at +any period did the Roman proletariat complain of the competition of +slave labour as detrimental to its own interests. Had there been no +slave labour there, the small freeman might indeed have had a wider +field of enterprise, and have been better able to accumulate a small +capital by undertaking work for the great families, which was done, +as it was, by their slaves. But he was not aware of this, and the two +kinds of labour, the paid and the unpaid, went on side by side without +active rivalry. No doubt slavery helped to foster idleness, as it did +in the Southern States of America before the Civil War;[79] no doubt +there were plenty of idle ruffians in the city, ready to steal, +to murder, or to hire themselves out as the armed followers of a +political desperado like Clodius; but the simple necessities of the +life of those who had no slaves of their own gave employment, we may +be certain, to a great number of free tradesmen and artisans and +labourers of a more unskilled kind. + +To begin with, we may ask the pertinent question, how the corn sold +cheap by the State was made into bread for the small consumer. Pliny +gives us very valuable information, which we may accept as roughly +correct, that until the year 171 B.C. there were no bakers in +Rome.[80] "The Quirites," he says, "made their own bread, which was +the business of the women, as it is still among most peoples." The +demand which was thus supplied by a new trade was no doubt caused by +the increase of the lower population of the city, by the return of old +soldiers, often perhaps unmarried, and by the manumission of slaves, +many of whom would also be inexperienced in domestic life and its +needs; and we may probably connect it with the growth of the system of +insulae, the great lodging-houses in which it would not be convenient +either to grind your corn or to bake your bread. So the bakers, called +_pistores_ from the old practice of pounding the grain in a mortar +(_pingere_), soon became a very important and flourishing section of +the plebs, though never held in high repute; and in connexion with the +distributions of corn some of them probably rose above the level of +the small tradesman, like the _pistor redemptor_, Marcus Vergilius +Eurysaces, whose monument has come down to us.[81] It should be noted +that the trade of the baker included the grinding of the corn; there +were no millers at Rome. This can be well illustrated from the +numerous bakers' shops which have been excavated at Pompeii.[82] In +one of these, for example, we find the four mills in a large apartment +at the rear of the building, and close by is the stall for the donkeys +that turned them, and also the kneading-room, oven, and store-room. +Small bakeries may have had only hand-mills, like the one with which +we saw the peasant in the _Moretum_ grinding his corn; but the donkey +was from quite early times associated with the business, as we know +from the fact that at the festival of Vesta, the patron deity of all +bakers, they were decorated with wreaths and cakes.[83] + +The baking trade must have given employment to a large number of +persons. So beyond doubt did the supply of vegetables, which were +brought into the city from gardens outside, and formed, after the +corn, the staple food of the lower classes. We have already seen +in the _Moretum_ the countryman adding to his store of bread by a +hotch-potch made of vegetables, and the reader of the poem will have +been astonished at the number mentioned, including garden herbs for +flavouring purposes. The ancients were fully alive to the value of +vegetable food and of fruit as a healthy diet in warm climates, and +the wonderfully full information we have on this subject comes from +medical writers like Galen, as well as from Pliny's _Natural History_, +and from the writers on agriculture. The very names of some Roman +families, e.g. the Fabii and Caepiones, carry us back to a time when +beans and onions, which later on were not so much in favour, were a +regular part of the diet of the Roman people. The list of vegetables +and herbs which we know of as consumed fills a whole page in +Marquardt's interesting account of this subject, and includes most +of those which we use at the present day.[84] It was only when the +consumption of meat and game came in with the growth of capital +and its attendant luxury, that a vegetarian diet came to be at all +despised. This is another result of the economic changes caused by the +Hannibalic war, and is curiously illustrated by the speech of the cook +of a great household in the _Pseudolus_ of Plautus, who prides himself +on not being as other cooks are, who make the guests into beasts of +the field, stuffing them with all kinds of food which cattle eat, and +even with things which cattle would refuse![85] we may take it that at +all times the Roman of the lower class consumed fruit and vegetables +largely, and thus gave employment to a number of market-gardeners and +small purveyors. Fish he did not eat; like meat, it was too expensive; +in fact fish-eating only came in towards the end of the republican +period, and then only as a luxury for those who could afford to keep +fish-ponds on their estates. How far the supply of other luxuries, +such as butchers' meat, gave employment to freemen, is not very clear; +and perhaps we need here only take account of such few other products, +e.g. oil and wine, as were in universal demand, though not always +procurable by the needy. There were plenty of small shops in Rome +where these things were sold; we have a picture of such a shop +(_caupona_) in another of the minor Virgilian poems, the _Copa_, i.e. +hostess, or perhaps in this case the woman who danced and sang for the +entertainment of the guests. She plied her trade in a smoky tavern +(fumosa taberna), all the contents of which are charmingly described +in the poem.[86] + +Let us now see how the other chief necessity of human life, the supply +of clothing, gave employment to the free Roman shopkeeper. + +The clothing of the whole Roman population was originally woollen; +both the outer garment, the _toga_, the inner (_tunica_) were of this +material, and the sheep which supplied it were pastured well and +conveniently in all the higher hilly regions of Italy. Other +materials, linen, cotton, and silk, came in later with the growth +of commerce, but the manufacture of these into clothing was chiefly +carried on by slaves in the great households, and we need not take +any account of them here. The preparation of wool too was in well +regulated households undertaken even under the Empire by the women +of the family, including the materfamilias herself, and in many an +inscription we find the _lanificium_ recorded as the honourable +practice of matrons.[87] But as in the case of food, so with the +simple material of clothing, it was soon found impossible in a city +for the poorer citizens to do all that was necessary within their +own houses; this is proved conclusively by the mention of gilds of +fullers[88] (_fullones_) among those traditionally ascribed to Numa. +Fulling is the preparation of cloth by cleansing in water after it +has come from the loom; but the fuller's trade of the later republic +probably often comprised the actual manufacture of the wool for +those who could not do it themselves. He also acted as the washer of +garments already in use, and this was no doubt a very important part +of his business, for in a warm climate heavy woollen material is +naturally apt to get frequently impure and unwholesome. Soap was +not known till the first century of the Empire, and the process of +cleansing was all the more lengthy and elaborate; the details of the +process are known to us from paintings at Pompeii, where they adorn +the walls of fulleries which have been excavated. A plan of one of +them will be found in Mau's _Pompeii_, p. 388. The ordinary woollen +garments were simply bleached white, not dyed; and though dyers are +mentioned among the ancient gilds by Plutarch, it is probable that he +means chiefly fullers by the Greek word [_Greek: Bapheis_]. + +Of the manufacture of leather we do not know so much. This, like that +of wool, must have originally been carried on in the household, but +it is mentioned as a trade as early as the time of Plautus.[89] The +shoemakers' business was, however, a common one from the earliest +times, probably because it needs some technical skill and experience; +the most natural division of labour in early societies is sure to +produce this trade. The shoemakers' gild was among the earliest, +and had its centre in the _atrium sutorium_;[90] and the individual +shoemakers carried on their trade in booths or shops. The Roman shoe, +it may be mentioned here, was of several different kinds, according +to the sex, rank, and occupation of the wearer; but the two most +important sorts were the _calceus_, the shoe worn with the toga in the +city, and the mark of the Roman citizen; and the _pero_ or high boot, +which was more serviceable in the country. + +Among the old gilds were also those of the smiths (_fabri ferrarii_) +and the potters (_figuli_), but of these little need be said here, +for they were naturally fewer in number than the vendors of food and +clothing, and the raw material for their work had, in later times at +least, to be brought from a distance. The later Romans seem to have +procured their iron-ore from the island of Elba and Spain, Gaul, +and other provinces,[91] and to have imported ware of all kinds, +especially the finer sorts, from various parts of the Empire; the +commoner kinds, such as the _dolia_ or large vessels for storing wine +and oil, were certainly made in Rome in the second century B.C., for +Cato in his book on agriculture[92] remarks that they could be best +procured there. But both these manufactures require a certain amount +of capital, and we may doubt whether the free population was largely +employed in them; we know for certain that in the early Empire +the manufacture of ware, tiles, bricks, etc., was carried on by +capitalists, some of them of noble birth, including even Emperors +themselves, and beyond doubt the "hands" they employed were chiefly +slaves.[93] + +But industries of this kind may serve to remind us of another kind of +employment in which the lower classes of Rome and Ostia may have found +the means of making a living. The importation of raw materials, and +that of goods of all kinds, which was constantly on the increase +throughout Roman history, called for the employment of vast numbers of +porters, carriers, and what we should call dock hands, working both +at Ostia, where the heavier ships were unladed or relieved of part of +their cargoes in order to enable them to come up the Tiber,[94] and +also at the wharves at Rome under the Aventine. We must also remember +that almost all porterage in the city had to be done by men, with the +aid of mules or donkeys; the streets were so narrow that in trying to +picture what they looked like we must banish from our minds the +crowds of vehicles familiar in a modern city. Julius Caesar, in his +regulations for the government of the city of Rome, forbade waggons to +be driven in the streets in the day-time.[95] Even supposing that a +large amount of porterage was done by slaves for their masters, we may +reasonably guess that free labour was also employed in this way at +Rome, as was certainly the case at Ostia, and also at Pompeii, where +the pack-carriers (_saccarii_) and mule-drivers (_muliones_) are among +the corporations of free men who have left in the form of _graffiti_ +appeals to voters to support a particular candidate for election to a +magistracy.[96] + +Thus we may safely conclude that there was a very considerable amount +of employment in Rome available for the poorer citizens, quite apart +from the labour performed by slaves. But before closing this chapter +it is necessary to point out the precarious conditions under which +that employment was carried on, as compared with the industrial +conditions of a modern city. It is true enough that the factory system +of modern times, with the sweating, the long hours of work, and the +unwholesome surroundings of our industrial towns, has produced much +misery, much physical degeneracy; and we have also the problem of the +unemployed always with us. But there were two points in which the +condition of the free artisan and tradesman at Rome was far worse +than it is with us, and rendered him liable to an even more hopeless +submersion than that which is too often the fate of the modern +wage-earner. + +First, let us consider that markets, then as now, were liable to +fluctuation,--probably more liable then than now, because the +supply both of food and of the raw material of manufacture was more +precarious owing to the greater difficulties of conveyance. Trade +would be bad at times, and many things might happen which would compel +the man with little or no capital to borrow money, which he could only +do on the security of his stock, or indeed, as the law of Rome still +recognised, of his person. Money-lenders were abundant, as we shall +find in the next chapter, interest was high, and to fall into +the hands of a money-lender was only another step on the way to +destruction. At the present day, if a tradesman fails in business, he +can appeal to a merciful bankruptcy law, which gives him every chance +to satisfy his creditors and to start afresh; or in the case of a +single debt, he can be put into a county court where every chance is +given him to pay it within a reasonable time. All this machinery, most +of which (to the disgrace of modern civilisation) is quite recent in +date was absent at Rome. The only magistrates administering the civil +law were the praetors, and though since the reforms of Sulla there +were usually eight of these in the city, we can well imagine how hard +it would be for the poor debtor in a huge city to get his affairs +attended to. Probably in most cases the creditor worked his will with +him, took possession of his property without the interference of the +law, and so submerged him, or even reduced him to slavery. If he chose +to be merciful he could go to the praetor, and get what was called a +_missio in bona_, i.e. a legal right to take the whole of his debtor's +property, waiving the right to his person. And it must be noted that +no more humane law of bankruptcy was introduced until the time of +Augustus. No wonder that at least three times in the last century +of the Republic there arose a cry for the total abolition of debts +(_tabulae novae_): in 88 B.C., after the Social War; in 63, during +Cicero's consulship, when political and social revolutionary projects +were combined in the conspiracy of Catiline; and in 48, when the +economic condition of Italy had been disturbed by the Civil War, and +Caesar had much difficulty in keeping unprincipled agitators from +applying violent and foolish remedies. But to this we shall return in +the next chapter. + +Secondly, let us consider that in a large city of to-day the person +and property of all, rich or poor are adequately protected by a sound +system of police and by courts of first instance which are sitting +every day. Assault and murder, theft and burglary, are exceptional. It +might be going too far to say that at Rome they were the rule; but it +is the fact that in what we may call the slums of Rome there was no +machinery for checking them. No such machinery had been invented, +because according to the old rules of law, still in force, a father +might punish his children, a master his slaves, and a murderer or +thief might be killed by his intended victim if caught red-handed. +This rude justice would suffice in a small city and a simple social +system; but it would be totally inadequate to protect life and +property in a huge population, such as that of the Rome of the last +century B.C. Since the time of Sulla there had indeed been courts for +the trial of crimes of violence, and at all times the consuls with +their staff of assistants had been charged with the peace of the city; +but we may well ask whether the poor Roman of Cicero's day could +really benefit either by the consular imperium or the action of the +Sullan courts. A slave was the object of his master's care, and +theft from a slave was theft from his owner,--if injured or murdered +satisfaction could be had for him. But in that age of slack and sordid +government it is at least extremely doubtful whether either the person +or the property of the lower class of citizen could be said to have +been properly protected in the city. And the same anarchy prevailed +all over Italy,--from the suburbs of Rome, infested by robbers, to +the sheep-farm of the great capitalist, where the traveller might be +kidnapped by runaway slaves, to vanish from the sight of men without +leaving a trace of his fate. + +It is the great merit of Augustus that he made Rome not only a city of +marble, but one in which the person and property of all citizens +were fairly secure. By a new and rational bankruptcy law, and by a +well-organised system of police, he made life endurable even for the +poorest. If he initiated a policy which eventually spoilt and degraded +the Roman population, if he failed to encourage free industry as +persistently as it seems to us that he might have done, he may perhaps +be in some degree excused, as knowing the conditions and difficulties +of the problem before him better than we can know them. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +THE MEN OF BUSINESS AND THEIR METHODS + +The highest class in the social scale at Rome was divided, roughly +rather than exactly, into two sections, according as they did or did +not aim at being elected to magistracies and so entering the senate. +To the senatorius ordo, which will be dealt with in the next chapter, +belonged all senators, and all sons of senators whether or no they had +as yet been elected to the quaestorship, which after Sulla was the +magistracy qualifying for the senate. But outside the senatorial ranks +there were numbers of wealthy and well educated men, most of whom +were engaged in one way or another in business; by which term is here +meant, not so much trading and mercantile operations, as banking, +money-lending, the undertaking of State contracts, and the raising of +taxes. The general name for this class was, strange to say, equites, +or knights, as they are often but unfortunately called in modern +histories of Rome. They were in fact at this time the most unmilitary +part of the population, and they inherited the title only because the +property qualification for the equites equo privato, i.e. the cavalry +who served with their horses, had been taken as the qualification also +for equestrian judices, to whom Gaius Gracchus had given the decision +of cases in the quaestio de repetundis.[97] This law of Gracchus had +had the result of constituting an ordo equester alongside of the ordo +senatorius, with a property qualification of 400,000 sesterces, or +about £3200, not of income but of capital. Any one who had this sum +could call himself an eques, provided he were not a senator, even if +he had never served in the cavalry or mounted a horse. + +We are concerned here with the business which these men carried on, +not with their history as a body in the State; this latter difficult +subject has been handled by Dr. Greenidge in his _Roman Public +Life_, and by many other writers. We have to take them here as the +representatives of capital and the chief uses to which it was put in +the age of Cicero; for, as a matter of fact, they were then doing by +far the greatest part of the money-making of the Empire. They were not +indeed always doing it for themselves; they often represented men of +senatorial rank, and acted as their agents in the investment of money +and in securing the returns due. For the senator was not allowed, by +the strict letter of the law, to engage in business which would take +him out of Italy;[98] his services were needed at home, and if indeed +he had performed his proper work with industry and energy he never +could have found time to travel on his own business. At the time of +which we are speaking there were ways in which he could escape +from his duties,--ways only too often used; but many senators did +undoubtedly employ members of the equestrian order to transact their +business abroad, so that it is not untrue to say that the equites +had in their hands almost the whole of the monetary business of the +Empire. + +The property qualification may seem to us small enough, but it is of +course no real index to the amount of capital which a wealthy eques +might possess. Nothing is more astonishing in the history of the last +century of the republic than the vast sums of money in the hands of +individuals, and the enormous sums lent and borrowed in private by the +men whose names are familiar to us as statesmen. It is told of Caesar +that as a very young man he owed a sum equivalent to about £280,000; +of Crassus that he had 200 million sesterces invested in land +alone.[99] Cicero, though from time to time in difficulties, always +found it possible to borrow the large sums which he spent on houses, +libraries, etc. These are men of the ordo senatorius; of the equites +proper, the men who dealt rather in lending than borrowing, we have +not such explicit accounts, because they were not in the same degree +before the public. But of Atticus, the type of the best and highest +section of the ordo equester, and of the amount and the sources of his +wealth, we happen to know a good deal from the little biography of him +written by his contemporary and friend Cornelius Nepos, taken together +with Cicero's numerous letters to him. His father had left him the +moderate fortune of £16,000. With this he bought land, not in Italy +but in Epirus, where it was probably to be had cheap. The profits +arising from this land, with which he took no doubt much trouble and +pains, he invested again in other ways. He lent money to Greek cities: +to Athens indeed without claiming any interest; to Sicyon without much +hope of repayment; but no doubt to many others at a large profit. He +also undertook the publishing of books, buying slaves who were skilled +copyists; and in this, as in so many other ways, his friendship was of +infinite value to Cicero. When we reflect that every highly educated +man at this time owned a library and wished to have the last new +book, we can understand how even this business might be extensive and +profitable, and are not astonished to find Cicero asking Atticus to +see that copies of his Greek book on his own consulship were to be had +in Athens and other Greek towns.[100] This shrewd man also invested in +gladiators, whom he could let out at a profit, as no doubt he would +let out his library slaves.[101] Lastly, he owned houses in Rome; in +fact he must have been making money in many different ways, spending +little himself, and attending personally and indefatigably to all his +business, as indeed with true and disinterested friendship he +attended to that of Cicero In him we see the best type of the Roman +businessman: not the bloated millionaire living in coarse luxury, but +the man who loved to be always busy for himself or his friends, and +whose knowledge of men and things was so thorough that he could make +a fortune without anxiety to himself or discomfort to others. What +amount of capital he realised in these various ways we do not know, +but the mass of his fortune came to him after he had been pursuing +them for many years, in the form of a legacy from an uncle. This uncle +was a typical capitalist and money-lender of a much lower and coarser +type than his nephew; Nepos aptly describes him as "familiarem L. +Luculli, divitem, _difficillima natura_." The nephew was the only man +who could get on with this Peter Featherstone of Roman life, and this +simple fact tells us as much about the character and disposition of +Atticus as anything in Cicero's correspondence with him. The happy +result was that his uncle left him a sum which we may reckon at about +£80,000 (_centies sestertium_),[102] and henceforward he may be +reckoned, if not as a millionaire, at any rate as a man of large +capital, soundly invested and continually on the increase. + +There is no doubt then as to the fact of the presence of capital on a +large scale in the Rome of the last century B.C., or of the business +talents of many of its holders, or again of the many profitable ways +in which it might be invested. But in order to learn a little more of +the history of capital at Rome, which is of the utmost importance for +a proper understanding not only of the economic, but of the social and +ethical characteristics of the age, it is necessary to go as far back +as the war with Hannibal at least. + +That there had been surplus capital in the hands of individuals long +before the war with Hannibal is a well known fact, proved by the old +Roman law of debt, and by the traditions of the unhappy relations +of debtor and creditor. But in order not to go back too far, we may +notice a striking fact which meets us at the very outset of that +momentous war. In 215 B.C., and again the next year, the treasury was +almost empty; then for the first time, so far as we know, private +individuals came to the rescue, and lent large sums to the State;[103] +these were partners in certain associations to be described later on +in this chapter, which had made money by undertaking State contracts +in the previous wars. The presence of Hannibal in Italy strained the +resources of the State to the utmost in every way; it cut the Romans +off from their supply of the precious metals, forced them to reduce +the weight of the _as_ to one ounce, and, curiously enough, also to +issue gold coins for the first time,--a measure probably taken on +account of the dearth of silver,--and to make use of the uncoined gold +in the treasury or in private hands. At the end of the war the supply +of silver was recovered; henceforward all reckonings were made in +silver, and the gold coinage was not long continued. + +At this happy time, when Rome felt that she could breathe again after +the final defeat of her deadly enemy, began the great inpouring of +wealth of which the capitalism of Cicero's time is the direct result. +The chief sources of this wealth, so far as the State was concerned, +were the indemnities paid by conquered peoples, especially Carthage +and Antiochus of Syria, and the booty brought home by victorious +generals. Of these Livy has preserved explicit accounts, and the best +example is perhaps that of the booty brought by Scipio Asiaticus +from Asia Minor in 189 B.C., of which Pliny remarks that it first +introduced luxury into Italy.[104] It has been roughly computed that +the total amount from indemnities may be taken at six million of our +pounds, in the period of the great wars of the second century B.C., +and from booty very much the same sum. Besides this we have to take +account of the produce of the Spanish silver mines, of which the +Romans came into possession with the Carthaginian dominions in Spain; +the richest of these were near Carthago Nova, and Polybius tells us +that in his day they employed 40,000 miners, and produced an immense +revenue.[105] + +All this went into the aerarium, except what was distributed out of +the booty to the soldiers, both Romans and socii, the former naturally +taking as a rule double the amount paid to the latter. But the influx +of treasure into the State coffers soon began to tell upon the +financial welfare of the whole citizen community; the most striking +proof of this is the fact that, in 167 B.C., after the second +Macedonian war, the _tribulum_ or property-tax was no longer imposed +upon all citizens. Henceforward the Roman citizen had hardly any +burdens to bear except the necessity of military service, and there +are very distinct signs that he was beginning to be unwilling to +bear even that one. He saw the prominent men of his time enriching +themselves abroad and leading luxurious lives, and the spirit of ease +and idleness began inevitably to affect him too. Polybius indeed, +writing about 140-130 B.C., declines to state positively that the +great Romans were corrupt or extortionate,[106] and those who were his +intimate friends, Aemilius Paullus and his sons, were distinguished +for their "abstinentia": but the mere occurrence of this word +"abstinentia" in the epitomes of Livy's lost books which dealt with +this time, betrays the fact too obviously. In 149 was passed the +first of the long series of laws intended, but in vain, to check the +tendency of provincial governors to extort money from their subjects; +and as this law established for the first time a standing court to try +offences of this kind, the inference is inevitable that such offences +were common and on the increase. + +The remarkable fact about this inpouring of wealth is its +extraordinary suddenness. Within the lifetime of a single individual, +Cato the Censor, who died an old man in 149 B.C., the financial +condition of the State and of individuals had undergone a complete +change. Cato loved to make money and knew very well how to do it, as +his own treatise on agriculture plainly shows; but he wished to do it +in a legitimate way, and to spend profitably the money he made, and +he spared no pains to prevent others from making it illegally and +spending it unprofitably. He saw clearly that the sudden influx of +wealth was disturbing the balance of the Roman mind, and that the +desire to make money was taking the place of the idea of duty to the +State. He knew that no Roman could serve two masters, Mammon and the +State, and that Mammon was getting the upper hand in his views of +life. If the accumulation of wealth had been gradual instead of +sudden, natural instead of artificial, this could hardly have +happened; as in England from the fourteenth century onwards, the +steady growth of capital would have produced no ethical mischief, no +false economic ideas, because it would have been an _organic_ growth, +resting upon a sound and natural economic basis.[107] As the French +historian has said with singular felicity,[108] "Money is like water +of a river: if it suddenly floods, it devastates; divide it into a +thousand channels where it circulates quietly, and it brings life and +fertility to every spot." + +It was in this period of the great wars, so unwholesome and perilous +economically, that the men of business, as defined at the beginning of +this chapter--the men of capital outside the ordo senatorius--first +rose to real importance. In the century that followed, and as we see +them more especially in Cicero's correspondence, they became a great +power in the State, and not only in Rome, but in every corner of the +Empire. We have now to see how they gained this importance and +this power, and what use they made of their capital and their +opportunities. This is not usually explained or illustrated in the +ordinary histories of Rome, yet it is impossible without explaining it +to understand either the social or the public life of the Rome of this +period. + +The men of business may be divided into two classes, according as they +undertook work for the State or on their own account entirely. It does +not follow that these two classes were mutually exclusive; a man might +very well invest his money in both kinds of undertaking, but these two +kinds were totally distinct, and called by different names. A public +undertaking was called _publicum_,[109] and the men who undertook it +_publicani_; a private undertaking was _negotium_, and all private +business men were known as _negotiatores_. The publicani were always +organised in joint-stock companies (_societates publicanorum_); +the negotiatores might be in private partnership with one or more +partners,[110] but as a rule seem to have been single individuals. We +will deal first with the publicani. + +In a passage of Livy quoted just now it is stated that at the +beginning of the Hannibalic war money was advanced to the State by +societates publicanorum; Livy also happens to mention that three of +these competed for the privilege. Thus it is clear that the system of +getting public work done by contract was in full operation before that +date, together with the practice on the part of the contractors of +uniting in partnerships to lessen the risk. System and practice are +equally natural, and it needs but a little historical imagination to +realise their development. As the Roman State became involved in wars +leading to the conquest of Italy, and in due time to the acquisition +of dominions beyond sea, armies and fleets had to be equipped and +provisioned, roads had to be made, public rents to be got in, new +buildings to be erected for public convenience or worship, corn had to +be procured for the growing population, and, above all, taxes had +to be collected both in Italy and in the provinces as these were +severally acquired.[111] The government had no apparatus for carrying +out these undertakings itself; it had not, as we have, separate +departments or bureaux with a permanent staff of officials attached to +each, and even if it had been so provided, it would still have +found it most convenient, as modern governments also do, to get the +necessary work carried out in most cases by private contractors. Every +five years the censors let the various works by auction to contracting +companies, who engaged to carry them out for fixed sums, and make what +profit they could out of the business (_censoria locatio_). This saved +an immense amount of trouble to the senate and magistrates, who were +usually busily engaged in other matters; nor was there at first any +harm in the system, so long as the Romans were morally sound, and +incapable of jobbing or scamping their work. The very fact that they +united into companies for the purpose of undertaking these contracts +shows that they were aware of the risk involved, and wished as far as +possible to neutralise it; it did not mean greed for money, but rather +anxiety not to lose the capital invested. + +But as Rome advanced her dominion in the second century B.C., and +had to see to an ever-increasing amount of public business, it was +discovered that the business of contracting was one which might indeed +be risky, but with skill and experience, and especially with a trifle +of unscrupulousness, might be made a perfectly safe and paying +investment. This was especially the case with the undertakings for +raising the taxes in the newly acquired provinces as well as in Italy, +more particularly in those provinces, viz. Sicily and Asia, which paid +their taxes in the form of tithe and not in a lump sum. The collection +of these revenues could be made a very paying concern seeing that it +was not necessary to be too squeamish about the rights and claims of +the provincials. And, indeed, by the time of the Gracchi all these +joint-stock companies had become the one favourite investment in +which every one who had any capital, however small, placed it without +hesitation. Polybius, who was in Rome at this time for several years, +and was thoroughly acquainted with Roman life, has left a valuable +record in his sixth book (ch. xvii.) of the universal demand for +shares in these companies; a fact which proves that they were believed +to be both safe and profitable. + +These societates were managed by the great men of business, as our +joint-stock companies are directed by men of capital and consequence. +Polybius tells us that among those who were concerned, some took the +contracts from the censors: these were called _mancipes_, because +the sign of accepting the contract at the auction was to hold up the +hand.[112] Others, Polybius goes on, were in association with these +mancipes, and, as we may assume, equally responsible with them; these +were the _socii_. It was of course necessary that security should be +given for the fulfilment of the contract, and Polybius does not omit +to mention the _praedes_ or guarantors[113]. Lastly, he says that +others again gave their property on behalf of these official members +of the companies, or in their name, for the public purpose in hand. +These last words admit of more than one interpretation, but as in the +same passage Polybius tells us that all who had any money put it into +these concerns, we may reasonably suppose that he means to indicate +the _participes_, or small holders of shares, which were called +_partes_, or if very small, _particulae_[114]. The socii and +participes seem to be distinguished by Cicero in his Verrine orations +(ii. 1. 55), where he quotes an addition made by Verres illegally as +praetor to a lex censoria: "qui de censoribus redemerit, eum socium ne +admittito neve partem dato." If this be so, we may regard the socius +as having a share both in the management and the liability, while the +particeps merely put his money into the undertaking[115]. The actual +management, on which Polybius is silent, was in Rome in the hands of a +_magister_, changing yearly, like the magistrates of the State, and +in the provinces of a _pro-magister_ answering to the pro-magistrate, +with a large staff of assistants[116]. Communications between +the management at home and that in the provinces were kept up by +messengers (_tabellarii_), who were chiefly slaves; and it is +interesting incidentally to notice that these, who are constantly +mentioned in Cicero's letters, also acted as letter-carriers for +private persons to whom their employers were known. + +Such a business as this, involving the interests of so many citizens, +must have necessitated something very like the Stock Exchange or +Bourse of modern times; and in fact the basilicas and porticoes which +we met with in the Forum during our walk through Rome did actually +serve this purpose.[117] The reader of Cicero's letters will have +noticed how often the Forum is spoken of as the centre of life at +Rome--going down to the Forum was indeed the equivalent of "going into +the City," as well as of "going down to Westminster." All who had +investments in the societates would wish to know the latest news +brought by _tabellarii_ from the provinces, e.g. of the state of the +crop in Sicily or Asia, or of the disposition of some provincial +governor towards the publicani of his province, or again of the +approach of some enemy, such as Mithridates or Ariovistus, who by +defeating a Roman army might break into Roman territory and destroy +the prospects of a successful contractual enterprise. Assuredly +Cicero's love for the Forum was not a political one only; he loved it +indeed as the scene of his great triumphs as an advocate, but also +no doubt because he was concerned in some of the companies which had +their headquarters there. When urging the people to give Pompeius +extraordinary powers to drive Mithridates out of reach of Roman Asia, +where he had done incalculable damage, he dwells both with knowledge +and feeling on the value of the province, not only to the State, but +to innumerable private citizens who had their money invested in its +revenues[118]. "If some," he pleads, "lose their whole fortunes, +they will drag many more down with them. Save the State from such a +calamity: and believe me (though you see it well enough) that the +whole system of credit and finance which is carried on here at Rome in +the Forum, is inextricably bound up with the revenues of the Asiatic +province. If those revenues are destroyed, our whole system of credit +will come down with a crash. See that you do not hesitate for a moment +to prosecute with all your energies a war by which the glory of the +Roman name, the safety of our allies, our most valuable revenues, +and the fortunes of innumerable citizens, will be effectually +preserved.[119]" + +This is a good example of the way in which political questions might +be decided in the interests of capital, and it is all the more +striking, because a few years earlier Sulla had done all he could to +weaken the capitalists as a distinct class. Pompeius went out with +abnormal powers, and might be considered for the time as their +representative; the result in this case was on the whole good, for the +work he did in the East was of permanent value to the Empire. But the +constitution was shaken and never wholly recovered, and nothing that +he was able to do could restore the unfortunate province of Asia +to its former prosperity. Four years later the company which had +contracted for raising the taxes in the province sought to repudiate +their bargain. This was disgraceful, as Cicero himself expressly +says;[120] but it is quite possible that they had great difficulty +in getting the money in, and feared a dead loss,[121] owing to +the impoverishment of the provincials. This matter again led to a +political crisis; for the senate, urged by Cato, was disposed to +refuse the concession, and the alliance between the senatorial class +and the business men (_ordinum concordia_), which it had been Cicero's +particular policy to confirm, in order to mass together all men of +property against the dangers of socialism and anarchy, was thereby +threatened so seriously that it ceased to be a factor in politics. + +These companies and their agents were indeed destined to be a thorn in +Cicero's side as a provincial governor himself. When called upon to +rule Cilicia in 51 B.C. he found the people quite unable to pay their +taxes and driven into the hands of the middleman in order to do +so;[122] his sympathies were thus divided between the unfortunate +provincials, for whom he felt a genuine pity, and the interests of +the company for collecting the Cilician taxes, and of those who had +invested their money in its funds. In his edict, issued before his +entrance into the province, he had tried to balance the conflicting +interests; writing of it to Atticus, who had naturally as a capitalist +been anxious to know what he was doing, he says that he is doing all +he can for the publicani, coaxing them, praising them, yielding to +them--but taking care that they do no mischief;[123] words which +perhaps did not altogether satisfy his friend. All honest provincial +governors, especially in the Eastern provinces, which had been the +scene of continual wars for nearly three centuries, found themselves +in the same difficulty. They were continually beset by urgent appeals +on behalf of the tax-companies and their agents--appeals made +without a thought of the condition of a province or its tax-paying +capacity--so completely had the idea of making money taken possession +of the Roman mind. Among the letters of Cicero are many such appeals, +sent by himself to other provincial governors, some of them while he +was himself in Cilicia. We may take two as examples, before bringing +this part of our subject to a close. + +The first of these letters is to P. Silius Nerva, propraetor of +Bithynia, a province recently added to the Empire by Pompeius. Cicero +here says that he is himself closely connected with the partners +in the company for collecting the pasture-dues (scriptura) of the +province, "not only because that company as a body is my client, but +also because I am very intimate with most of the individual partners." +Can we doubt that he was himself a shareholder? He urges Nerva to do +all he can for Terentius Hispo, the pro-magister of the company, +and to try to secure for him the means of making all the necessary +arrangements with the taxed communities--relying, we are glad to find, +on the tact and kindness of the governor.[124] The second letter, to +his own son-in-law, Furius Crassipes, quaestor of Bithynia, shall be +quoted here in full from Mr. Shuckburgh's translation:[125] + +"Though in a personal interview I recommended as earnestly as I could +the publicani of Bithynia, and though I gathered that by your own +inclination no less than from my recommendation, you were anxious to +promote the advantage of that company in every way in your power, I +have not hesitated to write you this, since those interested thought +it of great importance that I should inform you what my feeling +towards them was. I wish you to believe that, while I have ever had +the greatest pleasure in doing all I can for the order of publicani +generally, yet this particular company of Bithynia has my special +good wishes. Owing to the rank and birth of its members, this company +constitutes a very important part of the state: for it is made up of +members of the other companies: and it so happens that a very large +number of its members are extremely intimate with me, and especially +the man who is at present at the head of the business, P. Rupilius, +its pro-magister. Such being the case, I beg you with more than common +earnestness to protect Cn. Pupius, an employé of the company,[126] by +every sort of kindness and liberality in your power, and to secure, as +you easily may, that his services shall be as satisfactory as possible +to the company, while at the same time securing and promoting the +property and interests of the partners--as to which I am well aware +how much power a quaestor possesses. You will be doing me in this +matter a very great favour, and I can myself from personal experience +pledge you my word that you will find the partners of the Bithynia +company gratefully mindful of any services you can do them." + +If Cicero, the most tender-hearted of Roman public men, could urge +the claims of the companies so strongly, and, as in this last letter, +without any allusion to the interests of the province and its people, +we may well imagine how others, less scrupulous, must have combined +with the capitalists to work havoc in regions that only needed peace +and mild government to recover from centuries of misery. Such a letter +is the best comment we can have on the pernicious system of raising +taxes by contract--a system which was to be modified, regulated, and +eventually reduced to harmless dimensions under the benevolent and +scientific government of the early Empire. + +We must now turn to the other department of the activity of the men of +business, that of banking and money-lending (_negotiatores_). + +On the north or sunny side of the Forum we noticed in our walk round +the city the shops of the bankers (_tabernae argentariae_). +The _argentarii_ were originally, as their name suggests, only +money-changers, a class of small business men that arose in response +to a need felt as soon as increasing commerce and extended empire +brought foreign coin in large quantities to Rome. The Italian +communities outside the Roman State issued their own coinage until +they were admitted to the civitas after the Social War,--a fact which +alone is sufficient to show the need of men who made it their business +to know the current value of various coins in Roman money; and as +Rome became involved in the affairs of the East, there were always +circulating in the city the tetradrachms of Antioch and Alexandria, +the Rhodian drachmas, and the cistophori of the kings of Pergamus, +afterwards coined in the province of Asia.[127] No doubt the +money-changing business was a profitable one, and itself led to the +formation of capital which could be used in taking deposits and making +advances; and, as Professor Purser puts it,[128] the mere possession +of a quantity of coin for purposes of change would be likely to +develop spontaneously the profession of banking. In the same way the +_nummularii_, or assayers of the coin, having a mass of it in their +hands, would tend to develop a private business as well as their +official public one. All these, argentarii or nummularii, might be +called _foeneratores_, from the interest (_foenus_) which they charged +in their transactions. The profession was a respectable one, for +honesty and exactness in accounts were absolutely necessary to success +in it.[129] If the reader will turn to Cicero's speech in defence +of Caecina (6. 16), he will find these accounts appealed to, though +apparently not actually produced in court; but in the _Noctes Atticae_ +of Aulus Gellius (xiv. 2) a judge who is describing a civil case which +came before him, mentions, among the documents produced, _mensae +rationes_, i.e. the accounts kept by the banker. + +Your argentarius seems to have been ready to undertake for you almost +all that a modern banker will do for his customer. He would take +deposits of money, either for the depositor's use or to bear interest, +and would make payments on his behalf on receipt of a written order, +answering to our cheque;[130] this was a practice probably introduced +from Greece, for in the Eastern Mediterranean the whole business of +credit and exchange had long been reduced to a system. Again, if you +wished to be supplied with money during a journey, or to pay a sum to +any one at a distance, e.g. in Greece or Asia, your argentarius +would arrange it for you by giving you letters of credit or bills of +exchange on a banker at such towns as you might mention, and so save +you the trouble of carrying a heavy weight of coin with you. When, +Cicero sent his son to the University of Athens, he wished to give +him a generous allowance,--too generous, as we should think, for it +amounted to about £640 a year,--and he asked Atticus whether it could +be managed for him by _permutatio_, i.e. exchange, and received an +affirmative answer[131]. So too when his beloved freedman secretary +Tiro fell ill of fever at Patrae, Cicero finds it easy to get a local +banker there to advance him all the money he needed, and to pay the +doctor, engaging himself to repay the money to any agent whom the +banker might name[132]. + +Your argentarius would also attend for you, or appoint an agent to +attend, at any public auction in which you were interested as seller +or purchaser, and would pay or receive the money for you,--a practice +which must have greatly helped him in getting to know the current +value of all kinds of property, and indeed in learning to understand +human nature on its business side. In the passage from the _pro +Caecina_ quoted just now, a lady, Caesennia, wished to buy an estate; +she employs an agent, Aebutius, no doubt recommended by her banker, +and to him the estate is knocked down. He undertakes that the +argentarius of the vendor, who is present at the auction, shall be +paid the value, and this is ultimately done by Caesennia, and the sum +entered in the banker's books (tabulae). + +But perhaps the most important part of the business was the finding +money for those who were in want of it, i.e. making advances on +interest. The poor man who was in need of ready money could get it +from the argentarius in coin if he had any security to offer, and, +as we saw in the last chapter, might get entangled more and more +hopelessly in the nets of the money-lender. Whether the same +argentarius did this small business and also the work of supplying the +rich man with credit, we do not know; it may have been the case that +the great money-lenders like Atticus themselves employed argentarii, +and so kept them going. That Atticus would undertake, anyhow, for a +friend like Cicero, any amount of money-finding, we know well from +many letters of Cicero, written when he was anxious to buy a piece +of land at any cost on which to erect a shrine to his beloved +daughter[133]; and we may be pretty sure that Atticus could not have +done all that Cicero importunately pressed upon him if he had not had +a number of useful professional agents at command. From these same +letters we also learn that finding money by no means necessarily meant +finding coin; in a society where every one was lending or borrowing, +and probably doing both at the same time, what actually passed was +chiefly securities, mortgages, debts, and so on. If you wanted to hand +over a hundred thousand or so to a creditor, what your agent had as +often as not to do was to persuade that creditor to accept as payment +the debts owing to yourself from others, i.e. you would hand over to +him, if he would accept them, the bonds or other securities given you +by your own debtors.[134] + +It is plain then that the money-lenders had an enormous business, even +in Rome alone, and risky as it undoubtedly was, it must often have +been a profitable one. And it was not only at Rome that men were +borrowing and lending, but over the whole Empire. For reasons which it +would need an economic treatise to explain, private men, cities, and +even kings were in want of money; it was needed to meet the increased +cost of living and the constantly increasing standard of living among +the educated;[135] it was needed by the cities of Greece and the East +to repair the damages done in the wars of the last three hundred +years; it was needed by the poorer provincials to pay the taxes for +which neither the publicani nor the Roman government could afford to +wait; and it was needed by the kings who had come within the dismal +shadow of the Roman Empire, in order to carry on their own government, +or to satisfy the demands of the neighbouring provincial governor, or +to bribe the ruling men at Rome to get some decree passed in their +favour. Cicero, at the end of his life, looking back to his own +consulship in 63, says that at no time in his recollection was the +whole world in such a condition of indebtedness,[136] and in a famous +passage in his second Catilinarian oration he has drawn a picture of +the various classes of debtors in Rome and Italy at that time (_Cat._ +ii. § 18 foll.). He tells us of those who have wealth and yet will not +pay their debts; of those who are in debt and look to a revolution to +absolve them; of the veterans of the Sullan army, settled in colonies +such as Faesulae, who had rushed into debt in order to live luxurious +lives; of old debtors of the city, getting deeper and deeper into the +quagmire, who joined the conspiracy as a last desperate venture. There +was in fact in that famous year a real social fermentation going on, +caused by economic disturbance of the most serious kind; the germs of +the disease can be traced back to the Hannibalic war and its effects +on Italy, but all the symptoms had been continually exacerbated by the +negligence and ignorance of the government, and brought to a head by +the Social and Civil Wars in 90-82 B.C. In 63 the State escaped an +economic catastrophe through the vigilance of Cicero and the alliance +of the respectable classes under his leadership. In 49, and again in +48, it escaped a similar disaster through the good sense of Caesar and +his agents, who succeeded in steering between Scylla and Charybdis by +saving the debtors without ruining the lenders.[137] + +Wonderful figures are given by later writers, such as Plutarch, of the +debts and loans of the great men of this time, and they may stand as +giving us a general impression of private financial recklessness. But +the only authentic information that has come down to us is what +Cicero drops from time to time in his correspondence about his own +affairs,[138] and even this needs much explanation which we are unable +to apply to it. What is certain is that Cicero never had more than a +very moderate income on which he could depend, and that at times he +was hard up for money, especially of course after his exile and the +confiscation of his property; and that on the other hand he never had +any difficulty in getting the sums he needed, and never shows the +smallest real anxiety about his finances. His profession as a +barrister only brought him a return indirectly in the form of an +occasional legacy or gift, since fees were forbidden by a lex Cincia; +his books could hardly have paid him, at least in the form of money; +his inherited property was small, and his Italian villas were not +profitable farms, nor was it the practice to let such country houses, +as we do now, when not occupying them; he declined a provincial +government, the usual source of wealth, and when at last compelled +to undertake one, only realised what was then a paltry sum,--some +£17,500, all of which, while in deposit at Ephesus, was seized by +the Pompeians in the Civil War.[139] Yet even early in life he could +afford the necessary expenses for election to successive magistracies, +and could live in the style demanded of an important public man. +Immediately after his consulship he paid £28,000 for Crassus' house +on the Palatine, and it is here that we first discover how he managed +such financial operations. Here are his own words in a letter to a +friend of December 62 B.C.:[140] "I have bought the house for 3,500 +sestertia ... so you may now look on me as so deeply in debt as to be +eager to join a conspiracy if any one would admit me! ... Money is +plentiful at 6 per cent, and the success of my measures (in the +consulship) has caused me to be regarded as a good security." + +The simple fact was that Cicero was always regarded as a safe man to +lend money to, by the business men and the great capitalists; partly +because he was an honest man,--a _vir bonus_ who would never dream of +repudiation or bankruptcy; partly because he knew every one, and had +a hundred wealthy friends besides the lender of the moment and among +them, most faithful of all, the prudent and indefatigable Atticus. +Undoubtedly then it was by borrowing, and regularly paying interest +on the loans, that he raised money whenever he wanted it. He may have +occasionally made money in the companies of tax-collectors; we have +seen that he probably had shares in some of their ventures. But there +is no clear evidence in his letters of this source of wealth,[141] and +there is abundant evidence of the borrowing. After his return from +exile, though the senate had given him somewhat meagre compensation +for the loss of his property, he began at once to borrow and to build: +"I am building in three places," he writes to his brother,[142] "and +am patching up my other houses. I live somewhat more lavishly than I +used to do; I am obliged to do so." Here again we know from whom he +borrowed,--it was this same brother, who of course had no more certain +income than his own, probably less. But he had been governor of Asia +for three years (61-58 B.C.), and must have realised large sums even +in that exhausted province; and at this moment he was legatus to +Pompeius as special commissioner for organising the supply of +corn, and thus was in immediate contact with one of the greatest +millionaires of the day. In order to repay his brother all Marcus +had to do was to borrow from other friends. "In regard to money I am +crippled. But the liberality of my brother I have repaid, in spite of +his protests, by the aid of my friends, that I might not be drained +quite dry myself" (_ad Att._ iv. 3). Two years later an unwary reader +might feel some astonishment at finding that Quintus himself was now +deep in debt;[143] but as he continues to read the correspondence his +astonishment will vanish. With the prospect before him of a prolonged +stay in Gaul with Caesar, Quintus might doubtless have borrowed to any +extent; and in fact with Caesar's help--the proceeds of the Gallic +wars--both brothers found themselves in opulence. The Civil War, and +the repayment of his debts to Caesar, nearly ruined Marcus towards the +end of his life, but nothing prevented his contriving to find money +for any object on which he had set his heart; when in his grief for +the loss of his daughter he wishes to buy suburban gardens where a +shrine to her memory may (strange to say) attract public notice, he +tells Atticus to buy what is necessary _at any cost_. "Manage the +business your own way; do not consider what my purse demands--about +that I care nothing--but what I _want_."[144] + +Such being the financial method of Cicero and his brother, we cannot +be surprised to find that the younger generation of the family +followed faithfully in the footsteps of their elders. We have seen +that the young Marcus had a large allowance at Athens and on the whole +he seems to have kept fairly well within it, in spite of some trouble; +but his cousin the younger Quintus, coming to see his uncle in +December 45, showed him a gloomy countenance, and on being asked the +meaning of it, said that he was going with Caesar to the Parthian war +in order to avoid his creditors, and presumably to make money to pay +them with.[145] He had not even enough money for the journey out. His +uncle did not offer to give him any, but he does not seem to have +thought very seriously of the young man's embarrassments. + +One more example of the financial dealings of the business men of this +extraordinary age, and we will bring this chapter to an end. It is a +story which has luckily been preserved in Cicero's speech in defence +of a certain Rabirius Postumus in the year 54, who was accused under +Caesar's law de pecuniis repetundis (extortion in the provinces). It +is a remarkable revelation of all the most striking methods of making +and using money in the last years of the Republic. + +The father of this Rabirius, says Cicero, had been a distinguished +member of the equestrian order, and "fortissimus et maximus +publicanus"; not greedy of money, but most liberal to his friends--in +other words, he was not a miser, for that character was rare in this +age, but lent his money freely in order to acquire influence and +consideration. The son took up the same line of business, and engaged +in a wide sphere of financial operations. He dealt largely in the +stock of the tax-companies; he lent money to cities in several +provinces; he lent money to Ptolemy Auletes, King of Egypt, both +before he was expelled from his kingdom by sedition, and afterwards +when he was in Rome in 59 and 58, intriguing to induce the senate +to have him restored. Rabirius never doubted that he would be so +restored, and seems to have failed to see the probability of such a +policy being contested or quarrelled about, as actually happened in +the winter of 57-56. He lent, and persuaded his friends to lend:[146] +he represented the king's cause as a good investment; and then, like +the investing agent of to-day who slips so easily from carelessness +into crime, he had to go on lending more and more, because he feared +that if he stopped the king might turn against him. + +He had staked the mass of his substance on a desperate venture. But +time went on and Ptolemy was not restored, and without the revenues of +his kingdom he of course could not pay his creditors. At last, at the +end of the year 56, Gabinius, then governor of Syria, had pressure +put on him by the creditors--among them perhaps both Caesar and +Pompeius--to march into Egypt without the authority of the senate. He +took Rabirius with him, and, in order to secure the repayment, +the latter was made superintendent (dioikaetaes) of the Egyptian +revenues[147]. Unluckily for him, his wily debtor did after all turn +against him, and he escaped from Egypt with difficulty and with the +loss of all his wealth. When Gabinius was accused de repetundis and +found guilty of accepting enormous sums from Ptolemy, Rabirius was +involved in the same prosecution as having received part of the money; +Cicero defended him, and as it seems with success, on the plea that +equites were not liable to prosecution under the lex Julia. Towards +the end of his speech he drew a clever picture of his unlucky client's +misfortunes, and declared that he would have had to quit the Forum, +i.e. to leave the Stock Exchange in disgrace, if Caesar had not come +to his rescue by placing large sums at his disposal. + +What Rabirius did was simply to gamble on a gigantic scale, and get +others to gamble with him. The luck turned against him, and he came +utterly to grief. There seems indeed to have been a perfect passion +for dealing with money in this wild way among the men of wealth and +influence; it was the fancy of the hour, and no disgrace attached to +it if a man could escape ruin. Thus the vast capital accumulated--the +sources of which were almost entirely in the provinces and the +kingdoms on the frontiers--was hardly ever used productively. It never +returned to the region whence it came, to be used in developing +its resources; the idea of using it even in Italy for industrial +undertakings was absent from the mind of the gambler. Those numberless +villas, of which we shall speak in another chapter, were homes of +luxury and magnificence, not centres of agricultural industry. There +are indeed some signs that in this very generation the revival of +Italian agriculture was beginning, and more especially the cultivation +of the olive and the vine; Varro, some twenty years later, could claim +that Italy was the best cultivated country in the world.[148] It may +be that the din of the "insanum forum" and its wild speculation has +prevented our hearing of the quiet efforts in the country to put +capital to a legitimate productive use. But of the social life of the +city the Forum was the heart, and of any prudent or scientific use of +capital the Forum knew hardly anything. + +Of the two classes of business men we have been describing, the +tax-farmers and the money-lenders, it is hard to say which wrought the +most mischief in the Empire; they played into each other's hands in +wringing money out of the helpless provincials. Together too they did +incalculable harm, morally and socially, among the upper strata of +Roman society at home. Economic maladies react upon the mental, and +moral condition of a State. Where the idea of making money for its +own sake, or merely for the sake of the pleasure derivable from +excitement, is paramount in the minds of so large a section of +society, moral perception quickly becomes warped. The sense of justice +disappears, because when the fever is on a man he does not stop to ask +whether his gains are ill-gotten; and in this age the only restriction +on the plundering of the subjects of the Empire was a legal one, and +that of no great efficacy. There are many repulsive things in the +exquisite poetry of Catullus, but none of them jar on the modern mind +quite so sharply as his virulent attacks on a provincial governor in +whose suite he had gone to Bithynia in the hope of enriching himself, +and under whose just administration he had failed to do so. There +is lost also the sense of a duty arising out of the possession of +wealth--the feeling that it should do some good in the world, or at +least be in part applied to some useful purpose. Lastly, the exciting +pursuit of wealth helps to produce a curious restlessness and +instability of character, of which we have many examples in the age +we are studying. "Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel," are words +that might be applied to many a young man among Cicero's acquaintance, +and to many women also. + +No sudden operation could cure these evils--they needed the careful +and gradual treatment of a wise physician. As in so many other ways, +so here Augustus showed his wonderful instinct as a social reformer. +The first requisite of all was an age of comparative peace--a healthy +atmosphere in which the patient could recover his natural tone. Next +in importance was the removal of the incitement to enrich yourself and +to spend illegally or unprofitably, and the revival of a sense of duty +towards the State and its rulers. Provincial governors were made +more really responsible, and a scientific census revealed the actual +tax-paying capacity of the provincials; tax-farming was more closely +superintended and gradually disappeared. It is true enough that even +under the Empire great fortunes were made and lost, but the gambling +spirit, the wild recklessness in monetary dealings, are not met with +again. The Roman Forum ceased to be insane, and Italy became once more +the home of much happy and useful country life. The passionate and +reckless self-consciousness of Catullus is succeeded in the next +generation by the calm sweet hopefulness of Virgil; in passing from +the one poet to the other, we feel that we are leaving behind us an +age of over-sensitive self-seeking and entering on one in which duty +and honour, labour on the land and hard work for the State, may be +reckoned as things more likely to make life worth living than all the +accumulated capital of a Crassus. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +THE GOVERNING ARISTOCRACY + +Above the men of business of equestrian rank, in social standing +though not necessarily in wealth, there was in Cicero's time an +aristocracy which a Roman of that day would perhaps have found it a +little difficult to explain or define to a foreigner. Fortunately all +foreigners coming to Rome would know what was meant by the senate, +the great council which received envoys from all nations outside the +Empire; and the stranger might be told in the first place that all +members of that august assembly, with their families, were considered +as elevated above the equestrian order, and as forming the main body +of the aristocracy proper. But if the informant were by chance a +conservative Roman of old family, he might proceed to qualify this +definition. "There are now in the senate," he might say, "plenty of +men who are only there because they have held the quaestorship, which +Sulla made the qualification for a seat, and there are many equites +whom Sulla made into senators by the form of a vote of the people; +such men, even the great orator Cicero himself, I do not reckon as +really members of the nobility, because they do not belong to old +families who have done the State good service in past time. They have +no images of their ancestors in their houses; they come from municipal +towns, or spring from some low family in the city; they may have +raised themselves by their talents, perhaps only by their money, +but they have no guarantee of antiquity, their names are not in our +annals. All we true conservative Romans (and a, Roman is hardly a +Roman if not conservative) profoundly believe that a man whose family +has once attained to high public honour and done good public service, +will be a safer person to elect as a magistrate than one whose family +is unknown and untried--a belief which is surely based on a truth of +human nature. I should count a man who happens not to be in the senate +himself, for want of wealth or inclination, but whose family has its +images and its traditions of great ancestors, as far more truly an +"optimate" than most of these new men. Fortunately our most famous +families, whose names are known all over the Empire, are still to be +found in the senate, and indeed form a powerful body there, capable of +resisting to the last the revolutionary dangers that threaten us. The +people still elect to magistracies the Aemilii, Lutatii, Claudii, +Cornelii, Julii, and many more families that have been famous in our +history, and will, I trust, continue to elect them so long as our +Republic lasts."[149] + +There was indeed a glamour about these splendid names, as there is +about the titles of our ancient noble families; their holders may +almost be said to have claimed high office as a right, like the Whig +families Of the Revolution for a century after their triumph. Though +we may use the word in a wider sense in this chapter, these grand old +families were the true aristocracy, and inspired just that respect in +the minds of men outside their circle which is still so familiar to us +in England. Cicero was to such men an "outsider," a _novus homo_; and +the close reader of Cicero's letters, if he is looking out (as he +should be) for Cicero's constantly changing attitude of mind as he +addresses himself to various correspondents, cannot fail to see how +comparatively awkward and stilted he often is when writing to one of +these great nobles, with whom he has never been really intimate; and +how easily his pen glides along when he is letting himself talk to +Atticus, or Poetus, or M. Marius, men who were outside the pale of +nobility. It is true that he is sometimes embarrassed in other ways +when writing to great personages, as, for example, Lentulus Spinther, +consul in 57, or to Appius Claudius, consul in 53; but had they been +men of his own kind he never would have felt that embarrassment in the +same degree. When writing to such men he rarely or never indulges +in those little sportive jokes or allusions which enliven his more +intimate correspondence, nor does he tell the truth so strictly, for +they might not always care to hear it. + +Here is a specimen which will give some idea of his manner in writing +to an aristocrat: he is congratulating L. Aemilius Paullus, who +secured his election to the consulship in the summer of 51 B.C.: + +"Though I never doubted that the Roman people, considering your +eminent services to the Republic and _the splendid position of your +family_, would enthusiastically elect you consul by a unanimous vote, +yet I felt extreme delight when the news reached me; and I pray +the gods to render your official career fortunate, and to make the +administration of your office worthy of your own position and _that +of your ancestors_.... And would that it had been in my power to have +been at home to see that wished-for day, and to have given you the +support which your noble services and kindness to me deserved! But +since the unexpected and unlooked-for accident of my having to take +a province has deprived me of that opportunity, yet, that I may be +enabled to see you as consul actually administering the state in a +manner worthy of your position, I earnestly beg you to take care to +prevent my being treated unfairly, or having additional time added +to my year of office. If you do that, you will abundantly crown your +former acts of kindness to me."[150] + +This Aemilius Paullus, like Spinther and many others, belonged to +a respectable but somewhat characterless type of aristocrat; these +formed a considerable and a powerful section of the senate, where they +were an obstacle to reform and administrative efficiency. They were +really a survival from the old type of Roman noble, which had done +excellent work in its day; men in whom the individual had been kept in +strict subordination to the State, and whose personal idiosyncrasies +and ambitions only excited suspicion. But towards the end of the +Republican period the individual had free play; at no time in ancient +history do we meet with so many various and interesting kinds of +individuality, even among the nobilitas itself. This is not merely the +result of the abundant literature in which their traits have come down +to us; it was a fact of the age, in which the idea of the State had +fallen into the background, and the individual found no restraint +on his thoughts and little on his actions, no hindrance to the +development of his capacity either for good or evil. Sulla, +Catiline, Pompeius, Cato, Clodius, Caesar, all have their marked +characteristics, familiar to all who read the history of the Roman +revolution. Caesar is the most remarkable example of strong character +among the men of high aristocratic descent, and it is interesting to +notice how entirely he was without the exclusive tendency which we +associate with aristocrats. He was intimate with men of all ranks; his +closest friends seem to have been men who were noble. While the high +aristocrats looked down as a rule on Cicero the novus homo, and for +some years positively hated him[151], Caesar, though differing from +him _toto coelo_ in politics, was always on pleasant terms of personal +intercourse with him; he had a charm of manner, a literary taste, and +a genuine admiration for genius, which was invariably irresistible +to the sensitive "novus homo." With Pompey, though he trusted him +politically as he never trusted Caesar, Cicero was never so intimate. +They had not the same common interests; Cicero could laugh at Pompey +behind his back, but hardly once in his correspondence does he attempt +to raise a jest about Caesar. + +Thus in the governing or senatorial aristocracy we find men of a great +variety of character, from the old-fashioned nobilis, exclusive in +society and obstructive in politics, to the man of individual genius +and literary ability, whether of blue blood like Caesar, or like +Cicero the scion of a municipal family which has never gained or +sought political distinction. But for the purposes of this chapter +we may discern and discuss two main types of character in this +aristocracy: first, that on which the new Greek culture had worked to +advantage, not destroying the best Roman qualities, but drawing them +into usefulness in new ways; secondly, that on which the same culture +had worked to its harm by taking advantage of weak points in the Roman +armour, sapping the true Roman quality without substituting any other +excellence. We will briefly trace the growth of these two types, and +take an example of each among Cicero's intimate friends, not from +the famous personages familiar to every one, but from eminent and +interesting men of whom the ordinary student knows comparatively +little. + +Ever since the Hannibalic war, and probably even before it, Roman +nobles had felt the power of Greek culture; they had begun to think, +to learn about peoples who were different from themselves in habits +and manners, and to advance, the best of them at least, in wisdom and +knowledge; and this is true in spite of the unquestioned fact that it +was in this same era that the seeds were sown of moral and political +degeneracy. We shall have abundant opportunity of noting the effects +of this degeneracy in the last age of the Republic, but it is pleasant +to dwell for a moment on that more wholesome Greek influence which +enticed the finer minds among the Roman nobility into a new region of +culture, stimulating thought and strengthening the springs of conduct. + +Even the old Cato himself, most rigid of Roman conservatives, was not +unmoved by this influence,[152] and it was to him that Rome owed the +introduction of Ennius, the greatest literary figure of that age, into +Roman society[153]. But the first genuine example of the new culture, +of the Hellenic enthusiasm of the age, is to be found in Aemilius +Paullus, the conqueror of Macedonia, a true Roman aristocrat who was +delighted to learn from Greeks. Plutarch's _Life_ of this man is a +valuable record of the tendencies of the time. After his failure to +obtain a second consulship, Plutarch tells us[154] that he retired +into private life, devoting himself to religious duties and to the +education of his children, training these in the old Roman habits in +which he had himself been trained, but also in Greek culture, and that +with even greater enthusiasm. He had about them Greek teachers, not +only of grammar, rhetoric, and philosophy, but of the fine arts, and +even of out-door pursuits, such as hunting (to which the Romans were +not greatly addicted), and of the care of horses and dogs; and he made +a point of being present himself at all their exercises, bodily and +mental. The result of this wholesome Xenophontic education is seen in +his son, the great Scipio Aemilianus, who was adopted into the family +of the Scipios in the lifetime of his father. Whatever view we may +take of this great man's conduct in war and politics, there can hardly +be a doubt that the Romans themselves were right in treasuring his +memory as one of the best of their race. When we put all the facts of +his life together, from his early youth, of which his friend Polybius +has left us a most beautiful picture,[155] to his sudden and probably +violent death in the maturity of his powers, we are compelled to +believe that he was really a man of wide sympathies, a strong sense of +justice which guided him steadily through good report and ill, perfect +purity of life, and hatred of all that was low and bad, whether +in rich or poor. He was not, like his father, a Roman aristocrat +patronising Greek culture;[156] in him we see a perfectly natural +and mature combination of the noblest qualities of the Roman and the +wholesomest qualities of the Greek. "It was an awakening truth," +says a great authority, "in the minds of Romans like Scipio, that +intellectual culture must be built upon a foundation of moral +rectitude: and such a foundation they could find in the storehouse of +their own domestic traditions."[157] When Cicero, who held him to +be the greatest of Romans, wrote his dialogue on the State (_de +Republica_), with the new idea pervading it of the moral and political +ascendancy of a single man, he made Scipio the hero and the one +ascendant figure in his work, and ended it with an imitation of the +Platonic "myth," in the form of a "dream of Scipio." + +Scipio gathered round him a circle of able and cultured men, both +Roman and Greek, including almost every living Roman of ability, and +among the Greeks the historian Polybius and the philosopher Panaetius, +of whom we shall have more to learn in the course of this volume. Of +this circle the best and ablest men of Cicero's earlier days were +mentally the children, and his own views both of literature and +politics were largely formed upon the Scipionic tradition. Indeed to +understand the mental and moral furniture of the Roman mind in the +Ciceronian age, it is absolutely necessary to study that of the +generation which made that mind what it was; but here space can only +be found to point out how the enlightenment of the Scipionic circle +opened out new ways in manners, in literature, in philosophical +receptivity, and lastly in the study of the law, which was destined to +be Rome's greatest contribution to civilisation. + +Manners, the demeanour of the individual in social intercourse, are a +valuable index, if not an entirely conclusive one, of the mental and +moral tone of society in any age. Ease and courteousness of bearing +mean, as a rule, that the sense of another's claims as a human being +are always present to the mind. Whatever be the shortcomings of the +last age of the Republic, we must give due credit to the fact that in +their outward demeanour towards each other the educated men of that +age almost invariably show good breeding. It is true enough that +public vituperation, in senate or law-courts, was a fact of every day, +and the wealth of violent personal abuse which a gentleman like Cicero +could expend on one whom for the time he hated, or who had done +him some wrong, passes all belief.[158] But the history of this +vituperation is a curious one; it was a traditional method of hostile +oratory, and sprang from an old Roman root, the tendency to defamation +and satire, which may itself be attributed in part to the Italian +custom of levelling abuse at a public man (e.g. at his triumph) in +order to avert evil from him.[159] To single out a man's personal +ugliness, to calumniate his ancestry in the vilest terms,--these were +little more than traditional practices, oratorical devices, which the +rhetorical education of the day encouraged, and which no one took +very seriously.[160] But we are concerned in this chapter mainly with +private life; and there we find almost universal consideration and +courtesy. In the whole of the Ciceronian correspondence there is +hardly a letter that does not show good breeding, and there are many +that are the natural result of real kindly feeling and true sympathy. + +A good example of the best type of Roman manners is to be found in +Plutarch's _Life_ of Gaius Gracchus, the younger contemporary of +Scipio, who had married his sister. Plutarch draws a picture of him so +vivid that by common consent it is ascribed to the memoirs of some one +who knew him. "In all his dealings with men," says the biographer, "he +was always dignified yet always courteous"; that is, while he inspired +respect, men felt also that he would do anything in his power for +them. That this was said of him by a Roman, and not invented for him +by Plutarch, seems probable because the combination is one peculiarly +Roman; so Livy, when he wishes to describe the finest type of Roman +character, says that a certain man was "haud minus libertatis alienae +quam suae dignitatis memor."[161] This same combination meets us also +in the little pictures of the social life of cultivated men which +Cicero has left us in some of his dialogues. There the speakers are +usually of the nobility, often distinguished members of senatorial +families, as in the _de Oratore_, where the chief _personae_ are +Crassus, Antonius, and Scaevola, the conservative triumvirate of the +day. They all seem grave, or but seldom gently jocular, respectful to +each other, and perhaps a trifle tedious; they never quarrel, however +deeply they may differ, and we may guess that they did not hold their +opinions strongly enough to urge them to open rupture. We seem to see +the same grave faces, with rather noses and large mouths, which meet +us in the sculptures of Augustus' Ara Pacis,[162]--full of dignity, +but a little wanting in animation. + +There is one singular exception to the good manners of the period; but +as the result rather of affectation than of nature, it may help to +prove our rule. Again and again in Plutarch's _Life_ of Cato the +younger the mention of his rudeness proves the strength of the +tradition about him. It was said that this lost him the consulship, +as he declined to make himself agreeable in the style expected from +candidates[163]. Even in a letter to Cicero, an old friend, though not +actually rude, he is absurdly patronising and impertinent to a man +many years his senior, and writes in very bad taste. Probably the +enmity between him and Caesar arose or was confirmed in this way, +as Cato always made a point of being rudest to those whom he most +disliked. He fancied that he was imitating his great ancestor, and +asserting the virtue of good old Roman bluntness against modern Greek +affectation; he did not in the least see that he was himself a curious +example of Roman affectation, shown up by the real amenities of +intercourse, for which Romans had largely to thank Greece[164]. + +In literature too the average capacity of this aristocracy was high, +though the greatest literary figures of the age, if we except Caesar, +do not, strictly speaking, belong to it; Cicero was a novus homo, and +Lucretius and Catullus were not of the senatorial order. But the new +education, as we shall see later on, was admirably calculated to +train men in the art of speaking and writing, if not in the habit of +independent thinking; and among the nobles who reaped the full fruits +of this education every one could write in Latin and probably also +in Greek, and if he aimed at public distinction, could speak without +disgracing himself in the senate and the courts. Oratory was, in fact, +the staple product of the age, and the chief _raison d'être_ of its +literary activity. Long ago the practice had begun of writing out +successful speeches delivered in the senate, in the courts, or at +funerals; the means of publication were easy, as a consequence of the +number of Greek slaves who could act as copyists, and thus oratory +formed the basis of a prose literature which is essentially +Roman,[165] rooted in the practical necessities of the life of the +Roman noble, though deeply tinged with the Greek ideas and forms of +expression acquired in the process of education in vogue. Treatises on +rhetoric, the art of effective expression in prose, form an important +part of it; two of them still survive from the time of Sulla,--the +_Rhetorica ad Herennium_ of an unknown author, and Cicero's early +treatise _de Inventione_. Later on Cicero wrote his admirable dialogue +_de Oratore_ and other works on the same subject, ending with his +_Brutus_, a catalogue raisonnée, invaluable to us, of all the great +Roman orators down to his own time. + +In history writing the standard was not so high. The rhetorical +education made men good professional orators, but indifferent and +dilettante historians, and the example of more accurate historical +investigation and reflection set by Polybius was not followed, except +perhaps by Caelius Antipater in the Gracchan age.[166] History was +affected for the worse by the rhetorical art, as indeed poetry was +destined also to be; Sallust, though we owe much to him, was in fact +an amateur, who thought more of style and expression than of truth +and fact. Caesar, who did not profess to be a historian, but only to +provide the materials for history,[167] stands alone in making facts +more important than words, and rarely troubles his reader with +speeches or other rhetorical superfluities.[168] Biographies and +autobiographies were fashionable; of the former only those of +Cornelius Nepos, one of Cicero's many friends, have come down to us, +and none of the latter, but we know a long list of eminent men who +wrote their own memoirs, including Catulus the elder, Rutilius the +famous victim of equestrian judges, Sulla, and Lucullus. But far above +all other prose writers of the age stand two men, neither of them +Roman by birth, but yet members of the senatorial order; the one a man +of encyclopaedic learning, with what we may almost call a scientific +interest in the subjects which he treated in awkward and homely Latin, +the other a man of comparatively little learning, but gifted with so +exquisite a sense of the beautiful in expression, and at the same +time with a humanity so real and in that day so rare, that it is not +without good cause that he has recently been called the most highly +cultured man of all antiquity.[169] Of Varro's numerous works we have +unluckily but few survivals; of Cicero's we have still such a mass +as will for ever provide ample material for studying the life, the +manners, the thought of his day. + +A large part of this mass consists of the correspondence of which we +are making such frequent use in these chapters. Letter-writing is +perhaps the most pleasing and genuine of all the literary activities +of the time; men took pains to write well, yet not with any definite +prospect of publication, such as was the motive a century later in +the days of Seneca and Pliny. The nine hundred and odd letters of the +Ciceronian collection are most of them neither mere communications +nor yet rhetorical exercises, but real letters, the intercourse of +intimate friends at a distance, in which their inmost thoughts can +often be seen. Cicero is indeed apt to become rhetorical even in his +letters, when writing under excitement about politics; but the most +delightful letters in the collection are those in which he writes +to his friends in happy and natural language of his daily life and +occupations, his books, his villas, his children, his joys and +sorrows. It is strange that the great historian of Rome in our time +entirely failed to see the charm and the value of these letters, as of +all Cicero's writings; his countrymen have now agreed to differ from +him, and to restore a great writer to his true position. + +In philosophical receptivity too the brightest and finest minds among +this aristocracy show an ability which is almost astonishing, when we +consider that there had been no education in Rome worth the name until +the second century B.C.[170] I use the word receptivity, because the +Romans of our period never really learnt to think for themselves; they +never grappled with a problem, or struck out a new line of thought. +But so far as we can judge by Cicero's philosophical works, the only +ones of his age which have come down to us, the power to read with +understanding and to reproduce with skill was unquestionably of a high +order. The opportunities for study were not wanting; private libraries +were numerous, and all Cicero's friends who had collected books were +glad to let him have the use of them.[171] Greek philosophers were +often domesticated in wealthy families, and could discourse with the +statesman when he had leisure from public business. Much of this was +no more than fashion, and real endeavour and earnestness were rare; +but the fact remains that one philosophical system, more especially on +its ethical side, took real possession of the best type of Roman mind, +and had permanent and saving influence on it. + +Stoicism was brought to Rome by Panaetius of Rhodes, the intimate +friend of Scipio, a mild and tactful Greek whose Rhodian birth gave +him perhaps some advantage in associating with the old allies of his +state. He came to Rome at a critical moment, when even the best men +were drifting into pure material self-seeking; and the results of his +teaching were during two centuries so wholesome and inspiring that we +may almost think of him as a missionary. The ground had been prepared +for him in some sense by Polybius, who introduced him to Scipio and +his circle, and who was then engaged in writing his history. From +Polybius the Romans, the best of them at least, first learnt to +realise their own empire and the great change it had wrought in the +world; to think about what they had done and the qualities that +enabled them to do it. From Panaetius they were to learn a +philosophical creed which might direct and save them in the future, +which might serve as ballast in public and private life, just when the +ship was beginning to drift in moral helplessness. He was the founder +of a school of practical wisdom, singularly well adapted to the Roman +character and intellect, which were always practical rather than +speculative; and far better suited to ordinary human life than the old +rigid and austere Stoic ethics, of which the younger Cato was the +only eminent Roman disciple. From what we know of Panaetius' ethical +teaching,--and in the first two books of Cicero's work, _de Officiis_, +we have a fairly complete view of it,--we do not find the old doctrine +that absolute wisdom and justice are the only ends to pursue, and +everything else indifferent; a doctrine which put the old-fashioned +Stoic out of court in public life. The relative element, the useful, +played a great part in the teaching of Panaetius. Though his system +is based on the highest principles to which moral teaching could then +appeal, it did not exclude the give and take, the compromise without +which no practical man of affairs can make way, nor yet the wealth and +bodily comforts that secure leisure for thought.[172] + +Panaetius' mission was carried on by another Rhodian philosopher, the +famous Posidonius, who lived long enough to know Cicero himself +and many of his contemporaries; a man less inspiring perhaps than +Panaetius, but of greater knowledge and attainment; a traveller, +geographer, and a man of the world, whose writings on many subjects, +though lost to us, really lie at the back of a great part of the Roman +literary output of his time.[173] He was the disciple of Panaetius; +envoy from Rhodes to Rome in the terrible year 86; and later on the +inmate of Roman families, and the admired friend of Cicero Pompeius, +and Varro. Philosophy was only one of the many pursuits of this +extraordinary man, whose literary and historical influence can be +traced in almost every leading Roman author for a century at least; +but his philosophical importance was during his lifetime perhaps +predominant. The generation that knew him was rich in Stoics; for +example, Aelius Stilo, the master of Varro, "doctissimus eorum +temporum," as Gellius calls him;[2] Rutilius, who was mentioned just +now as having written memoirs; and among others probably the great +lawyer Mucius Scaevola. Cato, as we have seen, was not a follower of +the Roman school of Stoicism, but of the older and uncompromising +doctrine; but Cicero, though never a professed Stoic, was really +deeply influenced, and towards the end of his life almost fascinated, +by a creed which suited his humanity while it stimulated his instinct +for righteousness.[174] And, like Cicero, many other men of serious +character felt the power of Stoicism almost unconsciously, without +openly professing it. + +Stoicism then was in several ways congenial to the Roman spirit, but +in one direction it had an inspiring influence which has been of +lasting moment to the world. Up to the time of Panaetius and the +Scipionic circle the Roman idea and study of law had been of a crabbed +practical character, wanting in breadth of treatment, destitute of any +philosophical conception of the moral principles which lie behind all +law and government. The Stoic doctrine of universal law ruling the +world--a divine law, emanating from the universal Reason--seems to +have called up life in these dry bones. It might be held by a Roman +Stoic that human law comes into existence when man becomes aware of +the divine law, and recognises its claim upon him. Morality is thus +identical with law in the widest sense of the word, for both are +equally called into being by the Right Reason, which is the universal +primary force.[175] It is not possible here to show how this grand and +elevating idea of law may have affected Roman jurisprudence, but we +will just notice that the first quasi-philosophical treatment of law +is found following the age of Panaetius and the Scipionic circle; that +the phrase _ius gentium_ then begins to take the meaning of general +principles or rules common to all peoples, and founded on "natural +reason";[176] and that this led by degrees to the later idea of the +Law of Nature, and to the cosmopolitanism of the Roman legal system, +which came to embrace all peoples and degrees in its rational and +beneficent influence. If the Greek had a genius for beauty, and the +Jew for righteousness, the Roman had a genius for law; and the power +of Stoicism in ennobling and enriching his native conception of it is +probably not to be easily over-estimated. + +Thus behind the stormy scenes of public life in this period there is a +process going on which will be of value not only to the Roman Empire +but to modern civilisation. It was carried on more especially by two +men of the highest character, Q. Mucius Scaevola, Cicero's adviser +in his early days, and often his model in later life; and Servius +Sulpicius Rufus, his exact contemporary and lifelong friend. Neither +Scaevola nor Sulpicius were, so far as we know, professed disciples +of Stoicism; but that they applied perhaps half unconsciously the +principles of Stoicism to their own legal studies is almost certain. +The combination of legal training and Stoic influence (whether direct +or unconscious) seems to have been capable of bringing the Roman +aristocratic character to a high pitch of perfection; and it will be +pleasant to take this friend of Cicero, whose public career we can +clearly trace, and one or two of whose letters we still possess, as +our example of a really well spent life in an age when time and talent +were constantly abused and wasted. + +Sulpicius and Cicero were born in the same year, 106; they went hand +in hand in early life, and remained friends till their deaths in 43, +Sulpicius dying a few months before Cicero. They were both attached +in early youth to the Scaevola just mentioned, the first of the great +series of scientific Roman lawyers. But the consulship of Cicero +made a wide divergence in their lives. In that year Sulpicius was a +candidate for the consulship and failed; and then, resigning further +attempts to obtain the highest honour, he retired for the next twelve +years into private life, devoting himself to the work which has made +his name immortal. His writings are lost; nothing remains of them but +a few chance fragments and allusions; but he was reckoned the second +of the great writers on legal subjects, and it is probable that he +contributed as much as any of them to the work of making Roman +law what it has been as a power in the world, a factor in modern +civilisation. For he treated it, as his friend said of him,[177] with +the hand and mind of an artist, laying out his whole subject and +distributing it into its constituent parts, by definition and +interpretation making clear what seemed obscure, and distinguishing +the false from the true in legal principle. In the splendid panegyric +pronounced on him in the senate after his death,[178] Cicero again +emphatically declared him to be unrivalled in jurisprudence. In +beautiful but untranslatable language he claims that he was "non magis +iuris consultus, quam iustitiae,"--an encomium which all great +lawyers might well envy; he aimed rather at enabling men to be rid of +litigation than at encouraging them to engage in it. + +From such passages we might conjecture, even if we knew nothing +more about him, that Sulpicius was a man of very fine clay, of real +_humanitas_ in the widest sense of that expressive word; and this +is entirely borne out in other ways.[179] Emerging at last from +retirement, he stood again for the consulship in 52 B.C., and was +elected. The year of his office, 51, was the first in which the +enemies of Caesar, with Cato at their head, began to attack his +position and clamour for his recall from his command; this violent +hostility Sulpicius tried, not without temporary success, to restrain, +and the fact that a man of so just a mind should have taken this +line is one of the best arguments for the reasonableness of Caesar's +cause.[180] When war broke out he was greatly perplexed how to act; +his breadth of view made decision difficult, and he seems to have +been at all times more a student than a man of action. With some +heart-burnings he joined Caesar in the struggle, and accepted from him +the government of Achaia; it was at this time that he wrote the famous +letter of consolation to Cicero on the death of his beloved daughter +Tullia, which is full of true feeling and kindliness, though evidently +composed with effort, if not with difficulty. After Caesar's death he +of course acted with Cicero against Antony, and in the spring of +43, making always for peace and good-will, he gave his life for his +country in a way that claims our admiration more really than the +suicide of Cato the professional Stoic; he headed an embassy to +Antony, though dangerously ill at the time, and died in this last +effort to obtain a hearing for the voice of justice. He has a +_monumentum aere perennius_ in the speech of his old friend urging the +senate to vote him a public funeral and a statue, as one who had laid +down his life for his country. + +We must now turn to consider how the mischievous side of the new Greek +culture, in combination with other tendencies of the time, found its +way into weak points in the armour of the Roman aristocracy. + +The pursuit of ease and pleasure, to which the attainment of wealth +and political power were too often merely subordinated, is a leading +characteristic of the time. It is seen in many different forms, in +many different types of character; but at the root of the whole +corruption is the spirit of the coarser side of Epicureanism. As with +Roman Stoicism, so too with Roman Epicureanism, it is not so much the +professed holding of philosophical tenets that affected life; in the +case of the latter system, it was the coincidence of its popularity +with the decay of the old Roman faith and morality, and with the +abnormal opportunities of self-indulgence. Cato as a professed Stoic, +Lucretius as an enthusiastic Epicurean, stand quite apart from +the mass of men who were actuated one way or the other by these +philosophical creeds. The majority simply played with the philosophy, +while following the natural bent of their individual character; but +such dilettanteism was often quite enough to affect that character +permanently for good or evil. + +"Epicureanism popularised inevitably turns to vice." Was it really +popular at Rome? Cicero tells us in a valuable passage[181] that one +Amafinius had written on it, and that a great number of copies of his +book were sold, partly because the arguments were easy to follow, +partly because the doctrine was pleasant, and partly too because men +failed to get hold of anything better. The date of this Amafinius is +uncertain, but it is probable that Cicero is here speaking of the +latter part of the second century B.C.; and he goes on to say that +other writers took up the same line of teaching, and established it +over the whole of Italy (Italiam totam occupaverunt). If this was +in the time of the Social and Civil Wars, of the proscriptions, of +increasing crime and self-seeking, we can well understand that the +doctrine was popular. We have a remarkable example of it in the life +of a public man of Cicero's own time, the object of the most envenomed +invective that he ever uttered.[182] We cannot believe a tithe of what +he says about this man, Calpurnius Piso, consul in 58; but in this +particular matter of the damage done him by Epicurean teaching we have +independent evidence which confirms it. Piso, then a young man, made +acquaintance with a Greek of this school of thought, learnt from him +that pleasure was the sole end of life, and failing to appreciate the +true meaning and bearing of the doctrine, fell into the trap. It was +a dangerous doctrine, Cicero says, for a youth of no remarkable +intelligence; and the tutor, instead of being the young man's guide to +virtue, was used by him as an authority for vice.[183] This Greek was +a certain Philodemus, a few of whose poems are preserved in the _Greek +Anthology_; and a glance at them will show at once how dangerous such +a man would be as the companion of a Roman youth. He may not himself +have been a bad man--Cicero indeed rather suggests the contrary, +calling him _vere humanus_--but the air about him was poisonous. In +his pupil, if we can trust in the smallest degree the picture drawn of +him by Cicero, we may see a specimen of the young men of the age whose +talents might have made them useful in the world, but for the strength +of the current that drew them into self-indulgence. + +Not only the pursuit of pleasure, but its correlative, the avoidance +of work and duty, can be abundantly illustrated in this age; and this +too may have had a subtle connexion with Epicurean teaching, which had +always discouraged the individual from distraction in the service of +the State, as disturbing to the free development of his own virtue. +Sulla did much hard work, but made the serious blunder of retiring to +enjoy himself just when his new constitutional machinery needed the +most careful watching and tending. Lucullus, after showing a wonderful +capacity for work and a greater genius for war than perhaps any man of +his time, retired from public life as a millionaire and a quietist, +to enjoy the wealth that has become proverbial, and a luxury that is +astonishing, even if we make due allowance for the exaggeration of our +accounts of it. To his library we have already been introduced; those +who would see him in his banqueting-hall, or rather one of the many +in his palace, may turn to the fortieth chapter of Plutarch's most +interesting _Life_ of him, and read the story there told of the dinner +he gave to Cicero and Pompeius in the "Apollo" dining-room.[184] + +The same cynical carelessness about public affairs and neglect of +duty, as compared with private ease or advantage, seems to have been +characteristic of the ordinary senator. Active and busy in his own +interest, he was indifferent to that of the State. There are distinct +signs that the attendance in the senate was not good. When Cicero was +away in Cilicia his correspondent writes of difficulties in getting +together a sufficient number even for such important business as the +settlement of provincial governments.[185] On the other hand, much +private business was done, and many jobs perpetrated, in a thin +senate; in 66 a tribune proposed that no senator should be dispensed +from the action of a law unless two hundred were present.[186] It was +in such a thin senate, we may be sure, that the virtuous Brutus was +dispensed from the law which forbade lending to foreign borrowers in +Rome, and thus was enabled to lend to the miserable Salaminians of +Cyprus at 48 per cent, and to recover his money under the bond.[187] +Writing to his brother in December 57, Cicero speaks of business done +in a senate full for the time of year, which was midwinter, just +before the Saturnalia, when only two hundred were present out of about +six hundred. In February 54, a month when the senate had always much +business to get through, it was so cold one day that the few members +present clamoured for dismissal and obtained it.[188] And when the +senate did meet there was a constant tendency to let things go. No +reform of procedure is mentioned as even thought of, at a time when +it was far more necessary than in our Parliament; business was talked +about, postponed obstructed, and personal animosities and private +interests seem, so far as we can judge from the correspondence of the +time, to have been predominant. With wearisome iteration the letters +speak of nothing done, of business postponed, or of the passing of +some senatus consultum, the utter futility of which is obvious even +now.[189] Even the magistrates seem to have been growing careless; we +hear of a praetor presiding in the court de repetundis who had not +taken the trouble to acquaint himself with the text of the law which +governed its procedure;[190] and that praetors were worse than +careless about their action in civil cases is proved by another law of +the same tribune Cornelius mentioned just now, "that praetors should +abide by the rules laid down in their edicts."[191] + +But all these futilities, and much of the same kind outside of the +senate, together with the quarrels of individuals, the chances and +incidents of elections, and all such gossip as forms the staple +commodity of the society papers of to-day, were a source of infinite +delight to another type of pleasure-loving public man, the last to be +illustrated here. + +If the older noble families were apathetic and idle, there were plenty +of young men, rising most often from the class below, whose minds were +intensely active--active in the pursuit of pleasure, but pleasure in +the comparatively harmless form of amusement and excitement. One of +these, the son of a banker at Puteoli, Marcus Caelius Rufus, stands +out as a living portrait in his own letters to Cicero, of which no +fewer than seventeen are preserved.[192] Of his early years too we +know a good deal, told us in the speech in defence of him spoken by +Cicero in the year 56; and these combined sources of information make +him the most interesting figure in the life of his age. M. Boissier +has written a delightful essay on him in his _Cicéron et ses amis_, +and Professor Tyrrell has done the like in the introduction to the +fourth volume of his edition of Cicero's letters; but they have +treated him less as a type of the youth of his day than as the friend +and pupil of Cicero. Caelius will always repay fresh study; he was +amusing and interesting to his contemporaries, and so he will be for +ever to us. He is a veritable Proteus--you never know what shape he +will take next; + + Omnia transformat sese in miracula rerum---- + +we can trace no less than six such transformations in the story of +his life. And this instability, let us note at once, was not the +restlessness of a jaded _roué_, but the coruscation of a clever mind +wholly without principle, intensely interested in his _monde_, in the +life in which he moved, with all its enjoyment and excitement. + +Caelius' father brought his son to Cicero, as soon as he had taken +his toga virilis, to study law and oratory, and Cicero was evidently +attracted by the bright and lively boy; he never deserted him, and +the last letter of Caelius to his old preceptor was written only just +before his own sad end. But Cicero was not the man to keep an unstable +character out of mischief; he loved young men, especially clever ones, +and was apt to take an optimistic view of them, as he did of his own +son and nephew. Caelius, always attracted by novelty, left Cicero and +attached himself to Catiline; and for this vagary, as well as for his +own want of success in controlling his pupil, Cicero rather awkwardly +and amusingly apologises in the early chapters of his speech in his +defence. Wild oats must be sown, he says; when a youth has given full +fling to his propensities to vice, they will leave him, and he may +become a useful citizen,--a dangerous view of a preceptor's duty, +which reminds us of the treatment, of the boy Nero by his philosopher +guardian long afterwards.[193] + +Caelius escaped the fate of Catiline and his crew only to fall into +the hands of another clique not less dangerous for his moral welfare. +He became one of a group of brilliant young men, among whom were +probably Catullus and Calvus the poets, who were lovers, and +passionate lovers, of the infamous Clodia; they were needy, she found +them money, and they hovered about her like moths about a candle. In +such a life of passion and pleasure quarrels were inevitable. If the +Lesbia of Catullus be Clodia, as we may believe, she had thrown the +poet over with a light heart. It was apparently of his own free will +that Caelius deserted her: in revenge she turned upon him with an +accusation of theft and attempt to poison. What truth there was in the +charges we do not really know, but Cicero defended him successfully, +and in this way we come to know the details of this unsteady life. + +In gratitude, and possibly in shame, Caelius now returned to his old +friend, and abandoned the whole ring of his vicious companions for +diligent practice in the courts, where he obtained considerable fame +as an orator. A fragment of a speech of his preserved by Quintilian +shows, as Professor Tyrrell observes, wonderful power of graphic +and picturesque utterance.[194] Cicero, writing of him after his +death,[195] says that he was at this time on the right side in +politics, and that as tribune of the plebs in 56 he successfully +supported the good cause, and checked revolutionary and seditious +movements. All was going well with him until Cicero went as governor +to Cilicia in 51. Cicero seems to have felt complete confidence +in him, and invited him to become his confidential political +correspondent; fifteen out of his seventeen letters were written in +this capacity. These letters show us the man as clearly as if we had +his diary before us. Caelius is no idle scamp or lazy Epicurean; his +mind is constantly active: nothing escapes his notice: the minutest +and most sordid things delight him. He is bright, happy, witty, +frivolous, and doubtless lovable. It is amusing to see how Cicero +himself now and again catches the infection, and tries (in vain) to +write in the same frivolous manner.[196] Caelius has some political +insight; he sees civil war approaching, but he takes it all as a game, +and on the eve of events which were to shake the world he trifles +with the symptoms as though they were the silliest gossip of the +capital.[197] In none of these letters is there the smallest vestige +of principle to be found. On the very eve of civil war he tells +Cicero[198] that as soon as war breaks out the right thing to do is to +join the stronger side. Judging Caesar's side to be the stronger, he +joined it accordingly, and did his best to induce Cicero to do the +same. As M. Boissier happily says, he never cared to "ménager ses +transitions." + +He had, however, to discover that if to change over to Caesar was the +safer course, to turn a political somersault once more, to try and +undermine the work of the master, meant simply ruin. We have the story +of his sixth and last transformation from Caesar himself, who was not, +however, in Italy at the time.[199] Credit in Italy had been seriously +upset by the outbreak of Civil War, and Caesar had been at much pains +to steady it by an ordinance which has been alluded to in the last +chapter.[200] In 48 Caelius was praetor; in the master's absence he +suddenly took up the cause of the debtors, and tried to evoke appeals +against the decisions of his colleague Trebonius,--a great lawyer and +a just man. Failing in this, he started as a downright revolutionary, +proposing first the abolition of house-rent, and finally the abolition +of all debts; and Milo, in exile at Massilia, was summoned to help +him to raise Italy against Caesar. This was too much, and both were +quickly caught and killed as they were stirring up gladiators and +other slave-bands among the latifundia of South Italy. + +Caelius' letters give us a chance of seeing what that life of the +Forum really was which so fascinated the young men of the day, and +some of the old, such as Cicero himself. We can see these children +playing on the very edge of the crater, like the French noblesse +before the Revolution. In both cases there was a semi-consciousness +that the eruption was not far off,--but they went on playing. What was +it that so greatly amused and pleased them? + +What Caelius is always writing of is mainly elections and canvassing, +accusations and trials, games and shows. Elections he treats as pure +sport, as a kind of enjoyable gambling, or as a means of spiting some +one whom you want to annoy. With elections accusations were often +connected: if a man were accused before his election he could not +continue to stand; if condemned after it he was disqualified; here +were ways in which personal spite might deprive him of success at the +last moment.[201] Accusations, too were of course the best means by +which an ambitious young man could come to the front. The whole number +of trials mentioned by Caelius is astonishing; sometimes there is such +a complication of them as is difficult to follow. Every one is ready +to lay an accusation, without the smallest regard for truth. Young +Appius Claudius accuses Servilius, and makes a mess of the attack, +while the praetor mismanages the conduct of the trial, so that nothing +comes of it; but finally Appius is himself accused by the Servilii +_de vi_, in order to keep him from further attacks on Servilius![202] +Appius the father quarrelled with Caelius and egged on others to +accuse him, though he was curule aedile at the time. "Their impudence +was so boundless that they secured that an information should be +laid against me for a very serious crime (under the Scantinian law). +Scarcely had Pola got the words out of his mouth, when I laid an +information under the same law against the censor, Appius. I never saw +a more successful stroke!"[203] + +Of the games, and the panthers to be exhibited at them, about which +Caelius is for ever worrying his friend in Cilicia, we shall see +something in another chapter. There is plenty of other gossip in these +letters, and gossip often about unsavoury matters which need not be +noticed here. It lets in a flood of light upon the causes of the +general incompetence and inefficiency; the life of the Forum was a +demoralising one: + + Uni se atque eidem studio omnes dedere et arti + uerba dare ut caute possint, pugnare dolose: + blanditia certare, bonum simulare uirum se: + insidias facere, ut si hostes sint omnibus omnes.[204] + +From what has been said in this sketch it should be clear that we have +in the aristocracy of this period a complicated society, the various +aspects of which can hardly be united in a single picture. It is +partly a hereditary aristocracy, with all the pride and exclusiveness +of a group of old families accustomed to power and consequence. It is +in the main a society of gentlemen, dignified in manner, and kindly +towards each other, and it is also a society of high culture and +literary ability, though poor in creative genius, and unimaginative. +On the other hand, it is a class which has lost its interest in +the State, and is energetic only when pursuing its own interests: +pleasure-loving, luxurious, gossiping, trifling with serious matters, +short-sighted in politics because anxious only for personal advance. +"Rari nantes in gurgite vasto" are the men who are really in earnest, +but they are there; we must not forget that in Lucretius and Cicero +this society produced one of the greatest poets and one of the most +perfect prose writers that the world treasures; in Sulpicius a lawyer +of permanent value to humanity, and in Caesar not only an author and a +scholar but a man of action unrivalled in capacity and industry. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +MARRIAGE: AND THE ROMAN LADY + +In order to appreciate the position of women of various types in the +society we are examining, it is necessary to make it clear what Roman +marriage originally and ideally meant. In any society, it will be +found that the position and influence of woman can be fairly well +discerned from the nature of the marriage ceremony and the conditions +under which it is carried out. At Rome, in all periods of her history, +a _iustum matrimonium_, i.e. a marriage sanctioned by law and +religion, and therefore entirely legal in all its results, was a +matter of great moment, not to be achieved without many forms and +ceremonies. The reason for this elaboration is obvious, at any rate +to any one who has some acquaintance with ancient life in Greece or +Italy. As we shall see later on, the house was a residence for the +divine members of the family, as well as the human; the entrance, +therefore, of a bride into the household,--of one, that is, who had no +part nor lot in that family life--meant some straining of the relation +between the divine and human members. The human part of the family +brings in a new member, but it has to be assured that the divine part +is willing to accept her before the step taken can be regarded as +complete. She has to enter the family in such a way as to be able to +share in its sacra, i.e. in the worship of the household spirits, +the ancestors in their tombs, or in any special cult attached to the +family. In order to secure this eligibility, she was in the earliest +times subjected to a ceremony which was clearly of a sacramental +character, and which had as its effect the transference of the bride +from the hand (manus) of her father, i.e. from absolute subjection to +him as the head of her own family, to the hand of her husband, i.e. to +absolute subjection to him as the head of her new family. + +This sacramental ceremony was called _confarreatio_, because a sacred +cake, made of the old Italian grain called _far_, and offered to +Jupiter Farreus,[205] was partaken of by bride and bridegroom, in the +presence of the Pontifex Maximus, the Flamen Dialis, and ten other +witnesses. At such a ceremony the auspices had of course been taken, +and apparently a victim was also slain, and offered probably to Ceres, +the skin of which was stretched over two seats (sellae), on which the +bride and bridegroom had to sit.[206] These details of the early form +of patrician marriage are only mentioned here to make the religious +character of the Roman idea of the rite quite plain; in other words, +to prove that the entrance of a bride into a family from outside was +a matter of very great difficulty and seriousness, not to be achieved +without special aid and the intervention of the gods. We may even +go so far as to say that the new materfamilias was in some sort +a priestess of the household, and that she must undergo a solemn +initiation before assuming that position. And we may still further +illustrate the mystical religious nature of the whole rite, if +we remember that throughout Roman history no one could hold the +priesthood of Jupiter (flaminium diale), or that of Mars or Quirinus, +or of the Rex sacrorum, who had not been born of parents wedded by +confarreatio, and that in each case the priest himself must be married +by the same ceremony.[207] This last mentioned fact may also serve to +remind us that it was not only the family and its sacra, its life and +its maintenance, that called for the ceremonies making up a iustum +matrimonium, but also the State and its sacra, its life and its +maintenance.[208] As confarreatio had as its immediate object the +providing of a materfamilias fully qualified in all her various +functions, and as its further object the providing of persons legally +qualified to perform the most important sacra of the state; so +marriage, in whatever form, had as its object at once the maintenance +of the family and its sacra and the production of men able to serve +the State in peace and war. To be a Roman citizen you must be the +product of a iustum matrimonium. From this initial fact flow all the +_iura_ or rights which together make up citizenship; whether the +private rights, which enable you to hold and transfer and to inherit +property under the shelter of the Roman law,[209] or the public +rights, which protect your person against violence and murder, and +enable you to give your vote in the public assembly and to seek +election to magistracies.[210] + +Marriage then was a matter of the utmost importance in Roman life, and +in all the forms of it we find this importance marked by due solemnity +of ritual. In two other forms, besides confarreatio, the bride could +be brought under the hand of her husband, viz., _coemptio_ and _usus_, +with which we are not here specially concerned; for long before the +last century of the Republic all three methods had become practically +obsolete, or were only occasionally used for particular purposes. In +the course of time it had been found more convenient for a woman to +remain after her marriage in the hand of her father, or if he were +dead, in the "tutela" of a guardian (tutor), than to pass into that +of her husband; for in the latter case her property became absolutely +his. The natural tendency to escape from the restrictions of marital +_manus_ may be illustrated by a case such as the following: a woman +under the _tutela_ of a guardian wishes to marry; if she does so, and +passes under the _manus_ of her husband, her _tutor_ loses all control +over her property, which may probably be of great importance for +the family she is leaving; he therefore naturally objects to such a +marriage, and urges that she should be married without _manus_.[211] +In fact the interests of her own family would often clash with those +of the one she was about to enter, and a compromise could be effected +by the abandonment of marriage _cum manu_. + +Now this, the abandonment of marriage _cum manu_, means simply that +certain legal consequences of the marriage ceremony were dropped, +and with them just those parts of the ceremony which produced these +consequences. Otherwise the marriage was absolutely as valid for all +purposes private and public as it could be made even by confarreatio +itself. The sacramental part was absent, and the survival of the +features of marriage by purchase, which we may see in the form of +coemptio, was also absent; but in all other respects the marriage +ceremony was the same as in marriage _cum manu_. It retained all +essential religious features, losing only a part of its legal +character. It will be as well briefly to describe a Roman wedding of +the type common in the last two centuries of the Republic. + +To begin with, the boy and girl--for such they were, as we should look +on them, even at the time of marriage--have been betrothed, in all +probability, long before. Cicero tells us that he betrothed his +daughter Tullia to Calpurnius Piso Frugi early in 66 B.C.; the +marriage took place in 63. Tullia seems to have been born in 76, so +that she was ten years old at the time of betrothal and thirteen at +that of marriage. This is probably typical of what usually happened; +and it shows that the matter was really entirely in the hands of the +parents. It was a family arrangement, a _mariage de convenance_, +as has been and is the practice among many peoples, ancient and +modern.[212] The betrothal was indeed a promise rather than a definite +contract, and might be broken off without illegality; and thus if +there were a strong dislike on the part of either girl or boy a way of +escape could be found.[213] However this may be, we may be sure that +the idea of the marriage was not that of a union for love, though it +was distinguished from concubinage by an "affectio maritalis" as well +as by legal forms, and though a true attachment might, and often did, +as in modern times in like circumstances, arise out of it. It was the +idea of the service of the family and the State that lay at the root +of the union. This is well illustrated, like so many other Roman +ideas, in the _Aeneid_ of Virgil. Those who persist in looking on +Aeneas with modern eyes, and convict him of perfidy towards Dido, +forget that his passion for Dido was a sudden one, not sanctioned by +the gods or by favourable auspices, and that the ultimate union with +Lavinia, for whom he forms no such attachment, was one which would +recommend itself to every Roman as justified by the advantage to the +State. The poet, it is true, betrays his own intense humanity in +his treatment of the fate of Dido, but he does so in spite of his +theme,--the duty of every Roman to his family and the State. A Roman +would no doubt fall in love, like a youth of any other nation, but his +passion had nothing to do with his life of duty as a Roman. This idea +of marriage had serious consequences, to which we shall return later +on. + +When the day for the wedding arrives, our bride assumes her bridal +dress, laying aside the toga praetexta of her childhood and dedicating +her dolls to the Lar of her family; and wearing the reddish veil +(_flammeum_) and the woollen girdle fastened with a knot called the +knot of Hercules,[214] she awaits the arrival of the bridegroom in +her father's house. Meanwhile the auspices are being taken;[215] in +earlier times this was done by observing the flight of birds, but now +by examination of the entrails of a victim, apparently a sheep. If +this is satisfactory the youthful pair declare their consent to the +union and join their right hands as directed by a pronuba, i.e. a +married woman, who acts as a kind of priestess. Then after another +sacrifice and a wedding feast, the bride is conducted from her old +home to that of her husband, accompanied by three boys, sons of living +parents, one carrying a torch while the other two lead her by either +hand; flute-players go before, and nuts are thrown to the boys. This +_deductio_, charmingly described in the beautiful sixty-fifth poem of +Catullus, is full of interesting detail which must be omitted here. +When the bridegroom's house is reached, the bride smears the doorposts +with fat and oil and ties a woollen fillet round each: she is +then lifted over the threshold, is taken by her husband into the +partnership of fire and water--the essentials of domestic life--and +passes into the atrium. The morrow will find her a materfamilias, +sitting among her maids in that atrium, or in the more private +apartments behind it: + + Claudite ostia, virgines + Lusimus satis. At boni + Coniuges, bene vivite, et + Munere assiduo valentem + Exercete iuventam. + +Even the dissipated Catullus could not but treat the subject of +marriage with dignity and tenderness, and in this last stanza of his +poem he alludes to the duties of a married pair in language which +would have satisfied the strictest Roman. He has also touched another +chord which would echo in the heart of every good citizen, in the +delicious lines which just precede those quoted, and anticipate the +child--a son of course--that is to be born, and that will lie in +his mother's arms holding out his little hands, and smiling on his +father.[216] Nothing can better illustrate the contrast in the mind +of the Roman between passionate love and serious marriage than a +comparison of this lovely poem with those which tell the sordid +tale of the poet's intrigues with Lesbia (Clodia). The beauty and +_gravitas_ of married life as it used to be are still felt and still +found, but the depths of human feeling are not stirred by them. Love +lies beyond, is a fact outside the pale of the ordered life of the +family or the State. + +No one who studies this ceremonial of Roman marriage, in the light of +the ideas which it indicates and reflects, can avoid the conclusion +that the position of the married woman must have been one of +substantial dignity, calling for and calling out a corresponding type +of character. Beyond doubt the position of the Roman materfamilias was +a much more dignified one than that of the Greek wife. She was far +indeed from being a mere drudge or squaw; she shared with her husband +in all the duties of the household, including those of religion, and +within the house itself she was practically supreme.[217] She lived in +the atrium, and was not shut away in a women's chamber; she nursed her +own children and brought them up; she had entire control of the female +slaves who were her maids; she took her meals with her husband, but +sitting, not reclining, and abstaining from wine; in all practical +matters she was consulted, and only on questions political or +intellectual was she expected to be silent. When she went out arrayed +in the graceful _stola matronalis_, she was treated with respect, +and the passers-by made way for her; but it is characteristic of +her position that she did not as a rule leave the house without the +knowledge of her husband, or without an escort.[218] + +In keeping with this dignified position was the ideal character of the +materfamilias. Ideal we must call it, for it does not in all respects +coincide with the tradition of Roman women even in early times; but +we must remember that at all periods of Roman history the woman whose +memory survives is apt to be the woman who is not the ideal matron, +but one who forces herself into notice by violating the traditions of +womanhood. The typical matron would assuredly never dream of playing +a part in history; her influence was behind the scenes, and therefore +proportionally powerful. The legendary mother of Coriolanus (the +Volumnia of Shakespeare), Cornelia the mother of the Gracchi, Aurelia, +Caesar's mother, and Julia his daughter, did indirectly play a far +greater part in public life than the loud and vicious ladies who have +left behind them names famous or infamous; but they never claimed the +recognition of their power. + +This peculiar character of the Roman matron, a combination of dignity, +industry, and practical wisdom, was exactly suited to attract the +attention of a gentle philosopher like Plutarch, who loved, with +genuine moral fervour, all that was noble and honest in human nature. +Not only does he constantly refer to the Roman ladies and their +character in his _Lives_ and his _Morals_, but in his series of more +than a hundred "Roman questions" the first nine, as well as many +others, are concerned with marriage and the household life; and in +his treatise called _Coniugalia praecepta_ he reflects many of +the features of the Roman matron. From him, in Sir Thomas North's +translation, Shakespeare drew the inspiration which enabled him to +produce on the Elizabethan stage at least one such typical matron. In +Coriolanus he has followed Plutarch so closely that the reader may +almost be referred to him as an authority; and in the contrast between +the austere and dignified Volumnia and the passionate and voluptuous +Cleopatra of the later play, the poet's imagination seems to have been +guided by a true historical instinct. + +We need not doubt that the austere matron of the old type survived +into the age we are specially concerned with; but we hardly come +across her in the literature of the time, just because she was living +her own useful life, and did not seek publicity. Chance has indeed +preserved for us on stone the story of a wonderful lady, whose early +years of married life were spent in the trying time of the civil wars +of 49-43 B.C., and who, if a devoted husband's praises are to be +trusted, as indeed they may be, was a woman of the finest Roman cast, +and endowed with such a combination of practical virtues as we should +hardly have expected even in a Roman matron. But we shall return to +this inscription later on. + +The ladies whom we meet with in Cicero's letters and in the other +literature of the last age of the Republic are not of this type. Since +the second Punic war the Roman lady has changed, like everything else +Roman. It is not possible here to trace the history of the change +in detail, but we may note that it seems to have begun within the +household, in matters of dress and expense, and later on affected the +life and bearing of women in society and politics. Marriages cum manu +became unusual: the wife remained in the potestas of her father, who +in most cases, doubtless, ceased to trouble himself about her, and as +her property did not pass to her husband, she could not but obtain a +new position of independence. Women began to be rich, and in the +year 169 B.C. a law was passed (lex Voconia) forbidding women of the +highest census[219] (who alone would probably be concerned) to inherit +legacies. Even before the end of the great war, and when private +luxury would seem out of place, it had been proposed to abolish the +Oppian law, which placed restrictions on the ornaments and apparel of +women; and in spite of the vehement opposition of Cato, then a young +man, the proposal was successful.[220] At the same time divorce, which +had probably never been impossible though it must have been rare,[221] +began to be a common practice. We find to our surprise that the +virtuous Aemilius Paullus, in other respects a model paterfamilias, +put away his wife, and when asked why he did so, replied that a woman +might be excellent in the eyes of her neighbours, but that only a +husband could tell where the shoe pinched.[222] And in estimating the +changed position of women within the family we must not forget the +fact that in the course of the long and unceasing wars of the second +century B.C., husbands were away from home for years together, and in +innumerable cases must have perished by the sword or pestilence, or +fallen into the hands of an enemy and been enslaved. It was inevitable +that as the male population diminished, as it undoubtedly did in +that century, the importance of woman should proportionately have +increased. Unfortunately too, even when the husbands were at home, +their wives sometimes seem to have wished to be rid of them. In 180 +B.C. the consul Piso was believed to have been murdered by his wife, +and whether the story be true or not, the suspicion is at least +significant.[223] In 154 two noble ladies, wives of consulares, were +accused of poisoning their husbands and put to death by a council of +their own relations.[224] Though the evidence in these cases is not +by any means satisfactory, yet we can hardly doubt that there was a +tendency among women of the highest rank to give way to passion and +excitement; the evidence for the Bacchanalian conspiracy of 186 B.C., +in which women played a very prominent part, is explicit, and shows +that there was a "new woman" even then, who had ceased to be satisfied +with the austere life of the family and with the mental comfort +supplied by the old religion, and was ready to break out into +recklessness even in matters which were the concern of the State.[225] +That they had already begun to exercise an undue influence over their +husbands in public affairs seems suggested by old Cato's famous dictum +that "all men rule over women, we Romans rule over all men, and our +wives rule over us."[226] + +But it would be a great mistake to suppose that the men themselves +were not equally to blame. Wives do not poison their husbands without +some reason for hating them, and the reason is not difficult to guess. +It is a fact beyond doubt that in spite of the charm of family life as +it has been described above, neither law nor custom exacted conjugal +faithfulness from a husband.[227] Old Cato represents fairly well the +old idea of Roman virtue, yet it is clear enough, both from Plutarch's +_Life_ of him (e.g. ch. xxiv.) and from fragments of his own writings, +that his view of the conjugal relation was a coarse one,--that he +looked on the wife rather as a necessary agent for providing the State +with children than as a helpmeet to be tended and revered. And this +being so, we are not surprised to find that men are already beginning +to dislike and avoid marriage; a most dangerous symptom, with which a +century later Augustus found it impossible to cope. In the year 131, +just after Tiberius Gracchus had been trying to revive the population +of Italy by his agrarian law, Metellus Macedonicus the censor did what +he could to induce men to marry "liberorum creandorum causa"; and a +fragment of a speech of his on this subject became famous afterwards, +as quoted by Augustus with the same object. It is equally +characteristic of Roman humour and Roman hardness. "If we could do +without wives," he said to the people, "we should be rid of that +nuisance: but since nature has decreed that we can neither live +comfortably with them nor live at all without them, we must e'en look +rather to our permanent interests than to a passing pleasure."[228] + +Now if we take into account these tendencies, on the part both of men +and women in the married state, and further consider the stormy +and revolutionary character of the half century that succeeded the +Gracchi,--the Social and Civil Wars, the proscriptions of Marius and +Sulla,--we shall be prepared to find the ladies of Cicero's time by no +means simply feminine in charm or homely in disposition. Most of them +are indeed mere names to us, and we have to be careful in weighing +what is said of them by later writers. But of two or three of them we +do in fact know a good deal. + +The one of whom we really know most is the wife of Cicero, Terentia: +an ordinary lady, of no particular ability or interest, who may stand +as representative of the quieter type of married woman. She lived with +her husband about thirty years, and until towards the end of that +period, a long one for the age, we find nothing substantial against +her. If we had nothing but Cicero's letters to her, more than twenty +in number, and his allusions to her in other letters, we should +conclude that she was a faithful and on the whole a sensible wife. But +more than once he writes of her delicate health,[229] and as the poor +lady had at various times a great deal of trouble to go through, it is +quite possible that as she grew older she became short in her temper, +or trying in other ways to a husband so excitable and vacillating. We +find stories of her in Plutarch and elsewhere which represent her as +shrewish, too careful of her own money, and so on;[230] but facts are +of more account than the gossip of the day, and there is not a sign in +the letters that Cicero disliked or mistrusted her until the year 47. +Had there really been cause for mistrust it would have slipped out in +some letter to Atticus. Then, after his absence during the war, +he seems to have believed that she had neglected himself and his +interests: his letters to her grow colder and colder, and the last is +one which, as has been truly said, a gentleman would not write to +his housekeeper. The pity of it is that Cicero, after divorcing her, +married a young and rich wife, and does not seem to have behaved very +well to her. In a letter to Atticus (xii. 32) he writes that Publilia +wanted to come to him with her mother, when he was at Astura devoting +himself to grief for his daughter, and that he had answered that he +wished to be let alone. The letter shows Cicero at his worst, for once +heartless and discourteous; and if he could be so to a young lady who +wished to do her duty by him, what may he not have been to Terentia? I +suspect that Terentia was quite as much sinned against as sinning; +and may we not believe that of the innumerable married women who +were divorced at this time some at least were the victims of their +husbands' callousness rather than of their own shortcomings? + +The wife of Cicero's brother Quintus does, however, seem to have been +a difficult person to get on with. She was a sister of Atticus, but +she did not share her brother's tact and universal good-will. Marcus +Cicero has recorded (_ad Att._ v. I) a scene in which her ill-temper +was so ludicrous that the divorce which took place afterwards needs no +explanation. The two brothers were travelling together, and Pomponia +was with them; something had irritated her. When they stopped to lunch +at a place belonging to Quintus at Arcanum, he asked his wife to +invite the ladies of the party in. "Nothing, as I thought, could be +more courteous, and that too not only in the actual words, but in his +intention and the expression of his face. But she, in the hearing of +us all, exclaimed, 'I am only a stranger here!'" Apparently she had +not been asked by her husband to see after the luncheon; this had been +done by a freedman, and she was annoyed. "There," said Quintus, "that +is what I have to put up with every day!" When he sent her dishes from +the triclinium, where the gentlemen were having their meal, she would +not taste them. This little domestic contretemps is too good to be +neglected, but we must turn to women of greater note and character. + +Terentia and Pomponia and their kind seem to have had nothing in the +way of "higher education," nor do their husbands seem to have expected +from them any desire to share in their own intellectual interests. Not +once does Cicero allude to any pleasant social intercourse in which +his wife took part; and, to say the truth, he would probably have +avoided marriage with a woman of taste and knowledge. There were such +women, as we shall see, probably many of them; ever since the incoming +of wealth and of Greek education, of theatres and amusements and all +the pleasant out-of-door life of the city, what was now coming to be +called _cultus_ had occupied the minds and affected the habits of +Roman ladies as well as men. Unfortunately it was seldom that it was +found compatible with the old Roman ideal of the materfamilias and +her duties. The invasion of new manners was too sudden, as was the +corresponding invasion of wealth; such a lady as Cornelia, the famous +mother of the Gracchi, "who knew what education really meant, who had +learned men about her and could write well herself, and yet could +combine with these qualities the careful discharge of the duties +of wife and mother,"[231]--such ladies must have been rare, and in +Cicero's time hardly to be found. More and more the notion gained +ground that a clever woman who wished to make a figure in society, to +be the centre of her own _monde_, could not well realise her ambition +simply as a married woman. She would probably marry, play fast and +loose with the married state, neglect her children if she had any, and +after one or two divorces, die or disappear. So powerfully did this +idea of the incompatibility of culture and wifehood gain possession +of the Roman mind in the last century B.C., that Augustus found his +struggle with it the most difficult task he had to face; in vain he +exiled Ovid for publishing a work in which married women are most +frankly and explicitly left out of account, while all that is +attractive in the other sex to a man of taste and education is assumed +to be found only among those who have, so far at least, eschewed the +duties and burdens of married life. The culta puella and the cultus +puer of Ovid's fascinating yet repulsive poem[232] are the products of +a society which looks on pleasure, not reason or duty, as the main +end of life,--not indeed pleasure simply of the grosser type, but the +gratification of one's own wish for enjoyment and excitement, without +a thought of the misery all around, or any sense of the self-respect +that comes of active well-doing. + +The most notable example of a woman of _cultus_ in Cicero's day was +the famous Clodia, the Lesbia (as we may now almost assume) who +fascinated Catullus and then threw him over. She had been married to a +man of family and high station, Metellus Celer, who had died, strange +to say, without divorcing her. She must have been a woman of great +beauty and charm, for she seems to have attracted round her a little +côterie of clever young men and poets, to whom she could lend money or +accord praise as suited the moment. Whether Cicero himself had once +come within reach of her attractions, and perhaps suffered by them, is +an open question, and depends chiefly on statements of Plutarch which +may (as has been said above) have no better foundation than the gossip +of society. But we know how two typical young men of the time, Caelius +and Catullus, flew into the candle and were singed; we know how +fiercely she turned on Caelius, exposing herself and him without a +moment's hesitation in a public court; and we know how cruelly she +treated the poet, who hated her for it even while he still loved +her:[233] + + Odi et amo. Quare id faciam, fortasse requiris; + Nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior. + +CATULL. 85. + +She was, as M. Boissier has well said,[234] the exact counterpart +of her still more famous brother: "Elle apportait dans sa conduite +privée, dans ses engagements d'affection, les mêmes emportements et +les mêmes ardeurs que son frère dans la vie publique. Prompte à tous +les excès et ne rougissant pas de les avouer, aimant et haïssant avec +fureur, incapable de se gouverner et détestant toute contrainte, elle +ne démentait pas cette grande et fière famille dont elle descendait." +All this is true; we need not go beyond it and believe the worst that +has been said of her. + +We have just a glimpse of another lady of _cultus_, but only a +glimpse. This was Sempronia, the wife of an honest man and the mother +of another;[235] but according to Sallust, who introduces her to us as +a principal in the conspiracy of Catiline, she was one of those who +found steady married life incompatible with literary and artistic +tastes. "She could play and dance more elegantly than an honest woman +should ... she played fast and loose with her money, and equally so +with her good fame."[236] She had no scruples, he says, in denying a +debt, or in helping in a murder: yet she had plenty of _esprit_, could +write verses and talk brilliantly, and she knew too how to assume an +air of modesty on occasion. Sallust loved to colour his portraits +highly, and in painting this woman he saw no doubt a chance of +literary effect; but that she was really in the conspiracy we cannot +doubt, and that she had private ends to gain by it is also probable. +She seems to be the first of a series of ladies who during the next +century and later were to be a power in politics, and most of whom +were at least capable of crime, public and private. There is indeed +one instance a few years earlier of a woman exercising an almost +supreme influence in the State, and a woman too of the worst kind. +Plutarch tells us in the most explicit way that when Lucullus in 75 +B.C. was trying to secure for himself the command against Mithridates, +he found himself compelled to apply to a woman named Praecia, whose +social gifts and good nature gave her immense influence, which she +used with the pertinacity peculiar to such ladies. Her reputation, +however, was very bad, and among other lovers she had enslaved +Cethegus (afterwards the conspirator), whose power at the time was +immense at Rome. Thus, says Plutarch, the whole power of the State +fell into the hands of Praecia, for no public measure was passed if +Cethegus was not for it, in other words, if Praecia did not recommend +it to him. If the story be true, as it seems to be, Lucullus gained +her over by gifts and flattery, and thus Cethegus took up his cause +and got him the command.[237] + +Even if we put aside as untrustworthy a great deal of what is told us +of the relations of men and women in this period, it must be confessed +that there is quite sufficient evidence to show that they were loose +in the extreme, and show an altogether unhealthy condition of family +and social life. The famous tigress of the story of Cluentius, Sassia, +as she appears in Cicero's defence of him, was beyond doubt a criminal +of the worst kind, however much we may discount the orator's rhetoric; +and her case proves that the evil did not exist only at Rome, but was +to be found even in a provincial town of no great importance. Divorce +was so common as to be almost inevitable. Husbands divorced +their wives on the smallest pretexts, and wives divorced their +husbands.[238] Even the virtuous Cato seems to have divorced his wife +Marcia in order that Hortensius should marry her, and after some years +to have married her again as the widow of Hortensius, with a large +fortune.[239] Cicero himself writes sometimes in the lightest-hearted +way of conjugal relations which we should think most serious;[240] +and we find him telling Atticus how he had met at dinner the actress +Cytheris, a woman of notoriously bad character. "I did not know she +was going to be there," he says, "but even the Socratic Aristippus +himself did not blush when he was taunted about Lais."[241] Caesar's +reputation in such matters was at all times bad, and though many of +the stories about him are manifestly false, his conquest by Cleopatra +was a fact, and we learn with regret that the Egyptian queen was +living in a villa of his in gardens beyond the Tiber during the year +46, when he was himself in Rome. + +It will be a relief to the reader, after spending so much time in this +unwholesome atmosphere, to turn for a moment in the last place to a +record, unique and entirely credible, of a truly good and wholesome +woman, and of a long period of uninterrupted conjugal devotion. About +the year 8 B.C., not long before Ovid wrote those poems in which +married life was assumed to be hardly worth living, a husband in +high life at Rome lost the wife who had for forty-one years been his +faithful companion in prosperity, his wise and courageous counsellor +in adversity. He recorded her praises and the story of her devotion to +him in a long inscription, placed, as we may suppose, on the wall of +the tomb in which he laid her to rest, and a most fortunate chance has +preserved for us a great part of the marble on which this inscription +was engraved. It is in the form of a laudatio, or funeral encomium; +yet we cannot feel sure that he actually delivered it as a speech, +for throughout it he addresses, not an audience, but the lost wife +herself, in a manner unique among such documents of the kind as have +come down to us. He speaks to her as though she were still living, +though passed from his sight; and it is just this that makes it more +real and more touching than any memorial of the dead that has come +down to us from either Italy or Greece.[242] + +In such a record names are of no great importance; it is no great +misfortune that we do not know quite for certain who this man and his +wife were. But there is a very strong probability that her name was +Turia, and that he was a certain Q. Lucretius Vespillo, who served +under Pompeius in Epirus in 48 B.C., whose romantic adventures in the +proscriptions of 43 are recorded by Appian,[243] and who eventually +became consul under Augustus in 19 B.C. We may venture to use these +names in telling the remarkable story. For telling it here no apology +is needed, for it has never been told in English as a whole, so far as +I am aware. + +It begins when the pair were about to be married, probably in 49 B.C., +and with a horrible family calamity, not unnatural at the moment of +the outbreak of a dangerous civil war. Both Turia's parents were +murdered suddenly and together at their country residence--perhaps, +as Mommsen suggested, by their own slaves. Immediately afterwards +Lucretius had to leave with Pompeius' army for Epirus, and Turia was +left alone, bereft of both her parents, to do what she could to secure +the punishment of the murderers. Alone as she was, or aided only by a +married sister, she at once showed the courage and energy which are +obvious in all we hear of her. She seems to have succeeded in tracking +the assassins and bringing them to justice: "even if I had been there +myself," says her husband, "I could have done no more." + +But this was by no means the only dangerous task she had to undertake +in those years of civil war and insecurity. When Lucretius left her +they seem to have been staying at the villa where her parents had been +murdered; she had given him all her gold and pearls, and kept him +supplied in his absence with money, provisions, and even slaves, which +she contrived to smuggle over sea to Epirus.[244] And during the march +of Caesar's army through Italy she seems to have been threatened, +either in that villa or another, by some detachment of his troops, and +to have escaped only through her own courage and the clemency of one +whose name is not mentioned, but who can hardly be other than the +great Julius himself, a true gentleman, whose instinct and policy +alike it was throughout this civil war to be merciful to opponents. + +A year later, while Lucretius was still away, yet another peril came +upon her. While Caesar was operating round Dyrrhachium, there was a +dangerous rising in Campania and Southern Italy, for which our giddy +friend Caelius Rufus was chiefly responsible; gladiators and ruffianly +shepherd slaves were enlisted, and by some of these the villa where +she was staying was attacked, and successfully defended by her--so +much at least it seems possible to infer from the fragment recently +discovered. + +One might think that Turia had already had her full share of trouble +and danger, but there is much more to come. About this time she had to +defend herself against another attack, not indeed on her person, but +on her rights as an heiress. An attempt was made by her relations to +upset her father's will, under which she and Lucretius were appointed +equal inheritors of his property. The result of this would have been +to make her the sole heiress, leaving out her husband and her +married sister; but she would have been under the legal _tutela_ or +guardianship of persons whose motive in attacking the will was to +obtain administration of the property.[245] No doubt they meant to +administer it for their own advantage; and it was absolutely necessary +that she should resist them. How she did it her husband does not tell +us, but he says that the enemy retreated from his position, yielding +to her firmness and perseverance (constantia). The patrimonium came, +as her father had intended, to herself and her husband; and he dwells +on the care with which they dealt with it, he exercising a _tutela_ +over her share, while she exercised a _custodia_ over his. Very +touchingly he adds, "but of this I leave much unsaid, lest I should +seem to be claiming a share in the praise that is due to you alone." + +When Lucretius returned to Italy, apparently pardoned by Caesar +for the part he had taken against him, the marriage must have been +consummated. Then came the murder of the Dictator, which plunged Italy +once more into civil war, until in 43 Antony Octavian and Lepidus made +their famous compact, and at once proceeded to that abominable work of +proscription which made a reign of terror at Rome, and spilt much +of the best Roman blood. The happiness of the pair was suddenly +destroyed, for Lucretius found himself named in the fatal lists.[246] +He seems to have been in the country, not far from Rome, when he +received a message from his wife, telling him of impending peril that +he might have to face at any moment, and warning him strongly against +a certain rash course--perhaps an attempt to escape to Sextus Pompeius +in Sicily, a course which cost the lives of many deluded victims. +She implored him to return to their own house in Rome, where she had +devised a secure hiding-place for him. She meant no doubt to die with +him there if he were discovered. + +He obeyed his good genius and made for Rome, by night it would seem, +with only two faithful slaves. One of these fell lame and had to +be left behind; and Lucretius, leaning on the arm of the other, +approached the city gate. Suddenly they became aware of a troop of +soldiers issuing from it, and Lucretius took refuge in one of the many +tombs that lined the great roads outside the walls. They had not been +long in this dismal hiding when they were surprised by a party of +tomb-wreckers--ghouls who haunted these roads by night and lived by +robbing tombs or travellers. Luckily they wanted rather to rob than to +murder, and the slave gave himself up to them to be stripped, while +his master, who was no doubt disguised, perhaps as a slave, contrived +to slip out of their hands and reached the city gate safely. Here he +waited, as we might expect him to do, for his brave companion, and +then succeeded in making his way into the city and to his house, where +his wife concealed him between the roof and the ceiling of one of +their bedrooms, until the storm should blow over. + +But neither life nor property was safe until some pardon and +restitution were obtained from one at least of the triumvirs. When at +last these were conceded by Octavian, he was himself absent in the +campaign that ended with Philippi, and Lepidus was consul in charge +of Rome. To Lepidus Turia had to go, to beg the confirmation of +Octavian's grace, and this brutal man received her with insult and +injury. She fell at his feet, as her husband describes with bitter +indignation, but instead of being raised and congratulated, she was +hustled, beaten like a slave, and driven from his presence. But +her perseverance had its ultimate reward. The clemency of Octavian +prevailed on his return to Italy, and this treatment of a lad; was +among the many crimes that called for the eventual degradation of +Lepidus. + +This was the last of their perilous escapes. A long period of happy +married life awaited them, more particularly after the battle of +Actium, when "peace and the republic were restored." One thing only +was wanting to complete their perfect felicity--they had no children. +It was this that caused Turia to make a proposal to her husband which, +coming from a truly unselfish woman, and seen in the light of Roman +ideas of married life, is far from unnatural; but to us it must seem +astonishing, and it filled Lucretius with horror. She urged that he +should divorce her, and take another wife in the hope of a son and +heir. If there is nothing very surprising in this from a Roman point +of view, it is indeed to us both surprising and touching that she +should have supported her request by a promise that she would be as +much a mother to the expected children as their own mother, and would +still be to Lucretius a sister, having nothing apart from him, nothing +secret, and taking away with her no part of their inheritance. + +To us, reading this proposal in cold blood just nineteen hundred years +after it was made, it may seem foolishly impracticable; to her, whose +whole life was spent in unselfish devotion to her husband's interests, +whose warm love for him was always mingled with discretion, it was +simply an act of pietas--of wifely duty. Yet he could not for a moment +think so himself: his indignation at the bare idea of it lives for +ever on the marble in glowing words. "I must confess," he says, "that +the anger so burnt within me that my senses almost deserted me: that +you should ever have thought it possible that we could be separated +but by death, was most horrible to me. What was the need of children +compared with my loyalty to you: why should I exchange certain +happiness for an uncertain future? But I say no more of this: you +remained with me, for I could not yield without disgrace to myself and +unhappiness to both of us. The one sorrow that was in store for me was +that I was destined to survive you." + +These two, we may feel sure, were wholly worthy of each other. What +she would have said of him, if he had been the first to go, we can +only guess; but he has left a portrait of her, as she lived and worked +in his household, which, mutilated though it is, may be inadequately +paraphrased as follows: + +"You were a faithful wife to me," he says, "and an obedient one: you +were kind and gracious, sociable and friendly: you were assiduous at +your spinning (lanificia): you followed the religious rites of your +family and your state, and admitted no foreign cults or degraded magic +(superstitio): you did not dress conspicuously, nor seek to make +a display in your household arrangements. Your duty to our whole +household was exemplary: you tended my mother as carefully as if she +had been your own. You had innumerable other excellences, in common +with all other worthy matrons, but these I have mentioned were +peculiarly yours." + +No one can study this inscription without becoming convinced that it +tells an unvarnished tale of truth--that here was really a rare and +precious woman; a Roman matron of the very best type, practical, +judicious, courageous, simple in her habits and courteous to all her +guests. And we feel that there is one human being, and one only, +of whom she is always thinking, to whom she has given her whole +heart--the husband whose words and deeds show that he was wholly +worthy of her. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +THE EDUCATION OF THE UPPER CLASSES + +From what has been said in preceding chapters of the duties and the +habits of the two sections of the upper stratum of society, it will +readily be inferred that the kind of education called for was one +mainly of character. In these men, whether for the work of business or +of government, what was wanted was the will to do well and justly, +and the instinctive hatred of all evil and unjust dealing. Such an +education of the will and character is supplied (whatever be its +shortcomings in other ways) by our English public school education, +for men whose work in life is in many ways singularly like that of the +Roman upper classes. Such an education, too, was outlined by Aristotle +for the men of his ideal state; and Mr. Newman's picture of the +probable results of it is so suggestive of what was really needed at +Rome that I may quote it here.[247] + +"As its outcome at the age of twenty-one we may imagine a bronzed and +hardy youth, healthy in body and mind, able to bear hunger and hard +physical labour ... not untouched by studies which awake in men the +interest of civilised beings, and prepare them for the right use of +leisure in future years, and though burdened with little knowledge, +possessed of an educated sense of beauty, and an ingrained love of +what is noble and hatred of all that is the reverse. He would be +more cultivated and human than the best type of young Spartan, more +physically vigorous and reverential, though less intellectually +developed, than the best type of young Athenian--a nascent soldier and +servant of the state, not, like most young Athenians of ability, a +nascent orator. And as he would be only half way through his education +at an age when many Greeks had finished theirs, he would be more +conscious of his own immaturity. We feel at once how different he +would be from the clever lads who swarmed at Athens, youths with an +infinite capacity for picking holes, and capable of saying something +plausible on every subject under the sun." + +If we note, with Mr. Newman, that Aristotle here makes if anything too +little of intellectual training (as indeed may also be said of our +own public schools), and add to his picture something more of that +knowledge which, when united with an honest will and healthy body, +will almost infallibly produce a sound judgment, we shall have a type +of character eminently fitted to share in the duties and the trials of +the government of such empires as the Roman and the British. But at +Rome, in the age of Cicero, such a type of character was rare indeed; +and though this was due to various causes, some of which have been +already noticed,--the building up of a Roman empire before the Romans +were ripe to appreciate the duties of an imperial state, and the +sudden incoming of wealth in an age when the idea of its productive +use was almost unknown,--yet it will occur to every reader that there +must have been also something wrong in the upbringing of the youth of +the upper classes to account for the rarity of really sound character, +for the frequent absence of what we should call the sense of duty, +public and private. I propose in this chapter to deal with the +question of Roman education just so far as to show where in Cicero's +time it was chiefly defective. It is a subject that has been very +completely worked out, and an excellent summary of the results will +be found in the little volume on Roman education written by the late +Professor A.S. Wilkins, just before his lamented death: but he was +describing its methods without special reference to its defects, and +it is these defects on which I wish more particularly to dwell.[248] + +Let us notice, in the first place, how little is said in the +literature of the time, including biographies, of that period of life +which is now so full of interest to readers of memoirs, so full of +interest to ourselves as we look back to it in advancing years. It +may be that we now exaggerate the importance of childhood, but it is +equally certain that the Romans undervalued the importance of it. It +may be that we over-estimate the value of our public-school life, but +it is certain that the Romans had no such school life to be proud of. +Biography was at this time a favourite form of literature, and some of +the memoirs then written were available for use by later writers, such +as Valerius Maximus, Suetonius, and Plutarch; yet it is curious how +little has come down to us of the childhood or boyhood of the great +men of the time. Plutarch indeed was deeply interested in education, +including that of childhood, and we can hardly doubt that he would +have used in his Roman Lives any information that came in his way. He +does tell us something, for which we are eternally indebted to him, of +old Cato's method of educating his son,[249] and something too, in his +_Life of Aemilius Paullus_,[250] of the education of the eldest son of +that family, the great Scipio Aemilianus. But in each of these Lives +we shall find that this information is used rather to bring out the +character of the father than to illustrate the upbringing of the son; +and as a rule the Lives begin with the parentage of the hero, and then +pass on at once to his early manhood. + +The Life of the younger Cato, however, is an exception to the rule, +which we must ascribe to the attraction which all historians and +philosophers felt to this singular character. Plutarch knew the naiue +and character of Cato's paedagogus, Sarpedon,[251] and tells us that +he was an obedient child, but would ask for the reason of everything, +in those questions beginning with "why" which are often embarrassing +to the teacher. Two stories in the second and third chapters of this +Life are also found in that insipid medley of fact and fable drawn +up in the reign of Tiberius, by Valerius Maximus, for educational +purposes;[252] a third, which is peculiarly significant, and seems to +bear the stamp of truth, is only to be found in Plutarch. I give it +here in full: + +"On another occasion, when a kinsman on his birthday invited some boys +to supper and Cato with them, in order to pass the time they played in +a part of the house by themselves, younger and older together: and the +game consisted of accusations and trials, and the arresting of those +who were convicted. Now one of the boys convicted, who was of a +handsome presence, being dragged off by an older boy to a chamber and +shut up, called on Cato for aid. Cato seeing what was going on came to +the door, and pushing through those who were posted in front of it +to prevent him, took the boy out; and went off home with him in a +passion, accompanied by other boys." + +This is a unique picture of the ways and games of boys in the last +century of the Republic. Like the children of all times, they play at +that in which they see their fathers most active and interested; and +this particular game must have been played in the miserable years of +the civil wars and the proscriptions, as Cato was born in 95 B.C. +Whether the part played by Cato in the story be true or not, the +lesson for us is the same, and we shall find it entirely confirmed +in the course of this chapter. The main object of education was the +mastery of the art of oratory, and the chief practical use of that +art was to enable a man to gain a reputation as an advocate in the +criminal courts.[253] + +Cicero had one boy, and for several years two, to look after, one his +own son Marcus, born in 65 B.C., and the other Quintus, the son of +his brother, a year older. Of these boys, until they took the toga +virilis, he says hardly anything in his letters to Atticus, though +Atticus was the uncle of the elder boy. Only when his brother Quintus +was with Caesar in Gaul do we really begin to hear anything about +them, and even then more than once, after a brief mention of the young +Quintus, he goes off at once to tell his brother about the progress +of the villas that are being built for him. But it is clear that the +father wished to know about the boy as well as about the villas;[254] +and in one letter we find Cicero telling Quintus that he wishes to +teach his boy himself, as he has been teaching his own son. "I'll do +wonders with him if I can get him to myself when I am at leisure, for +at Rome there is not time to breathe (nam Romae respirandi non est +locus)."[255] It is clear that the boys, who were only eleven and +twelve in this year 54, were being educated at home, and as clear too +that Cicero, who was just then very much occupied in the courts, had +no time to attend to them himself. Young Quintus, we hear, gets on +well with his rhetoric master; Cicero does not wholly approve the +style in which he is being taught, and thinks he may be able to teach +him his own more learned style, though the boy himself seems to prefer +the declamatory method of the teacher.[256] The last entry in these +letters to the absent father is curious:[257] "I love your Cicero as +he deserves and as I ought. But I am letting him leave me, because I +don't want to keep him from his masters, and because his mother is +going away,--and without her I am nervous about his greediness!" Up to +this point he has written in the warmest terms of the boy, but here, +as so often in Cicero's letters about other people, disapprobation is +barely hinted in order not to hurt the feelings of his correspondent. + +The one thing that is really pleasing in these allusions is the +genuine desire of both parents that their boys shall be of good +disposition and well educated. But of real training or of home +discipline we unluckily get no hint. We must go elsewhere for what +little we know about the training of children. Let us now turn to +this for a while, remembering that it means parental example and +the discipline of the body as well as the acquisition of elementary +knowledge. Unfortunately, no book has survived from that age in which +the education of children was treated of. Varro wrote such a book, +but we know of it little more than its name, _Catus, sive de liberis +educandis_.[258] In the fourth book of his _de Republica_ Cicero seems +to have dealt with "disciplina puerilis," but from the few fragments +that survive there is little to be learnt, and we may be pretty sure +that Cicero could not write of this with much knowledge or experience. +The most famous passage is that in which he quotes Polybius as blaming +the Romans for neglecting it;[259] certainly, he adds, they never +wished that the State should regulate the education of children, or +that it should be all on one model; the Greeks took much unnecessary +trouble about it. The Greeks of his own time whom Cicero knew did not +inspire him with any exalted idea of the results of Greek education; +but we should like to know whether in this book of his work on the +State he did not express some feeling that on the children themselves, +and therefore on their training, the fortunes of the State depend. +Such had been the feeling of the old Romans, though their State laid +down no laws for education, but trusted to the force of tradition and +custom. Old Cato believed himself to be acting like an old Roman when +he looked after the washing and dressing of his baby, and guided the +child with personal care as he grew up, writing books for his use in +large letters with his own hand.[260] But since Cato's day the idea +of the State had lost strength; and this had an unfortunate effect +on education, as on married life. The one hope of the age, the Stoic +philosophy, was concerned with those who had attained to reason, i.e. +to those who had reached their fourteenth year; in the Stoic view +the child was indeed potentially reasonable, and thus a subject of +interest, but in the Stoic ethics education does not take a very +prominent place.[261] We are driven to the conclusion that a real +interest in education as distinct from the acquisition of knowledge +was as much wanting at Rome in Cicero's day as it has been till lately +in England; and that it was not again awakened until Christianity had +made the children sacred, not only because the Master so spoke of +them, but because they were inheritors of eternal life. + +Yet there had once been a Roman home education admirably suited +to bring up a race of hardy and dutiful men and women. It was an +education in the family virtues, thereafter to be turned to account +in the service of the State. The mother nursed her own children and +tended them in their earliest years. Then followed an education which +we may call one in bodily activity, in demeanour, in religion, and in +duty to the State. It is true that we have hardly any evidence of this +but tradition; but when Varro, in one of the precious fragments of his +book on education, describes his own bringing up in his Sabine home at +Reate, we may be fairly sure that it adequately represents that of +the old Roman farmer.[262] He tells us that he had a single tunic +and toga, was seldom allowed a bath, and was made to learn to ride +bareback--which reminds us of the life of the young Boer of the +Transvaal before the late war. In another fragment he also tells us +that both boys and girls used to wait on their parents at table.[263] +Cato the elder, in a fragment preserved by Festus,[264] says that +he was brought up from his earliest years to be frugal, hardy, and +industrious, and worked steadily on the farm (in the Sabine country), +in a stony region where he had to dig and plant the flinty soil. The +tradition of such a healthy rearing remained in the memory of the +Romans, and associated itself with the Sabines of central Italy, the +type of men who could be called _frugi_: + + rusticorum mascula militum + proles, Sabellis docta ligonibus + versare glebas et severae + matris ad arbitrium recisos + portare fustis.[265] + +It was an education also in demeanour, and especially in +obedience[266] and modesty. In that chapter of Plutarch's _Life of +Cato_ which has been already quoted, after describing how the father +taught his boy to ride, to box, to swim, and so on, he goes on, "And +he was as careful not to utter an indecent word before his son, as he +would have been in the presence of the Vestal Virgins." The _pudor_ of +childhood was always esteemed at Rome: "adolescens pudentissimus" is +the highest praise that can be given even to a grown youth;[267] and +there are signs that a feeling survived of a certain sacredness of +childhood, which Juvenal reflects in his famous words, "Maxima debetur +puero reverentia." The origin of this feeling is probably to be found +in the fact that both boys and girls were in ancient times brought +up to help in performing the religious duties of the household, as +camilli and camillae (acolytes); and this is perhaps the reason why +they wore, throughout Roman history, the toga praetexta with the +purple stripe, like magistrates and sacrificing priests.[268] It is +hardly necessary to say that this religious side of education was an +education in the practice of cult, and not in any kind of creed or +ideas about the gods; but so far as it went its influence was good, as +instilling the habit of reverence and the sense of duty from a very +early age. Though the Romans of Cicero's time had lost their old +conviction of the necessity of propitiating the gods of the State, it +is probable that the tradition of family worship still survived in the +majority of households. + +Again, we may be sure that the idea of duty to the State was not +omitted in this old-fashioned education. Cato wrote histories for his +son in large letters, "so that without stirring out of the house, +he might gain a knowledge of the illustrious actions of the ancient +Romans, and of the customs of his country": but it is significant that +in the next two or three generations the writers of annals took to +glorifying--and falsifying--the achievements of members of their own +families, rather than those of the State as a whole. Boys learnt the +XII Tables by heart, and Cicero tells us that he did this in his own +boyhood, though the practice had since then been dropped.[269] That +ancient code of law would have acted, we may imagine, as a kind of +catechism of the rules laid down by the State for the conduct of its +citizens, and as a reminder that though the State had outgrown the +rough legal clothing of its infancy, it had from the very beginning +undertaken the duty of regulating the conduct of its citizens in their +relations with each other. Again, when a great Roman died, it is said +to have been the practice for parents to take their boys to hear the +funeral oration in praise of one who had done great service to the +State.[270] + +All this was admirable, and if Rome had not become a great imperial +state, and if some super-structure of the humanities could have been +added in a natural process of development, it might have continued +for ages as an invaluable educational basis. But the conditions under +which alone it could flourish had long ceased to be. It is obvious +that it depended entirely on the presence of the parents and their +interest in the children; as regards the boys it depended chiefly on +the father. Now ever since the Roman dominion was extended beyond sea, +i.e. ever since the first two Punic wars, the father of a family must +often have been away from home for long periods; he might have to +serve in foreign wars for years together, and in numberless cases +never saw Italy again. Even if he remained in Rome, the ever +increasing business of the State would occupy him far more than +was compatible with a constant personal care for his children. The +conscientious Roman father of the last two centuries B.C. must have +felt even more keenly than English parents in India the sorrow of +parting from their children at an age when they are most in need of +parental care. We have to remember that in Cicero's day letter-writing +had only recently become possible on an extended scale through the +increasing business of the publicani in the provinces (see above, p. +74); the Roman father in Spain or Asia seldom heard of what his wife +and children were doing, and the inevitable result was that he began +to cease to care. In fact more and more came to depend on the mothers, +as with our own hard-working professional classes; and we have seen +reason to believe that in the last age of the Republic the average +mother was not too often a conscientious or dutiful woman. The +constant liability to divorce would naturally diminish her interest in +her children, for after separation she had no part or lot in them. And +this no doubt is one reason why at this particular period we hear so +little of the life of children. There is indeed no reason to suppose +that they themselves were unhappy; they had plenty of games, which +were so familiar that the poets often allude to them--hoops, tops, +dolls, blind man's buff, and the favourite games of "nuts" and +"king."[271] But the real question is not whether they could enjoy +their young life, but whether they were learning to use their bodies +and minds to good purpose. + +When a boy was about seven years old, the question would arise in +most families whether he should remain at home or go to an elementary +school.[272] No doubt it was usually decided by the means at the +command of the parents. A wealthy father might see his son through his +whole education at home by providing a tutor (paedagogus), and more +advanced teachers as they were needed. Cato indeed, as we have seen, +found time to do much of the work himself, but he also had a slave +who taught his own and other children. Aemilius Paullus had +several teachers in his house for this purpose, under his own +superintendence.[273] Cicero too, as we have seen, seems to have +educated his son at home, though he himself is said to have attended a +school. But we may suppose that the ordinary boy of the upper classes +went to school, under the care of a paedagogus, after the Greek +fashion, rising before daylight, and submitting to severe discipline, +which, together with the absolute necessity for a free Roman of +attaining a certain level of acquirement, effectually compelled him to +learn to read, write, and cipher.[274] This elementary work must +have been done well; we hear little or nothing of gross ignorance or +neglected education. + +There were, however, very serious defects in this system of elementary +education. Not only the schoolmaster himself, but the paedagogus who +was responsible for the boy's conduct, was almost always either a +slave or a freedman; and neither slave nor freedman could be an object +of profound respect for a Roman boy. Hence no doubt the necessity of +maintaining discipline rather by means of corporal punishment (to +which the Romans never seem to have objected, though Quintilian +criticises it)[275] than by moral force; a fact which is attested both +in literature and art. The responsibility again which attached to the +paedagogus for the boy's morals must have been another inducement to +the parents to renounce their proper work of supervision.[276] And +once more, the great majority of teachers were Greeks. As the boy was +born into a bilingual Graeco-Roman world, of which the Greeks were the +only cultured people, this might seem natural and inevitable; but we +know that in his heart the Roman despised the Greek. Of witnesses in +their favour we might expect Cicero to be the strongest, but Cicero +occasionally lets us know what he really thinks of their moral +character. In a remarkable passage in his speech for Flaccus, which +is fully borne out by remarks in his private letters, he says that he +grants them all manner of literary and rhetorical skill, but that +the race never understood or cared for the sacred binding force of +testimony given in a court of law.[277] Thus the Roman boy was in the +anomalous position of having to submit to chastisement from men whom +as men he despised. Assuredly we should not like our public schoolboys +to be taught or punished by men of low station or of an inferior +standard of morals It is men, not methods, that really tell in +education; the Roman schoolboy needed some one to believe in some one +to whom to be wholly loyal; the very same overpowering need which +was so obvious in the political world of Rome in the last century +B.C.[278] + +Of this elementary teaching little need be said here, as it did not +bear directly on life and conduct. There is, however, one feature of +it which may claim our attention for a moment. Both in reading and +writing, and also for learning by heart, _sententiae_ [Greek: gnomai] +were used, which remind us of our copy-book maxims. Of these we have a +large collection, more than 700, selected from the mimes of Publilius +Syrus, who came to Rome from Syria as a slave in the age of which we +are writing, and after obtaining his freedom gained great reputation +as the author of many popular plays of this kind, in which he +contrived to insert these wise saws and maxims. It is not likely that +they found their way into the schools all at once, but in the early +Empire we find them already alluded to as educational material by +Seneca the elder,[279] and we may take them as a fair example of the +maxims already in use in Cicero's time, making some allowance for +their superior neatness and wisdom. Here are a few specimens, taken +almost at random; it will be seen that they convey much shrewd good +sense, and occasionally have the true ring of humanity as well as the +flavour of Stoic _sapientia_. I quote from the excellent edition by +Mr. Bickford-Smith.[280] + + Avarus ipse miseriae causa est suae. + Audendo virtus crescit, tardando timor. + Cicatrix conscientiae pro vulnere est. + Fortunam[281] citius reperias quam retineas. + Cravissima est probi hominis iracundia. + Homo totiens moritur, quotiens amittit suos. + Homo vitae commodatus, non donatus est. + Humanitatis optima est certatio. + Iucundum nil est, nisi quod reficit varietas. + Malum est consilium quod mutari non potest. + Minus saepe pecces, si scias quod nescias. + Perpetuo vincit qui utitur clementia. + Qui ius iurandum servat, quovis pervenit. + Ubi peccat aetas maior, male discit minor. + +I have quoted these to show that Roman children were not without +opportunity even in early schooldays of laying to heart much that +might lead them to good and generous conduct in later life, as well as +to practical wisdom. But we know the fate of our own copy-book maxims; +we know that it is not through them that our children become good men +and women, but by the example and the un-systematised precepts of +parents and teachers. No such neat [Greek gnomai] can do much good +without a sanction of greater force than any that is inherent in +them and such a sanction was not to be found in the ferula of the +grammaticus or the paedagogus. Once more it is men and not methods +that supply the real educational force. + +Probably the greatest difficulty which the Roman boy had to face in +his school life was the learning of arithmetic; it was this, we may +imagine, that made him think of his master, as Horace did of the +worthy Orbilius,[282] as a man of blows (plagosus). This is not the +place to give an account of the methods of reckoning then used; they +will be found fully explained in Marquardt's _Privatleben_, +and compressed into a page by Professor Wilkins in his _Roman +Education_[283]. It is enough to say that they were as indispensable +as they were difficult to learn. "An orator was expected, according to +Quintilian (i. 10. 35), not only to be able to make his calculations +in court, but also to show clearly to his audience how he arrived at +his results." From the small inn-keeper to the great capitalist, every +man of business needed to be perfectly at home in reckoning sums of +money. The magistrates, especially quaestors and aediles, had staffs +of clerks who must have been skilled accountants; the provincial +governors and all who were engaged in collecting the tributes of the +provinces, as well as in lending the money to enable the tax-payers to +pay (see above, 71 foll.), were constantly busy with their ledgers. +The humbler inhabitants of the Empire had long been growing familiar +with the Roman aptitude for arithmetic.[284] + + Grais ingenium, Grais dedit ore rotundo + Musa loqui, praeter laudem nullius avaris. + Romani pueri longis rationibus assem + discunt in partes centum diducere. "Dicat + films Albini: si de quincunce remota est + uncia, quid superat? poteras dixisse." "triens." "eu! + rem poteris servare tuam."[285] + +This familiar passage may be quoted once more to illustrate the +practical nature of the Roman school teaching and the ends which it +was to serve. Utilitarian to the backbone, the ordinary Roman, like +the ordinary British, parent, wanted his son to get on in life; it +was only the parent of a higher class who sacrificed anything to the +Muses, and then chiefly because in a public career it was _de rigueur_ +that the boy should not be ignorant or boorish. + +When the son of well-to-do parents had mastered the necessary +elements, he was advanced to the higher type of school kept by a +_grammaticus_, and there made his first real acquaintance with +literature; and this was henceforward, until he began to study +rhetoric and philosophy, the staple of his work. We may note, by the +way, that science, i.e. the higher mathematics and astronomy, +was reckoned under the head of philosophy, while medicine and +jurisprudence had become professional studies,[286] to learn which it +was necessary to attach yourself to an experienced practitioner, as +with the art of war In the grammar schools, as we may call them, the +course was purely literary and humanistic, and it was conducted both +in Greek and Latin, but chiefly in Greek, as a natural result of the +comparative scantiness of Latin literature.[287] Homer, Hesiod, and +Menander were the favourite authors studied; only later on, after the +full bloom of the Augustan literature, did Latin poets, especially +Virgil and Horace, take a place of almost equal importance. The study +of the Greek poets was apparently a thorough one. It included the +teaching of language, grammar, metre, style, and subject matter, and +was aided by reading aloud, which was reckoned of great importance, +and learning by heart, on the part of the pupils. In the discussion +of the subject matter any amount of comment was freely allowed to +the master, who indeed was expected to have at his fingers' ends +explanations of all sorts of allusions, and thus to enable the boys to +pick up a great deal of odd knowledge and a certain amount of history, +mixed up of course with a large percentage of valueless mythology. +"In grammaticis," says Cicero, "poetarum pertractatio, historiarum +cognitio, verborum interpretatio, pronuntiandi quidam sonus."[288] The +method, if such it can be called, was not at all unlike that pursued +in our own public schools, Eton, for example, before new methods and +subjects came in. Its great defect in each case was that it gave but +little opportunity for learning to distinguish fact from fancy, +or acquiring that scientific habit of mind which is now becoming +essential for success in all departments of life, and which at Rome +was so rare that it seems audacious to claim it even for such a man of +action as Caesar, or for such a man of letters as Varro. In England +this defect was compensated to some extent by the manly tone of school +life, but at Rome that side of school education was wanting, and the +result was a want of solidity both intellectual and moral. + +The one saving feature, given a really good and high-minded teacher, +might be the appeal to the example of the great and good men of the +past, both Greek and Roman, and the study of their motives in action, +in good fortune and ill. This is the kind of teaching which we find +illustrated in the book of Valerius Maximus, which has already been +alluded to, who takes some special virtue or fine quality as the +subject of most of his chapters,[289]--fortitudo, patientia, +abstinentia, moderatio, pietas erga parentes, amicitia, and so on, +and illustrates them by examples and stories drawn mainly from Roman +history, partly also from Greek. This kind of appeal to the young mind +was undoubtedly good, and the finest product of the method is the +immortal work of Plutarch, the Lives of the great men of Greece and +Rome, drawn up for ethical rather than historical purposes. But here +again we must note a serious drawback. Any one who turns over the +pages of Valerius will see that these stories of the great men of the +past are so detached from their historical surroundings that they +could not possibly serve as helps in the practical conduct of life; +they might indeed do positive mischief, by leading a shallow reasoner +to suppose that what may have been justifiable at one time and under +certain circumstances, regicide, for example, or exposure of oneself +in battle, is justifiable at all times and in all circumstances. Such +an appeal failed also by discouraging the habit of thinking about the +facts and problems of the day; and right-minded men like Cicero and +Cato the younger both suffered from this weakness of a purely literary +early training. Another drawback is that this teaching inevitably +exaggerated the personal element in history, at the very time too when +personalities were claiming more than their due share of the world's +attention; and thus the great lessons which Polybius had tried to +teach the Graeco-Roman world, of seeking for causes in historical +investigation, and of meditating on the phenomena of the world you +live in, were passed over or forgotten. + +But so far as the study of language, of artistic diction, of +elocution, and intelligent reading could help a boy to prepare himself +for life, this education was good; more especially good as laying a +foundation for the acquirement of that art of oratory which, from old +Cato's time onwards, had been the chief end to be aimed at by all +intending to take part in public life. Cato indeed had well said to +his son, "Orator est, Marce fili, vir bonus dicendi peritus,"[290] +thus putting the ethical stamp of the man in the first place; and +his "rem tene, verba sequentur" is a valuable bit of advice for all +learners and teachers of literature. But more and more the end of all +education had come to be the art of oratory, and particularly the art +as exercised in the courts of law, where in Cicero's time neither +truth nor fact was supreme, and where the first thing required was +to be a clever speaker,--a vir bonus by all means if you were so +disposed. But to this we shall return directly. + +In such schools, if he were not educated at home, the boy remained +till he was invested with the toga virilis, or pura. In the late +Republic this usually took place between the fourteenth and +seventeenth years;[291] thus the two young Ciceros seem both to have +been sixteen when they received the toga virilis, while Octavian and +Virgil were just fifteen, and the son of Antony only fourteen. In +former times it seems probable that the boy remained "praetextatus" +till he was seventeen, the age at which he was legally capable of +military service, and that he went straight from the home to the +levy;[292] in case of severe military pressure, or if he wished it +himself, he might begin his first military exercises and even his +active service, in the praetexta. But as in so many other ways, so +here the life of the city brought about a change; in a city boys are +apt to develop more rapidly in intelligence if not in body, and as the +toga virilis was the mark of legal qualification as a man, they might +be of more use to the family in the absence of the father if invested +with it somewhat earlier than had been the primitive custom. But there +was no hard and fast rule; boys develop with much variation both +mentally and physically, and, like the Eton collar of our own +schoolboys, the toga of childhood might be retained or dropped +entirely at the discretion of the parents. + +There is, however, a great difference in the two cases in regard +to the assumption of the manly dress. With us it does not mean +independence; as a rule the boy remains at school for a year or two at +least under strict discipline. At Rome it meant, on the contrary, that +he was "of age," and in the eye of the law a man, capable of looking +after his own education and of holding property. This was a survival +from the time when at the age of puberty the boy, as among all +primitive peoples, was solemnly received into the body of citizens and +warriors; and the solemnity of the Roman ceremony fully attests this. +After a sacrifice in the house, and the dedication of his boyish toga +and bulla to the Lar familiaris, he was invested with the plain toga +of manhood (libera, pura), and conducted by his father or guardian, +accompanied (in characteristic Roman fashion, see below, p. 271) +by friends and relations, to the Forum, and probably also to the +tabularium under the Capitol, where his name was entered in the list +of full citizens.[293] + +With the new arrangement, under which boys might become legally men +at an earlier age than in the old days, it is obvious that there must +often have been an interval before they were physically or mentally +qualified for a profession. As the sole civil profession to which boys +of high family would aspire was that of the bar, a father would send +his son during that interval to a distinguished advocate to be taken +as a pupil. Cicero himself was thus apprenticed to Mucius Scaevola the +augur: and in the same way the young Caelius, as soon as he had taken +his toga virilis, was brought by his father to Cicero. The relation +between the youth and his preceptor was not unlike that of the +_contubernium_ in military life, in which the general to whom a lad +was committed was supposed to be responsible for his welfare and +conduct as well as for his education in the art of war: thus Cicero +says of Caelius[294] that at that period of his life no one ever saw +him "except with his father or with me, or in the very well-conducted +house of M. Crassus" (who shared with Cicero in the guardianship). +"Fuit assiduus mecum," he says a little farther on. This kind of +pupilage was called the _tirocinium fori_, in which a lad should be +pursuing his studies for the legal profession, and also his bodily +exercises in the Campus Martius, so that he might be ready to serve +in the army for the single campaign which was still desirable if not +absolutely necessary. When he had made his first speech in a court of +law, he was said _tirocinium ponere_,[295] and if it were a success, +he might devote himself more particularly henceforward to the art and +practice of oratory. No doubt all really ambitious young men, who +aimed at high office and an eventual provincial government, would, +like Caesar, endeavour to qualify themselves for the army as well as +the Forum. Cicero, however, whose instincts were not military, served +only in one campaign, at the age of seventeen, and apparently he +advised Caelius to do no more than this. Caelius served under +Q. Pompeius proconsul of Africa, to whom he was attached as +_contubernalis_, choosing this province because his father had estates +there.[296] It was only on his return with a good character from +Pompeius that he proceeded to exhibit his skill as an orator by +accusing some distinguished person--in this case the Antonius who was +afterwards consul with Cicero.[297] + +To attain the skill in oratory which would enable the pupil to make +a successful appearance in the Forum, he must have gone through an +elaborate training in the art of rhetoric. Cicero does not tell us +whether he himself gave Caelius lessons in rhetoric, or whether he +sent him to a professional teacher; he had himself written a treatise +on a part of the subject--the _de Inventione_ of 80 B.C., the earliest +of all his prose works--and was therefore quite able to give the +necessary instruction if he found time to do so. It is not the object +of this chapter to explain the meaning of rhetoric as the Graeco-Roman +world then understood it, or the theory of a rhetorical education; +for this the reader must be referred to Professor Wilkins' little +book,[298] or, better still, to the main source of our knowledge, the +_Institutio Oratoris_ of Quintilian. Something may, however, be said +here of the view taken of a rhetorical training by Cicero himself, +very clearly expressed in the exordium of the treatise just mentioned, +and often more or less directly reiterated in his later and more +mature works on oratory. + +"After much meditation," he says, "I have been led to the conclusion +that wisdom without eloquence is of little use to a state, while +eloquence without wisdom is often positively harmful, and never of any +value. Thus if a man, abandoning the study of reason and duty, which +is always perfectly straight and honourable, spends his whole time in +the practice of speaking, he is being brought up to be a hindrance +to his own development, and a dangerous citizen." This reminds us of +Cato's saying that an orator is "vir bonus dicendi peritus." Less +strongly expressed, the same view is also found in the exordium of +another and more mature treatise on rhetoric, by an author whose name +is unknown, written a year or two before that of Cicero: "Non enim +parum in se fructus habet copia dicendi et commoditas orationis, si +recta intelligentia et definita animi moderatione gubernetur."[299] +We may assume that in Cicero's early years the best men felt that the +rhetorical art, if it were to be of real value to the individual and +the state, must be used with discretion, and accompanied by high aims +and upright conduct. + +Yet within a generation of the date when these wise words were +written, the letters of Caelius show us that the art was used utterly +without discretion, and to the detriment both of state and individual. +The high ideal of culture and conduct had been lost in the actual +practice of oratory, in a degenerate age, full of petty ambitions +and animosities. We ourselves know only too well how a thing good in +itself as a means is apt to lose its value if raised into the place of +an end;--how the young mind is apt to elevate cricket, football, golf, +into the main object of all human activity. So it was with rhetoric; +it was the indispensable acquirement to enable a man to enjoy +thoroughly the game in the Forum, and thus in education it became the +staple commodity. The actual process of acquiring it was no doubt an +excellent intellectual exercise,--the learning rules of composition, +the exercises in applying these rules, i.e. the writing of themes or +essays (proposita, communes loci), in which the pupil had "to find and +arrange his own facts,"[300] and then the declamatio, or exercise in +actual speaking on a given subject, which in Cicero's day was called +causa, and was later known as controversia.[301] Such practice must +have brought out much talent and ingenuity, like that of our own +debating societies at school and college. But there were two great +defects in it. First, as Professor Wilkins points out, the subjects +of declamation were too often out of all relation to real life, e.g. +taken from the Greek mythology; or if less barren than usual, were far +more commonplace and flat than those of our debating societies. To +harangue on the question whether the life of a lawyer or a soldier is +the best, is hardly so inspiring as to debate a question of the day +about Ireland or India, which educates in living fact as well as in +the rules of the orator's art. Secondly, the whole aim and object of +this "finishing" portion of a boy's education was a false one. Even +the excellent Quintilian, the best of all Roman teachers, believed +that the statesman (civilis vir) and the orator are identical: that +the statesman must be vir bonus because the vir bonus makes the best +orator; that he should be sapiens for the same reason.[302] And the +object of oratory is "id agere, ut iudici quae proposita fuerint, +vera et honesta _videantur_":[303] i.e. the object is not truth, but +persuasion. We might get an idea of how such a training would fail +in forming character, if we could imagine all our liberal education +subordinated to the practice of journalism. But fortunately for us, in +this scientific age, words and the use of words no longer serve as the +basis of education or as the chief nurture of young life. We need to +see facts, to understand causes, to distinguish objective truth from +truth reflected in books. But the perfect education must be a skilful +mingling of the two methods; and it may be as well to take care that +we do not lose contact with the best thoughts of the best men, because +they are contained in the literature we show some signs of neglecting. +We may say of science what Cicero said of rhetoric, that it cannot do +without sapientia. + +Of schools of philosophy I have already said something in the last +chapter, and as the study of philosophy was hardly a part of the +regular curriculum of education properly so called, I shall pass it +over here. The philosopher was usually to be found in wealthy houses, +and if he were a wholesome person, and not a Philodemus, he might +assuredly exercise a good influence on a young man. Or a youth might +go to Athens or Rhodes or to some other Greek city, to attend the +lectures of some famous professor. Cicero heard Phaedrus the Epicurean +at Rome and then Philo the Academician, who had a lasting influence on +his pupil, and then, at the age of twenty-seven, went to Greece for +two years, studying at Athens, Rhodes, and elsewhere. Caesar also went +to Rhodes, and he and Cicero both attended the lectures of Molo in +rhetoric, in which study, as well as in philosophy, lectures were to +be heard in all the great Greek cities.[304] Cicero sent his own son +to "the University in Athens" at the age of twenty, giving him an +ample allowance and doubtless much good advice. The young man soon +outran his allowance and got into debt; the good advice he seems to +have failed to utilise, and in fact gave his father considerable +anxiety. + +The following letter, which seems to show that a youth who had +excellent opportunities might still be lacking in principle and +self-control, is the only one which survives of the letters of +undergraduates of that day. It was written by the young Cicero, after +he had repented and undertaken to reform, not to his father himself, +but to the faithful friend and freedman of his father, Tiro, who +afterwards edited the collection of letters in which he inserted +it.[305] It is on the whole a pleasing letter, and seems to show real +affection for Tiro, who had known the writer from his infancy. It is +a little odd in the choice of words, perhaps a trifle rhetorical. The +reader shall be left to decide for himself whether it is perfectly +straight and genuine. In any case it may aptly conclude this chapter. + +"I had been anxiously expecting letter-carriers day after day, when at +last they arrived forty-six days after they left you. Their arrival +was most welcome to me. I took the greatest possible pleasure in +the letter of the kindest and best beloved of fathers, but your own +delightful letter put the finishing touch to my joy. So I no longer +repent of dropping letter-writing for a time, but am rather glad I did +so, for my silence has brought me a great reward in your kindness. I +am very glad indeed that you accepted my excuse without hesitation. + +"I am sure, my dearest Tiro, that the reports about me which reach you +answer your best wishes and hopes. I will make them good, and I will +do my best that this beginning of a good report about me may daily be +repeated. So you may with perfect confidence fulfil your promise of +being the trumpeter (buccinator) of my reputation. For the errors of +my youth have caused me so much remorse and suffering, that it is not +only my heart that shrinks from what I did--my very ears abhor the +mention of it. I know for a fact that you have shared my trouble and +sorrow, and I don't wonder; you always wished me to do well not only +for my sake but for your own. So as I have been the means of giving +you pain, I will now take care that you shall feel double joy on my +account. + +"Let me tell you that my attachment to Cratippus is that of a son +rather than a pupil: I enjoy his lectures, but I am especially charmed +by his delightful manners. I spend whole days with him, and often part +of the night, for I get him to dine with me as often as I can. We have +grown so intimate that he often drops in upon us unexpectedly while we +are at dinner, lays aside the stiff air of a philosopher, and joins +in our jests with the greatest good will. He is such a man, so +delightful, so distinguished, that you ought to make his acquaintance +as soon as ever you can. As for Bruttius, I never let him leave me. +He is a man of strict and moral life, as well as being the most +delightful company. Surely it is not necessary that in our daily +literary studies there should never be any fun at all. I have taken a +lodging close to him, and as far as I can with my pittance I subsidise +his narrow means. I have also begun practising declamation in Greek +with Cassius; in Latin I like having my practice with Bruttius. My +intimate friends and daily company are those whom Cratippus brought +with him from Mitylene,--good scholars, of whom he has the highest +opinion. I also see a great deal of Epicrates the leading man at +Athens, and Leonides, and people of that sort. So now you know how I +am going on. + +"You say something in your letter about Gorgias. The fact is that I +found him very useful in my daily practice of declamation, but I put +my father's injunctions before everything else, and he had written +telling me to give up Gorgias at once. I wouldn't shilly-shally about +it, for fear my making a fuss might put some suspicion in my father's +head. Moreover it occurred to me that it would be offensive for me +to express an opinion on a decision of my father's. However, your +interest and advice are welcome and acceptable. + +"Your apology for want of time I readily accept, for I know how busy +you always are. I am very glad you have bought an estate, and you have +my best wishes for the success of your purchase. Don't be surprised at +my congratulations coming at this point in my letter, for it was at +the corresponding point in yours that you told me of this. You must +drop your city manners (urbanitates); you are a 'rusticus Romanus!' +How clearly I see your dearest face before me at this moment! I seem +to see you buying things for the farm, talking to your bailiff, saving +the seeds at dessert in your cloak. But as to the matter of money, I +am sorry I was not there to help you. Don't doubt, my dear Tiro, +about my helping you in the future, if fortune will but stand by me, +especially as I know that this estate has been bought for our mutual +advantage. As to my commissions about which you are taking trouble, +many thanks! I beg you to send me a secretary at the first +opportunity, if possible a Greek: for he will save me much trouble in +copying out notes. Above all, take care of your health, that we may +have some literary talk together some day. I commend Anteros to you. +Adieu." + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +THE SLAVE POPULATION + +In the last age of the Republic the employment of slave labour reached +its high-water mark in ancient history.[306] We have already met with +evidence of this in examining the life of the upper classes; in the +present chapter we must try to sketch, first, the conditions under +which it was possible for such a vast slave system to arise and +flourish, and secondly, the economical and ethical results of it +both in city and country. The subject is indeed far too large and +complicated to be treated in a single short chapter, but our object +throughout this book is only to give such a picture of society in +general as may tempt a student to further and more exact inquiry. + +We have seen that the two upper classes of society were engaged in +business of various kinds, and especially in banking and carrying +out public contracts, or in the work of government, and in Italian +agriculture. All this business, public and private, called for a +vast amount of labor, and in part, of skilled labour; the great men +provided the capital, but the details of the work, as it had gradually +developed since the war with Hannibal, created a demand for workmen +of every kind such as had never before been known in the Graeco-Roman +world. Clerks, accountants, messengers, as well as operatives, were +wanted both by the Government and by private capitalists. In the +households of the rich the great increase of wealth and luxury had +led to a constant demand for helps of all kinds, each with a certain +amount of skill in his own particular department; and on the estates +in the country, which were steadily growing bigger, and were tending +to be worked more and more on capitalistic lines, labour, both skilled +and unskilled, was increasingly required. Thus the demand for labour +was abnormally great, and had been created with abnormal rapidity, +and the supply could not possibly be provided by the free population +alone. The lower classes of city and country were not suited to the +work wanted, either by capacity or inclination. It was not for a free +Roman to be at the beck and call of an employer, like the clerks and +underlings of to-day, or to act as servant in a great household; and +for a great part of the necessary work he was not sufficiently well +educated. Far less was it possible for him to work on the great +cattle-runs. And the State wanted the best years of his life for +service in the army, which, as has been well remarked, was the real +industry of the Roman freeman. But luckily in one sense, and in +another unluckily, for Rome, there was an endless supply of labour +to be had, of every quality and capacity, for the very same abnormal +circumstances which had created the demand also provided the supply. +The great wars and the wealth accruing from them in various ways had +produced a capitalist class in need of labour, and also created a +slave-market on a scale such as the world has never known before or +since. + +Ever since the time of Alexander and the wars of his successors with +each other and their neighbours, it is probable that the supply of +captives sold as slaves had been increasing; and in the second century +B.C. the little island of Delos had come to be used as a convenient +centre for the slave trade. Strabo tells us in a well-known passage +that 10,000 slaves might be sold there in a single day.[307] But Rome +herself was in the time of Cicero the great emporium for slaves; the +wars which were most productive of prisoners had been for long in the +centre and the west of the Mediterranean basin. All armies sent out +from Rome were accompanied by speculators in this trade, who bought +the captives as they were put up to auction after a battle, and then +undertook the transport to Rome of all who were suited for employment +in Italy or were not bought up in the province which was the seat of +war. The enormous number of slaves thus made available, even if we +make allowance for the uncertainty of the numbers as they have +come down to us, surpasses all belief; we may take a few examples, +sufficient to give some idea of a practice which had lasting and +lamentable results on Roman society. + +After the campaign of Pydna and the overthrow of the Macedonian +kingdom, Aemilius Paullus, one of the most humane of Romans, sold into +slavery, under orders from the senate, 150,000 free inhabitants of +communities in Epirus which had sided with Perseus in the war.[308] +After the war with the Cimbri and Teutones, 90,000 of the latter and +60,000 of the former are said to have been sold;[309] and though the +numbers may be open to suspicion, as they amount again to 150,000, the +fact of an enormous capture is beyond question. Caesar, like Aemilius +Paullus one of the most humane of Romans, tells us himself that on a +single occasion, the capture of the Aduatuci, he sold 53,000 prisoners +on the spot.[310] And of course every war, whether great or small, +while it diminished the free population by slaughter, pestilence, or +capture, added to the number of slaves. Cicero himself, after +his campaign in Cilicia and the capture of the hill stronghold +Pindonissus, did of course as all other commanders did; we catch a +glimpse of the process in a letter to Atticus: "mancipia venibant +Saturnalibus tertiis."[311] It is hardly necessary to point out that +we should be getting our historical perspective quite wrong if we +allowed ourselves to expect in these cultured Roman generals any +sign of compassion for their victims; it was a part of their mental +inheritance to look on men who had surrendered as simply booty, the +property of the victors; Roman captives would meet with the same fate, +and even for them little pity was ever felt. When Caesar in 49 within +a few months dismissed two surrendered armies of Roman soldiers, once +at Corfinium and again in Spain, he was doubtless acting from motives +of policy, but the enslavement of Roman citizens by their fellows +would, we may hope, have been repugnant to him, if not to his own +soldiers.[312] + +War then was the principal source of the supply of slaves, but it was +not the only one. When a slave-trade is in full swing, it will be +fostered in all possible ways. Brigandage and kidnapping were rife +all over the Empire and in the countries beyond its borders in the +disturbed times with which we are dealing. The pirates of Cilicia, +until they were suppressed by Pompeius in 66, swarmed all over the +Mediterranean, and snapped up victims by raids even on the coasts of +Italy, selling them in the market at Delos without hindrance. Cicero, +in his speech in support of the appointment of Pompey, mentions that +well-born children had been carried off from Misenum under the very +eyes of a Roman praetor.[313] Caesar himself was taken by them when a +young man, and only escaped with difficulty. In Italy itself, where +there was no police protection until Augustus took the matter in hand, +kidnapping was by no means unknown; the _grassatores_, as they were +called, often slaves escaped from the prisons of the great estates, +haunted the public roads, and many a traveller disappeared in this +way and passed the rest of his life in a slave-prison.[314] Varro, +in describing the sort of slaves best suited for work on the great +sheep-runs, says that they should be such as are strong enough to +defend the flocks from wild beasts and brigands--the latter doubtless +quite as ready to seize human beings as sheep and cattle. And +slave-merchants seem to have been constantly carrying on their trade +in regions where no war was going on, and where desirable slaves could +be procured; the kingdoms of Asia Minor were ransacked by them, and +when Marius asked Nicomedes king of Bithynia for soldiers during the +struggle with the Cimbri, the answer he got was that there were none +to send--the slave-dealers had been at work there.[315] Every one will +remember the line of Horace in which he calls one of these wretches a +"king of Cappadocia."[316] + +There were two other sources of the slave supply of which however +little need be said here, as the contribution they made was +comparatively small. First, slaves were bred from slaves, and on rural +estates this was frequently done as a matter of business.[317] Varro +recommends the practice in the large sheep-farms,[318] under certain +conditions; and some well-known lines of Horace suggest that on +smaller farms, where a better class of slaves would be required, these +home-bred ones were looked on as the mark of a rich house, "ditis +examen domus."[319] Secondly, a certain number of slaves had become +such under the law of debt. This was a common source of slavery in the +early periods of Roman history, but in Cicero's day we cannot speak of +it with confidence. We have noticed the cry of the distressed freemen +of the city in the conspiracy of Catiline, which looks as though the +old law were still put in force; and in the country there are signs +that small owners who had borrowed from large ones were in Varro's +time in some modified condition of slavery,[320] surrendering their +labour in lieu of payment. But all these internal sources of slavery +are as nothing compared with the supply created by war and the +slave-trade. + +This supply being thus practically unlimited, prices ran comparatively +low, and no Roman of any considerable means at all need be, or was, +entirely without slaves. He had only to go, or to send his agent, to +one of the city slave-markets, such as the temple of Castor,[321] +where the slave-agents (mangones) exhibited their "goods" under the +supervision of the aediles; there he could pick out exactly the kind +of slave he wanted at any price from the equivalent of £10 upwards. +The unfortunate human being was exhibited exactly as horses are now, +and could be stripped, handled, trotted about, and treated with every +kind of indignity, and of course the same sort of trickery went on in +these human sales as is familiar to all horse-dealers of the present +day.[322] The buyer, if he wanted a valuable article, a Greek, for +example, who could act as secretary or librarian, like Cicero's +beloved Tiro, or even a household slave with a special character for +skill in cooking or other specialised work of a luxurious family, +would have to give a high price; even as long ago as the time of the +elder Cato a very large sum might be given for a single choice slave, +and Cato as censor in 184 attempted to check such high prices by +increasing the duties payable on the sales.[323] Towards the close +of the Republican period we have little explicit evidence of prices; +Cicero constantly mentions his slaves, but not their values. Doubtless +for fancy articles huge prices might be demanded; Pliny tells us that +Antony when triumvir bought two boys as twins for more than £800 +apiece, who were no doubt intended for handsome pages, perhaps to +please Cleopatra.[324] But there can be no doubt that ordinary slaves +capable of performing only menial offices in town or country were to +be had at this time quite cheap, and the number in the city alone must +have been very great. + +It is unfortunately quite impossible to make even a probable estimate +of the total number in Rome; the data are not forthcoming. Beloch[325] +remarks aptly that though some families owned hundreds of slaves, the +number of such families was not large, quoting the words of Philippus, +tribune in 104 B.C., to the effect that there were not more than +two thousand persons of any substance in the State.[326] The great +majority of citizens living in Rome had, he thinks, no slaves. He is +forced to take as a basis of calculation the proportion of bond to +free in the only city of the Empire about which we have certain +information on this point; at Pergamum there was one slave to two free +persons.[327] Assuming the whole free population to have been about +half a million in the time of Augustus, or rather more, including +peregrini, he thus arrives at a slave population of something like +280,000; this may not be far off the mark, but it must be remembered +that it is little more than a guess. + +What has been said above will have given the reader some idea of the +conditions of life which created a great demand for labour in the +last two centuries B.C., and of the circumstances which produced an +abundant supply of unfree labour to satisfy that demand. I propose +now to treat the whole question of Roman slavery from three points of +view,--the economic, the legal, and the ethical. In other words, we +have to ask: (1) how the abundance of slave labour affected the social +economy of the free population; (2) what was the position of the slave +in the eye of the law, as regards treatment and chance of manumission; +(3) what were the ethical results of this great slave system, both on +the slaves themselves and on their masters. + +1. From an economical point of view the most interesting question is +whether slave labour seriously interfered with the development of free +industry; and unfortunately this question is an extremely difficult +one to answer. We can all guess easily that the opportunities of free +labour must have been limited by the presence of enormous numbers of +slaves; but to get at the facts is another matter. In regard to rural +slavery we have some evidence to go upon, as we shall see directly, +and this has of late been collected and utilised; but as regards +labour in the city no such research has as yet been made,[328] and the +material is at once less fruitful and more difficult to handle. A few +words on this last point must suffice here. + +We have seen in Chapter II. that there was plenty of employment at +Rome for freemen. Friedländer, than whom no higher authority can be +quoted for the social life of the city, goes so far as to assert that +even under the early Empire a freeman could always obtain work if he +wished for it;[329] and even if we take this as a somewhat exaggerated +statement, it may serve to keep us from rushing to the other extreme +and picturing a population of idle free paupers. In fact we are bound +on general evidence to assume for our own period that he is in the +main right; the poor freeman of Rome had to live somehow, and the +cheap corn which he enjoyed was not given him gratis until a few years +before the Republic came to an end.[330] How did he get the money to +pay even the sum of six asses and a third for a modius of corn, or to +pay for shelter and clothing, which were assuredly not to be had for +nothing? We know again, that the gilds of trades (see above, p. 45) +continued to exist in the last century of the Republic,[331] though +the majority had to be suppressed owing to their misuse as political +clubs. Supposing that the members of these collegia were small +employers of labour, it is reasonable to assume that the labour they +employed was at least largely free; for the capital needed to invest, +at some risk, in a sufficient number of slaves, who would have to be +housed and fed, and whose lives would be uncertain in a crowded and +unhealthy city, could not, we must suppose, be easily found by such +men. Here and there, no doubt, we find traces of slave labour in +factories, e.g. as far back as the time of Plautus, if we can take him +as writing of Rome rather than translating from the Greek: + + An te ibi vis inter istas versarier + Prosedas, pistorum amicas, reginas alicarias, + Miseras schoeno delibutas servilicolas sordidas?[332] + + _Poenulus_, 265 foll. + +But on the whole, we may with all due caution, in default of complete +investigation of the question, assume that the Roman slaves were +confined for the most part to the great and rich families, and were +not used by them to any great extent in productive industry, but +in supplying the luxurious needs of the household[333]. In all +probability research will show that free labour was far more available +than we are apt to think. We hear of no outbreak of feeling against +slave labour, which might suggest a rivalry between the two. +Slave labour, we may think, had filled a gap, created by abnormal +circumstances, and did not oust free labour entirely; but it tended +constantly to cramp it, and doubtless started notions of work in +general which helped to degrade it[334]. Those immense _familiae +urbanae_, of which the historian of slavery has given a detailed +account in his second volume[335], belong rather to the early Empire +than to the last years of the Republic--the evidence for them is +drawn chiefly from Seneca, Juvenal, Tacitus, Martial, etc.; but such +evidence as we have for the age of Cicero seems to suggest that the +vast palaces of the capitalists, which Sallust describes as being +almost like cities[336], were already beginning to be served by a +familia urbana which rendered them almost independent of any aid from +without by labour or purchase. Not only the ordinary domestic helpers +of all kinds, but copyists, librarians, paedagogi as tutors for the +children, and even doctors might all be found in such households in +a servile condition, without reckoning the great numbers who seem +to have been always available as escorts when the great man was +travelling in Italy or in the provinces. Valerius Maximus tells +us[337] that Cato the censor as proconsul of Spain took only three +slaves with him, and that his descendant Cato of Utica during the +Civil Wars had twelve; as both these men were extremely frugal, we can +form an idea from this passage both of the increasing supply of slaves +and of the far larger escorts which accompanied the ordinary wealthy +traveller. + +As regards the familia rustica, the working population of the farm, +the evidence is much more definite. The old Roman farm, in which the +paterfamilias lived with his wife, children, and slaves, was, no +doubt, like the old English holding in a manor, for the most part +self-sufficing, doing little in the way of sale or purchase, and +worked by all the members of the familia, bond and free. In the middle +of the second century B.C., when Cato wrote his treatise on husbandry, +we find that a change has taken place; the master can only pay the +farm an occasional visit, to see that it is being properly managed by +the slave steward[338] (vilicus), and the business is being run upon +capitalistic lines, i.e. with a view to realising the utmost possible +profit from it by the sale of its products. Thus Cato is most +particular in urging that a farm should be so placed as to have easy +communication with market towns, where the wine and oil could be sold, +which were the chief products, and where various necessaries could be +bought cheap, such as pottery and metal-work of all kinds.[339] Thus +the farm does not entirely depend on the labour of its own familia; +nevertheless it rests still upon an economic basis of slave labour. +For an olivetum of 240 jugera Cato puts the necessary hands as +thirteen in number, all non-free; for a vineyard of 100 jugera at +sixteen; and these figures are no doubt low, if we remember his +character for parsimony and profit-making.[340] Free labour was to be +had, and was occasionally needed; at the very outset of his work +Cato (ch. 4) insists that the owner should be a good and friendly +neighbour, in order that he may easily obtain, not only voluntary +help, but hired labourers (operarii). These were needed especially at +harvest time, when extra hands were wanted, as in our hop-gardens, for +the gathering of olives and for the vintage. Sometimes the work was +let out to a contractor, and he gives explicit directions (in chs. 144 +and 145) for the choice of these and the contracts to be made with +them; whether in this case the contractor (redemptor) used entirely +free or slave labour does not appear distinctly, but it seems clear +that a proportion at least was free.[341] What the free labourers did +at other times of the year, whether or no they were small cultivators +themselves, Cato does not tell us. + +For the age with which we are more specially concerned, we have the +evidence of Varro's three books on husbandry, written in his old age, +after the fall of the Republic. Here we find the economic condition of +the farm little changed since the time of Cato. The permanent labour +is non-free, but in spite of the vast increase in the servile labour +available in Italy, there is still a considerable employment of +freemen at certain times, on all farms where the olive and vine were +the chief objects of culture. In the 17th chapter of his first book, +in which he gives interesting advice for the purchase of suitable +slaves, he begins by telling us that all land is cultivated either +by slaves or freemen, or both together, and the free are of three +kinds,--either small holders (pauperculi) with their children; or +labourers who live by wage (conducticii), and are especially needed in +hay harvest or vintage; or debtors who give their labour as payment +for what they owe (obaerati).[342] Varro too, like Cato, recognises +the necessity of purchasing many things which cannot well be +manufactured on a farm of moderate size, and thus the landowner may in +this way also have been indirectly an employer of free labour; but so +far as possible the farm should supply itself with the materials +for its own working,[343] for this gives employment to the slaves +throughout the year,--and they should never be allowed to be +idle.[344] + +Thus it is abundantly clear that even in the time of Cicero there was +a certain demand for free labour in the ordinary Italian oliveyard and +vineyard, and that the necessary supply was forthcoming, though the +permanent industrial basis was non-free, and the tendency was to use +slave-labour more exclusively. The rule that the slave cannot be +allowed to be unemployed was a most important factor in the economical +development, and drove the landowner, who never seems to have had any +doubt about the comparative cheapness of slave-labour,[345] gradually +to make his farm more and more independent of all aid from outside. In +the work of Columella, written towards the end of the first century +A.D., it is plain that the work of the farm is carried on more +exclusively by slave-labour than was the case in the last two +centuries B.C.[346] + +To this not unpleasant picture of the conditions of Italian +agricultural slavery a few words must be added about the great +pastoral farms of Southern Italy. If a man invested his capital in a +comparatively small estate of olives and vineyards, such as that which +Cato treats of, and which seems to have been his own; or even in a +latifundium of the kind which Varro more vaguely pictures, containing +also parks and game and a moderate amount of pasture, he would need +slaves mainly of a certain degree of skill. But on the largest areas +of pasture, chiefly in the hill districts of Southern Italy, where +there was little cultivation except what was necessary for the +consumption of the slaves themselves, these were the roughest and +wildest type of bondsmen. The work was that of the American ranche, +the life harsh, and the workmen dangerous. It was in these districts +and from these men that Spartacus drew the material with which he made +his last stand against Roman armies in 72-71 B.C.; and it was in +this direction that Caelius and Milo turned in 48 B.C. in quest of +revolutionary and warlike bands. These roughs could even be used as +galley-slaves; more than once in the Commentaries on the Civil War +Caesar tells us that his opponents drafted them into the vessels which +were sent to relieve the siege of Massilia[347]. It was here too, in +the neighbourhood of Thurii, that a bloody fight took place between +the slaves of two adjoining estates, strong men of courage, as Cicero +describes them, of which we learn from the fragments of his lost +speech _pro Tullio_. They were of course armed, and as we may +guess from Varro's remarks on the kind of slaves suitable for +shepherding,[348] this was usually the practice, in order to defend +the flocks from wild beasts and robbers, particularly when they were +driven up to summer pasture (as they still are) in the saltus of +the Apennines. The needs of these shepherds would be small, and the +latifundia of this kind were probably almost self-sufficing, no free +labour being required. After their day's work the slaves were fed and +locked up for the night, and kept in fetters if necessary;[349] they +were in fact simply living tools, to use the expression of Aristotle, +and the economy of such estates was as simple as that of a workshop. +The exclusion of free labour is here complete: on the agricultural +estates it was approaching a completion which it fortunately never +reached. Had it reached that completion, the economic influence of +slavery would have been altogether bad; as it was, the introduction +of slave-labour on a large scale did valuable service to Italian +agriculture in the last century B.C. by contributing the material for +its revival at a time when the necessary free labour could not have +been found. However lamentable its results may have been in other +ways, especially on the great pastures, the economic history of Italy, +when it comes to be written, will have to give it credit for an +appreciable amount of benefit. + +2. The legal and political aspect of slavery. A slave was in the eye +of the law not a _persona_, but a _res_, i.e. he had no rights as a +human being, could not marry or hold property, but was himself simply +a piece of property which could be conveyed (res mancipi)[350]. During +the Republican period the law left him absolutely at the disposal of +his master, who had the power of life and death (jus vitae necisque) +over him, and could punish him with chastisement and bonds, and use +him for any purpose he pleased, without reference to any higher +authority than his own. This was the legal position of all slaves; but +it naturally often happened that those who were men of knowledge or +skill, as secretaries, for example, librarians, doctors, or even +as body-servants, were in intimate and happy relations with their +owners[351], and in the household of a humane man no well-conducted +slave need fear bodily degradation. Cicero and his friend Atticus both +had slaves whom they valued, not only for their useful service, but +as friends. Tiro, who edited Cicero's letters after his death, and to +whom we therefore owe an eternal debt of gratitude, was the object +of the tenderest affection on the part of his owner, and the letters +addressed to him by the latter when he was taken ill at Patrae in 50 +B.C. are among the most touching writings that have come down to us +from antiquity. "I miss you," he writes in one of them[352], "yes, but +I also love you. Love prompts the wish to see you in good health: the +other motive would make me wish to see you as soon as possible,--and +the former one is the best." Atticus, too, had his Tiro, Alexis, +"imago Tironis," as Cicero calls him in a letter to his friend,[353] +and many others who were engaged in the work of copying and +transcribing books, which was one of Atticus' many pursuits. All such +slaves would sooner or later be manumitted, i.e. transmuted from a +_res_ to a _persona_; and in the ease with which this process of +transmutation could be effected we have the one redeeming point of the +whole system of bondage. According to the oldest and most efficient +form (vindicta), a legal ceremony had to be gone through in the +presence of a praetor; but the praetor could easily be found, and +there was no other difficulty. This was the form usually adopted by an +owner wishing to free a slave in his own lifetime; but great numbers +were constantly manumitted more irregularly, or by the will of the +master after his death.[354] + +Thus the leading facts in the legal position of the Roman slave were +two: (1) he was absolutely at the disposal of his owner, the law never +interfering to protect him; (2) he had a fair prospect of manumission +if valuable and well-behaved, and if manumitted he of course became a +Roman citizen (libertus or libertinus) with full civil rights,[355] +remaining, however, according to ancient custom, in a certain position +of moral subordination to his late master, owing him respect, and aid +if necessary. Let us apply these two leading facts to the conditions +of Roman life as we have already sketched them. We shall find that +they have political results of no small importance. + +First, we must try to realise that the city of Rome contained at +least 200,000 human beings over whom the State had no direct control +whatever. All such crimes, serious or petty, as are now tried and +disposed of in our criminal courts, were then, if committed by a +slave, punishable only by the master; and in the majority of cases, if +the familia were a large one, they probably never reached his ears. +The jurisdiction to which the slave was responsible was a private one, +like that of the great feudal lord of the Middle Ages, who had his own +prison and his own gallows. The political result was much the same in +each case. Just as the feudal lord, with his private jurisdiction and +his hosts of retainers, became a peril to good government and national +unity until he was brought to order by a strong king like our Henry +II. or Henry VII., so the owner of a large familia of many hundreds +of slaves may almost be said to have been outside of the State; +undoubtedly he became a serious peril to the good order of the +capital. The part played by the slaves in the political disturbances +of Cicero's time was no mean one. One or two instances will show this. +Saturninus, in the year 100, when attacked by Marius under orders +from the senate, had hoisted a pilleus, or cap of liberty which the +emancipated slave wore, as a signal to the slaves of the city that +they might expect their liberty if they supported him;[356] and Marius +a few years later took the same step when himself attacked by Sulla. +Catiline, in 63, Sallust assures us, believed it possible to raise the +slaves of the city in aid of his revolutionary plans, and they flocked +to him in great numbers; but he afterwards abandoned his intention, +thinking that to mix up the cause of citizens with that of slaves +would not be judicious.[357] It is here too that the gladiator slaves +first meet us as a political arm; Cicero had the next spring to defend +P. Sulla on the charge, among others, of having bought gladiators +during the conspiracy with seditious views, and the senate had to +direct that the bands of these dangerous men should be dispersed to +Capua and other municipal towns at a distance. Later on we frequently +hear of their being used as private soldiery, and the government in +the last years of the Republic ceased to be able to control them.[358] +Again, in defending Sestius, Cicero asserts that Clodius in his +tribunate had organised a levy of slaves under the name of collegia, +for purposes of violence, slaughter, and rapine; and even if this +is an exaggeration, it shows that such proceedings were not deemed +impossible.[359] And apart from the actual use of slaves for +revolutionary objects, or as private body-guards, it is clear from +Cicero's correspondence that as an important part of a great man's +retinue they might indirectly have influence in elections and on +other political occasions. Quintus Cicero, in his little treatise on +electioneering,[360] urges his brother to make himself agreeable to +his tribesmen, neighbours, clients, freedmen, and even slaves, "for +nearly all the talk which affects one's public reputation emanates +from domestic sources." And Marcus himself, in the last letter he +wrote before he fled into exile in 58, declares that all his friends +are promising him not only their own aid, but that of their clients, +freedmen, and slaves,--promises which doubtless might have been kept +had he stayed to take advantage of them.[361] + +The mention of the freedmen in this letter may serve to remind us of +the political results of manumission, the second fact in the legal +aspect of Roman slavery. The most important of these is the rapid +importation of foreign blood into the Roman citizen body, which long +before the time of Cicero largely consisted of enfranchised slaves or +their descendants; it was to this that Scipio Aemilianus alluded in +his famous words to the contio he was addressing after his return from +Numantia, "Silence, ye to whom Italy is but a stepmother" (Val. +Max. 6. 2. 3). Had manumission been held in check or in some way +superintended by the State, there would have been more good than harm +in it. Many men of note, who had an influence on Roman culture, were +libertini, such as Livius Andronicus and Caecilius the poets; Terence, +Publilius Syrus, whose acquaintance we made in the last chapter; Tiro +and Alexis, and rather later Verrius Flaccus, one of the most learned +men who ever wrote in Latin. But the great increase in the number of +slaves, and the absence of any real difficulty in effecting their +manumission, led to the enfranchisement of crowds of rascals as +compared with the few valuable men. The most striking example is the +enfranchisement of 10,000 by Sulla, who according to custom took +his name Cornelius, and, though destined to be a kind of military +guarantee for the permanence of the Sullan institutions, only became +a source of serious peril to the State at the time of Catiline's +conspiracy. Caesar, who was probably more alive to this kind of +social danger than his contemporaries, sent out a great number of +libertini,--the majority, says Strabo, of his colonists,--to his new +foundation at Corinth[362]. But Dionysius of Halicarnassus, writing +in the time of Augustus, when he stayed some time in Rome, draws a +terrible picture of the evil effects of indiscriminate manumission, +unchecked by the law[363]. + +"Many," he says, "are indignant when they see unworthy men manumitted, +and condemn a usage which gives such men the citizenship of a +sovereign state whose destiny is to govern the world. As for me, I +doubt if the practice should be stopped altogether, lest greater evil +should be the result; I would rather that it should be checked as far +as possible, so that the state may no longer be invaded by men of such +villainous character. The censors, or at least the consuls, should +examine all whom it is proposed to manumit, inquiring into their +origin and the reasons and mode of their enfranchisement, as in their +examination of the equites. Those whom they find worthy of citizenship +should have their names inscribed on tables, distributed among the +tribes, with leave to reside in the city. As to the crowd of villains +and criminals, they should be sent far away, under pretext of founding +some colony." + +These judicious remarks of a foreigner only expressed what was +probably a common feeling among the best men of that time. Augustus +made some attempt to limit the enfranchising power of the owner; but +the Leges Aelia Sentia and Furia Caninia do not lie within the compass +of this book. No great success could attend these efforts; the +abnormal circumstances which had brought to Rome the great familiae +of slaves reacted inevitably upon the citizen body itself through the +process of manumission. Rome had to pay heavily in this, as in so many +other ways, for her advancement to the sovereignty of the civilised +world. I may be allowed to translate the eloquent words in which +the French historian of slavery, in whose great work the history of +ancient slavery is treated as only a scholar-statesman can treat it, +sums up this aspect of the subject: + +"Emancipation, prevalent as it might appear to be towards the +beginning of the Empire, was not a step towards the suppression of +slavery, but a natural and inevitable sequence of the institution +itself,--an outlet for excess in an epoch overabundant in slaves: a +means of renewing the mass, corrupted by the deleterious influence +of its own condition, before it should be totally ruined. As water, +diverted from its free course, becomes impure in the basin which +imprisons it, and when released, will still retain its impurity; so +it is not to be thought that instincts perverted by slavery, habits +depraved from childhood, could be reformed and redressed in the slave +by a tardy liberation. Thrust into the midst of a society itself +vitiated by the admixture of slavery, he only became more +unrestrainedly, more dangerously bad. Manumission was thus no remedy +for the deterioration of the citizens: it was powerless even to better +the condition of the slave."[364] + +3. The ethical aspect of Roman slavery. What were the moral effects of +the system (1) on the slaves themselves; (2) on the freemen who owned +them? + +First, as regards the slaves themselves, there are two facts to be +fully realised; when this is done, the inferences will be sufficiently +obvious. Let us remember that by far the greater number of the +slaves, both in the city and on the land, were brought from countries +bordering on the Mediterranean, where they had been living in some +kind of elementary civilisation, in which the germs of further +development were present in the form of the natural ties of race and +kinship and locality, of tribe or family or village community, and +with their own religion, customs, and government. Permanent captivity +in a foreign land and in a servile condition snapped these ties once +and for all. To take a single appalling instance, the 150,000 human +beings who were sold into slavery in Epirus by the conqueror of Pydna, +or as many of them as were transported out of their own country--and +these were probably the vast majority,--were thereby deprived for the +rest of their lives of all social and family life, of their ancestral +worship, in fact of everything that could act as a moral tie, as a +restraining influence upon vicious instincts. With the lamentable +effect of this on the regions thus depopulated we are not here +concerned, but it was beyond doubt most serious, and must be taken +into account in reckoning up the various causes which later on brought +about the enfeeblement of the whole Roman Empire.[365] The point for +us is that a large proportion of the population of Rome and of Italy +was now composed of human beings destitute of all natural means of +moral and social development. The ties that had been once broken +could never be replaced. There is no need to dwell on the inevitable +result,--the introduction into the Roman State of a poisonous element +of terrible volume and power. + +The second fact that we have to grasp is this. In the old days, when +such slaves as there then were came from Italy itself, and worked +under the master's own eye upon the farm, they might and did share +to some extent in the social life of the family, and even in its +religious rites, and so might under favourable circumstances come +within the range of its moral influences[366]. But towards the close +of the Republican period those moral influences, as we have seen, +were fast vanishing in the majority of families which possessed large +numbers of slaves. The common kind of slave in the city, who was not +attached to his owner as was a man of culture like Tiro, had no moral +standard except implicit obedience; the highest virtue was to obey +orders diligently, and fear of punishment was the only sanction of his +conduct. The typical city slave, as he appears in Plautus, though by +no means a miserable being without any enjoyment of life, is a liar +and a thief, bent on overreaching, and destitute of a conscience[367]. +We need but reflect that the slave must often have had to do vile +things in the name of his one virtue, obedience, to realise that +the poison was present, and ready to become active, in every Roman +household. "Nec turpe est quod dominus iubet."[368] + +On the latifundia in the country the master was himself seldom +resident, and the slaves were under the control of one or more of +their own kind, promoted for good conduct and capacity. The slaves of +the great sheep and cattle farms were, as we saw, of the wildest +sort, and we may judge of their morality by the story of the +Sicilian slave-owner who, when his slaves complained that they were +insufficiently clothed, told them that the remedy was to rob the +travellers they fell in with.[369] The _ergastula_, where slaves were +habitually chained and treated like beasts, were sowing the seeds +of permanent moral contamination in Italy.[370] But on the smaller +estates of olive-yard and vineyard their condition was better, and +a humane owner who chose his overseers carefully might possibly +reproduce something of the old feeling of participation in the life as +well as the industry of the economic unit. In an interesting chapter +Varro advises that the vilicus should be carefully selected, and +should be conciliated by being allowed a wife and the means of +accumulating a property (_peculium_); he even urges that he should +enforce obedience rather by words than blows.[371] But of the +condition of the ordinary slave on the farm this is the only hint he +gives us, and it never seems to have occurred to him, or to any other +Roman of his day, that the work to be done would be better performed +by men not deprived by their condition of a moral sense; that slave +labour is unwillingly and unintelligently rendered, because the +labourer has no hope, no sense of dutiful conduct leading him to +rejoice in the work of his hands. Nor did any writer recognise the +fact that slaves were potentially moral beings, until Christianity +gave its sanction to dutiful submission as an act of morality that +might be consecrated by a Divine authority.[372] + +Lastly, it is not difficult to realise the mischievous effects of such +a slave system as the Roman upon the slave-owning class itself. Even +those who themselves had no slaves would be affected by it; for +though, as we have seen, free labour was by no means ousted by it, +it must have helped to create an idle class of freemen, with all its +moral worthlessness. Long ago, in his remarkable book on _The Slave +Power_ in America before the Civil War, Professor Cairnes drew a +striking comparison between the "mean whites" of the Southern States, +the result of slave labour on the plantations, and the idle population +of the Roman capital, fed on cheap corn and ready for any kind of +rowdyism.[373] But in the case of the great slave-owners the mischief +was much more serious, though perhaps more difficult to detect. The +master of a horde of slaves had half his moral sense paralysed, +because he had no feeling of responsibility for so many of those with +whom he came in contact every day and hour. When most members of a +man's household or estate are absolutely at his mercy, when he has no +feeling of any contractual relation with them, his sense of duty and +obligation is inevitably deadened, even towards others who are not +thus in his power. Can we doubt that the lack of a sense of justice +and right dealing, more especially towards provincials, but also +towards a man's fellow-citizens, which we have noticed in the two +upper sections of society, was due in great part to the constant +exercise of arbitrary power at home, to the habit of looking upon the +men who ministered to his luxurious ease as absolutely without claim +upon his respect or his benevolence? or that the recklessness of human +life which was shown in the growing popularity of bloody gladiatorial +shows, and in the incredible cruelty of the victors in the Civil +Wars, was the result of this unconscious cultivation, from childhood +onwards, of the despotic temper?[374] Even the best men of the age, +such as Cicero, Caesar, Lucretius, show hardly a sign of any sympathy +with, or interest in, that vast mass of suffering humanity, both bond +and free with which the Roman dominion was populated; to disregard +misery, except when they found it among the privileged classes, had +become second nature to them. We can better realise this if we reflect +that even at the present day, in spite of the absence of slavery and +the presence of philanthropical societies, the average man of wealth +gives hardly more than a passing thought to the discomfort and +distress of the crowded population of our great cities. The ordinary +callousness of human nature had, under the baleful influence of +slavery, become absolute blindness, nor were men's eyes to be opened +until Christianity began to leaven the world with the doctrine of +universal love. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +THE HOUSE OF THE RICH MAN, IN TOWN AND COUNTRY + +We saw that the poorer classes in Rome were lodged in huge _insulae_, +and enjoyed nothing that can be called home life. The wealthy +families, on the other hand, lived in _domus_, i.e. separate +dwellings, accommodating only one family, often, even in the +Ciceronian period, of great magnificence. But even these great houses +hardly suggest a life such as that which we associate with the word +home. As Mr. Tucker has pointed out in the case of Athens,[375] the +warmer climates of Greece and Italy encouraged all classes to spend +much more of their time out of doors and in public places than we +do; and the rapid growth of convenient public buildings, porticoes, +basilicas, baths, and so on, is one of the most striking features in +the history of the city during the last two centuries B.C. Augustus, +part of whose policy it was to make the city population comfortable +and contented, carried this tendency still further, and under the +Empire the town house played quite a subordinate part in Roman +social life. The best way to realise this out-of-door life, lazy and +sociable, of the Augustan age, is to read the first book of Ovid's +_Ars Amatoria_,--a fascinating picture of a beautiful city and its +pleasure-loving inhabitants. But with the Augustan age we are not here +concerned. + +Yet the Roman house, like the Italian house in general, was in origin +and essence really a home. The family was the basis of society, and by +the family we must understand not only the head of the house with +his wife, children, and slaves, but also the divine beings who dwelt +there. As the State comprised both human and divine inhabitants, so +also did the house, which was indeed the germ and type of the State. +Thus the house was in those early times not less but even more than a +house is for us, for in it was concentrated all that was dear to +the family, all that was essential to its life, both natural and +supernatural. And the two--the natural and supernatural--were not +distinct from each other, but associated, in fact almost identical; +the hearth-fire was the dwelling of Vesta, the spirit of the flame; +the Penates were the spirits of the stores on which the family +subsisted, and dwelt in the store-cupboard or larder; the +paterfamilias had himself a supernatural side, in the shape of his +Genius; and the Lar familiaris was the protecting spirit of the +farmland, who had found his way into the house in course of time, +perhaps with the slave labourers, who always had a share in his +worship.[376] + +It would probably be unjust to the Roman of the late Republic to +assume that this beautiful idea of the common life of the human and +divine beings in a house was entirely ignored or forgotten by him. No +doubt the reality of the belief had vanished; it could not be said of +the city family, as Ovid, said of the farm-folk:[377] + + ante focos olim scamnis considere longis + mos erat _et mensae credere adesse deos_. + +The great noble or banker of Cicero's day could no longer honestly +say that he believed in the real presence of his family deities; the +kernel of the old feeling had shrunk away under the influence of Greek +philosophy and of new interests in life, new objects and ambitions. +But the shell remained, and in some families, or in moments of anxiety +and emotion, even the old feeling of _religio_ may have returned. +Cicero is appealing to a common sentiment, in a passage already +once quoted (_de Domo_, 109), when he insists on the real religious +character of a house: "his arae sunt, his foci, his di penates: his +sacra, religiones, caerimoniae continentur." And this was in the heart +of the city; in the country-house there was doubtless more leisure and +opportunity for such feeling. In the second century B.C. old Cato had +described the paterfamilias, on his arrival at his farm from the +city, saluting the Lar familiaris before he goes about his round of +inspection; and even Horace hardly shows a trace of the agnostic when +he pictures the slaves of the farm, and the master with them, sitting +at their meal in front of the image of the Lar[378]. We may perhaps +guess that with the renewal of the love of country life, and with +that revival of the cultivation of the vine and olive, and indeed of +husbandry in general, which is recognisable as a feature of the last +years of the Republic, and which is known to us from Varro's work +on farming, and from Virgil's _Georgics_, the old religion of the +household gained a new life. + +It is not necessary here to give any detailed account of the shape +and divisions of a Roman house of the city; full and excellent +descriptions may be found in Middleton's article "Domus" in the +_Dictionary of Antiquities_, and in Lanciani's _Ruins and Excavations +of Ancient Rome_; and to these should be added Mau's work on Pompeii, +where the houses were of a Roman rather than a Greek type. What we are +concerned with is the house as a home or a centre of life, and it is +only in this aspect of it that we shall discuss it here. + +The oldest Italian dwelling was a mere wigwam with a hearth in the +middle of the floor, and a hole at the top to let the smoke out. But +the house of historical times was rectangular, with one central room +or hall, in which was concentrated the whole indoor life of the +family, the whole meaning and purpose of the dwelling. Here the human +and divine inhabitants originally lived together. Here was the hearth, +"the natural altar of the dwelling-room of man," as Aust beautifully +expresses it;[379] this was the seat of Vesta, and behind it was the +_penus_ or store-closet, the seat of the Penates; thus Vesta and the +Penates are in the most genuine sense the protecting and nourishing +deities of the household. Here, too, was the Lar of the familia with +his little altar, behind the entrance, and here was the _lectus +genialis_,[380] and the Genius of the paterfamilias. As you looked +into the atrium, after passing the _vestibulum_ or space between +street and doorway, and the _ostium_ or doorway with its _janua_, you +saw in front of you the impluvium, into which the rainwater fell from +the _compluvium_, i.e. the square opening in the roof with sloping +sides; on either side were recesses (_alae_), which, if the family +were noble, contained the images of the ancestors. Opposite you was +another recess, the _tablinum_, opening probably into a little garden; +here in the warm weather the family might take their meals. + +This is the atrium of the old Roman house, and to understand that +house nothing more is needed. And indeed architecturally, the atrium +never lost its significance as the centre of the house; it is to the +house as the choir is to a cathedral.[381] And it is easy to see how +naturally it could develop into a much more complicated but convenient +dwelling; for example, the alae could be extended to form separate +chambers or sleeping-rooms, the tablinum could be made into a +permanent dining-room, or such rooms could be opened out on either +side of it. A second story could be added, and in the city, where +space was valuable, this was usually the case. The garden could be +converted, after the Greek fashion, and under a Greek name, into a +_peristylium_, i.e. an open court with a pretty colonnade round it, +and if there were space enough, you might add at the rear of this +again an _exedra_, or an _oecus_, i.e. open saloons convenient for +many purposes. Thus the house came to be practically divided into two +parts, the atrium with its belongings, i.e. the Roman part, and the +peristylium with its developments, forming the Greek part; and the +house reflects the composite character of Roman life in its later +period, just as do Roman literature and Roman art. The Roman part was +retained for reception rooms, and the Lar, the Penates, and Vesta, +with their respective seats, retired into the new apartments for +privacy. When the usual crowd of morning callers came to wait upon a +great man, they would not as a rule penetrate farther than the atrium, +and there he might keep them waiting as long as he pleased. The Greek +part of the house, the peristylium and its belongings, was reserved +for his family and his most intimate friends. In Pompeii, which was an +old Greek town with Roman life and habits superadded, we find atrium +and peristylium both together as early as the second century B.C.[382] +At what period exactly the house of the noble in Rome began thus to +develop is not so certain. But by the time of Cicero every good domus +had without doubt its private apartments at the rear, varying in shape +and size according to the ground on which the house stood.[383] + +The accompanying plan will give a sufficiently clear idea of the +development of the domus from the atrium, and its consequent division +into two parts; it is that of "the house of the silver wedding" at +Pompeii. + +[Illustration: PLAN OF THE HOUSE OF THE SILVER WEDDING. From Mau's +_Pompeii_.] + +But in spite of all the convenience and comfort of the fully developed +dwelling of the rich man at Rome, there was much to make him sigh for +a quieter life than he could enjoy in the noisy city. He might +indeed, if he could afford it, remove outside the walls to a "domus +suburbana," on one of the roads leading out of Rome, or on the hill +looking down on the Campus Martius, like the house of Sallust the +historian, with its splendid gardens, which still in part exists in +the dip between the Quirinal and the Pincian hills.[384] But nowhere +within three miles or more of Rome could a man lose his sense of being +in a town, or escape from the smoke, the noise, the excitement of the +streets. After what has been said in previous chapters, the +crowd in the Forum and its adjuncts can be left to the reader's +imagination; but if he wishes to stimulate it, let him look +at the seventh chapter of Cicero's speech for Plancius, where +the orator makes use of the jostling in the Forum as an +illustration so familiar that none can fail to understand it.[385] A +relief, of which a figure is given in Burn's _Roman Literature and +Roman Art_, p. 79, gives a good idea of the close crowding, though no +doubt it was habitual with Roman artists to overcrowd their scenes +with human figures. Even as early as the first Punic war a lady could +complain of the crowded state of the Forum, and, with the grim humour +peculiar to Romans, could declare that her brother, who had just lost +a great number of Roman lives in a defeat by the Carthaginians, ought +to be in command of another fleet in order to relieve the city of more +of its surplus population. What then must the Forum have been two +centuries later, when half the business of the Empire was daily +transacted there! And even outside the walls the trouble did not +cease; all night long the wagons were rolling into the city, which +were not allowed in the day-time, at any rate after Caesar's municipal +law of 46 B.C. Like the motors of to-day, one might imagine that their +noise would depreciate the value of houses on the great roads. The +callers and clients would be here of a morning, as in the house within +the walls; the bore might be met not only in the Via Sacra, like +Horace's immortal friend, but wherever the stream of life hurried with +its busy eddies[386]. Lucilius drew a graphic picture of this feverish +life, which is fortunately preserved; it refers of course to a time +before Cicero's birth (Fragm. 9, Baehrens): + + nunc vero a mani ad noctem, festo atque profesto, + totus item pariter populus, plebesque patresque, + iactare indu foro se omnes, decedere nusquam: + uni se atque eidem studio omnes dedere et arti, + verba dare ut oaute possint, pugnare dolose: + blanditia certare, bonum simulare virum se: + insidias facere, ut si hostes sint omnibus omnes. + +That this exciting social atmosphere, with its jostling and +over-reaching in the Forum, and its callers and dinner-parties in the +house, had some sinister influence on men's tempers and nerves, there +can be no doubt. Cicero dearly loved the life of the city, but he paid +for it by a sensibility which is constantly apparent in his letters, +and diminished his value as a statesman. When he wrote from Cilicia to +his more youthful friend Caelius, urging him to stick to the city, in +words that are almost pathetic, it never occurred to him that he was +prescribing exactly that course of treatment which had done himself +much damage[387]. The clear sight and strong nerve of Caesar, as +compared with so many of his contemporaries, was doubtless largely due +to the fact that between 70 and 50 B.C., i.e. in the prime of life, he +spent some twelve of the twenty years in the fresher air of Spain and +Gaul. Some men were fairly worn out with dissipation and the resulting +ennui, and could get no relief even in a country villa. Lucretius has +drawn a wonderful picture of such an unfortunate, who hurries from +Rome into the country, and finding himself bored there almost as soon +as he arrives, orders out his carriage to return to the city. To fill +oneself with good things, yet never to be satisfied (explere bonis +rebus, satiareque nunquam), was even for the true Epicurean a most +dismal fate.[388] + +But there was at this time, and had been for many generations, a +genuine desire to escape at times from town to country; and Cicero, in +spite of his pathetic exhortation to Caelius, was himself a keen +lover of the ease and leisure which he could find only in his +country-houses. The first great Roman of whom we know that he had a +rural villa, not only or chiefly for farming purposes, but as a refuge +from the city and its tumult, was Scipio Africanus the elder. His +villa at Liternum on the Campanian coast is described by Seneca in his +86th epistle; it was small, and without the comforts and conveniences +of the later country-house; but its real significance lies not so much +in the increasing wealth that could make a residence possible without +a farm attached to it, but in the growing sense of individuality that +made men wish for such a retreat. There are other signs that Scipio +was a man of strong personality, unlike the typical Roman of his day; +he put a value upon his own thoughts and habits, apart from his duty +to the State, and retired to Liternum to indulge them. The younger +Scipio too (Aemilianus), though no blood-relation of his, had the same +instinct, but in his case it was rather the desire for leisure and +relaxation,--the same love of a real holiday that we all know so well +in our modern life. "Leisure," says Cicero, is not "contentio animi +sed relaxatio"; and in a charming passage he goes on to describe +Scipio and Laelius gathering shells on the sea-shore, and becoming +boys again (repuerascere).[389] This desire for ease and relaxation, +for the chance of being for a while your true self,--a self worth +something apart from its existence as a citizen, is apparent in the +Roman of Cicero's day, and still more in the hard-working functionary +of the Empire. Twice in his life the morbid emperor Tiberius shrank +from the eyes of men, once at Rhodes and afterwards at Capreae,--a +melancholy recluse worn out by hard work. + +Everyman had to provide his own "health resort" in those days: there +was nothing to correspond to the modern hotel. Even at the great +luxurious watering-places on the Campanian coast, Baiae and Bauli, the +houses, so far as we know, were all private residences.[390] I do not +propose to include in this chapter any account of these centres of +luxury and vice, which were far indeed from giving any rest or relief +to the weary Roman; the society of Baiae was the centre of scandal and +gossip, where a woman like Clodia, the Lesbia of Catullus, could live +in wickedness before the eyes of all men.[391] Let us turn to a more +agreeable subject, and illustrate the country-house and the country +life of the last age of the Republic by a rapid visit to Cicero's +own villas. This has fortunately been made easy for us by the very +delightful work of Professor O.E. Schmidt, whose genuine enthusiasm +for Cicero took him in person to all these sites, and inspired him to +write of them most felicitously.[392] + +There being no hotels, among which the change-loving Roman of Cicero's +day could pick and choose a retreat for a holiday, he would buy a site +for a villa first in one place, then in another, or purchase one ready +built, or transform an old farm-house of his own into a residence with +"modern requirements." In choosing his sites he would naturally look +southwards, and find what he sought for either in the choicer parts of +Latium, among the hills and woods of the Mons Albanus and Tusculum, +or in the rich Campanian land, the paradise of the lazy Roman; in the +latter case, he would like to be close to the sea on that delicious +coast, and even in Latium there were spots where, like Scipio and +Laelius, he might wander on the sea-shore. All this country to the +south was beginning to be covered with luxurious and convenient +houses; in the colder and mountainous parts of central Italy the villa +was still the farm-house of the older useful type, of which the object +was the cultivation of olive and vine, now coming into fashion, as +we have already seen. For Cicero and his friends the word _villa_ no +longer suggested farming, as it invariably did for the old Roman, and +as we find it in Cato's treatise on agriculture; it meant gardens, +libraries, baths, and collections of works of art, with plenty of +convenient rooms for study or entertainment. Sometimes the garden +might be extended into a park, with fishponds and great abundance of +game; Hortensius had such a park near Laurentum, fifty jugera enclosed +in a ring-fence, and full of wild beasts of all sorts and kinds. Varro +tells us that the great orator would take his guests to a seat on an +eminence in this park, and summon his "Orpheus" thither to sing and +play: at the sound of the music a multitude of stags, boars, and other +animals would make their appearance--having doubtless been trained +to do so by expectation of food prepared for them.[393] Such was the +taste of the great master of "Asiatic" eloquence. We are reminded of +the fairy tale of the Emperor of China and the mechanical nightingale. + +His great rival in oratory had simpler tastes, in his country life as +in his rhetoric. Cicero had no villa of the vulgar kind of luxury; he +preferred to own several of moderate comfort rather than one or two of +such magnificence. He had in all six, besides one or two properties +which were bought for some special temporary object; and it is +interesting to see what relation these houses had to his life and +habits. At no point could he afford to be very far from Rome, or from +a main road which would take him there easily. The accompanying little +map will show that all his villas lay on or near to one or other of +the two great roads that led southwards from the capital. The via +Latina would take him in an hour or two to Tusculum, where, since +the death of Catulus in 68, he owned the villa of that excellent +aristocrat.[394] The site of the villa cannot be determined with +certainty, but Schmidt gives good reasons for believing that it was +where we used formerly to place it, on the slope of the hill above +Frascati. That it really stood there, and not in the hollow by +Grottaferrata,[395] we would willingly believe, for no one who +has ever been there can possibly forget the glorious view or the +refreshing air of those flowery slopes. No wonder the owner was fond +of it. He tells Atticus, when he first came into possession of it, +that he found rest there from all troubles and toils (_ad Att._ i. 5. +7.), and again that he is so delighted with it that when he gets +there he is delighted with himself too (_ad Att._ i. 6). Much of his +literary work was done here, and he had the great advantage of +being close to the splendid library of Lucullus' neighbouring +villa, which was always open to him.[396] At Tusculum he spent +many a happy day, until his beloved daughter died there in 45, +after which he would not go there for some time; but he got the better +of this sorrow, and loved the place to the end of his life. + +[Illustration: MAP TO ILLUSTRATE THE POSITION OF CICERO'S VILLAS.] + +If this villa was where we hope it was, the great road passed at no +great distance from it, in the valley between Tusculum and the Mons +Albanus; and by following this for some fifty miles to the south-east +through Latium, Cicero would strike the river Liris not far from +Fregellae, and leaving the road there, would soon arrive at his native +place Arpinum, and his ancestral property. For this old home he always +had the warmest affection; of no other does he write in language +showing so clearly that his heart could be moved by natural beauty, +especially when combined with the tender associations of his +boyhood[397]. In the charming introduction to the second book of +his work _de Legibus_ (on the Constitution), he dwells with genuine +delight on this feeling and these associations; and there too we get +a hint of what Dr. Schmidt tells us is the peculiar charm of the +spot,--the presence and the sound of water; for if he is right, the +villa was placed between two arms of the limpid little river Fibrenus, +which here makes a delta as it joins the larger Liris[398]. + +But of this house we know for certain neither the site nor the +plan,--not so much indeed as we know about a villa of the brother +Quintus, not far away, the building of which is described with such +exactness in a letter written to the absent owner[399], that Schmidt +thinks himself justified in applying it by analogy to the villa of +the elder brother. But such reasoning is hardly safe. What we do know +about the old house is that it was originally a true villa rustica,--a +house with land cultivated by the owner that Cicero's father, who had +weak health and literary tastes, had added to it considerably, and +that Cicero himself had made it into a comfortable country residence, +with all necessary conveniences. He did not farm the ancestral land +attached to it, either himself or by a bailiff, but let it in small +holdings[400] (praediola), and we could wish that he had told us +something of his tenants and what they did with the land. It was not, +therefore, a real farm-house, but a farm-house made into a pleasant +residence, like so many manor-houses still to be seen in England. +Its atrium had no doubt retired (so to speak) into the rear of the +building, and had become a kitchen, and you entered, as in most +country-houses of this period, through a vestibule directly into a +peristyle: some idea of such an arrangement may be gained from the +accompanying ground-plan of the villa of Diomedes just outside +Pompeii, which was a city house adapted to rural conditions (villa +pseudurbana).[401] + +If Cicero wished to leave Arpinum for one of his villas on the +Campanian coast, he would simply have to follow the valley of the +Liris until it reached the sea between Minturnae and Formiae, and at +the latter place, a lively little town with charming views over the +sea, close to the modern Gaeta, he would find another house of his +own,--the next he added to his possessions after he inherited Arpinum. +Formiae was a very convenient spot; it lay on the via Appia, and was +thus in direct communication both with Rome and the bay of Naples, +either by land or sea. When Cicero is not resting, but on the move or +expecting to be disturbed, he is often to be found at Formiae, as in +the critical mid-winter of 50-49 B.C.; and here at the end of March +49 he had his famous interview with Caesar, who urged him in vain to +accompany him to Rome. Here he spent the last weary days of his life, +and here he was murdered by Antony's ruffians on December 7, 43. + +[Illustration: PLAN OF THE VILLA OF DIOMEDES. From Man's _Pompeii_.] + +This villa was in or close to the little town, and therefore did not +give him the quiet he liked to have for literary work. It would seem +that the _bore_ existed elsewhere than at Rome; for in a short letter +written from Formiae in April 59, he tells Atticus of his troubles +of this kind: "As to literary work, it is impossible! My house is a +basilica rather than a villa, owing to the crowds of visitors from +Formiae ... C. Arrius is my next door neighbour, or rather he almost +lives in my house, and even declares that his reason for not going to +Rome is that he may spend whole days with me here philosophising. And +then, if you please, on the other flank is Sebosus, that friend of +Catulus! Which way am I to turn? I declare that I would go at once to +Arpinum, if this were not the most, convenient place to await your +visit: but I will only wait till May 6: you see what bores are +pestering my poor ears."[402] + +But his Campanian villas would be almost as easy to reach as Arpinum, +if he wished to escape from Formiae and its bores. To the nearest of +these, the one at or near Cumae, it was only about forty miles' drive +along the coast road, past Minturnae, Sinuessa, and Volturnum, all +familiar halting-places. Of this "Cumanum," however, we know very +little: that volcanic region has undergone such changes that we +cannot recover the site, and its owner never seems to have felt any +particular attachment to it. It was in fact too near Baiae and Bauli +to suit a quiet literary man; the great nobles in their vast luxurious +palaces were too close at hand for a _novus homo_ to be perfectly +at his ease there. Yet near the end of his life Cicero added to +his possessions another property in this neighbourhood, at or near +Puteoli, which was now fast becoming a city of great importance; but +this can be explained by the fact that a banker of Puteoli named +Cluvius, an old friend of his, had just died and divided his property +by will between Caesar and Cicero,--truly a tremendous will! Cicero +seems to have purchased Caesar's share, and to have looked on the +property as a good investment. He began to build a villa here, but had +little chance of using it. It may have been here that he entertained +Caesar and his retinue at the end of the year 45,[403] as described by +him in the famous letter of December 21 (_ad Att_. xiii. 52); when two +thousand men had somehow to be provided for, and in spite of literary +conversation, Cicero could write that his guest was not exactly one +whom you would be in a hurry to see again. + +Across the bay, and just within view from the higher ground between +Baiae and Cumae, lay the little town of Pompeii, under the sleeping +Vesuvius. Here, probably just outside the town, Cicero had a villa of +which he seems to have been really fond, and the society of a quiet +and gentle friend, M. Marius. Whether we can find the remains of this +villa among the excavations of Pompeii is very doubtful: but our +excellent guide Schmidt assures us that he has good reason for +believing that one particular house, just outside the city on the left +side of the road in front of the Porta Herculanea, which has for no +very convincing reason ever since its excavation in 1763 been called +the Villa di Cicerone, really is the house we wish it to be. But alas! +an honest man must confess that the identification wants certainty, +and the chance of finding any object or inscription which may confirm +it is now very small. + +If Cicero were summoned suddenly back to Rome for business, forensic +or political, he would hasten first to Formiae and sleep there, and +thence hurry, by the via Appia and the route so well known to us +from Horace's journey to Brundisium, to another house in the little +sea-coast town of Antium. This was his nearest seaside residence, and +he often used it when unable to go far from Rome. After the death of +his daughter in 45 he seems to have sold this house to Lepidus, and, +unable to stay at Tusculum, where she died, he bought a small villa +on a little islet called Astura, on the very edge of the Pomptine +marshes, and in that melancholy and unwholesome neighbourhood he +passed whole days in the woods giving way to his grief. Yet it was +a "locus amoenus, et in mari ipso, qui et Antio et Circeiis aspici +possit.[404]" It suited his mood, and here he stayed long, writing +letter after letter to Atticus about the erection of a shrine to the +lost one in some gardens to be purchased near Rome. + +This sketch of the country-houses of a man like Cicero may help us +to form some idea of the changeful life of a great personage of the +period. He did not look for the formation of steady permanent habits +in any one place or house; from an early age he was accustomed to +travel, going to Greece or Asia Minor for his "higher education," +acting perhaps as quaestor, and again as praetor or consul, in some +province, then returning to Rome only to leave it for one or other of +his villas, and rarely settling down in one of these for any length of +time. It was not altogether a wholesome life, so far as the mind +was concerned; real thought, the working out of great problems of +philosophy or politics, is impossible under constant change of scene, +and without the opportunity of forming regular habits.[405] And the +fact is that no man at this time seriously set himself to think out +such problems. Cicero would arrive at Tusculum or Arpinum with some +necessary books, and borrowing others as best he could, would sit down +to write a treatise on ethics or rhetoric with amazing speed, having +an original Greek author constantly before him. At places like Baiae +serious work was of course impossible, and would have been ridiculed. +There was no original thinker in this age. Caesar himself was probably +more suited by nature to reason on facts immediately before him than +to speculate on abstract principles. Varro, the rough sensible scholar +of Sabine descent, was a diligent collector of facts and traditions, +but no more able to grapple hard with problems of philosophy or +theology than any other Roman of his time. The life of the average +wealthy man was too comfortable, too changeable, to suggest the +desirability of real mental exertion. + +Nor has this life any direct relation to material usefulness and the +productive investment of capital. Cicero and his correspondents never +mention farming, never betray any interest in the new movement, +if such there was, for the scientific cultivation of the vine and +olive.[406] For such things we must go to Varro's treatise, written, +some years after Cicero's death, in his extreme old age. In the third +book of that invaluable work we shall find all we want to know about +the real _villa rustica_ of the time,--the working farm-house with its +wine-vats and olive-mills, like that recently excavated at Boscoreale +near Pompeii. Yet it would be unfair to such men as Cicero and his +friends, the wiser and quieter section of the aristocracy, to call +their work altogether unproductive. True, it left little permanent +impress on human modes of thought; it wrought no material change for +the better in Italy or the Empire. We may go so far as to allow +that it initiated that habit of dilettantism which we find already +exaggerated in the age lately illuminated for us by Professor Dill in +his book on _Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius_, and far more +exaggerated in the last age of Roman society, which the same author +has depicted in his earlier work. But it may be doubted whether under +any circumstances the Romans could have produced a great prophet or a +great philosopher; and the most valuable work they did was of +another kind. It lay in the humanisation of society by the rational +development of law, and by the communication of Greek thought and +literature to the western world. This was what occupied the best days +of Cicero and Sulpicius Rufus and many others; and they succeeded at +the same time in creating for its expression one of the most perfect +prose languages that the world has ever known or will know. They did +it too, helping each other by kindly and cheering intercourse,--the +_humanitas_ of daily life. It is exactly this humanitas that the +northern mind of Mommsen, in spite of its vein of passionate romance, +could not understand; all the softer side of that pleasant existence +among the villas and statues and libraries was to him simply +contemptible. Let us hope that he has done no permanent damage to +the credit of Cicero, and of the many lesser men who lived the same +honourable and elegant life. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +THE DAILY LIFE OF THE WELL-TO-DO + +Before giving some account of the way in which a Roman of +consideration spent his day in the time of Cicero, it seems necessary +to explain briefly how he reckoned the divisions of the day. + +The old Latin farmer knew nothing of hours or clocks. He simply went +about his daily work with the sun and the light as guides, rising at +or before sunrise, working till noon, and, after a meal and a rest, +resuming his work till sunset. This simple method of reckoning would +suffice in a sunny climate, even when life and business became more +complicated; and it is a fact that the division of the day into hours +was not known at Rome until the introduction of the sun-dial in 263 +B.C.[407] We may well find it hard to understand how such business as +the meeting of the senate, of the comitia, or the exercitus, could +have been fixed to particular times under such circumstances; perhaps +the best way of explaining it is by noting that the Romans were very +early in their habits, and that sunrise is a point of time about +which there can be no mistake[408]. But in any case the date of the +introduction of the sun-dial, which almost exactly corresponds with +the beginning of the Punic wars and the vast increase of civil +business arising out of them, may suggest at once the primitive +condition of the old Roman mind and habit, and the way in which the +Romans had to learn from other peoples how to save and arrange the +time that was beginning to be so precious. + +This first sun-dial came from Catina in Sicily, and was therefore +quite unsuited to indicate the hours at Rome. Nevertheless Rome +contrived to do with it until nearly a century had elapsed; at last, +in 159 B.C., a dial calculated on the latitude of Rome was placed by +the side of it by the censor Q. Marcius Philippus. These two dials +were fixed on pillars behind the Rostra in the Forum, the most +convenient place for regulating public business, and there they +remained even in the time of Cicero[409]. But in the censorship next +following that of Philippus the first water-clock was introduced; this +indicated the hours both of day and night, and enabled every one to +mark the exact time even on cloudy days[410]. + +Thus from the time of the Punic wars the city population reckoned time +by hours, i.e. twelve divisions of the day; but as they continued to +reckon the day from sunrise to sunset on the principle of the old +agricultural practice, these twelve hours varied in length at +different times of the year. In mid-winter the hours were only about +forty-four minutes in length, while at mid-summer they were about +seventy-five, and they corresponded with ours only at the two +equinoxes.[411] This, of course, made the construction of accurate +dials and water-clocks a matter of considerable difficulty. It is not +necessary here to explain how the difficulties were overcome; the +reader may be referred to the article "Horologium" in the _Dictionary +of Antiquities_, and especially to the cuts there given of the dial +found at Tusculum in 1761.[412] + +Sun-dials, once introduced with the proper reckoning for latitude, +soon came into general use, and a considerable number still survive +which have been found in Rome. In a fragment of a comedy by an unknown +author, ascribed to the last century B.C., Rome is described as "full +of sun-dials,"[413] and many have been discovered in other Roman +towns, including several at Pompeii. But for the ordinary Roman, who +possessed no sun-dial or was not within reach of one, the day +fell into four convenient divisions, as with us it falls into +three,--morning, afternoon, and evening. As they rose much earlier +than we do, the hours up to noon were divided into two parts: (1) +_mane_, or morning, which lasted from sunrise to the beginning of the +third hour, and (2) _ad meridiem_, or forenoon; then followed _de +meridie_, i.e. afternoon, and _suprema_, from about the ninth or +tenth hour till sunset. The authority for these handy divisions is +Censorinus, _De die natali_ (23. 9, 24. 3). There seems to be no +doubt that they originated in the management of civil business, and +especially in that of the praetor's court, which normally began at the +third hour, i.e. the beginning of ad meridiem, and went on till the +suprema (tempestas diei), which originally meant sunset, but by a lex +Plaetoria was extended to include the hour or two before dark. + +The first thing to note in studying the daily life at Rome is that the +Romans, like the Greeks, were busy much earlier in the morning than +we are. In part this was the result of their comfortable southern +climate, where the nights are never so long as with us, and where the +early mornings are not so chilly and damp in summer or so cold +in winter. But it was probably still more the effect of the very +imperfect lighting of houses, which made it difficult to carry on +work, especially reading and writing, after dark, and suggested early +retirement to bed and early rising in the morning. The streets, we +must remember, were not lighted except on great occasions, and it was +not till late in Roman history that public places and entertainments +could be frequented after dark. In early times the oil-lamp with a +wick was unknown, and private houses were lighted by torches and rude +candles of wax or tallow.[414] The introduction of the use of olive +oil, which was first imported from Greece and the East and then +produced in Italy, brought with it the manufacture of lamps of various +kinds, great and small; and as the cultivation of the valuable tree, +so easily grown in Italy, increased in the last century B.C.,[415] the +oil-lamp became universal in houses, baths, etc. Even in the small old +baths of Pompeii there were found about a thousand lamps, obviously +used for illumination after dark.[416] But in spite of this and of the +invention of candelabra for extending the use of candles, it was never +possible for the Roman to turn night into day as we do in our modern +town-life. We must look on the lighting of the streets as quite an +exceptional event. This happened, for example, on the night of the +famous fifth of December 63 B.C., when Cicero returned to his house +after the execution of the conspirators; people placed lamps and +torches at their doors, and women showed lights from the roofs of the +houses. + +An industrious man, especially in winter, when this want of artificial +light made time most valuable, would often begin his work before +daylight; he might have a speech to prepare for the senate, or a brief +for a trial, or letters to write, and, as we shall see, as soon as the +sun had well risen it was not likely that he would be altogether his +own master. Thus we find Cicero on a February morning writing to his +brother before sunrise,[417] and it is not unlikely that the soreness +of the eyes of which he sometimes complains may have been the result +of reading and writing before the light was good. In his country +villas he could do as he liked, but at Rome he knew that he would have +the "turba salutantium" upon him as soon as the sun had risen. Cicero +is the only man of his own time of whose habits we know much, but in +the next generation Horace describes himself as calling for pen and +paper before daylight, and later on that insatiable student the elder +Pliny would work for hours before daylight, and then go to the Emperor +Vespasian, who was also a very early riser.[418] After sunrise the +whole population was astir; boys were on their way to school, and +artisans to their labour. + +If Horace is not exaggerating when he says (_Sat._ i. 1. 10) that +the barrister might be disturbed by a client at cock-crow, Cicero's +studies may have been interrupted even before the crowds came; but +this could hardly happen often. As a rule it was during the first two +hours (_mane_) that callers collected. In the old times it had been +the custom to open your house and begin your business at daybreak, and +after saluting your familia and asking a blessing of the household +gods, to attend to your own affairs and those of your clients.[419] +Although we are not told so explicitly, we must suppose that the same +practice held good in Cicero's time; under the Empire it is familiar +to all readers of Seneca or Martial, but in a form which was open to +much criticism and satire. The client of the Empire was a degraded +being; of the client in the last age of the Republic we only know that +he existed, and could be useful to his _patronus_ in many ways,--in +elections and trials especially;[420] but we do not hear of his +pressing himself on the attention of his patron every morning, or +receiving any "sportula." All the same, the number of persons, whether +clients in this sense or in the legal sense, or messengers, men of +business, and ordinary callers, who would want to see a man like +Cicero before he left his house in the morning, would beyond doubt be +considerable. Otherwise they would have to catch him in the street or +Forum; and though occasionally a man of note might purposely walk in +public in order to give his clients their chance, Cicero makes it +plain that this was not his way.[421] + +Within these two first hours of daylight the busy man had to find time +for a morning meal; the idle man, who slept later, might postpone +it. This early breakfast, called _ientaculum_[422], answered to the +"coffee and roll" which is usual at the present day in all European +countries except our own, and which is fully capable of supporting +even a hard-working man for several hours. It is, indeed, quite +possible to do work before this breakfast; Antiochus, the great +doctor, is said by Galen to have visited such of his patients as lived +near him before his breakfast and on foot[423]. But as a rule the meal +was taken before a busy man went out to his work, and consisted of +bread, either dipped in wine or eaten with honey, olives, or cheese. +The breakfast of Antiochus consisted, for example, of bread and Attic +honey. + +The meal over, the man of politics or business would leave his house, +outside which his clients and friends or other hangers-on would be +waiting for him, and proceed to the Forum,--the centre, as we have +seen, of all his activity--accompanied by these people in a kind of +procession. Some would go before to make room for him, while others +followed him; if bent on election business, he would have experienced +helpers,[424] either volunteers or in his pay, to save him from making +blunders as to names and personalities, and in fact to serve him +in conducting himself towards the populace with the indispensable +_blanditia_.[425] Every Roman of importance liked to have, and usually +had, a train of followers or friends in descending to the Forum of a +morning from his house, or in going about other public business; what +Q. Cicero urges on his brother in canvassing for the consulship may +hold good in principle for all the public appearances of a +public man,--"I press this strongly on you, always to be with a +multitude."[426] It may perhaps be paralleled with the love of the +Roman for processions, e.g. the lustrations of farm, city, and +army,[427] and with his instinctive desire for aid and counsel in +all important matters both of public and private life, shown in the +consilium of the paterfamilias and of the magistrate. Examples are +easy to find in the literature of this period; an excellent one is the +graphic picture of Gaius Gracchus and his train of followers, which +Plutarch has preserved from a contemporary writer. "The people +looked with admiration on him, seeing him attended by crowds of +building-contractors, artificers, ambassadors, magistrates, soldiers, +and learned men, to all of whom he was easy of access; while he +maintained his dignity, he was gracious to all, and suited his +behaviour to the condition of every individual; thus he proved the +falsehood of those who called him tyrannical or arrogant."[428] + +Arrived at the Forum, if not engaged in a trial, or summoned to a +meeting of the senate, or busy in canvassing, he would mingle with the +crowd, and spend a social morning in meeting and talking with friends, +or in hearing the latest news from the provinces, or in occupying +himself with his investments with the aid of his bankers and agents. +This is the way in which such a sociable and agreeable man as Cicero +was loved to spend his mornings when not deep in the composition of +some speech or book,--and at Rome it was indeed hardly possible for +him to find the time for steady literary work. It was this social life +that he longed for when in Cilicia; "one little walk and talk with +you," he could write to Caelius at Rome, "is worth all the profits of +a province."[429] But it was also this crowded and talkative Forum +that Lucilius could describe in a passage already quoted, as teeming +with men who, with the aid of hypocrisy and blanditia, spent the +day from morning till night in trying to get the better of their +fellows.[430] + +After a morning spent in the Forum, our Roman might return home in +time for his lunch (_prandium_), which had taken the place of the +early dinner (_cena_) of the olden time. Exactly the same thing +affected the hours of these meals as has affected those of our own +within the last century or so; the great increase of public business +of all kinds has with us pushed the time of the chief meal later and +later, and so it was at Rome. The senate had an immense amount of +business to transact in the two last centuries B.C., and the increase +in oratorical skill, as well as the growing desire to talk in public, +extended its sittings sometimes till nightfall.[431] So too with the +law-courts, which had become the scenes of oratorical display, and +often of that indulgence in personal abuse which has great attractions +for idle people fond of excitement. Thus the dinner hour had come to +be postponed from about noon to the ninth or even the tenth hour,[432] +and some kind of a lunch was necessary. We do not hear much of this +meal, which was in fact for most men little more than the "snack" +which London men of business will take standing at a bar; nor do we +know whether senators and barristers took it as they sat in the curia +or in court, or whether there was an adjournment for purposes +of refreshment. Such an adjournment seems to have taken place +occasionally at least, during the games under the Empire, for +Suetonius (_Claud._ 34) tells us that Claudius would dismiss the +people to take their prandium and yet remain himself in his seat. A +joke of Cicero's about Caninius Rebilus, who was appointed consul by +Caesar on the last day of the year 45 at one o'clock, shows that the +usual hour for the prandium was about noon or earlier; "under the +consulship of Caninius," he wrote to Curius, "no one ever took +luncheon."[433] + +After the prandium, if a man were at home and at leisure, followed the +siesta (_meridiatio_). This is the universal habit in all southern +climates, especially in summer, and indeed, if the mind and body +are active from an early hour, a little repose is useful, if not +necessary, after mid-day. Busy men however like Cicero could not +always afford it in the city, and we find him noting near the end of +his life, when Caesar's absolutism had diminished the amount of his +work both in senate and law-courts, that he had taken to the siesta +which he formerly dispensed with.[434] Even the sturdy Varro in his +old age declared that in summer he could not possibly do without his +nap in the middle of the day.[435] On the other hand, in the famous +letter in which Cicero describes his entertainment of Caesar in +mid-winter 45 B.C., nothing is said of a siesta; the Dictator worked +till after mid-day, then walked on the shore, and returned, not for a +nap but for a bath.[436] + +Caesar, as he was Cicero's guest, must have taken his bath in the +villa, probably that at Cumae (see above, p. 257). Most well-appointed +private houses had by this time a bath-room or set of bath-rooms, +providing every accommodation, according to the season and the taste +of the bather. This was indeed a modern improvement; in the old days +the Romans only washed their arms and legs daily, and took a bath +every market-day, i.e. every ninth day. This is told us in an amusing +letter of Seneca's, who also gives a description of the bath in the +villa of the elder Scipio at Liternum, which consisted of a single +room without a window, and was supplied with water which was often +thick after rain.[437] "Nesciit vivere," says Seneca, in ironical +allusion to the luxury of his own day. In Cicero's time every villa +doubtless had its set of baths, with at least three rooms,--the +_apodyterium_, _caldarium_, and _tepidarium_, sometimes also an open +swimming-bath, as in the House of the Silver Wedding at Pompeii.[438] +In Cicero's letter to his brother about the villa at Arcanum, he +mentions the dressing-room (apodyterium) and the caldarium or hot-air +chamber, and doubtless there were others. Even in the villa rustica of +Boscoreale near Pompeii, which was a working farm-house, we find the +bath-rooms complete, provided, that is, with the three essentials of +dressing-room, tepid-room, and hot-air room.[439] Caesar probably, as +it was winter, used the last of these, took in fact a Turkish bath, as +we should call it, and then went into a tepidarium, where, as Cicero +tells us, he received some messenger. Here he was anointed (unctus), +i.e. rubbed dry from perspiration, with a strigil on which oil was +dropped to soften its action.[440] When this operation was over, about +the ninth hour, which in mid-winter would begin about half-past one, +he was ready for the dinner which followed immediately.[441] This we +may take as the ordinary winter dinner-hour in the country; in summer +it would be an hour or so later. In an amusing story given as a +rhetorical illustration in the work known as _Rhetorica ad Herennium_, +iv. 63, the guests (doomed never to get their dinner that day except +in an inn) are invited for the tenth hour. But in the city it must +have often happened that the hour was later, owing to the press of +business. For example, on one occasion when the senate had been +sitting _ad noctem_, Cicero dines with Pompeius after its dismissal +(_ad Fam_. i. 2.3). Another day we find him going to bed after his +dinner, and clearly not for a siesta, which, as we saw, he never had +time to take in his busy days; this, however, was not actually in Rome +but in his villa at Formiae, where he was at that time liable to much +interruption from callers (_ad Att_. ii. 16). Probably, like most +Romans of his day, he had spent a long time over his dinner, talking +if he had guests, or reading and thinking if he were alone or with his +family only. + +The dinner, _cena_, was in fact the principal private event of the +day; it came when all business was over, and you could enjoy the +privacy of family life or see your friends and unbend with them. At no +other meal do we hear of entertainment, unless the guests were on +a journey, as was the case at the lunch at Arcanum when Pomponia's +temper got the better of her (see above, p. 52). Even dinner-parties +seem to have come into fashion only since the Punic wars, with later +hours and a larger staff of slaves to cook and wait at table. In the +old days of household simplicity the meals were taken in the atrium, +the husband reclining on a _lectus_,[442] the wife sitting by his +side, and the children sitting on stools in front of them. The slaves +too in the olden time took their meal sitting on benches in the +atrium, so that the whole familia was present. This means that the +dinner was in those days only a necessary break in the intervals of +work, and the sitting posture was always retained for slaves, i.e. +those who would go about their work as soon as the meal was over. +Columella, writing under the early Empire, urges that the vilicus or +overseer should sit at his dinner except on festivals; and Cato the +younger would not recline after the battle of Pharsalia for the +rest of his life, apparently as a sign that life was no longer +enjoyable.[443] + +But after the Second Punic war, which changed the habits of the Roman +in so many ways, the atrium ceased to be the common dining-place, and +special chambers were built, either off the atrium or in the interior +part of the house about the peristylium, or even upstairs, for the +accommodation of guests, who might be received in different rooms, +according to the season and the weather.[444] These _triclinia_ were +so arranged as to afford the greatest personal comfort and the best +opportunities for conversation; they indicate clearly that dinner is +no longer an interval in the day's work, but a time of repose and ease +at the end of it. The plan here given of a triclinium, as described by +Plutarch, in his _Quaestiones conviviales_, + + Lectus medius. + +--------------------------------+----------------+ + Chief | | | + Guest | | | Lectus + | | | Summus + +-----------------+--------------+ | + H | | | | + | | | | + Lectus | | Mensa | | + Imus | | | | + | +--------------+ | + | | +----------------+ + | | + | | + | | + | | + +-----------------+ + + PLAN OF A TRICLINIUM. + +will show this sufficiently without elaborate description; but it is +necessary to notice that the host always or almost always occupied the +couch marked H on the plan, while the one immediately above him, i.e. +No. 3 of the _lectus medius_, was reserved for the most important +guest, and called _lectus consularis_. Plutarch's account, and a +little consideration, will show that the host was thus well placed for +the superintendence of the meal, as well as for conversation with his +distinguished guest; and that the latter occupied what Plutarch calls +a free corner, so that any messengers or other persons needing to see +him could get access to him without disturbing the party.[445] The +number that could be accommodated, nine, was not only a sacred and +lucky one, but exactly suited for convenience of conversation and +attendance. Larger parties were not unheard of, even under the +Republic, and Vitruvius tells us that some dining-rooms were fitted +with three or more triclinia; but to put more than three guests on a +single couch, and so increase the number, was not thought courteous or +well-bred. Among the points of bad breeding which Cicero attributes to +his enemy Calpurnius Piso, the consul of 58, one was that he put five +guests to recline on a single couch, while himself occupying one +alone; so Horace: + + Saepe tribus lectis videas cenare quaternos.[446] + +As the guests were made so comfortable, it may be supposed that they +were not in a hurry to depart; the mere fact that they were reclining +instead of sitting would naturally dispose them to stay. The triclinia +were open at one end, i.e. not shut up as our dining-rooms are, and +the air would not get close and "dinnery." Cicero describes old +Cato[447] (no doubt from some passage in Cato's writings) as remaining +in conversation at dinner until late at night. The guests would arrive +with their slaves, who took off their walking shoes, if they had come +on foot, and put on their sandals (_soleae_): each wore a festive +dress (_synthesis_), of Greek origin like the other features of the +entertainment, and there was no question of changing these again in a +hurry. Nothing can better show the difference between the old Roman +manners and the new than the character of these parties; they are +the leisurely and comfortable rendezvous of an opulent and educated +society, in which politics, literature or philosophy could be +discussed with much self-satisfaction. That such discussion did not go +too deeply into hard questions was perhaps the result of the comfort. + +There was of course another side to this picture of the evening of a +Roman gentleman. There was a coarse side to the Roman character, and +in the age when wealth, the slave trade, and idle habits encouraged +self-indulgence, meals were apt to become ends in themselves instead +of necessary aids to a wholesome life. The ordinary three parts or +courses (_mensae_) of a dinner,--the gustatio or light preliminary +course, the cena proper, with substantial dishes, and the dessert of +pastry and fruit, could be amplified and extended to an unlimited +extent by the skill of the slave-cooks brought from Greece and the +East (see above, p. 209); the gourmand had appeared long before +the age of Cicero and had been already satirised by Lucilius and +Varro.[448] Splendid dinner-services might take the place of the +old simple ware, and luxurious drapery and rugs covered the couches +instead of the skins of animals, as in the old time.[449] Vulgarity +and ostentation, such as Horace satirised, were doubtless too often to +be met with. Those who lived for feasting and enjoyment would invite +their company quite early in the day (tempestativum convivium) and +carry on the revelry till midnight.[450] And lastly, the practice of +drinking wine after dinner (_comissatio_), simply for the sake of +drinking, under fixed rules according to the Greek fashion, familiar +to us all in the _Odes_ of Horace, had undoubtedly begun some time +before the end of the Public. In the Actio prima of his Verrine +orations Cicero gives a graphic picture of a convivium beginning +early, where the proposal was made and agreed to that the drinking +should be "more graeco."[451] + +But it would be a great mistake to suppose that this kind of +self-indulgence was characteristic of the average Roman life of this +age. The ordinary student is liable to fall into this error because +he reads his Horace and his Juvenal, but dips a very little way +into Cicero's correspondence; and he needs to be reminded that the +satirists are not deriding the average life of the citizen, any more +than the artists who make fun of the foibles of our own day in the +pages of _Punch_. Cicero hardly ever mentions his meals, his cookery, +or his wine, even in his most chatty letters; such matters did not +interest him, and do not seem to have interested his friends, so far +as we can judge by their letters. In one amusing letter to Poetus, he +does indeed tell him what he had for dinner at a friend's house, but +only by way of explaining that he had been very unwell from eating +mushrooms and such dishes, which his host had had cooked in order not +to contravene a recent sumptuary law.[452] The Letters are worth far +more as negative evidence of the usual character of dinners than +either the invectives (vituperationes) against a Piso or an Antony, +or the lively wit of the satirists. Let us return for an instant, in +conclusion, to that famous letter, already quoted, in which Cicero +describes the entertainment of Caesar at Cumae in December, 45. +It contains an expression which has given rise to very mistaken +conclusions both about Caesar's own habits and those of his day. After +telling Atticus that his guest sat down to dinner when the bath was +over he goes on: "[Greek: Emetikaen] agebat; itaque et edit et bibit +[Greek: adeos] et iucunde, opipare sane et apparate, nec id solum, sed + + bene cocto + condito, sermone bono, et si quaeri, libenter." + +Even good scholars used formerly to make the mistake of supposing that +Caesar, a man habitually abstemious, or at least temperate, had made +up his mind to over-eat himself on this occasion, as he was intending +to take an emetic afterwards. And even now it may be as well to point +out that medical treatment by a course of emetics was a perfectly well +known and valued method at this time;[453] that Caesar, whose health +was always delicate, and at this time severely tried, was then under +this treatment, and could therefore eat his dinner comfortably, +without troubling himself about what he ate and drank: and that the +apt quotation from Lucilius, and the literary conversation which (so +Cicero adds) followed the dinner, prove beyond all question that this +was no glutton's meal, but one of that ordinary and rational type, in +which repose and pleasant intercourse counted for more than the mere +eating and drinking. + +No more work seems to have been done after the cena was over and the +guests had retired. We found Cicero on one occasion going to bed soon +after the meal; and, as he was up and active so early in the morning, +we may suppose that he retired at a much earlier hour than we do. But +of this last act of the day he tells us nothing. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +HOLIDAYS AND AMUSEMENTS + +The Italian peoples, of all races, have always had a wonderful +capacity for enjoying themselves out of doors. The Italian _festa_ +of to-day, usually, as in ancient times, linked to some religious +festival, is a scene of gaiety, bright dresses, music, dancing, +bonfires, races, and improvisation or mummery; and all that we know of +the ancient rural festivals of Italy suggests that they were of much +the same lively and genial character. Tibullus gives us a good idea of +them: + + "Agricola assiduo primum satiatus aratro + Cantavit oerto rustica verba pede; + Et satur arenti primum est modulatus avena + Carmen, ut ornatos diceret ante decs; + Agricola et minio suffusus, Bacche, rubenti + Primus inexperta duxit ab arte choros."[454] + +It would be easy to multiply examples of such merry-making from the +poets of the Augustan age, nearly all of whom were born and bred in +the country, and shared Virgil's tenderness for a life of honest work +and play among the Italian hills and valleys. But in this chapter we +are to deal with the holidays and enjoyments of the great city, and +the rural festivals are only mentioned here because almost all the +characteristics of the urban holiday-making are to be found in germ +there. The Roman calendar of festivals has its origin in the regularly +recurring rites of the earliest Latin husbandman. As the city grew, +these old agricultural festivities lost of course much of their native +simplicity and naïveté; some of them survived merely as religious or +priestly performances, some became degraded into licentious enjoyment; +but the music and dancing, the gay dresses, the racing, the mumming +or acting, are all to be found in the city, developed in one form or +another, from the earliest to the latest periods of Roman history. + +The Latin word for a holiday was _feriae_, a term which belongs to the +language of religious law (_ius divinum_). Strictly speaking, it means +a day which the citizen has resigned, either wholly or in part, to the +service of the gods.[455] As of old on the farm no work was to be done +on such days, so in the city no public business could be transacted. +Cicero, drawing up in antique language his idea of the ius divinum, +writes thus of feriae: "Feriis iurgia amovento, easque in familiis, +operibus patratis, habento": which he afterwards explains as meaning +that the citizen must abstain from litigation, and the slave be +excused from labour.[456] The idea then of a holiday was much the same +as we find expressed in the Jewish Sabbath, and had its root also in +religious observance. But Cicero, whether he is actually reproducing +the words of an old law or inventing it for himself, was certainly +not reflecting the custom of the city in his own day; no such rigid +observance of a rule was possible in the capital of an Empire such +as the Roman had become. Even on the farm it had long ago been found +necessary to make exceptions; thus Virgil tells us:[457] + + "Quippe etiam festis quaedam exercere diebus + Fas et iura sinunt: rivos deducere nulla + Religio vetuit, segeti praetendere saepem, + Insidias avibus moliri, incendere vepres, + Balantumque gregem fluvio mersare salubri." + +So too in the city it was simply impossible that all work should +cease on feriae, of which there were more than a hundred in the year, +including the Ides of every month and some of the Kalends and Nones. +As a matter of fact a double change had come about since the city and +its dominion began to increase rapidly about the time of the Punic +wars. First, many of the old festivals, sacred to deities whose +vogue was on the wane, or who had no longer any meaning for a city +population, as being deities of husbandry, were almost entirely +neglected: even if the priests performed the prescribed rites, no one +knew and no one cared,[458] and it may be doubted whether the State +was at all scrupulous in adhering to the old sacred rules as to +the hours on which business could be transacted on such days.[459] +Secondly, certain festivals which retained their popularity had been +extended from one day to three or more, in one or two cases, as we +shall see, even to thirteen and fifteen days, in order to give +time for an elaborate system of public amusement consisting of +chariot-races and stage-plays, and known by the name of _ludi_, or, as +at the winter Saturnalia, to enable all classes to enjoy themselves +during the short days for seven mornings instead of one. Obviously +this was a much more convenient and popular arrangement than to have +your holidays scattered about over the whole year as single days; and +it suited the rich and ambitious, who sought to obtain popular favour +by shows and games on a grand scale, needing a succession of several +days for complete exhibition. So the old religious word feriae becomes +gradually supplanted, in the sense of a public holiday of amusement, +by the word _ludi_, and came at last to mean, as it still does in +Germany, the holidays of schoolboys.[460] These ludi will form the +chief subject of this chapter; but we must first mention one or two +of the old feriae which seem always to have remained occasions of +holiday-making, at any rate for the lower classes of the population. + +One of these occurred on the Ides of March, and must have been going +on at the moment when Caesar was assassinated in 44 B.C. It was the +festival of Anna Perenna, a mysterious old deity of "the ring of the +year." The lower class of the population, Ovid tells us,[461] streamed +out to the "festum geniale" of Anna, and spent the whole day in the +Campus Martius, lying about in pairs of men and women, indulging +in drinking and all kinds of revelry. Some lay in the open; some +constructed tents, or rude huts of boughs, stretching their togas over +them for shelter. As they drank they prayed for as many years of life +as they could swallow cups of wine. The usual characteristics of the +Italian _festa_ were to be found there: they sang anything they had +picked up in the theatre, with much gesticulation ("et iactant faciles +ad sua verba manus"), and they danced, the women letting down their +long hair. The result of these performances was naturally that they +returned home in a state of intoxication, which roused the mirth of +the bystanders. Ovid adds that he had himself met them so returning, +and had seen an old woman pulling along an old man, both of them +intoxicated. There may have been other popular "jollifications" of +this kind, for example at the Neptunalia on July 23, where we find the +same curious custom of making temporary huts or shelters;[462] but +this is the only one of which we have any account by an eye-witness. +Of the famous Lupercalia in February, and some other festivals which +neither died out altogether nor were converted into ludi, we only know +the ritual, and cannot tell whether they were still used as popular +holidays. + +One famous festival of the old religious calendar did, however, always +remain a favourite holiday, viz. the Saturnalia on December 17, +which was by common usage extended to seven days in all.[463] It was +probably the survival of a mid-winter festivity in the life of the +farm, at a time when all the farm work of the autumn was over, +and when both bond and free might indulge themselves in unlimited +enjoyment. Such ancient customs die hard, or, as was the case with the +Saturnalia, never die at all; for the same features are still to be +found in the Christmas rejoicings of the Italian peasant. Every one +knows something of the character of this holiday, and especially of +the entertainment of slaves by their masters,[464] which has many +parallels in Greek custom, and has been recently supposed to have been +borrowed from the Greeks. Various games were played, and among them +that of "King," at which we have seen the young Cato playing with his +boy companions.[465] Seneca tells us that in his day all Rome seemed +to go mad on this holiday. + +But we must now turn to the real _ludi_, organised by the State on a +large and ever increasing scale. The oldest and most imposing of these +were the Ludi Romani or Magni, lasting from September 5 to September +19 in Cicero's time. These had their origin in the return of a +victorious army at the end of the season of war, when king or consul +had to carry out the vows he had made when entering on his campaign. +The usual form of the vow was to entertain the people on his return, +in honour of Jupiter, and thus they were originally called ludi +_votivi_, before they were incorporated as a regularly recurring +festival. After they became regular and annual, any entertainment +vowed by a general had to take place on other days; thus in the year +70 B.C. Pompey's triumphal ludi votivi immediately preceded the Ludi +Romani of that year,[466] giving the people in all some thirty days of +holiday. The centre-point, and original day, of the Ludi Romani was +the Ides (13th) of September, which was also the day of the epulum +Jovis,[467] and the dies natalis (dedication day) of the Capitoline +temple of Jupiter; and the whole ceremonial was closely connected with +that temple and its great deity. The triumphal procession passed along +the Sacra via to the Capitol, and thence again to the Circus Maximus, +where the ludi were held. The show must have been most imposing; +first marched the boys and youths, on foot and on horseback, then the +chariots and charioteers about to take part in the racing, with crowds +of dancers and flute-players,[468] and lastly the images of the +Capitoline deities themselves, carried on _fercula_ (biers). All such +shows and processions were dear to the Roman people, and this seems to +have become a permanent feature of the Ludi Romani, whether or no an +actual triumph was to be celebrated, and also of some other ludi, e.g. +the Apollinares and the Megalenses.[469] Thus the idea was kept up +that the greatness and prosperity of Rome were especially due to +Jupiter Optimus Maximus, who, since the days of the Tarquinii, had +looked down on his people from his temple on the Capitol.[470] + +The Ludi Plebeii in November seem to have been a kind of plebeian +duplicate of the Ludi Romani. As fully developed at the end of the +Republic, they lasted from the 4th to the 17th; their centre-point and +original day was the Ides (13th), on which, as on September 13, there +was an epulum Jovis in the Capitol.[471] They are connected with the +name of that Flaminius who built the circus Flaminius in the Campus +Martius in 220 B.C., the champion of popular rights, killed soon +afterwards at Trasimene; and it is probable that his object in +erecting this new place of entertainment was to provide a convenient +building free of aristocratic associations. But unfortunately we know +very little of the history of these ludi. + +If we may suppose that the Ludi Plebeii were instituted just before +the second Punic war, it is interesting to note that three other great +ludi were organised in the course of that war, no doubt with the +object of keeping up the drooping spirits of the urban population. The +Ludi Apollinares were vowed by a praetor urbanus in 212, when the +fate of Rome was hanging in the balance, and celebrated in the Circus +Maximus: in 208 they were fixed to a particular day, July 13, and +eventually extended to eight, viz. July 6-13.[472] In 204 were +instituted the Ludi Megalenses, to celebrate the arrival in Rome of +the Magna Mater from Pessinus in Phrygia, i.e. on April 4; but the +ludi were eventually extended to April 10.[473] Lastly, in 202 the +Ludi Ceriales, which probably existed in some form already, were made +permanent and fixed for April 19: they eventually lasted from the 12th +to the 19th.[474] After the war was over we only find one more set of +ludi permanently established, viz. the Florales, which date from 173. +The original day was April 28, which had long been one of coarse +enjoyment for the plebs; like the other ludi, these too were extended, +and eventually reached to May 3.[475] April, we may note, was a month +chiefly consisting of holidays: the Ludi Megalenses, Ceriales, and +Florales occupied no less than seventeen of its twenty-nine days. + +When Sulla wished to commemorate his victory at the Colline gate, he +instituted Ludi Victoriae on November I, the date of the battle, and +these seem to have been kept up after most of Sulla's work had been +destroyed; they are mentioned by Cicero in the passage quoted above +from the Verrines, as Ludi Victoriae, but we hear comparatively little +of them. + +Before we go on to describe the nature of these numerous +entertainments, it may be as well to realise that the spectators had +nothing to pay for them; they were provided by the State free of cost, +as being part of certain religious festivals which it was the duty +of the government to keep up. Certain sums were set aside for this +purpose, differing in amount from time to time; thus in 217 B.C., for +the Ludi Romani, on which up to that time 200,000 sesterces (£16,600) +had been spent, the sum of 333,333-1/3 sest. was voted, because the +number three had a sacred signification, and the moment was one of +extreme peril for the State.[476] On one occasion only before the end +of the Republic do we hear of any public collection for the ludi; in +186 B.C. Pliny tells us that every one was so well off, owing no doubt +to the enormous amount of booty brought from the war in the East, that +all subscribed some small sum for the games of Scipio Asiaticus.[477] +There was no doubt a growing demand for magnificence in the shows, and +thus it came about that the amount provided by the State had to be +supplemented. But the usual way of supplementing it was for the +magistrate in charge of the ludi to pay what he could out of his own +purse, or to get his friends to help him; and as all the ludi except +the Apollinares were in charge of the aediles, it became the practice +for these, if they aspired to reach the praetorship and consulship, to +vie with each other in the recklessness of their expenditure. As early +as 176 B.C. the senate had tried to limit this personal expenditure, +for Ti. Sempronius Gracchus as aedile had that year spent enormous +sums on his ludi, and had squeezed money (it does not appear how) out +of the subject populations of Italy, as well as the provinces, to +entertain the Roman people.[478] But naturally no decrees of the +senate on such matters were likely to have permanent effect; the great +families whose younger members aimed at popularity in this way were +far too powerful to be easily checked. In the last age of the Republic +it had become a necessary part of the aedile's duty to supplement the +State's contribution, and as a rule he had to borrow heavily, and thus +to involve himself financially quite early in his political career. In +his _de Officiis_,[479] writing of the virtue of _liberalitas_, Cicero +gives a list of men who had been munificent as aediles, including the +elder and younger Crassus, Mucius Scaevola (a man, he says, of great +self-restraint), the two Lueulli, Hortensius, and Silanus; and adds +that in his own consulship P. Lentulus outdid all his predecessors, +and was imitated by Scaurus in 58 B.C.[480] Cicero himself had to +undertake the Ludi Romani, Megalenses, and Florales in his aedileship; +how he managed it financially he does not tell us.[481] Caesar +undoubtedly borrowed largely, for his expenditure as aedile was +enormous,[482] and he had no private fortune of any considerable +amount. + +Our friend Caelius Rufus was elected curule aedile while he was in +correspondence with Cicero, and his letters give us a good idea of the +condition of the mind of an ambitious young man who is bent on making +the most of himself. He is in a continual state of fidget about his +games; he has set his heart on getting panthers to exhibit and hunt, +and urges Cicero in letter after letter to procure them for him in +Cilicia. "It will be a disgrace to you," he writes in one of them, +"that Patiscus has sent ten panthers to Curio, and that you should not +send me ten times as many."[483] The provincial governor, he urges, +can do what he pleases; let Cicero send for some men of Cibyra, let +him write to Pamphylia, where they are most abundant, and he will get +what he wants, or rather what Caelius wants. Even after a letter full +of the most important accounts of public business, including copies of +senatus consulta (ad Fam. viii. 8), he harks back at the end to the +inevitable panthers. Cicero tells Atticus that he rebuked Caelius for +pressing him thus hard to do what his conscience could not approve, +and that it was not right, in his opinion, for a provincial governor +to set the people of Cibyra hunting for panthers for Roman games.[484] +From the same passage it would seem that Caelius had also been urging +him to take other steps in his province of which he disapproved, no +doubt with the same object of raising money for the ludi. This letter +to Caelius is not extant, but we may believe that Cicero had the +courage to reprove his old pupil, and that the constant worrying for +panthers was more than even his amiability could stand. But others +were less sensitive; and it is a well known fact in natural history +that the Roman games had a powerful effect, from this time forwards, +in diminishing the numbers of wild animals in the countries bordering +on the Mediterranean, and in bringing about the extinction of species. +In our own day the same work is carried on by the big-game sportsman, +somewhat farther afield; the pleasure of slaughter being now confined +to the few rich and adventurous, who shoot for their own delectation, +and not to make a London holiday. + +Thus to all his ludi the citizen had the right of admission free +of cost.[485] An Englishman may find some difficulty at first in +realising this; it is as if cricket and football matches and theatres +in London were open to the public gratis, and the cost provided by the +London County Council. Yet it is not difficult to understand how the +Roman government drifted into a practice which was eventually found to +have such unfortunate results. It has already been explained that ludi +were originally attached to certain religious festivals, which it was +the duty of the State and its priests and magistrates to maintain. The +Romans, like all Italians, loved shows and out-of-door enjoyment, +and as the population increased and became more liable to excitement +during the stress of the great wars with Carthage, it became necessary +to keep them cheerful and in good humour by developing the old ludi +and instituting new ones, for which it would have been contrary to all +precedent to make them pay. The government, as we may guess from the +history of the ludi which has just been sketched, seems to have been +careful at first not to go too far with this policy, and it was some +time before any ludi but the Romani were made annual and extended to +the length they eventually reached. But the sudden increase of wealth +after the great struggle was over was answerable for this, as for +so many other damaging tendencies. We have seen that the people +themselves in 186 were able and willing to contribute; and now it was +possible for aediles to invest their capital in popular undertakings +which might, later on, pay them well by carrying them on to higher +magistracies and provincial governorships, where fresh fortunes might +be made. The evil results are, of course, as obvious here as in the +parallel case of the corn-supply (see above, p. 34); enormous amounts +of capital were used unproductively, and the people were gradually +accustomed to believe that the State was responsible for their +enjoyment as well as their food. But we must be most careful not to +jump to the conclusion that this was due to any deliberate policy on +the part of the Roman government. They drifted into these dangerous +shoals in spite of the occasional efforts of intelligent steersmen; +and it would indeed have needed a higher political intelligence than +was then and there available, to have fully divined the direction of +the drift and the dangers ahead of them. + +We must now turn in the last place to consider the nature of the +entertainments, and see whether there was any improving or educational +influence in them. + +These had originally consisted entirely of shows of a military +character, as we have seen in the case of the Ludi Romani, and +especially of chariot-racing in the old Circus Maximus. The Romans +seem always to have been fond of horses and racing, though they +never developed a large or thoroughly efficient cavalry force. It +is probable that the position of the Circus Maximus in the vallis +Murcia[486] was due to horse-racing near the underground altar of +Consus, a harvest deity, and the oldest religious calendar has +Equirria (horse-races) on February 27 and March 14, no doubt in +connexion with the preparation of the cavalry for the coming season +of war. And in the very curious ancient rite known as "the October +horse," there was a two-horse chariot-race in the Campus Martius, when +the season of arms was over, and the near horse of the winning pair +was sacrificed to Mars[487]. The Ludi Romani consisted chiefly of +chariot-races until 364 B.C. (when plays were first introduced), +together with other military evolutions or exercises, such perhaps as +the ludus Troiae of the Roman boys, described by Virgil in the fifth +Aeneid. Of the Ludi Plebeii we do not know the original character, but +it is likely that these also began with _circenses_, the regular word +for chariot-races. The Ludi Cereales certainly included circenses, and +plays are only mentioned as forming part of their programme under the +Empire; but on the last day, April 19, there was a curious practice of +letting foxes loose in the Circus Maximus with burning firebrands tied +to their tails[488],--a custom undoubtedly ancient, which may have +suggested the _venationes_ (hunts) of later times, for one of which +Caelius wanted his panthers. Of the other three ludi, Apollinares, +Megalenses, and Florales, we only know that they included both +circenses and plays; we must take it as probable that the former were +in their programme from the first. There is no need to describe +here in detail the manner of the chariot-racing. We can picture to +ourselves the Circus Maximus filled with a dense crowd of some 150,000 +people,[489] the senators in reserved places, and the consul or other +magistrate presiding; the chariots, usually four in number, painted at +this time either red or white, with their drivers in the same colours, +issuing from the carceres at the end of the circus next to the Forum +Boarium and the river, and at the signal racing round a course of +about 1600 yards, divided into two halves by a spina; at the farther +end of this the chariots had to turn sharply and always with a certain +amount of danger, which gave the race its chief interest. Seven +complete laps of this course constituted a missus or race,[490] and +the number of races in a day varied from time to time, according to +the season of the year and the equipment of the particular ludi. The +rivalry between factions and colours, which became so famous later +on and lasted throughout the period of the Empire, was only just +beginning in Cicero's time. We hear hardly anything of such excitement +in the literature of the period; we only know that there were already +two rival colours, white and red, and Pliny tells us the strange +story that one chariot-owner, a Caecina of Volaterrae, used to bring +swallows into the city smeared with his colour, which he let loose to +fly home and so bear the news of a victory.[491] Human nature in big +cities seems to demand some such artificial stimulus to excitement, +and without it the racing must have been monotonous; but of betting +and gambling we as yet hear nothing at all. Gradually, as vast sums +of money were laid out by capitalists and even by senators upon the +horses and drivers, the colour-factions increased in numbers, and +their rivalry came to occupy men's minds as completely as do now the +chances of football teams in our own manufacturing towns.[492] + +Exhibitions of gladiators (_munera_) did not as yet take place at ludi +or on public festivals, but they may be mentioned here, because they +were already becoming the favourite amusement of the common people; +Cicero in the _pro Sestio_[493] speaks of them as "that kind of +spectacle to which all sorts of people crowd in the greatest +numbers, and in which the multitude takes the greatest delight." +The consequence was, of course, that candidates for election to +magistracies took every opportunity of giving them; and Cicero himself +in his consulship inserted a clause in his _lex de ambitu_ forbidding +candidates to give such exhibitions within two years of the +election.[494] They were given exclusively by private individuals up +to 105 B.C., either in the Forum or in one or other circus: in that +year there was an exhibition by the consuls, but there is some +evidence that it was intended to instruct the soldiers in the better +use of their weapons. This was a year in which the State was in sore +need of efficient soldiers; Marius was at the same time introducing a +new system of recruiting and of arming the soldier, and we are told +that the consul Rutilius made use of the best gladiators that were to +be found in the training-school (ludus) of a certain Scaurus, to teach +the men a more skilful use of their weapons.[495] If gladiators could +have been used only for a rational purpose like this, as skilful +swordsmen and military instructors, the State might well have +maintained some force of them. But as it was they remained in private +hands, and no limit could be put on the numbers so maintained. They +became a permanent menace to the peace of society, as has already been +mentioned in the chapter on slavery. Their frequent use in funeral +games is a somewhat loathsome feature of the age. These funeral games +were an old religious institution, occurring on the ninth day after +the burial, and known as Ludi Novemdiales; they are familiar to every +one from Virgil's skilful introduction of them, as a Roman equivalent +for the Homeric games, in the fifth Aeneid, on the anniversary of the +funeral of Anchises. Virgil has naturally omitted the gladiators; but +long before his time it had become common to use the opportunity of +the funeral of a relation to give munera for the purpose of gaining +popularity.[496] A good example is that of young Curio, who in 53 B.C. +ruined himself in this way. Cicero alludes to this in an interesting +letter to Curio.[497] "You may reach the highest honours," he says, +"more easily by your natural advantages of character, diligence, and +fortune, than by gladiatorial exhibitions. The power of giving them +stirs no feeling of admiration in any one: it is a question of means +and not of character: and there is no one who is not by this time +sick and tired of them." To Cicero's refined mind they were naturally +repugnant; but young men like Curio, though they loved Cicero, were +not wont to follow his wholesome advice.[498] + +We turn now to the dramatic element in the ludi, chiefly with the +object of determining whether, in the age of Cicero, it was of any +real importance in the social life of the Roman people. The Roman +stage had had a great history before the last century B.C., into which +it is not necessary here to enter. It had always been possible without +difficulty for those who were responsible for the ludi to put on +the stage a tragedy or comedy either written for the occasion or +reproduced, with competent actors and the necessary music; and there +seems to be no doubt that both tragedies and comedies, whether adapted +from the Greek (fabulae palliatae) or of a national character (fab. +togatae), were enjoyed by the audiences. In the days of the Punic wars +and afterwards, when everything Greek was popular, a Roman audience +could appreciate stories of the Greek mythology, as presented in the +tragedies of Ennius, Pacuvius, and Accius, if without learning to read +in them the great problems of human life, at least as spectacles of +the vicissitudes of human fortune; and had occasionally listened to a +tragedy, or perhaps father a dramatic history, based on some familiar +legend of their own State. And the conditions of social life in Rome +and Athens were not so different but that in the hands of a real +genius like Plautus the New Athenian comedy could come home to the +Roman people, with their delight in rather rough fun and comical +situations: and Plautus was followed by Caecilius and the more refined +Terence, before the national comedy of Afranius and others established +itself in the place of the Greek. It is hardly possible to avoid the +conclusion that in those early days of the Roman theatre the audiences +were really intelligent, and capable of learning something from the +pieces they listened to, apart from their natural love of a show, of +all acting, and of music.[499] + +But before the age with which this book deals, the long succession +of great dramatic writers had come to an end. Accius, the nephew of +Pacuvius, had died as a very old man when Cicero was a boy;[500] and +in the national comedy no one had been found to follow Afranius. The +times were disturbed, the population was restless, and continually +incorporating heterogeneous elements: much amusement could be found in +the life of the Forum, and in rioting and disorder; gladiatorial shows +were organised on a large scale. To sit still and watch a good play +would become more tiresome as the plebs grew more restless, and +probably even the taste of the better educated was degenerating as +the natural result of luxury and idleness. Politics and political +personages were the really exciting features of the time, and there +are signs that audiences took advantage of the plays to express their +approval or dislike of a statesman. In a letter to Atticus, written +in the summer of 59,[501] the first year of the triumvirate, Cicero +describes with enthusiasm how at the Ludi Apollinares the actor +Diphilus made an allusion to Pompey in the words (from an unknown +tragedy then being acted), "Nostra miseria tu es--Magnus," and was +forced to repeat them many times. When he delivered the line + + "Eandem virtutem istam veniet tempus cum graviter gemes," + +the whole theatre broke out into frantic applause. So too in a +well-known passage of the speech _pro Sestio_ he tells from hearsay +how the great tragic actor Aesopus, acting in the Eurysaces of Accius, +was again and again interrupted by applause as he cleverly adapted the +words to the expected recall from exile of the orator, his personal +friend.[502] The famous words "Summum amicum, summo in bello, summo +ingenio praeditum," were among those which the modest Cicero tells us +were taken up by the people with enthusiasm,--greatly, without doubt, +to the detriment of the play. The whole passage is one of great +graphic power, and only fails to rouse us too to enthusiasm when we +reflect that Cicero was not himself present. + +From this and other passages we have abundant evidence that tragedies +were still acted; but Cicero nowhere in his correspondence, where we +might naturally have expected to find it, nor in his philosophical +works, gives us any idea of their educational or aesthetic influence +either on himself or others. He is constantly quoting the old plays, +especially the tragedies, and knows them very well: but he quotes them +almost invariably as literature only. Once or twice, as we shall see, +he recalls the gesture or utterance of a great actor, but as a rule he +is thinking of them as poetry rather than as plays. It may be noted +in this connexion that it was now becoming the fashion to write plays +without any immediate intention of bringing them on the stage. We read +with astonishment in a letter of Cicero to his brother Quintus, then +in Gaul, that the latter had taken to play-writing, and accomplished +four tragedies in sixteen days, and this apparently in the course of +the campaign.[503] One, the _Erigona_, was sent to his brother from +Britain, and lost on the way. We hear no more of these plays, and +have no reason to suppose that they were worthy to survive. No man of +literary eminence in that day wrote plays for acting, and in fact the +only person of note, so far as we know, who did so, was the younger +Cornelius Balbus, son of the intimate friend and secretary of Caesar. +This man wrote one in Latin about his journey to his native town +of Gades, had it put on the stage there, and shed tears during its +performance.[504] + +When we hear of plays being written without being acted, and of +tragedies being made the occasion of expressing political opinions, +we may be pretty sure that the drama is in its nonage. An interesting +proof of the same tendency is to be found in the first book of the +_Ars Amatoria_ of Ovid, though it belongs to the age of Augustus. In +this book Ovid describes the various resorts in the city where the +youth may look out for his girl; and when he comes to the theatre, +draws a pretty picture of the ladies of taste and fashion crowding +thither,--but + + Spectatum veniunt: veniunt spectentur ut ipsae. + +And then, without a word about the play, or the smallest hint that he +or the ladies really cared about such things, he goes off into the +familiar story of the rape of the Sabine women, supposed to have taken +place when Romulus was holding his ludi. + +It is curious, in view of what thus seems to be a flagging interest +in the drama as such, to find that the most remarkable event in the +theatrical history of this time is the building of the first permanent +stone theatre. During the whole long period of the popularity of +the drama the government had never consented to the erection of a +permanent theatre after the Greek fashion; though it was impossible to +prohibit the production of plays adapted from the Greek, there seems +to have been some strange scruple felt about giving Rome this outward +token of a Greek city. Temporary stages were erected in the Forum +or the circus, the audience at first standing, but afterwards +accommodated with seats in a _cavea_ of wood erected for the occasion. +The whole show, including play, actors, and pipe-players[505] to +accompany the voices where necessary, was contracted for, like all +such undertakings,[506] on each occasion of Ludi scaenici being +produced. At last, in the year 154 B.C., the censors had actually +set about the building of a theatre, apparently of stone, when the +reactionary Scipio Nasica, acting under the influence of a temporary +anti-Greek movement, persuaded the senate to put a stop to this +symptom of degeneracy, and to pass a decree that no seats were in +future to be provided, "ut scilicet remissioni animorum standi +virilitas propria Romanae gentis iuncta esset."[507] Whether this +extraordinary decree, of which the legality might have been questioned +a generation later, had any permanent effect, we do not know; +certainly the senators, and after the time of Gaius Gracchus the +equites, sat on seats appropriated to them. But Rome continued to +be without a stone theatre until Pompey, in the year of his second +consulship, 55 B.C., built one on a grand scale, capable of holding +40,000 people. Even he, we are told, could not accomplish this without +some criticism from the old and old-fashioned,--so lasting was the +prejudice against anything that might seem to be turning Rome into a +Greek city.[508] There was a story too, of which it is difficult to +make out the real origin, that he was compelled by popular feeling +to conceal his design by building, immediately behind the theatre, a +temple of Venus Victrix, the steps of which were in some way connected +with his auditorium.[509] The theatre was placed in the Campus +Martius, and its shape is fairly well known to us from fragments of +the Capitoline plan of the city;[510] adjoining it Pompey also built +a magnificent _porticus_ for the convenience of the audience, and +a _curia_, in which the senate could meet, and where, eleven years +later, the great Dictator was murdered at the feet of Pompey's statue. + +In spite of the magnificence of this building, it was by no means +destined to revive the earlier prosperity of the tragic and comic +drama. Even at the opening of it the signs of degeneracy are apparent. +Luckily for us Cicero was in Rome at the time, and in a letter to a +friend in the country he congratulates him on being too unwell to come +to Rome and see the spoiling of old tragedies by over-display.[511] +"The ludi," he says, "had not even that charm which games on a +moderate scale generally have; the spectacle was so elaborate as to +leave no room for cheerful enjoyment, and I think you need feel no +regret at having missed it. What is the pleasure of a train of six +hundred mules in the Clytemnestra (of Accius), or three thousand bowls +(craterae) in the Trojan Horse (of Livius), or gay-coloured armour of +infantry and cavalry in some mimic battle? These things roused the +admiration of the vulgar: to you they would have brought no delight." +This ostentatious stage-display finds its counterpart to some extent +at the present day, and may remind us also of the huge orchestras of +blaring sound which are the delight of the modern composer and the +modern musical audience. And the plays were by no means the only part +of the show. There were displays of athletes; but these never seem to +have greatly interested a Roman audience, and Cicero says that Pompey +confessed that they were a failure; but to make up for that there were +wild-beast shows for five whole days (_venationes_)--"magnificent," +the letter goes on, "no one denies it, yet what pleasure can it be +to a man of refinement, when a weak man is torn by a very powerful +animal, or a splendid animal is transfixed by a hunting-spear? ... The +last day was that of the elephants, about which there was a good deal +of astonishment on the part of the vulgar crowd, but no pleasure +whatever. Nay, there was even a feeling of compassion aroused by +them, and a notion that this animal has something in common with +mankind."[512] This last interesting sentence is confirmed by a +passage in Pliny's _Natural History_, in which he asserts that the +people were so much moved that they actually execrated Pompey.[513] +The last age of the Republic is a transitional one, in this, as in +other ways; the people are not yet thoroughly inured to bloodshed +and cruelty to animals, as they afterwards became when deprived of +political excitements, and left with nothing violent to amuse them but +the displays of the amphitheatre. + +Earlier in this same letter Cicero had told his friend Marius that on +this occasion certain old actors had re-appeared on the stage, who, +as he thought, had left it for good. The only one he mentions is the +great tragic actor Aesopus, who "was in such a state that no one could +say a word against his retiring from the profession." At one important +point his voice failed him. This may conveniently remind us that +Aesopus was the last of the great actors of tragedy, and that his best +days were in the early half of this century--another sign of the decay +of the legitimate drama. He was an intimate friend of Cicero, and from +a few references to him in the Ciceronian writings we can form some +idea of his genius. In one passage Cicero writes of having seen him +looking so wild and gesticulating so excitedly, that he seemed almost +to have lost command of himself.[514] In the description, already +quoted from the speech _pro Sestio_, of the scene in the theatre +before his recall from exile, he speaks of this "summus artifex" as +delivering his allusions to the exile with infinite force and passion. +Yet the later tradition of his acting was rather that he was serious +and self-restrained; Horace calls him _gravis_, and Quintilian too +speaks of his _gravitas_.[515] Probably, like Garrick, he was capable +of a great variety of moods and parts. How carefully he studied the +varieties of gesticulation is indicated by a curious story preserved +by Valerius Maximus, that he and Roscius the great comedian used to +go and sit in the courts in order to observe the action of the orator +Hortensius.[516] + +Roscius too was an early intimate friend of Cicero, who, like Caesar, +seems to have valued the friendship of all men of genius, without +regard to their origin or profession. Roscius seems to have been a +freedman;[517] his great days were in Cicero's early life, and he died +in 61 B.C., to the deep grief of all his friends.[518] So wonderfully +finished was his acting that it became a common practice to call any +one a Roscius whose work was more than usually perfect. He never could +find a pupil of whom he could entirely approve; many had good points, +but if there were a single blot, the master could not bear it.[519] +In the _de Oratore_ Cicero tells us several interesting things about +him,--how he laid the proper emphasis on the right words, reserving +his gesticulation until he came to them; and how he was never so much +admired when acting with a mask on, because the expression of his face +was so full of meaning[520]. + +In Cicero's later years, when Roscius was dead and Aesopus retired, we +hear no more of great actors of this type. With these two remarkable +men the great days of the Roman drama come to an end, and henceforward +the favourite plays are merely farces, of which a word must here be +said in the last place. + +The origin of these farces, as indeed of all kinds of Latin comedy, +and probably also of the literary satura, is to be found in the jokes +and rude fun of the country festivals, and especially perhaps, as +Horace tells us of the harvest amusements[521]: + + Fescennina per hunc inventa licentia morem + Versibus alternis opprobria rustica fudit, + Libertasque recurrentis accepta per annos + Lusit amabiliter, etc. + + _Epist_. ii. 1. 145 foll. + +These amusements were always accompanied with the music and dancing +so dear to the Italian peoples, and it is easy to divine how they may +have gradually developed into plays of a rude but tolerably fixed +type, with improvised dialogue, acted in the streets, or later in the +intervals between acts at the theatre, and eventually as afterpieces, +more after our own fashion. + +In Cicero's day two kinds of farces were in vogue. In his earlier life +the so-called Atellan plays (fabulae Atellanae) were the favourites: +these were of indigenous Latin origin, and probably took their name +from the ruined town Atella, which might provide a permanent scenery +as the background of the plays without offending the jealousy of any +of the other Latin cities.[522] They were doubtless very comic, but it +was possible to get tired of them, for the number of stock +characters was limited, and the masks were always the same for each +character--the old man Pappus, the glutton Bucco, Dossennus the +sharper, etc. About the time of Sulla the _mimes_ seem to have +displaced these old farces in popular favour, perhaps because their +fun was more varied; the mere fact that the actors did not wear masks +shows that the improvisation could be freer and less stereotyped. But +both kinds were alike coarse, and may be called the comedy of low life +in country towns and in the great city. Sulla's tastes seem to have +been low in the matter of plays, if we may trust Plutarch, who asserts +that when he was young he spent much of his time among _mimi_ and +jesters, and that when he was dictator he "daily got together from the +theatre the lewdest persons, with whom he would drink and enter into a +contest of coarse witticisms."[523] This may be due to the evidence of +an enemy, but it is not improbable; and it is possible that both Sulla +and Caesar, who also patronised the mimes, may have wished to avoid +the personal allusions which, as we have seen, were so often made or +imagined in the exhibition of tragedies, and have aimed at confining +the plays to such as would give less opportunity for unwelcome +criticism.[524] + +About the year 50 B.C., as we have seen in the chapter on education, +there came to Italy the Syrian Publilius, who began to write mimes in +verse, thus for the first time giving them a literary turn. Caesar, +always on the look-out for talent, summoned him to Rome, and awarded +him the palm for his plays.[525] These must have been, as regards wit +and style, of a much higher order than any previous mimes, and in fact +not far removed from the older Roman comedy (fabula togata) in manner. +Cicero alludes to them twice: and writing to Cornificius from Rome in +October 45 he says that at Caesar's ludi he listened to the poems of +Publilius and Laberius with a well-pleased mind.[526] "Nihil mihi +tamen deesse scito quam quicum haec familiariter docteque rideam"; +here the word _docte_ seems to suggest that the performance was at +least worthy of the attention of a cultivated man. Laberius, also +a Roman knight, wrote mimes at the same time as Publilius, and was +beaten by him in competition; of him it is told that he was induced by +Caesar to act in his own mime, and revenged himself for the insult, as +it was then felt to be by a Roman of good birth, in a prologue which +has come down to us.[527] We may suppose that his plays were of the +same type as those of Publilius, and interspersed with those wise +sayings, _sententiae_, which the Roman people were still capable of +appreciating. Even in the time of Seneca applause was given to any +words which the audience felt at once to be true and to hit the +mark.[528] + +Thus the mime was lifted from the level of the lowest farcical +improvisation to a recognised position in literature, and quite +incidentally became useful in education. But the coarseness remained; +the dancing was grotesque and the fun ribald, and, as Professor Purser +says, the plots nearly always involved "some incident of an amorous +nature in which ordinary morality was set at defiance." The Roman +audience of the early Empire enjoyed these things, and all sorts +of dancing, singing, and instrumental music, and above all the +_pantomimus_,[529] in which the actor only gesticulated, without +speaking; this and the fact that the real drama never again had a fair +chance is one of the many signs that the city population was losing +both virility and intelligence. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +RELIGION + + +It is easy to write the word "religion" at the head of this chapter, +but by no means easy to find anything in this materialistic period +which answers to our use of the word. In the whole mass, for example, +of the Ciceronian correspondence, there is hardly anything to show +that Cicero and his friends, and therefore, as we may presume, the +average educated man of the day, were affected in their thinking or +their conduct by any sense of dependence on, or responsibility to, a +Supreme Being. If, however, it had been possible to substitute for +the English word the Latin _religio_ it would have made a far more +appropriate title to this chapter, for _religio_ meant primarily awe, +nervousness, scruple--much the same in fact as that feeling which in +these days we call superstition; and secondarily the means taken, +under the authority of the State, to quiet such feelings by the +performance of rites meant to propitiate the gods.[530] In both of +these senses _religio_ is to be found in the last age of the Republic; +but, as we shall see, the tendency to superstitious nervousness was +very imperfectly allayed and the worship that should have allayed it +was in great measure neglected. + +It may be, indeed, that in quiet country districts the joyous rural +festivals went on--we have many allusions and a few descriptions of +them in the literature of the Augustan period,--and also the worship +of the household deities, in which there perhaps survived a feeling of +_pietas_ more nearly akin to what we call religious feeling than in +any of the cults (_sacra publica_) undertaken by the State for the +people. Even in the city the cult of the dead, or what may perhaps be +better called the religious attention paid to their resting-places, +and the religious ceremonies attending birth, puberty, and marriage, +were kept up as matters of form and custom among the upper and +wealthier classes. But the great mass of the population of Rome, we +may be almost sure, knew nothing of these rites; the poor man, for +example, could no more afford a tomb for himself than a house, and his +body was thrown into some _puticulus_ or common burying-place,[531] +where it was impossible that any yearly ceremonies could be performed +to his memory, even if any one cared to do so. And among the higher +strata of society, outside of these _sacra privata_, carelessness +and negligence of the old State cults were steadily on the increase. +Neither Cicero nor any of his contemporaries but Varro has anything +to tell us of their details, and the decay had gone so far that Varro +himself knew little or nothing about many of the deities of the old +religious calendar,[532] or of the ways in which they had at one +time been worshipped. Vesta, with her simple cult and her virgin +priestesses, was almost the only deity who was not either forgotten +or metamorphosed in one way or another under the influence of Greek +literature and mythology; Vesta was too well recognised as a symbol +of the State's vitality to be subject to neglect like other and less +significant cults. The old sacrificing priesthoods, such as the +Fratres Arvales and the lesser Flamines, seem not to have been filled +up by the pontifices whose duty it was to do so: and the Flamen +Dialis, the priest of Jupiter himself, is not heard of from 89 to +11 B.C., when he appears again as a part of the Augustan religious +restoration. The explanation is probably that these offices could not +be held together with any secular one which might take the holder +away from Rome; and as every man of good family had business in the +provinces, no qualified person could be found willing to put himself +under the restriction. The temples too seem to have been sadly +neglected; Augustus tells us himself[533] that he had to restore no +less than eighty-two; and from Cicero we actually hear of thefts +of statues and other temple property[534]--sacrileges which may be +attributed to the general demoralisation caused by the Social and +Civil Wars. At the same time there seems to have been a strong +tendency to go after strange gods, with whose worship Roman soldiers +had made acquaintance in the course of their numerous eastern +campaigns. It is a remarkable fact that no less than four times in a +single decade the worship of Isis had to be suppressed,--in 58, 53, +50, and 48 B.C. In the year 50 we are told that the consul Aemilius +Paullus, a conservative of the old type, actually threw off his toga +praetexta and took an axe to begin destroying the temple, because no +workmen could be found to venture on the work.[535] These are indeed +strange times; the beautiful religion of Isis, which assuredly had +some power to purify a man and strengthen his conscience,[536] was to +be driven out of a city where the old local religion had never had any +such power, and where the masses were now left without a particle of +aid or comfort from any religious source. The story seems to ring +true, and gives us a most valuable glimpse into the mental condition +of the Roman workman of the time. + +Of such foreign worships, and of the general neglect of the old cults, +Cicero tells us nothing; we have to learn or to guess at these facts +from evidence supplied by later writers. His interest in religious +practice was confined to ceremonies which had some political +importance. He was himself an augur, and was much pleased with his +election to that ancient college; but, like most other augurs of +the time, he knew nothing of augural "science," and only cared to +speculate philosophically on the question whether it is possible to +foretell the future. He looked upon the right of the magistrate to +"observe the heaven" as a part of an excellent constitution,[537] +and could not forgive Caesar for refusing in 59 B.C. to have his +legislation paralysed by the fanatical declarations of his colleague +that he was going to "look for lightning." He firmly believed in +the value of the _ius divinum_ of the State. In his treatise on the +constitution (_de Legibus_) he devotes a whole book to this religious +side of constitutional law, and gives a sketch of it in quasi-legal +language from which it appears that he entirely accepted the duty of +the State to keep the citizen in right relation to the gods, on whose +good-will his welfare depended. He seems never to have noticed that the +State was neglecting this duty, and that, as we saw just now, temples +and cults were falling into decay, strange forms of religion pressing +in. Such things did not interest him; in public life the State +religion was to him a piece of the constitution, to be maintained +where it was clearly essential; in his own study it was a matter of +philosophical discussion. In his young days he was intimate with the +famous Pontifex Maximus, Mucius Scaevola, who held that there were +three religions,--that of the poets, that of the philosophers, and +that of the statesman, of which the last must be accepted and +acted on, whether it be true or not.[538] Cicero could hardly have +complained if this saying had been attributed to himself. + +This attitude of mind, the combination of perfect freedom of thought +with full recognition of the legal obligations of the State and its +citizens in matters of religion, is not difficult for any one to +understand who is acquainted with the nature of the ius divinum and +the priesthood administering it. That ius divinum was a part of the +ius civile, the law of the Roman city-state; as the ius civile, +exclusive of the ius divinum, regulated the relations of citizen to +citizen, so did the ius divinum regulate the relations of the citizen +to the deities of the community. The priesthoods administering this +law consisted not of sacrificing priests, attached to the cult of a +particular god and temple, but of lay officials in charge of that part +of the law of the State; it was no concern of theirs (so indeed they +might quite well argue) whether the gods really existed or not, +provided the law were maintained. When in 61 B.C. Clodius was caught +in disguise at the women's festival of the Bona Dea, the pontifices +declared the act to be _nefas_,--crime against the ius divinum; but +we may doubt whether any of those pontifices really believed in the +existence of such a deity. The idea of the _mos maiorum_ was still so +strong in the mind of every true Roman, his conservative instincts +were so powerful, that long after all real life had left the divine +inhabitants of his city, so that they survived only as the dead stalks +of plants that had once been green and flourishing, he was quite +capable of being horrified at any open contempt of them. And he was +right, as Augustus afterwards saw clearly; for the masses, who had +no share in the education described in the sixth chapter, who +knew nothing of Greek literature or philosophy, and were full +of superstitious fancies, were already losing confidence in the +authorities set over them, and in their power to secure the good-will +of the gods and their favour in matters of material well-being. +This is the only way in which we can satisfactorily account for the +systematic efforts of Augustus to renovate the old religious rites and +priesthoods, and we can fairly argue back from it to the tendencies of +the generation immediately before him. He knew that the proletariate +of Rome and Italy still believed, as their ancestors had always +believed, that state and individual would alike suffer unless the gods +were properly propitiated; and that in order to keep them quiet and +comfortable the sense of duty to the gods must be kept alive even +among those who had long ceased to believe in them. It was fortunate +indeed for Augustus that he found in the great poet of Mantua one who +was in some sense a prophet as well as a poet, who could urge the +Roman by an imaginative example to return to a living pietas,--not +merely to the old religious forms, but to the intelligent sense of +duty to God and man which had built up his character and his empire. +In Cicero's day there was also a great poet, he too in some sense a +prophet; but Lucretius could only appeal to the Roman to shake off the +slough of his old religion, and such an appeal was at the time both +futile and dangerous. Looking at the matter historically, and not +theologically, we ought to sympathise with the attitude of Cicero +and Scaevola towards the religion of the State. It was based on a +statesmanlike instinct; and had it been possible for that instinct to +express itself practically in a positive policy like that of Augustus, +instead of showing itself in philosophical treatises like the _de +Legibus_, or on occasional moments of danger like that of the Bona Dea +sacrilege, it is quite possible that much mischief might have +been averted. But in that generation no one had the shrewdness or +experience of Augustus, and no one but Julius had the necessary free +hand; and we may be almost sure that Julius, Pontifex Maximus though +he was, was entirely unfitted by nature and experience to undertake +a work that called for such delicate handling, such insight into the +working of the ignorant Italian mind. + +This attitude of inconsistency and compromise must seem to a modern +unsatisfactory and strained, and he turns with relief to the +courageous outspokenness of the great poem of Lucretius on the Nature +of Things, of which the main object was to persuade the Romans to +renounce for good all the mass of superstition, in which he included +the religion of the State, by which their minds were kept in a prison +of darkness, terror, and ignorance. Lucretius took no part whatever in +public life; he could afford to be in earnest; he felt no shadow of +responsibility for the welfare of the State as such. The Epicurean +tenets which he held so passionately had always ranked the individual +before the community, and suggested a life of individual quietism; +Lucretius in his study could contemplate the "rerum natura" without +troubling himself about the "natura hominum" as it existed in the +Italy of his day. "Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas,"--so +wrote of him his great successor and admirer, yet added, with a tinge +of pathos which touches us even now, "Fortunatus et ille deos qui +novit agrestes." Even at the present day an uncompromising unbeliever +may be touched by the simple worship, half pagan though it may seem to +him, of a village in the Apennines; but in the eyes of Lucretius all +worship seemed prompted by fear and based on ignorance of natural law. +Virgil's tender and sympathetic soul went out to the peasant as he +prayed to his gods for plenty or prosperity, as it went out to all +living creatures in trouble or in joy. + +But it is nevertheless true that Lucretius was a great religious poet. +He was a prophet, in deadly earnest, calling men to renounce their +errors both of thought and conduct. He saw around him a world full of +wickedness and folly; a world of vanity, vexation, fear, ambition, +cruelty, and lust. He saw men fearing death and fearing the gods; +overvaluing life, yet weary of it; unable to use it well, because +steeped in ignorance of the wonderful working of Nature.[539] He saw +them, as we have already seen them, the helpless victims of ambition +and avarice, ever, like Sisyphus, rolling the stone uphill and never +reaching the summit.[540] Of cruelty and bloodshed in civil strife +that age had seen enough, and on this too the poet dwells with bitter +emphasis;[541] on the unwholesome luxury and restlessness of the +upper classes,[542] and on their unrestrained indulgence of bodily +appetites. In his magnificent scorn he probably exaggerated the evils +of his day, yet we have seen enough in previous chapters to suggest +that he was not a mere pessimist; there is no trace in his poem of +cynicism, or of a soured temperament. We may be certain that he was +absolutely convinced of the truth of all he wrote. + +So far Lucretius may be called a religious poet, in that with profound +conviction and passionate utterance he denounced the wickedness of +his age, and, like the Hebrew prophets, called on mankind to put away +their false gods and degrading superstitions, and learn the true +secret of guidance in this life. It is only when we come to ask what +that secret was, that we feel that this extraordinary man knew far too +little of ordinary human nature to be either a religious reformer +or an effective prophet: as Sellar has said of him,[543] he had no +sympathy with human activity. His secret, the remedy for all the +world's evil and misery, was only a philosophical creed, which he had +learnt from Epicurus and Democritus. His profound belief in it is one +of the most singular facts in literary history; no man ever put such +poetic passion into a dogma, and no such imperious dogma was ever +built upon a scientific theory of the universe. He seems to have +combined two Italian types of character, which never have been united +before or since,--that of the ecclesiastic, earnest and dogmatic, +seeing human nature from a doctrinal platform, not working and +thinking with it; and secondly the poetic type, of which Dante is the +noblest example, perfectly clear and definite in inward and outward +vision, and illuminating all that it touches with an indescribable +glow of pure poetic imagination. + +Lucretius' secret then is knowledge,[544]--not the dilettanteism of +the day, but real scientific knowledge of a single philosophical +attempt to explain the universe,--the atomic theory of the Epicurean +school. Democritus and Epicurus are the only saviours,--of this +Lucretius never had the shadow of a doubt. As the result of this +knowledge, the whole supernatural and spiritual world of fancy +vanishes, together with all futile hopes or fears of a future life. +The gods, if they exist, will cease to be of any importance to +mankind, as having no interest in him, and doing him neither good nor +harm. Chimaeras, portents, ghosts, death, and all that frightens the +ignorant and paralyses their energies, will vanish in the pure light +of this knowledge; man will have nothing to be afraid of but himself. +Nor indeed need he fear himself when he has mastered "the truth." By +that time, as the scales of fear fall from his eyes, his moral balance +will be recovered; the blind man will see. What will he see? What is +the moral standard that will become clear to him, the sanction of +right living that will grip his conscience? + +It is simply the conviction that as this life is all we have in past, +present, or future, it _must be used well_. After all then, Lucretius +is reduced to ordinary moral suasion, and finds no new power or +sanction that could keep erring human nature in the right path. And +we must sadly allow that no real moral end is enunciated by him; +his ideal seems to be quietism in this life, and annihilation +afterwards.[545] It is a purely self-regarding rule of life. It is not +even a social creed; neither family nor State seems to have any part +in it, much less the unfortunate in this life, the poor, and the +suffering. The poet never mentions slavery, or the crowded populations +of great cities. It might almost be called a creed of fatalism, in +which Natura plays much the same part as Fortuna did in the creed of +many less noble spirits of that age.[546] Nature fights on; we cannot +resist her, and cannot improve on her; it is better to acquiesce and +obey than to try and rule her. + +Thus Lucretius' remedy fails utterly; it is that of an aristocratic +intellect, not of a saviour of mankind.[547] So far as we know, it was +entirely fruitless; like the constitution of Sulla his contemporary, +the doctrine of Lucretius roused no sense of loyalty in Roman or +Italian, because it was constructed with imperfect knowledge of the +Roman and Italian nature. But it was a noble effort of a noble mind; +and, apart from its literary greatness, it has incidentally a lasting +value for all students of religious history, as showing better than +anything else that has survived from that age the need of a real +consecration of morality by the life and example of a Divine man. + +Thus while the Roman statesman found it necessary to maintain the ius +divinum without troubling himself to attempt to put any new life into +the details of the worship it prescribed, content to let much of it +sink into oblivion as no longer essential to the good government of +the State, the greatest poetical genius of the age was proclaiming in +trumpet tones that if a man would make good use of his life he must +abandon absolutely and without a scruple the old religious ideas of +the Graeco-Roman world. But there was another school of thought which +had long been occupied with these difficulties, and had reached +conclusions far better suited than the dogmatism of Lucretius to the +conservative character of the Roman mind, for it found a place for +the deities of the State, and therefore for the ius divinum, in a +philosophical system already widely accepted by educated men. This +school may be described as Stoic, though its theology was often +accepted by men who did not actually call themselves Stoics; for +example, by Cicero himself, who, as an adherent of the New Academy, +the school which repudiated dogmatism and occupied itself with +dialectic and criticism, was perfectly entitled to adopt the tenets +of other schools if he thought them the most convincing. Its most +elaborate exponent in this period was Varro, and behind both Varro and +Cicero there stands the great figure of the Rhodian Posidonius[548], +of whose writings hardly anything has come down to us. It is worth +while to trace briefly the history of this school at Rome, for it is +in itself extremely interesting, as an attempt to reconcile the old +theology--if the term may be used--with philosophical thought, and it +probably had an appreciable influence on the later quasi-religious +Stoicism of the Empire. + +We must go back for a moment to the period succeeding the war with +Hannibal. The awful experience of that war had done much to discredit +the old Roman religious system, which had been found insufficient of +itself to preserve the State. The people, excited and despairing, +had been quieted by what may be called new religious prescriptions, +innumerable examples of which are to be found in Livy's books. +The Sibylline books were constantly consulted, and _lectisternia, +supplicationes, ludi_, in which Greek deities were prominent, were +ordered and carried out. Finally, in 204 B.C., there was brought to +Rome the sacred stone of the Magna Mater Idaea, the great deity of +Pessinus in Phrygia, and a festival was established in her honour, +called by the Greek name Megalesia. All this means, as can be seen +clearly from Livy's language,[549] that the governing classes were +trying to quiet the minds of the people by convincing them that no +effort was being spared to set right their relations with the unseen +powers; they had invoked in vain their own local and native deities, +and had been compelled to seek help elsewhere; they had found their +own narrow system of religion quite inadequate to express their +religious experience of the last twenty years. And indeed that old +system of religion never really recovered from the discredit thus cast +on it. The temper of the people is well shown by the rapidity with +which the orgiastic worship of the Greek Dionysus spread over Italy a +few years later; and the fact that it was allowed to remain, though +under strict supervision, shows that the State religion no longer had +the power to satisfy the cravings of the masses. And the educated +class too was rapidly coming under the influence of Greek thought, +which could hardly act otherwise than as a solvent of the old +religious ideas. Ennius, the great literary figure of this period, +was the first to strike a direct blow at the popular belief in the +efficacy of prayer and sacrifice, by openly declaring that the gods +did not interest themselves in mankind,[550]--the same Epicurean +doctrine preached afterwards by Lucretius. It may indeed be doubted +whether this doctrine became popular, or acceptable even to the +cultured classes; but the fact remains that the same man who did +more than any one before Virgil to glorify the Roman character and +dominion, was the first to impugn the belief that Rome owed her +greatness to her divine inhabitants. + +But in the next generation there arrived in Rome a man whose teaching +had so great an influence on the best type of educated Roman that, as +we have already said, he may almost be regarded as a missionary.[551] +We do not know for certain whether Panaetius wrote or taught about the +nature or existence of the gods; but we do know that he discussed the +question of divination[552] in a work [Greek: Peri pronoias], where he +could hardly have avoided the subject. In any case the Stoic doctrines +which he held, themselves ultimately derived from Plato and the Old +Academy, were found capable in the hands of his great successor +Posidonius of Rhodes of supplying a philosophical basis for the +activity as well as the existence of the gods. These men, it must +be repeated, were not merely professed philosophers, but men of the +world, travellers, writing on a great variety of subjects; they were +profoundly interested, like Polybius, in the Roman character and +government; they became intimate with the finer Roman minds, from +Scipio the younger to Cicero and Varro, and seem to have seen clearly +that the old rigid Stoicism must be widened and humanised, and its +ethical and theological aspects modified, if it were to gain a real +hold on the practical Roman understanding. We have already seen[553] +how their modified Stoic ethics acted for good on the best Romans +of our period. In theology also they left a permanent mark on Roman +thought; Posidonius wrote a work on the gods, which formed the basis +of the speculative part of Varro's _Antiquitates divinae_, and almost +certainly also of the second book of Cicero's de _Natura Deorum_[554]. +Other philosophers of the period, even if not professed Stoics, may +have discussed the same subjects in their lectures and writings, +arriving at conclusions of the same kind. + +It is chiefly from the fragments of Varro's work that we learn +something of the Stoic attempt to harmonise the old religious beliefs +with philosophic theories of the universe[555]. Varro, following his +teacher, held the Stoic doctrine of the _animus mundi_ the Divine +principle permeating all material things which, in combination with +them, constitutes the universe, and is Nature, Reason, God, Destiny, +or whatever name the philosopher might choose to give it. The universe +is divine, the various parts of it are, therefore, also divine, in +virtue of this informing principle. Now in the sixteenth book of his +great work Varro co-ordinated this Stoic theory with the Graeco-Roman +religion of the State as it existed in his time. The chief gods +represented the _partes mundi_ in various ways; even the difference +of sex among the deities was explained by regarding male gods as +emanating from the heaven and female ones from the earth, according +to a familiar ancient idea of the active and passive principle in +generation. The Stoic doctrine of [Greek: daimones] was also utilised +to find an explanation for semi-deities, lares, genii, etc., and thus +another character of the old Italian religious mind was to be saved +from contempt and oblivion. The old Italian tendency to see the +supernatural manifesting itself in many different ways expressed by +adjectival titles, e.g. Mars Silvanus, Jupiter Elicius, Juno Lucina, +etc., also found an explanation in Varro's doctrine; for the divine +element existing in sky, earth, sea, or other parts of the _mundus_, +and manifesting itself in many different forms of activity, might +be thus made obvious to the ordinary human intellect without the +interposition of philosophical terms. + +At the head of the whole system was Jupiter, the greatest of Roman +gods, whose title of Optimus Maximus might well have suggested that no +other deity could occupy this place. Without him it would have been +practically impossible for Varro to carry out his difficult and +perilous task. Every Roman recognised in Jupiter the god who +condescended to dwell on the Capitol in a temple made with hands, and +who, beyond all other gods, watched over the destinies of the Roman +State; every Roman also knew that Jupiter was the great god of the +heaven above him, for in many expressions of his ordinary speech he +used the god's name as a synonym for the open sky.[556] The position +now accorded to the heaven-god in the new Stoic system is so curious +and interesting that we must dwell on it for a moment. + +Varro held, or at any rate taught, that Jupiter was himself that soul +of the world (animus mundi) which fills and moves the whole material +universe.[557] He is the one universal causal agent,[558] from whom +all the forces of nature are derived;[559] or he may be called, in +language which would be intelligible to the ordinary Roman, the +universal Genius.[560] Further, he is himself all the other gods and +goddesses, who may be described as parts, or powers, or virtues, +existing in him.[561] And Varro makes it plain that he wishes to +identify this great god of gods with the Jupiter at Rome, whose temple +was on the Capitol; St. Augustine quotes him as holding that the +Romans had dedicated the Capitol to Jupiter, who by his spirit +breathes life into everything in the universe:[562] or in less +philosophical language, "The Romans wish to recognise Jupiter as king +of gods and men, and this is shown by his sceptre and his seat on the +Capitol." Thus the god who dwelt on the Capitol, and in the temple +which was the centre-point of the Roman Empire, was also the +life-giving ruler and centre of the whole universe. Nay, he goes one +step further, and identifies him with the one God of the monotheistic +peoples of the East, and in particular with the God of the Jews.[563] + +Thus Varro had arrived, with the help of Posidonius and the Stoics, at +a monotheistic view of the Deity, which is at the same time a kind of +pantheism, and yet, strange to say, is able to accommodate itself to +the polytheism of the Graeco-Roman world. But without Jupiter, god of +the heaven both for Greeks and Romans, and now too in the eyes of both +peoples the god who watched over the destiny of the Roman Empire, this +wonderful feat could not have been performed. The identification of +the heaven-god with the animus mundi of the Stoics was not indeed a +new idea; it may be traced up Stoic channels even to Plato. What is +really new and astonishing is that it should have been possible for a +conservative Roman like Varro, in that age of carelessness and doubt, +to bring the heaven-god, so to speak, down to the Roman Capitol, where +his statue was to be seen sitting between Juno and Minerva, and yet to +teach the doctrine that he was the same deity as the Jewish Jehovah, +and that both were identical with the Stoic animus mundi. + +But did Varro also conceive of this Jupiter as a deity "making for +righteousness," or acting as a sanction for morality? It would not +have been impossible or unnatural for a Roman so to think of him, for +of all the Roman deities Jupiter is the one whose name from the most +ancient times had been used in oaths and treaties, and whose _numen_ +was felt to be violated by any public or private breach of faith.[564] +We cannot tell how far Varro himself followed out this line of +thought, for the fragments of his great work are few and far between. +But we know that the Roman Stoics saw in that same universal Power or +Mind which Varro identified with Jupiter the source and strength of +law, and therefore of morality; here it is usually called reason, +_ratio_, the working of the eternal and immutable Mind of the +universe. "True law is right reason," says Cicero in a noble +passage;[565] and goes on to teach that this law transcends all human +codes of law, embracing and sanctioning them all; and that the spirit +inherent in it, which gives it its universal force, is God Himself. In +another passage, written towards the end of his life, and certainly +later than the publication of Varro's work, he goes further and +identifies this God with Jupiter.[566] "This law," he says, "came into +being simultaneously with the Divine Mind" (i.e. the Stoic Reason): +"wherefore that true and paramount law, commanding and forbidding, is +the right reason of almighty Jupiter" (summi Iovis). Once more, in the +first book of his treatise on the gods, he quotes the Stoic Chrysippus +as teaching that the eternal Power, which is as it were a guide in the +duties of life, is Jupiter himself.[567] It is characteristic of the +Roman that he should think, in speculations like these, rather of the +law of his State than of the morality of the individual, as emanating +from that Right Reason to which he might give the name of Jupiter: I +have been unable to find a passage in which Cicero attributes to this +deity the sanction for individual goodness, though there are many that +assert the belief that justice and the whole system of social life +depend on the gods and our belief in them.[568] But the Roman had +never been conscious of individual duty, except in relation to his +State, or to the family, which was a living cell in the organism of +the State. In his eyes law was rather the source of morality than +morality the cause and the reason of law; and as his religion was a +part of the law of his State, and thus had but an indirect connection +with morality, it would not naturally occur to him that even the great +Jupiter himself, thus glorified as the Reason in the universe, could +really help him in the conduct of his life _qua_ individual. It is +only as the source of legalised morality that we can think of Varro's +Jupiter as "making for righteousness." + +Less than twenty-five years after Cicero's death, in the imagination +of the greatest of Roman poets, Jupiter was once more brought before +the Roman world, and now in a form comprehensible by all educated men, +whether or no they had dabbled in philosophy. What are we to say of +the Jupiter of the _Aeneid_? We do not need to read far in the first +book of the poem to find him spoken of in terms which remind us of +Varro: "O qui res hominumque deumque Aeternis regis imperiis," are the +opening words of the address of Venus; and when she has finished, + + Olli subridens hominum sator atque deorum + Vultu, quo caelum tempestatesque serenat, + Oscula libavit natae, dehine talia fatur; + "Parce metu, Cytherea, manent immota tuorum + Fata tibi." + +Jupiter is here, as in Varro's system, the prime cause and ruler of +all things, and he also holds in his hand the destiny of Rome and the +fortunes of the hero who was to lay the first foundation of Rome's +dominion. It is in the knowledge of his will that Aeneas walks, with +hesitating steps, in the earlier books, in the later ones with assured +confidence, towards the goal that is set before him. But the lines +just quoted serve well to show how different is the Jupiter of Virgil +from the universal deity of the Roman Stoic. Beyond doubt Virgil had +felt the power of the Stoic creed; but he was essaying an epic poem, +and he could not possibly dispense with the divine machinery as it +stood in his great Homeric model. His Jupiter is indeed, as has been +lately said,[569] "a great and wise god, free from the tyrannical and +sensuous characteristics of the Homeric Zeus," in other words, he is a +Roman deity, and sometimes acts and speaks like a grave Roman consul +of the olden time. But still he is an anthropomorphic deity, a purely +human conception of a personal god-king; in these lines he smiles on +his daughter Venus and kisses her. This is the reason why Virgil has +throughout his poem placed the Fates, or Destiny, in close relation to +him, without definitely explaining that relation. Fate, as it appears +in the Aeneid, is the Stoic [Greek: eimarmenae] applied to the idea of +Rome and her Empire; that Stoic conception could not take the form of +Jupiter, as in Varro's hands, for the god had to be modelled on the +Homeric pattern, not on the Stoic. It is perhaps not going too far to +say that the god, as a theological conception, never recovered from +this treatment; any chance he ever had of becoming the centre of a +real religious system was destroyed by the Aeneid, the _pietas_ of +whose hero is indeed nominally due to him, but in reality to the +decrees of Fate.[570] + +While philosophers and poets were thus performing intellectual and +imaginative feats with the gods of the State, the strong tendency to +superstition, untutored fear of the supernatural, which had always +been characteristic of the Italian peoples, so far from losing power, +was actually gaining it, and that not only among the lower classes. As +Lucretius mockingly said, even those who think and speak with contempt +of the gods will in moments of trouble slay black sheep and sacrifice +them to the Manes. This feeling of fear or nervousness, which lies at +the root of the meaning of the word _religio_,[571] had been quieted +in the old days by the prescriptions of the pontifices and their jus +divinum, but it was always ready to break out again; as we have seen, +in the long and awful struggle of the Hannibalic war, it was necessary +to go far beyond the ordinary pharmacopoeia within reach of the +priesthoods in order to convince the people that all possible means +were being taken for their salvation. Again, in this last age of the +Republic, there are obvious signs that both ignorant and educated +were affected by the gloom and uncertainty of the times. Increasing +uncertainty in the political world, increasing doubt in the world of +thought, very naturally combined to produce an emotional tendency +which took different forms in men of different temperament. We can +trace this (1) in the importance attached to omens, portents, dreams; +(2) in a certain vague thought of a future life, which takes a +positive shape in the deification of human beings; (3) at the close of +the period, in something approaching to a sense of sin, of neglected +duty, bringing down upon State and individual the anger of the gods. + +1. If we glance over the latter part of the book of prodigies, +compiled by the otherwise unknown writer Julius Obsequens from the +records of the pontifices quoted in Livy's history, we can get a fair +idea of the kind of portent that was troubling the popular mind. +They are much the same as they always had been in Roman +history,--earthquakes, monstrous births, temples struck by lightning, +statues overthrown, wolves entering the city, and so on; they are +extremely abundant in the terrible years of the Social and Civil Wars, +become less frequent after the death of Sulla, and break out again +in full force with the murder of Caesar. They were reported to the +pontifices from the places where they were supposed to have occurred, +and if thought worthy of expiation were entered in the pontifical +books. We may suppose that they were sent in chiefly by the +uneducated. But among men of education we have many examples of this +same nervousness, of which two or three must suffice. Sulla, as we +know from his own Memoirs, which were used directly or indirectly by +Plutarch, had a strong vein of superstition in his nature, and made +no attempt to control it. In dedicating his Memoirs to Lucullus he +advised him "to think no course so safe as that which is enjoined +by the [Greek: daimon] (perhaps his genius) in the night";[572] +and Plutarch tells us several tales of portents on which he acted, +evidently drawn from this same autobiography. We are told of him that +he always carried a small image of Apollo, which he kissed from time +to time, and to which he prayed silently in moments of danger.[573] +Again, Cicero tells us a curious story of himself, Varro, and Cato, +which shows that those three men of philosophical learning were quite +liable to be frightened by a prophecy which to us would not seem to +have much claim to respect.[574] He tells how when the three were +at Dyrrachium, after Caesar's defeat there and the departure of the +armies into Thessaly, news was brought them by the commander of the +Rhodian fleet that a certain rower had foretold that within thirty +days Greece would be weltering in blood; how all three were terribly +frightened, and how a few days later the news of the battle at +Pharsalia reached them. Lastly, we all remember the vision which +appeared to Brutus on the eve of the battle of Philippi, of a huge and +fearsome figure standing by him in silence, which Shakespeare has made +into the ghost of Caesar and used to unify his play. According to +Plutarch, the Epicurean Cassius, as Lucretius would have done, +attempted to convince his friend on rational grounds that the vision +need not alarm him, but apparently in vain.[575] + +2. Lucretius had denied the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, +as the cause of so much of the misery which he believed it to be his +mission to avert. Caesar, in the speech put into his mouth by Sallust, +in the debate on the execution of the conspirators on December 5, 63, +seems to be of the same opinion, and as Cicero alludes to his words in +the speech with which he followed Caesar, we may suppose that Sallust +was reporting him rightly.[576] The poet and the statesman were not +unlike in the way in which they looked at facts; both were of clear +strong vision, without a trace of mysticism. But such men were the +exception rather than the rule; Cicero probably represents better the +average thinking man of his time. Cicero was indeed too full of life, +too deeply interested in the living world around him, to think much +of such questions as the immortality of the soul; and as a professed +follower of the Academic school, he assuredly did not hold any +dogmatic opinion on it. He was at no time really affected by +Pythagoreanism, like his friend Nigidius Figulus, whose works, now +lost, had a great vogue in the later years of Cicero's life, and much +influence on the age that followed. In the first book of his Tusculan +Disputations Cicero discusses the question from the Academic point of +view, coming to no definite conclusion, except that whether we are +immortal or not we must be grateful to death for releasing us from the +bondage of the body. This book was written in the last year of his +life; but ten years earlier, in the beautiful myth, imitated from the +myths of Plato, which he appended to his treatise _de Republica_, he +had emphatically asserted the doctrine. There the spirit of the elder +Scipio appears to his great namesake, Cicero's ideal Roman, and +assures him that the road to heaven (caelum) lies open to those who do +their duty in this life, and especially their duty to the State. "Know +thyself to be a god; as the god of gods rules the universe, so the god +within us rules the body, and as that great god is eternal, so does an +eternal soul govern this frail body."[577] + +The _Somnium Scipionis_ was an inspiration, written under the +influence of Plato at one of those emotional moments of Cicero's +life which make it possible to say of him that there was a religious +element in his mind.[578] Some years later the poignancy of his grief +at the death of his daughter Tullia had the effect of putting him +again in a strong emotional mood. For many weeks he lived alone at +Astura, on the edge of the Pomptine marshes, out of reach of all +friends, forbidding even his young wife and her mother to come near +him; brooding, as it would seem, on the survival of the godlike +element in his daughter. These sad meditations took a practical form +which at first astonishes us, but is not hard to understand when we +have to come to know Cicero well, and to follow the tendencies of +thought in these years. He might erect a tomb to her memory,--but +that would not satisfy him; it would not express his feeling that the +immortal godlike spark within her survived. He earnestly entreats +Atticus to find and buy him a piece of ground where he can build a +_fanum_, i.e. a shrine, to her spirit. "I wish to have a shrine built, +and that wish cannot be rooted out of my heart. I am anxious to avoid +any likeness to a tomb ... in order to attain as nearly as possible to +an apotheosis."[579] A little further on he calls these foolish ideas; +but this is doubtless only because he is writing to Atticus, a man +of the world, not given to emotion or mysticism. Cicero is really +speaking the language of the Italian mind, for the moment free from +philosophical speculation; he believes that his beloved dead lived +on, though he could not have proved it in argument. So firmly does +he believe it that he wishes others to know that he believes it, and +insists that the shrine shall be erected in a frequented place![580] + +Though the great Dictator did not believe in another world, he +consented at the end of his life to become Jupiter Julius, and after +his death was duly canonised as Divus, and had a temple erected to +him. But the many-sided question of the deification of the Caesars +cannot be discussed here; it is only mentioned as showing in another +way the trend of thought in this dark age of Roman history. Whatever +some philosophers may have thought, there cannot be a doubt that the +ordinary Roman believed in the godhead of Julius.[581] + +3. We saw in an earlier chapter with what gay and heedless frivolity +young men like Caelius were amusing themselves even on the very eve of +civil war. In strange contrast with this is the gloom that overspread +all classes during the war itself, and more especially after the +assassination of the Dictator. Caesar seemed irresistible and godlike, +and men were probably beginning to hope for some new and more stable +order of things, when he was suddenly struck down, and the world +plunged again into confusion and doubt; and it was not till after +the final victory of Octavian at Actium, and the destruction of the +elements of disunion with the deaths of Antony and Cleopatra, that +men really began to hope for better times. The literature of those +melancholy years shows distinct signs of the general depression, which +was perhaps something more than weariness and material discomfort; +there was almost what we may call a dim sense of sin, or at least of +moral evil, such a feeling, though far less real and intense, as that +which their prophets aroused from time to time in the Jewish people, +and one not unknown in the history of Hellas. + +The most touching expression of this feeling is to be found in the +preface which Livy prefixed to his history--a wonderful example of the +truth that when a great prose writer is greatly moved, his language +reflects his emotion in its beauty and earnestness. Every student +knows the sentence in which he describes the gradual decay of all that +was good in the Roman character: "donec ad haec tempora, quibus nec +vitia nostra nec remedia pati possumus, perventum est"; but it is +not every student who can recognise in it a real sigh of despair, an +unmistakable token of the sadness of the age.[582] In the introductory +chapters which serve the purpose of prefaces to the _Jugurtha_ and +_Catiline_ of Sallust, we find something of the same sad tone, but +it does not ring true like Livy's exordium; Sallust was a man of +altogether coarser fibre, and seems to be rather assuming than +expressing the genuine feeling of a saddened onlooker. In one of his +earliest poems, written perhaps after the Perusian war of 41 B.C.[583] +even the lively Horace was moved to voice the prevailing depression, +fancifully urging that the Italian people should migrate, like the +Phocaeans of old, to the far west, where, as Sertorius had been told +in Spain, lay the islands of the blest, where the earth, as in the +golden age, yields all her produce untilled: + + Iuppiter ilia piae secrevit litora genti + Ut inquinavit aere tempus aureum; + Aere, dehinc ferro duravit saecula, quorum + Piis secunda vate me datur fuga. + +It may be, as has recently been suggested, that the famous fourth +Eclogue of Virgil, "the Messianic Eclogue," was in some sense meant as +an answer to this poem of Horace. "There is no need," he seems to say +in that poem, written in the year 39, "to seek the better age in a +fabled island of the west. It is here and now with us. The period upon +which Italy is now entering more than fulfils in real life the dream +of a Golden Age. A marvellous child is even now coming into the world +who will see and inaugurate an era of peace and prosperity: darkness +and despair will after a while pass entirely away, and a regenerate +Italy,--regenerate in religion and morals as in fertility and +wealth,--will lead the world in a new era of happiness and good +government."[584] + +But the Golden Age, so fondly hoped for, so vaguely and poetically +conceived, was not to come in the sense in which Virgil, or any other +serious thinker of the day, could dream of it. I may conclude this +chapter with a few sentences which express this most truly and +eloquently. "When there is a fervent aspiration after better things, +springing from a strong feeling of human brotherhood, and a firm +belief in the goodness and righteousness of God, such aspiration +carries with it an invincible confidence that some how, some where, +some when, it must receive its complete fulfilment, for it is prompted +by the Spirit which fills and orders the Universe throughout its whole +development. But if the human organ of inspiration goes on to fix the +how, the where, and the when, and attributes to some nearer object the +glory of the final blessedness, then it inevitably falls into such +mistakes as Virgil's, and finds its golden age in the rule of the +Caesars (which was indeed an essential feature of Christianity), +or perhaps, as in later days, in the establishment of socialism or +imperialism. Well for the seer if he remembers that the kingdom of God +is within us, and that the true golden age must have its foundation in +penitence for misdoing, and be built up in righteousness and loving +kindness."[585] + + + + +EPILOGUE + +These sketches of social life at the close of the Republican period +have been written without any intention of proving a point, or any +pre-conceived idea of the extent of demoralisation, social, moral, or +political, which the Roman people had then reached. But a perusal of +Mr. Balfour's suggestive lecture on "Decadence" has put me upon making +a very succinct diagnosis of the condition of the patient whose life +and habits I have been describing. The Romans, and the Italians, with +whom they were now socially and politically amalgamated, were not in +the last two centuries B.C. an old or worn-out people. It is at any +rate certain that for a century after the war with Hannibal Rome and +her allies, under the guidance of the Roman senate, achieved an amount +of work in the way of war and organisation such as has hardly been +performed by any people before or since; and even in the period dealt +with in this book, in spite of much cause for misgiving at home, the +work done by Roman and Italian armies both in East and West shows +beyond doubt that under healthy discipline the native vigour of the +population could assert itself. We must not forget, however severely +we may condemn the way in which the work was done, that it is to +these armies, in all human probability, that we owe not only the +preservation of Graeco-Italian culture and civilisation, but the +opportunity for further progress. The establishment of definite +frontiers by Pompeius and Caesar, and afterwards by Augustus and +Tiberius, brought peace to the region of the Mediterranean, and with +it made possible the development of Roman law and the growth of a new +and life-giving religion. + +But peoples, like individuals, if offered opportunities of doing +themselves physical or moral damage, are only too ready to accept +them. Time after time in these chapters we have had to look back to +the age following the war with Hannibal in order to see what those +opportunities were; and in each case we have found the acceptance +rapid and eager. We have seen wealth coming in suddenly, and misused; +slave-labour available in an abnormal degree, and utilised with +results in the main unfortunate; the population of the city increasing +far too quickly, yet the difficulties arising from this increase +either ignored or misapprehended. We have noticed the decay of +wholesome family life, of the useful influence of the Roman matron, of +the old forms of the State religion; the misconception of the true end +of education, the result partly of Greek culture, partly of political +life; and to these may perhaps be added an increasing liability to +diseases, and especially to malaria, arising from economic blunders +in Italy and insanitary conditions of life in the city. All these +opportunities of damage to the fibre of the people had been freely +accepted, and with the result that in the age of Cicero we cannot +mistake the signs and symptoms of degeneracy. + +But it would be a mistake to jump to the conclusion that this +degeneracy had as yet gone too far to be arrested. It was assuredly +not that degeneracy of senility which Mr. Balfour is inclined to +postulate as an explanation of decadence. So far as I can judge, the +Romans were at that stage when, in spite of unhealthy conditions of +life and obstinate persistence in dangerous habits, it was not too +late to reform and recover. To me the main interest of the history of +the early Empire lies in seeking the answer to the question how far +that recovery was made. If these chapters should have helped any +student to prepare the ground for the solution of this problem their +object will have been fully achieved. + +[Illustration: _Stanfords Geog. Estab. London_] + + + + + +INDEX + + + Accius + _Aedicula_ + Aediles, the + Aemilia, Via. _See_ Via Aemilia + Aemilius, Pons. See Pons Aemilius + Aeneas + Aerarium, the + Aesopus, the actor + Afranius + Africa, province of + Agrippa + Alexandria + Alexis (Atticus's slave) + Amafinius + _Ambitu, lex de_ + Anio, the river + Anna Perenna, festival of + _Annona_ + Antioch + Antiochus (the physician) + Antium, Cicero's villa at + Antony + _Apodyterium_ + Apollinares, Ludi. _See_ Ludi Apollinares + Apollonia + Appia, Via. _See_ Via Appia + Appius Claudius Caecus + Aqua Appia + Aqua Tepula + Aqueducts + Ara maxima + Ara Pacis + _Argentarii_ + Argiletum, the + Arpinum, Cicero's villa at + _Ars amatoria_ (Ovid's) + Arval brothers, the + Arx, the + Asia, province of + Astura, Cicero's villa at + _Atellanae, fabulae_. See _Fabulae Atellanae_ + _Atrium_ + _sutorium_, + Vestae + Atticus + house of, + wealth of, + as money-lender, + the sister of, + the slave of, + Cicero's letters to, _passim_, + Augury + Augustus + alleged proposal of, to remove the capital, + attitude of towards _plebs urbana_, + water-supply under, + the grandfather of, + as a social reformer, + marriage laws of, + furthers public comfort, + restoration of temples by, + attempts at religious revival, + Aventine hill + + Baiae + Balbus, Cornelius, the younger + Bankruptcy laws + Basilicae, the + Baths, public + Bath-rooms + Bauli + Bithynia, province of + _Blanditia_ + Bona Dea, festival of + Boscoreale + _Brutus_ (Cicero's) + Brutus, Decimus + _Bulla_ + Byzantium + + Caecilius + Caelian hill + Caelius Autipater + Caelius (M.) Rufus + Caesar, Julius + alleged proposal of, to remove the capital + extends one of the Basilicae, + reduces + corn gratuities; + regulations of, for the government of the city; + debts of; + character of; + as historian; + joined by Caelius; + restores credit in Italy; + and Cleopatra; + clemency of; + sale of prisoners by; + dismisses surrendered armies; + foundation at Corinth by; + entertained by Cicero; + habits of; + as aedile; + summons Publilius to Rome; + as Pontifex Maximus; + speech of, in Sallust; + consents to be deified; + and _passim_ + _Calceus_ + _Caldarium_ + Calvus + Camillus + Campagua, the + Campania + Campus Martius + Caninius + Capena, Porta. _See_ Porta Capena + Capital at Rome + Capitol, the + Capitoline hill + Capua + _Carceres_, the + Carinae, the + Carmentalis, Porta. _See_ Porta Carmentalis + _Castella_ + Castor, temple of + Catiline + Cato major + Cato minor + Catullus + Catulus the elder + _Cena_ + Censor, the + _Censoria locatio_ + Ceres + Ceriales, Ludi. _See_ Ludi Ceriales + Cethegus + Chariot-racing + Chrysippus + Cicero, birthplace of; + house of; + borrows money; + as a man of business; + and the publicani; + relation of, to the governing aristocracy; + letters of; + as a philosopher; + and Clodia; + views on education; + influence of philosophers upon; + and the slave question; + and the use of slaves for seditious purposes; + villas of; + undertakes the Ludi Romani; + religious views of; + and _passim_ + Cicero, Marcus + Cicero, Quintus + Cilician pirates + Circus Flaminius + Circus Maximus + Cleopatra + Clients + Clivus Capitolinus + Clivus sacer + Cloaca maxima + Clodia + Clodius + Cluvius + _Coemptio_ + _Coenaculum_ + Coinage + _Collegia_ + Colline gate, Sulla's victory at the, + Colosseum, the + Columella + Comedy + _Comissatio_ + Comitium, the + _Commercii, ius_ + _Compluvium_ + Concordia, temple of + _Conducticii_ + _Confarreatio_ + _Coniugalia praecepta_ (Plutarch's) + _Connubii, ius_ + Constantine, arch of + Consul, the + Consus, altar of + _Contubernium_ + _Convivium_ + _Copa_ ("Virgil's") + Corfinium + Cornelia + Cornelius + Crassus + Cumae, Cicero's villa at + Curia, the + Curio + + Debtors + _Declamatio_ + _Deductio_ + Democritus + _Deorum, De Natura_ (Cicero's) + Diana, temple of + _Die natali, De_ (Censorinus's) + _Diffarreatio_ + Diomedes, villa of + Dionysius of Halicarnassus + Dionysus, worship of + Di Penates. _See_ Penates + Diphilus, the actor + Divorce + _Dolia_ + _Domus_ + _Dos_ + Drama, the + Dyrrhachium, importation of corn + into; battle of + + Egypt + Emetics, use of + Ennius + Epicureanism + Epicurus + _Epulum Jovis_ + Equester, Ordo. _See_ Ordo equester + Equirria + Equites. _See_ Ordo equester + _Ergastula_ + Esquiline hill + Etruscans, the + Evander + _Exedra_ + + Fabius, arch of + _Fabri ferrarii_ + _Fabulae Atellanae_; palliatae; + _togatae_ + _Familiae urbanae_ + Fate + _Fercula_ + _Feriae_ + _Festa_ + _Figuli_ + Figulus, Nigidius + Flaccus, Verrius + Flamen Dialis; + Quirinalis + Flaminius + _Flammeum_ + Florales, Ludi. _See_ Ludi Florales + _Foeneratores_ + _Foenus_ + Formiae, Cicero's villa at + Forum Boarium + Forum Romanum + Friedländer + Frontinus + _Fullones_ + Funeral games + Furrina, the grove of + + Gabinius + Gellius, Aulus + Genseric + Gilds. _See_ Collegia + Gladiators + Gracchus, Gaius + Gracchus, Tiberius + _Grammaticus_ + _Grassatores_ + Greeks + + Hannibal + Hercules + Hirtius + _Honorum, ius_ + Horace + Hortensius + Horti Caesaris + + _Ientaculum_ + _Impluvium_ + _Institutio Oratoris_ (Quintilian's) + _Insulae_ + _Inventione, De_ (Cicero's) + Isis, worship of + _Iura_ + _Ius civile_ + _Ius divinum_ + _Ius gentium_ + + Janiculum, the + Janus, "temple" of + Julius Obsequens + Juno, temple of + Jupiter + Jupiter Farreus; Julius; + Optimus Maximus, temple of; + Stator, temple of + Juturna, spring of + + "King," game of + + Laberius + Lar + Lares, shrine of + _Latifundium_ + Latina, Via. _See_ Via Latina + Latins, the + Latium + Law-courts, the + _Lectisternia_ + _Lectus_; _consularis_ + _genialis_ + _Legibus, De_ (Cicero's) + Lentulus + Lepidus + Liberalia, the + _Libertinus_ + Libertus + Liternum, Scipio's villa at + Livius Andronicus + Livy + Lucretius + Lucretius Vespillo, Q. + Lueullus + Ludi, Apollinares; Ceriales; + Florales; + Magni, _see_ Romani; Megalenses; + Novemdiales; Plebeii; + Romani; + Victoriae + Ludus Trojae + Lupercal, the + Lupercalia, the + + _Magister_ + Magna Mater + _Mancipes_ + _Manes_ + _Mangones_ + _Manus_ + Marcius Rex, Q. + Marius + Mars; temple of + Martial + _Matrimonium, iustum_ + Megaleuses, Ludi. See Ludi Megalenses + _Mensa_ + _Mensae_; _rationes_ + _Meridiatio_ + _Metae_, the + Metellus Celer + Metellus Macedonicus + Milo + Mimes + Minerva, temple of + _Missio in bona_ + _Missus_ + Molo + Mommsen + Money-lenders + _Moretum_ ("Virgil's") + _Mos majorum_ + _Muliones_ + _Munera_ + + _Nefas_ + _Negotiatores_ + _Negotium_ + Nepos, Cornelius + Neptunalia, the + Nicomedes, king of Bithynia + Novemdiales, Ludi. _See_ Ludi Novemdiales + _Novas homo_ + Numa + _Nummularii_ + + _Obaerati_ + _Oecus_ + _Officiis, De_ (Cicero's) + _Operarii_ + _Opifices_ + Oppia, lex + Oppius Mons + _Oratore, De_ (Cicero's) + Ordo equester; + senatorius + Oseans, the + Ostia + Ovid + + Pacuvius + Palatine hill + _Palliatae, fabulae_. See _Fabulae + palliatae_ + Panaetius + _Pantomimus_ + _Participes_ + _Patronus_ + Paullus, L. Aemilius + _Paupereuli_ + _Peculium_ + Penates, the; + temple of the + Pergamum + _Peristylium_ + _Permutatio_ + _Pero_ + _Perscriptio_ + _Persona_ + Phaedrus the Epicurean + Philippi, battle of + Philippus (tribune) + Philo the Academician + Philodemus + _Pietas_ + Piso, Calpurnius + _Pistores_ + Plaetoria, lex + Plautus + Plebeii, Ludi. _See_ Ludi Plebeii + Pliny, the elder; the younger + Plutarch + Pollio, Asinius + Polybius + Pomerium + Pompeii + Pompeius + house of + theatre of + Pomponia + Pons Aemilius + Ponte Rotto + Pontifex Maximus + Porta Capena + Carmentalis + Esquilina + Portunus + Posidonius + Praecia + _Praedes_ + _Praediola_ + Praetor, the + _Prandium_ + Priesthoods + _Promagister_ + _Pronuba_ + Provinces, the + _Provocations_, _ius_ + Ptolemy Auletes + _Publicani_ + _Publicum_ + Publilius Syrus + Punic wars + Puteoli, Cicero's villa at + _Puticulus_ + Pythagoreanism + + _Quaestiones Conviviales (Plutarch's)_ + Quaestorship, the + Quintilian + Quirinal (hill) + Quirinus + + Rabirius Postumus + _Redemptor_ + Regia, the + _Religio_ + Religion + _Repetundis, quaestio de_ + _Republica, De_ (Cicero's) + _Res_, _mancipi_ + _Rex, the_ + _Rex sacrorum_ + _Rhetorica ad Herennium_ + Romulus + Roscius, the actor + Rostra, the + Rutilius + + Sabines, the + _Saccarii_ + _Sacra_, + _privata_; + _publica_; + via, _see_ Via Sacra + St. Peter, church of + Salaminians, the + Sallust + Samnium + San Gregorio, via di + Sarpedon + Sassia + Saturnalia, the + _Saturninus_ + Saturnus, temple of + Scaevola, Mucius + Scaurus + Scipio Aemilianus, + Asiaticus, + Nasica, + Sempionia + Senate, the + Senatorius, ordo. _See_ Ordo senatorius + Senec, + "Servian wall" + Servilius + Sibylline books, the + Slaves + _Societates publicanorum_ + _Socii_ + _Sodalicia, collegia_. See _Collegia_ + _Soleae_ + _Somnium Scipionis_ (Cicero's) + Spanish silver mines + Spartacus + _Spina_ + _Sponsalia_ + _Sportula_ + Stoics, the + _Stola matronalis_ + Strabo + Subura, the + _Suffragii, ius_ + Sulla + Sulla, P. + Sulpicius (S.), Rufus + Sun-dials + _Supplicationes_ + _Synthesis_ + + _Tabellarii + Tabernae + Tabernae argentariae + Tablinum + Tabulae + Tabulae novae_ + Tabularia, the + _Tepidarium_ + Terence + Terentia + Theatre, the + Theatre, building of a + Thurii + Tiber + Tiber island + _Tibicines_ + Tibur + Time, divisions of, in the day + Tiro (Cicero's slave) + _Tirocinium fori_ + Titus, arch of + _Toga_; _libera_; _praetexta_; _virilis_ + _Togatae, fabulae_. See _Fabulae togatae_ + Tragedy + _Tributum_ + _Triclinia_ + Triumph, a + Trofei di Mario + Tullia (Cicero's daughter) + Tullianum, the + _Tunica_ + Turia, the story of + Tusculum, Cicero's villa at + _Tutela_ + _Tutor_ + Twelve Tables, the + + _Usus_ + + Valerius Maximus + Varro + Varro, Terentius (consul) + Veii + Velabrum, the + Velia, the + _Venationes_ + Venus Victrix, temple of + Verres + Vesta; temple of + Vestal Virgins + Veterans, Roman + Via Aurelia; Appia; Collatina; Latina; Sacra + Victoriae, Ludi. See Ludi Victoriae + Vicus Tuscus + _Vilicus_ + _Villa pseudurbana_ + Vinalia, the + _Vindicta_ + Virgil + Voconia, lex + + Water-clocks, introduction of + + + + +THE END + + + + +APPENDIX + + +Page 1, l. 12. _totam aestimare Romam_: to appreciate Rome in its +entirety. + +Page 3, l. 12. _Hinc ad Tarpeiam_, etc.: he leads him next to the +Tarpeian Rock and to the Capitol, now of gold, once thick with wild +bushes. + +Page 4, l. 24. _Hinc septem_, etc.: from here you may see the seven +hills of the sovereign city, and appreciate Rome as a whole, the Alban +and the Tusculan hills, and all the cool suburban retreats. + +Page 10, l. 1. _rerum_, etc. Rome became a supreme thing of beauty. + +Page 10, l. 13. _nativa praesidia_: natural defences. + +Page 10, l. 21. _regionum_, etc. A site in the middle of Italy, +singularly fitted by nature for the development of the city. + +Page 17, l. 2. _nec ferrea_, etc.: nor has he seen the hardships of +the law, the mad forum, or the archives of the people. + +Page 22, l. 2. _Ille, ille_, etc.: he it was, Jupiter himself, who +withstood the attack, he who willed it that the Capitol, that these +temples, that the whole city and you all should be safe. + +Page 29, footnote 1. _in montibus_, etc.: built between mountains and +valleys, raised and almost suspended on high, through the stones of +its buildings, with its back streets. + +Page 39, l. 6. _ubi semel_, etc.: he who has once strayed from the +right path will come to calamity. + +Page 52, l. 11. _lanificium_: the working of wool. + +Page 55, l. 26. _graffiti_: ancient scribblings, scratched, painted, +or otherwise marked on a wall, column, tablet, or other surface. + +Page 61, l. 4. _quaestio de repetundis_: court for extortion. + +Page 64, l. 15. _familiarem_, etc.: intimate with L. Lucullus, +wealthy, of intractable character. + +Page 73, l. 14. _qui de censoribus_, etc.: whosoever shall have +secured a contract from the censors shall not be accepted as associate +or shareholder. + +Page 73, footnote 2. _Asiatici_, etc.: of the public revenue of Asia, +he had a very small share. + +Page 91, l. 3. _fortissimus_, etc.: a most powerful and important +farmer of the public revenue. + +Page 93, l. 20. _insanum forum_: the forum in its maddening bustle. + +Page 116, l. 12. _doctissimus_, etc.: the most learned of that time. + +Page 121, l. 11. _monumentum_, etc.: a monument more enduring than +bronze. + +Page 123, l. 20. _vere humanus:_ truly refined. + +Page 127, l. 23. _omnia_, etc.: he transforms himself into all +portentous shapes. + +Page 130, l. 20. _ménager ses transitions:_ to pass gradually over to +the other side. + +Page 132, l. 18. _de vi:_ of criminal violence. + +Page 133, l. 9. _Uni se_, etc.: they are addicted to one and the same +practice, that they may cautiously cheat and craftily contend, outdo +each other in blandishments, feign honesty, set snares as if they were +all enemies to each other. + +Page 133, l. 28. _rari nantes_, etc.: few and scattered swimmers in +the vast abyss. + +Page 142 (bottom). _Claudite_, etc.: close the doors, maidens, enough +have we sung. And you, noble couple, live happily and apply your +vigorous youth to the assiduous task of wedlock. + +Page 149, footnote 2. _Si quid_, etc.: if a woman act reprehensibly or +disgracefully, he punishes her; if she has drunk wine, if she has done +something wrong with a stranger, he condemns her. If you surprise your +wife in the act of adultery, you may with impunity kill her without +any form of judgment; but if she caught you in adultery, she would not +dare touch you, for she has no right. + +Page 150, l. 11. _liberorum_, etc.: in order to have children. + +Page 155, l. 22. _Odi_, etc.: I hate and I love. You ask perhaps how +that can be. I do not know, I feel it, and am distressed. + +Page 155 (bottom). _Elle apportait_, etc.: she revealed in her private +behavior, in her affections, the same vehemence and the same passion +which her brother showed in public life. Ready for all excesses, and +not blushing to confess them, loving and hating with fury, incapable +of controlling herself, and opposed to all constraint, she did not +belie the great and haughty family from which she was sprung. + +Page 178,1. 3. _rusticorum_, etc.: + + The farmer-soldier's manly brood + Was trained to delve the Sabine sod, + And at an austere mother's nod + To hew and fetch the fagot wood. + +Page 178, l. 20. _Maxima_, etc.: the greatest concern must be shown +for children. + +Page 185, l. 8. _Avarus_, etc.: + + The covetous is the cause of his own misery. + Bravery is increased by daring and fear by hesitation. + You can more easily discover fortune than cling to it. + The wrath of the just is to be dreaded. + A man dies every time that he is bereft of his kin. + Man is loaned, not given to life. + The best strife is rivalry in benignity. + Nothing is pleasing unless renewed by variety. + Bad is the plan which cannot be altered. + Less often would you err if you knew how much you don't know. + He who shows clemency always comes out victorious. + He who respects his oath succeeds in everything. + Where old age is at fault youth is badly trained. + +Page 187, l. 7. _Grais_, etc.: the muse gave genius to the Greeks and +the pride of language, covetous of nothing but of praise. But the +Roman youths by long reckonings learn to split the coin into a hundred +parts. Let young Albinus say: "If you take one away from five pence, +what results?" "A groat." Good, you'll thrive. + +Page 189, l. 1. In _grammaticis_, etc.: in the study of literature, +the perusal of the poets, the knowledge of history, the interpretation +of words, the peculiar tone of pronunciation. + +Page 191, l. 9. _Orator est_, etc.: an orator, my son, is an upright +man skilled in speaking. + +Page 191, l. 11. _Rem tene_, etc.: master the subject; the words will +follow. + +Page 196, l. 9. _vir bonus_, etc.: see page 191, l. 9. + +Page 196, l. 13. _Non enim_, etc.: eloquence and oratorical aptness +obtain good results if they be swayed by a right understanding and by +the discretion and control of the mind. + +Page 210, footnote 1. _Mancipiis_, etc.: avoid being like the +Cappadocian monarch, rich in slaves and penniless in purse. + +Page 211, footnote 1. _pone aedem_, etc.: behind the temple of Castor +are those to whom you'd be sorry to lend money. + +Page 215, l. 18. _An te ibi_, etc.: would you stay there among those +harlots, prostitutes of bakers, leavings of the breadmakers, smeared +with rank cosmetics, nasty devotees of slaves? + +Page 216, footnote 2. _agrum_, etc.: in cultivating the fields or in +hunting, servile occupations, etc. + +Page 233, l. 5. _Nec turpe_, etc.: what a master commands cannot be +disgraceful. + +Page 233, footnote 3. _Coli rura_, etc.: it is a bad practice to fill +the fields with men from the workhouse, or to have anything done by +men who are forsaken by hope. + +Page 235, footnote 2. _Regum_, etc.: we have taken the tyrant's +temper. + +Page 239, l. 10. _ante focos_, etc.: it was customary once to take +places in the long benches before the fireplace, and to trust that the +gods were present at our table. + +Page 246, l. 5. _nunc vero_, etc.: but now from morning till evening, +on holidays and working days, the whole people, senators and +commoners, busy themselves in the forum and retire nowhere, etc. (See +page 133, l. 9, and translation of that passage.) + +Page 246, footnote 2. _Urbem_, etc.: remain in the city, Rufus; stay +there and live in that light. All foreign travel is humble and lowly +for those that can work for the greatness of Rome. + +Page 247, footnote 1. _Frequens_, etc.: constant change of abode is a +sign of unstable mind. + +Page 248, l. 12. _contentio_, etc.: not a straining of the mind, but a +relaxation. + +Page 259, l. 12. _locus_, etc.: a pleasant site, on the sea itself, +and can be seen from Antium and Circeii. + +Page 265, footnote 3. _Ut illum_, etc.: may the gods confound him who +first invented the hours, and who first placed a sundial in this city. +Pity on me! They have cut up my day in compartments. Once when I was +a boy my stomach was my clock, and it was much more fitting and +reliable; it never failed to warn me except when there was nothing; +now, even when there is something, there is no eating unless it so +please the sun. For the whole city is full of sun-dials, and most of +the people crawl on in need of food and drink. + +Page 269, footnote 1. _Romae_, etc.: in Rome it was for a long time a +joy and a pride to open up the house at early morning and attend to +the legal needs of the clients. + +Page 275, l. 20. _Nesciit vivere_: he did not know how to live. + +Page 277, l. 10. _ad noctem_: late into the night. + +Page 280, l. 17. _Saepe tribus_, etc.: often you would see three +couches with four guests apiece. + +Page 283, l. 21. [Greek: Emetikhaeu], etc.: he was under the +emetic cure, and consequently ate and drank freely and with much +satisfaction; and everything certainly was good and well served; nay +more, I may say that + + "Though the cook was good, + 'Twas Attic salt that flavored best the food." + +Page 283, footnote 1. _qua lege_, etc.: which law did not determine +the expense, but the kind of victuals and the manner of cooking them. + +Page 285, l. 11. _Agricolo_, etc.: the farmer is the first who after +a long day of toil in the fields adapted rustic songs to the laws of +metre; the first in satisfied leisure to modulate a song on his reed, +which he would say before the gods decked with flowers. It was the +farmer, O Bacchus, who with his face colored with reddish minium, +taught his untrained feet the first movements of the dance. + +Page 287, l. 13. _Quippe etiam_, etc.: for even on holy days, divine +and human laws allow us to perform certain works. No religion has +forbidden to clear the channels, to raise a fence before the corn, to +lay snares for birds, to fire the thorns, and plunge in the wholesome +river a flock of bleating sheep. + +Page 303, l. 2. _lex de ambitu_: law concerning the courting of +popular favor in canvassing. + +Page 307, l. 4. _Eandem_, etc.: a time will come when you will bewail +that valor of yours. + +Page 309, l. 7. _Spectatum_, etc.: they come to see, but they come +also to be seen. + +Page 313, l. 27. _summuts artifex_: consummate artist. + +Page 314, l. 3. _gravis_: serious. + +Page 314, l. 4. _gravitas_: seriousness. + +Page 315, l. 14. _Fescennina_, etc.: the rude Fescennine farce grew +from rites like these, where rustic taunts were hurled in alternate +verse; and the pleasing license, tolerated from year to year, +gambolled, etc. + +Page 317, l. 18. _Nihil mihi_, etc.: know well that I lacked nothing +except company with whom to laugh in a friendly way and intelligently +over these things. + +Page 324, l. 28. _mos maiorum_: the customs of our ancestors. + +Page 327, l. 12. _Felix_, etc.: blessed is he who succeeded in knowing +the causes of events. + +Page 327, l. 16. _Fortunatus_, etc.: fortunate he also who knows the +rustic gods. + +Page 333, l. 6. _lectisternia_: a feast of the gods during which their +images on pillars were placed in the streets. + +Page 333, l. 6. _supplicationes_: religious solemnities for +supplication. + +Page 333, l. 6. _ludi_: games. + +Page 339, l. 23. _numen_: godhead, deity. + +Page 340, footnote 3. _idem etiam_, etc.: he says also that Jupiter is +the power of this law, eternal and immutable, which is the guide, so +to speak, of our life and the principle of our duties; a law which he +calls a fatal necessity, an eternal truth of future things. + +Page 341, l. 15. _qua_: as. + +Page 341, l. 26. _O qui res_, etc.: thou who rulest with eternal sway +the doings of men and gods. + +Page 342, l. 1. _Olli_, etc.: the sire of men and gods, smiling to +her with that aspect wherewith he clears the tempestuous sky, gently +kissed his daughter's lips; then thus replies: Cytherea, cease from +fear; immovable to thee remain the fates of thy people. + +Page 351, l. 13. _Iuppiter_, etc.: Jove reserved these shores for the +just, when he alloyed the golden age with brass; with brass, then with +iron he hardened the ages, from which there shall be a happy escape +according to my predictions. + + + + +FOOTNOTES: + + +[Footnote 1: Martial iv. 64. 12.] + +[Footnote 2: _Aen_. viii. 90. foll. The Capitoline hill, which Virgil +means by "arx" a conspicuous object from the river just below the +Aventine, and would have been much more conspicuous in the poet's +time. There is a view of it from this point in Burn's _Rome and the +Campagna_, p. 184.] + +[Footnote 3: Plutarch, _Cato minor_ 39. Cato was expected to land +at the commercial docks _below_ the Aventine (see below), where the +senate and magistrates were awaiting him, but with his usual rudeness +rowed past them to the navalia.] + +[Footnote 4: _Aen._ viii. 363. Possibly Virgil meant to put this +dwelling on the site of the future Regia, just below the Palatine and +between it and the Forum. See Servius _ad loc._] + +[Footnote 5: The modern visitor would cross by the Ponte Rotto, which +is in the same position as the ancient bridge, just below the Tiber +island.] + +[Footnote 6: Livy v. 54.] + +[Footnote 7: The Fratres Arvales.] + +[Footnote 8: For navigation of the river above Rome see Strabo p. +235.] + +[Footnote 9: Horace _Od_. i. 2. After a bad flood in A.D. 15 proposals +were made for diverting a part of the water coming down the Tiber into +the Arnus, but this met with fatal opposition from the superstition +of the country people (Tacitus, _Ann_. i. 79). Nissen, _Italische +Landeskunde_, i. p. 324, has collected the records of these floods.] + +[Footnote 10: See Nissen, i. p. 407. But it seems likely that the +Tiber valley was less malarious then than now (see Nissen's chapter on +malaria in Italy, p. 410 foll.). In an interesting paper on _Malaria +and History_, by Mr. W.H.S. Jones (Liverpool University Press), which +reached me after this chapter was written, the author is inclined to +attribute the ethical and physical degeneracy of the Romans of the +Empire partly to this cause.] + +[Footnote 11: Livy v. 54.] + +[Footnote 12: Horace, _Epode_ 16.] + +[Footnote 13: _Reden und Aufsätze_, p. 173 foll.] + +[Footnote 14: _Ib._ p. 175.] + +[Footnote 15: _De Rep_. ii. 5 and 6.] + +[Footnote 16: Beloch, _Die Bewölkerung der griechisch-römischen Welt_, +cap. 9, approaching the problem by three several methods, puts it in +the first century A.D. at 800,000, including slaves. In Cicero's time +it was, no doubt, considerably less; but we know that in his last +years 320,000 free persons were receiving doles of corn, apart from +slaves and the well-to-do.] + +[Footnote 17: Hülsen-Jordan, _Röm. Topographie_, vol. i. part iii. pp. +627, 638.] + +[Footnote 18: _Ib_. 643; Cic. _ad Att_. xv. 15. Here, after the death +of his daughter Tullia, Cicero wished to buy land on which to erect +a fanum to her (Cic. _ad Att_. xii. 19). Here also were the horti +Caesaris.] + +[Footnote 19: Livy xxxv. 40.] + +[Footnote 20: Hülsen-Jordan, _op. cit_. p. 143 note.] + +[Footnote 21: See below, p. 302. Dionysius of Halicarnassus (iii. 68) +gives an elaborate account of it in the time of Augustus, when it had +been altered and ornamented.--Hülsen-Jordan, p. 120 foll.] + +[Footnote 22: Fowler, _Roman Festivals_, p. 199; Wissowa in +Pauly-Wissowa, _Real-Encyklopädie_, s.v. Diana.] + +[Footnote 23: The two roads converged just before arriving at the +city. The reader may be reminded that it was by the via Appia that St. +Paul entered Rome (Acts xxviii.). Another useful passage for this gate +is Juvenal in. 10 foll.] + +[Footnote 24: It might be useful here to follow the course of the +_pomerium_, which also went round the Palatine, as described in +Tacitus, _Annals_ xii. 24.] + +[Footnote 25: Cic. _de Officiis_ iii. 16. 66, and the story there +related.] + +[Footnote 26: Strictly speaking, the Oppius Mons, or southern part of +the Esquiline.] + +[Footnote 27: See Lanciani's admirable chapter, "A Walk through the +Sacra Via," in his _Ruins and Excavations of Ancient Rome_, p. 190 +foll.] + +[Footnote 28: _Georg_. ii. 502. Virgil, for all his admiration of +Rome, did not love its crowds.] + +[Footnote 29: Cic. _pro Plancio_, ch. 7. Cp. Horace, _Sat_. i. 9; +Lucilius, _Frag._ 9 (ed. Baehrens), which last will be quoted in +another context.] + +[Footnote 30: On the vexed question of the position of the Subura and +its history see Wissowa, _Gesammelte Abhandlungen_, p. 230 foll.] + +[Footnote 31: For excavations here see Lanciani, _op. cit_. p. 221 +foll.] + +[Footnote 32: Cic. _Cat._ iii. 9. 21 foll.] + +[Footnote 33: Formerly we may assume that it faced south or +south-east, like the temple.] + +[Footnote 34: It was completed by Caesar in 46 B.C.] + +[Footnote 35: Beloch, _Bewölkerung_ p. 382.] + +[Footnote 36: C.I.L. i. 206, and Dessau, _Inscr. Lat. Selectae_, ii. +1. p. 493.] + +[Footnote 37: Cic. _ad Q. Fratr_. iii.I. 14 Suet. _de Grammaticis_, +15; Corn. Nepos, _Atticus_, 13.] + +[Footnote 38: Hülsen-Jordan, _Röm. Topographie_, vol. i. part iii. p. +323.] + +[Footnote 39: This is the number receiving corn gratis when Julius +Caesar reformed the corn-distribution.--Suetonius, _Iul_. 41.] + +[Footnote 40: See Zeller, _Stoics_, etc., Eng. trans. p. 255 foll.] + +[Footnote 41: cic. _de Legibus_, i. 15. 43. It was not as yet possible +to be "poor, making many rich"; to have nothing and yet to possess all +things.] + +[Footnote 42: See the definition of insula in Festus. n. Ill. and +for insula generally Middleton's article "Domus" in the _Dict, of +Antiquities_, ed. 2. De Marchi (_La Religione nella vita domestica_, +i. p. 80) compares the big lodging-houses of the poor at Naples.] + +[Footnote 43: Cicero (_Leg. Agr._ ii. 35. 96) describes Rome as being +(in comparison with Capua) "in montibus positam et convallibus, +coenaculis (i.e. upper rooms) sublatum atque suspensam, non optimis +viis," etc. Vitruv. ii. 17 is the _locus classicus_.] + +[Footnote 44: Cic. _pro Caelio_ 17.] + +[Footnote 45: In _C.I.L._ vi. 65-67 we find a Bona Dea erected "in +tutelam insulae," i.e. a common cult for all the lodgers. De Marchi +_l.c._ compares the common shrine of the Neapolitan lodging-house. +Tutela is mentioned as a protecting deity both of insulae and domus by +St. Jerome, _Com. in Isaiam_, 672.] + +[Footnote 46: Cic. _de Domo_ 109.] + +[Footnote 47: Cic. _ad Att._ xv. 17; cp. xiv. 9.] + +[Footnote 48: Plut. _Crassus_ 2: perhaps from Fenestella.] + +[Footnote 49: "Dormientem in taberna," Asconius, ed. Clark, p. 37. Cp. +Tacitus, _Hist_ i. 86, for persons sleeping in tabernae.] + +[Footnote 50: Tucker, _Life in Ancient Athens_, p. 10.] + +[Footnote 51: The _Moretum_ may be a translation from a Greek poet, +perhaps Parthenius, but it is certainly as well adapted to the +experience of Italians.] + +[Footnote 52: e.g. Caesar, _Bell. Civ._ iii. 47. Cp. Tacitus, _Ann_. +xiv. 24.] + +[Footnote 53: On this point see Salvioli, _Le Capitalisme dans le +monde antique_, ch. vi. is a book with many shortcomings, but written +by an Italian who knows his own country.] + +[Footnote 54: See the author's _Roman Festivals_, p. 76 (Cerealia).] + +[Footnote 55: Marquardt, _Staatsverwaltung_, ii. pp. 107, 110 foll. A +modius, which = nearly a peck, contained about 20 lb. of wheat (Pliny, +_N.H._ xviii. 66). Four and a half modii x 20=90 lb.] + +[Footnote 56: Hirschfeld, _Verwaltungsbeamten_, ed. 2, p. 231; Strabo, +p. 652 (Rhodes).] + +[Footnote 57: Caesar, _B.C._ iii. 42. 3.] + +[Footnote 58: Marquardt, _op. cit._ p. 110.] + +[Footnote 59: For Gracchus' motives see a paper by the present writer +in the _English Historical Review_ for 1905, p. 221 foll.] + +[Footnote 60: Cic. _Tusc. Disp._ iii. 20. 48.] + +[Footnote 61: Lex Julia municipalis, 1-20, compared with Suetonius, +_Jul_. 41.] + +[Footnote 62: A good example will be found in Cic. _ad Att._ iv. 1. +6 foll.; the first letter written by Cicero after his return from +exile.] + +[Footnote 63: See my _Roman Festivals_, pp. 85 and 204.] + +[Footnote 64: Pliny, _Nat. Hist_. xviii. 17.] + +[Footnote 65: Suet. _Aug_. 42.] + +[Footnote 66: Frontinus i. 4. The date of his work is towards the end +of the first century A.D.] + +[Footnote 67: See Lanciani, _Ruins and Excavations_, p. 48; Mommsen, +_Hist_. vol. i. Appendix.] + +[Footnote 68: Frontinus i. 7, whose account is confirmed by the +recently discovered Epitomes of Livy's lost books.--Grenfell and Hunt, +_Oxyrhynchus Papyri_, iv. 113.] + +[Footnote 69: See the useful table in Lanciani, _op. cit._ 58.] + +[Footnote 70: This dates from the reign of Domitian. The nature of the +public fountain may be realised at Pompeii. See Mau, _Pompeii, its +Life and Art_, p. 224 foll.] + +[Footnote 71: Cic. _de Officiis_, i. 42. 150.] + +[Footnote 72: Livy xxii. 25 _ad fin_.] + +[Footnote 73: It is very conspicuous, e.g., in the novels of Jane +Austen.] + +[Footnote 74: G. Unwin, _Industrial Organisation_, etc., p. 2.] + +[Footnote 75: Plutarch, _Numa_, 17; Ovid, _Fasti_, iii. 310 foll.] + +[Footnote 76: J.B. Carter, _The Religion of Numa_, p. 48.] + +[Footnote 77: Marq. iii. p. 138. See also Kornemann's article +"Collegium" in Pauly-Wissowa, _Real-Encykl._, and Waltzing, +_Corporations professionelles chez les Romains_, i. p. 78 foll.] + +[Footnote 78: _Le Capitalisme_, etc., p. 144 foll.] + +[Footnote 79: Cairnes, _Slave Power_, pp. 78, 143 foll. See below, p. +235.] + +[Footnote 80: Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ xviii. 107.] + +[Footnote 81: _C.I.L._ i. 1013. The date is possibly pre-Augustan.] + +[Footnote 82: Mau's _Pompeii_, p. 380.] + +[Footnote 83: See my _Roman Festivals_, p. 148. For the mills of +various kinds see also Marquardt, _Privatleben_, p. 405.] + +[Footnote 84: _Privatleben_, p. 409.] + +[Footnote 85: _Pseudolus_, 810 foll.] + +[Footnote 86: Cp. the uncta popina of Horace, _Epist_. i. 14. 21 foll. +Scene in a wineshop at Pompeii, Mau, p. 395.] + +[Footnote 87: See, e.g., the Laudatio Turiae, _C.I.L._ vi. i. 1527, +line 30.] + +[Footnote 88: Only very rich families employed their own +fullers.--Marq. _Privatleben_, p. 512.] + +[Footnote 89: _Menaechmi_, 404: this may, however, be only a +translation from the Greek.] + +[Footnote 90: _C.I.L._ i. p. 389.] + +[Footnote 91: Marquardt, _Privatleben_, p. 693 and reff.] + +[Footnote 92: Cato, _de re rustica_, 135; a very interesting chapter, +which shows that of the farmer's "plant," clothing, rugs, carts as +well as dolia, were best purchased at Rome.] + +[Footnote 93: Marq. _Privatleben_, p. 645.] + +[Footnote 94: Strabo, p. 231.] + +[Footnote 95: Lex Julia Municipalis, line 56 foll.] + +[Footnote 96: Mau, _Pompeii_, p. 377.] + +[Footnote 97: See Greenidge, _Roman Public Life_, p. 225.] + +[Footnote 98: Lex Claudia; Livy xxi. 63.] + +[Footnote 99: Plut. _Crassus_, 2; Pliny, _N.H._ xxxiii. 134: +equivalent to about £160,000.] + +[Footnote 100: Cic. _ad Att_. ii. 1. 2.] + +[Footnote 101: _Ib._ iv. 4.] + +[Footnote 102: Corn. Nepos, _Atticus_, 5.] + +[Footnote 103: Livy ixiii. 49.] + +[Footnote 104: Pliny, _N.H._ xxxiii. 148; Livy xxxvii. 59.] + +[Footnote 105: Polyb. xxxiv. 9, quoted by Strabo, p. 148. Cp. Livy +xlv. 18 for valuable mines in Macedonia.] + +[Footnote 106: Polyb. xviii. 35, For the unwillingness to serve, Livy, +Epit. 48 and 55.] + +[Footnote 107: Cunningham, _Western Civilisation (Modern)_, p. 162 +foll.] + +[Footnote 108: Duruy, _Hist. de Rome_, vol. ii. p. 12.] + +[Footnote 109: Cic. _de Provinciis consularibus_, v. 12.] + +[Footnote 110: Cic. _pro Quinctio_ 3. 12; a good case of partnership +in a res pecuaria et rustica in Gaul.] + +[Footnote 111: Examples in Livy xxiii. 49; xxxii. 7 (portoria); +xxxviii. 35 (corn-supply); xliv. 16 (army); xlii. 9 (revenue of ager +Campanus).] + +[Footnote 112: Festus, ed. Müller, p. 151.] + +[Footnote 113: e.g. Livy xxii. 60 praedibus et praediis cavere +populo.] + +[Footnote 114: Cicero, in his defence of Rabirius Postumus, 2.4, says +that Rabirius' father magnas _partes_ habuit publicorum. One Aufidius +(Val. Max. vi. 9. 7) "Asiatici publici exiguam admodum _particulam_ +habuit." Cp. Cic _in Vat._ 12. 29] + +[Footnote 115: This is the view of Deloume, _Les Manieurs d'argent à +Rome_, p. 119 foll.] + +[Footnote 116: Marq. _Staatsverwaltung_, ii. p.291] + +[Footnote 117: Deloume, _Manieurs d'argent_, p. 317 foll.] + +[Footnote 118: _pro lege Manilia_, 7. 18.] + +[Footnote 119: _Ib._ 7. 19.] + +[Footnote 120: _ad Att._ i. 17. 9. Crassus, no doubt a large +shareholder, urged them on.] + +[Footnote 121: In a letter to his brother, then governor of this +province, Cicero contemplates the possibility of contracts being taken +at a loss (_ad Q.F._ i. 1. 33), "publicis male redemptis." And in a +letter of introduction in 46, he alludes to heavy losses suffered in +this way, _ad Fam._ xiii. 10.] + +[Footnote 122: _ad Att._ v. 16. 2.] + +[Footnote 123: _Ib._ vi. 1. 16.] + +[Footnote 124: _ad Familiares_, xiii. 65.] + +[Footnote 125: _Ib._ xiii. 9. I have not adhered quite closely to his +translation.] + +[Footnote 126: "Qui est in operis ejus societatis," i.e. engaged as a +subordinate agent.--Marquardt, _Staatsverwaltung_, ii. p. 291.] + +[Footnote 127: Marq. ii. p. 35 foll.] + +[Footnote 128: See his article in _Dict. of Antiq._ ed. 2, s.v. +argentarii.] + +[Footnote 129: Augustus' grandfather was an argentarius (Suet. _Aug._ +2), yet his son could marry a Julia, and be elected to the consulship, +which, however, he was prevented by death from filling.] + +[Footnote 130: The word for this cheque is _perscriptio_. Cp. Cic. _ad +Att_. ix. 12. 3 viri boni usuras perscribunt, i.e. draw the interest +on their deposits.] + +[Footnote 131: Cic. _ad Att_. xii. 24 and 27.] + +[Footnote 132: Cic. _ad Fam_. xvi. 4 and 9] + +[Footnote 133: Cic. _ad Att_. xiii. contains many letters of interest +in this connexion.] + +[Footnote 134: Cic. _ad Att._ xiii. 2. 3. Cp. xii. 25. In xii. 12 +Cicero's divorced wife Terentia wishes to pay a debt by transferring +to her creditor a debt of Cicero's to herself. Another way in +which actual payment could be avoided was by paying interest on +purchase-money instead of the lump sum. Cp. xii. 22.] + +[Footnote 135: A good example of this in Velleius ii. 10 +(house-rent).] + +[Footnote 136: Cic. _de Officiis_, ii. 24, 84.] + +[Footnote 137: Caesar, _de Bell. Civ._ iii. 1 and 20 foll.] + +[Footnote 138: Deloume in his _Manieurs d'argent_ has a chapter on +this (p. 58 foll.), but his details are not wholly to be relied +on. Boissier's sketch in _Cicéron et ses amis_, 83 foll., is quite +accurate.] + +[Footnote 139: _ad Fam_. v. 20 fin.] + +[Footnote 140: _Ib_. v. 9.] + +[Footnote 141: Deloume's attempt to prove that Cicero speculated with +enormous profits seems to me to miss the mark.] + +[Footnote 142: _ad Q. Fratr._ ii. 4. 3. Cp. _ad Att._ iv. 2.] + +[Footnote 143: _ad Q. Fratr._ ii. 14. 3.] + +[Footnote 144: _ad Att._ xii. 22. I may add in a footnote a final +startling example of recklessness we have been noting. Decimus Brutus +had, in March 44 B.C., a capital of £320,000, yet next year he writes +to Cicero that so far from any part of his private property being +unencumbered, he had encumbered all his friends with debt also (_ad +Fam._ xi. 10. 5). But this was in order to maintain troops.] + +[Footnote 145: _ad Att._ xiii. 42. Cp. xvi. 5.] + +[Footnote 146: What the king really wanted the money for, was to bribe +the senate to restore him.--Cic. _ad Fam._ i. 1.] + +[Footnote 147: Cic. _pro Bab. Post_. 8. 22.] + +[Footnote 148: Varro, _R.R._ i. 2. Ferrero (_Greatness and Decline of +Rome_) has the merit of having discerned the signs of the regeneration +of Italian agriculture at this time, but he is apt to push his +conclusions further than the evidence warrants. See the translation of +his work by A.E. Zimmern, i. p. 124; ii. p. 131 foll. The statement of +Pliny quoted by him (xv. 1. 3) that oil was first exported from Italy +in the year 52 B.C., is, however, of the utmost importance.] + +[Footnote 149: The Republic was not to last long; but among the +consuls of the last years of its existence were several members of the +old families.] + +[Footnote 150: _ad Fam_. xv. 12. This rather stilted letter is nearly +identical with one to the other consul-designate, another aristocrat, +Claudius Marcellus. Cicero is in each case trying to do his own +business, while writing to a man of higher social rank than his own.] + +[Footnote 151: The letters of the years 58 to 54 are full of bitter +allusions to the _invidia_ of these men, which culminate in the long +and windy one to Lentulus Spinther of October 54, where he actually +accuses them of taking up Clodius in order to spite him. In a +confidential note to Atticus in the spring of 56, he told him that +they hated him for buying the Tusculan villa of the great noble +Catulus.--_ad Fam._ i. 9; _ad Att_. iv. 5.] + +[Footnote 152: Plutarch, _Cato major_ 2 and 12.] + +[Footnote 153: Corn. Nepos, _Cato_ 1. 4, who remarks that Cato's +return from his quaestorship in Sardinia with Ennius in his train was +as good as a splendid triumph.] + +[Footnote 154: Plut. _Aem. Paul. 6 ad fin._] + +[Footnote 155: Polybius, xxxii. 9-16.] + +[Footnote 156: The difference between him and his father, especially +in politics, is sketched in Plutarch's _Life_ of the latter, ch. +xxxviii.] + +[Footnote 157: Leo, in _Die griechische und lateinische Literatur_, p. +337.] + +[Footnote 158: The best specimens, or rather the worst, are to be +found in the speeches _in Pisonem, in Vatinium_, and in the _Second +Philippic_.] + +[Footnote 159: The most instructive passage on vituperatio is Cicero's +defence of Caelius, ch. 3. Cp. Quintilian iii. 7. 1 and 19. On the +custom at triumphs, etc., see Munro's _Elucidations of Catullus_, p. +75 foll. for most valuable remarks.] + +[Footnote 160: We have courteous letters from Cicero both to Piso and +Vatinius, only a few years after he had depicted them in public as +monsters of iniquity.] + +[Footnote 161: Plut. C. Gracchus, ch. 6 _ad fin_. Cp. Livy vii. 33.] + +[Footnote 162: These characteristic figures may be most conveniently +seen in Strong's interesting volume on Roman sculpture, p. 42 foll.] + +[Footnote 163: Plut. _Cato_, ch. 1. _ad fin_. Blanditia was the word +for civility in a candidate: "opus est magnopere blanditia," says +Quintus Cicero, _de pet cons_.§ 41.] + +[Footnote 164: There is a pleasanter picture of Cato, sitting in +Lucullus' library and in his right mind, in Cic. _de Finibus_ iii. 2. +7.] + +[Footnote 165: See Leo, in work already cited, p. 338 foll.] + +[Footnote 166: For this remarkable writer, of whose work only a few +fragments survive, see Leo, _op. cit._ p. 340, and Schanz, _Gesch. der +röm. Literatur_, i. p. 278 foll.] + +[Footnote 167: Cicero, _Brutus_, 75, 262.] + +[Footnote 168: The other Caesarian writers followed him more or less +successfully; Hirtius, who wrote the eighth book of the Gallic War, +and the authors of the Alexandrian, African, and Spanish Wars (the +first possibly by Asinius Pollio).] + +[Footnote 169: Leo, _op. cit._ p. 355.] + +[Footnote 170: See below, ch. vi.] + +[Footnote 171: The passage just cited from the _de Finibus_ (iii. 27) +introduces us to the library of Lucullus at Tusculum, whither Cicero +had gone to consult books, and where he found Cato sitting surrounded +by volumes of Stoic treatises.] + +[Footnote 172: The fragments of Panaetius are collected by H.N. +Fowler, Bonn, 1885. The best account of his teaching known to me is in +Schmekel, _Philosophie der Mittleren Stoa_, p. 18 foll. But all can +read the two first books of the _de Officiis_.] + +[Footnote 173: Leo, _op. cit._ p. 360. Schmekel deals comprehensively +with Posidonius' philosophy, as reflected in Varro and Cicero, p. 85 +foll.] + +[Footnote 174: See Professor Reid's introduction to Cicero's +_Academica_, p. 17. Cicero considered Posidonius the greatest of the +Stoics.--_Ib._ p. 5.] + +[Footnote 175: Cic. _de Legibus_ i. affords many examples of this +view, which was apparently that of Posidonius, e.g. 6. 18 and 8. 25. +Cp. _de Republica_, iii. 22. 33.] + +[Footnote 176: Gaius i. i; Cic. _de Officiis_ iii. 5. 23; Mommsen, +_Staatsrecht_, iii. p. 604, based on the research of H. Nettleship in +_Journal of Philology_, vol. xiii. p. 175. See also Sohm, _Institutes +of Roman Law_, ch. ii.] + +[Footnote 177: _Brutus_ 41. 151, where he plainly ranks him above +Scaevola. The passage is a most interesting one, deserving careful +attention.] + +[Footnote 178: The _Ninth Philippic_: the passage referred to in the +text is 5. 10 foll.] + +[Footnote 179: I omit _pro Murena_, chs. vii. and xxi., for want of +space. Sulpicius was opposing Cicero in this case, and the latter's +allusions to him are useful specimens of the good breeding spoken of +above.] + +[Footnote 180: See Dio Cassius xl. 59; and Cic. _ad Fam_. iv. 1 and 3, +to Sulpicius, with allusions to his consulship.] + +[Footnote 181: _Tusc. Disp_. iv. 3. 6.] + +[Footnote 182: The speech _in Pisonem_; cp. the _de Provinciis +consularibus_, 1-6. This Piso was the father of Caesar's wife +Calpurnia, who survives in Shakespeare.] + +[Footnote 183: The difficult passage in which Cicero describes the +perversion of this character under the influence of Philodemus, has +been skilfully translated by Dr. Mahaffy in his _Greek World under +Roman Sway_, p. 126 foll.; and the reader may do well to refer to his +whole treatment of the practical result of Epicureanism.] + +[Footnote 184: This chapter is also useful as illustrating the +urbanity of manners, for Lucullus and Pompeius were political +enemies.] + +[Footnote 185: _ad Fam_. viii. 5 _fin_.; viii. 9. 2.] + +[Footnote 186: See the introduction of Asconius to Cicero _pro +Cornelio_, ed. Clark, p. 58.] + +[Footnote 187: _ad Att_. v. 21. 11, 13.] + +[Footnote 188: _ad Q. frat._ ii. 1. 1; ii. 10. 1.] + +[Footnote 189: The letters written immediately after Cicero's return +from exile are the best examples of this paralysis of business, e.g. +_ad Fam_. i. 4; _ad Q. F_. ii. 3. See a useful paper by P. Groebe in +_Klio_, vol. v. p. 229.] + +[Footnote 190: This appears from a letter of Oaelius to Cicero in +51.--_ad Fam._ viii. 8. 8.] + +[Footnote 191: Asconius _in Cornelianum_, ed. Clark, p. 59. "Ut +praetores ex edictis suis perpetuis ius dicerent."] + +[Footnote 192: All his letters are in the eighth book of those _ad +Familiares_.] + +[Footnote 193: Tacitus, _Annals_ xiii. 2: "voluptatibus concessis."] + +[Footnote 194: Quintil. iv. 2. 123.] + +[Footnote 195: Brutus 79. 273.] + +[Footnote 196: e.g. _ad Fam._ ii. 13. 3.] + +[Footnote 197: Exactly the same combination of real interest in, and +frivolous treatment of, politics is to be found in the early letters +of Horace Walpole to Sir H. Mann, especially those of the year 1742.] + +[Footnote 198: _ad Fam._ viii. 14. 3.] + +[Footnote 199: Caesar, Bell. Civ. iii. 20 foll.] + +[Footnote 200: See above, p. 86; cp. p. 58.] + +[Footnote 201: So for example Servaeus is disqualified, _ad Fam_. +viii. 4. I.] + +[Footnote 202: _Ib_. viii. 8. 2] + +[Footnote 203: _Ib_. 8. 12] + +[Footnote 204: Lucilius, _Fragm_. 9, ed. Baehrens.] + +[Footnote 205: This probably means that the deity was believed to +reside in the cake, and that the communicants not only entered into +communion with each other in eating of it, but also with him. It is +in fact exactly analogous to the sacramental ceremony of the Latin +festival, in which each city partook of the sacred victim, in that +case a white heifer. See Fowler, Roman _Festivals_, p. 96 and reff.] + +[Footnote 206: This interesting custom is recorded by Servius (ad Aen. +iv. 374). For the whole ceremony of confarreatio see De Marchi, +_La Religione nella vita domestica_, p. 155 foll.; Marquardt, +_Privatleben_, p. 32 foll. Cp. also Gaius i. 112.] + +[Footnote 207: Gaius l.c.] + +[Footnote 208: Cic. _de Off_. i. 17. 54.] + +[Footnote 209: i.e. ius commercii and ius connubii: the former +enabling a man to claim the protection of the courts in all cases +relating to property, the latter to claim the same protection in cases +of disputed inheritance.] + +[Footnote 210: i.e. ius provocationis, ius suffragii, ius honorum.] + +[Footnote 211: This is how I understand Cuq, _Institutions juridiques +des Romains_, p. 223. In the well known Laudatio Turiae we have a +curious case of a re-marriage by coemptio with manus, for a particular +purpose, connected of course with money matters. See Mommsen's +Commentary, reprinted in his _Gesammelte Schriften_, vol. i.] + +[Footnote 212: Westermarck, _History of Human Marriage_, ch. x.] + +[Footnote 213: See, however, the curious passage quoted by Gellius +(iv. 4. 2) from Serv. Sulpicius, the great jurist (above, p. 118 +foll.), on _sponsalia_ in Latium down to 89 B.C.] + +[Footnote 214: For the other details of the dress, see Marq. +_Privatleben_, p. 43.] + +[Footnote 215: Cic. _de Div._ i. 16. 28.] + +[Footnote 216: These lines suggested to Virgil the famous four at the +end of the fourth Eclogue. See _Virgil's "Messianic Eclogue_," p. 72.] + +[Footnote 217: She was addressed as _domina_, by all members of the +family. See Marquardt, _Privatleben_, p. 57 note 3. It should be noted +that she had brought a contribution to the family resources in +the form of a dowry (dos) given her by her father to maintain her +position.] + +[Footnote 218: These details are drawn chiefly from the sixth book of +Valerius Maximus, _de Pudicitia_.] + +[Footnote 219: This is proved by an allusion to Cato's speech in +support of the law, in Gellius, _Noct. Att._ vi. 13.] + +[Footnote 220: Livy xxxiv. 1 foll., where the speech of Cato is +reproduced in Livy's language and with "modern" rhetoric.] + +[Footnote 221: De Marchi, _op. cit._ p. 163; Marq. _Privatleben_, p. +87 foll. Confarreatio was only dissoluble by diffarreatio, but this +was perhaps used only for penal purposes. Other forms of marriage +did not present the same difficulty, not being of a sacramental +character.] + +[Footnote 222: Plutarch, _Aem. Paull._ 5.] + +[Footnote 223: Livy xl. 37.] + +[Footnote 224: Livy, _Epit._ 48.] + +[Footnote 225: Livy xxxix. 8-18.] + +[Footnote 226: Plutarch, _Cato the Elder_ 8.] + +[Footnote 227: Gellius (x. 23) quotes a fragment of Cato's speech de +Dotibus, in which the following sentences occur: "Si quid perverse +taetreque factum est a muliere, multitatur: si vinum bibit, si cum +alieno viro probri quid fecerit, condempnatur. In adulterio uxorem +tuam si prehendisses sine indicio impune necares: illa te, si +adulterares sive tu adulterarere, digito non auderet contingere, neque +ius est." Under such circumstances a bold woman might take her revenge +illegally.] + +[Footnote 228: Gellius i. 6; cp. Livy, Epit. 59.] + +[Footnote 229: e.g. _ad Fam._ xiv. 2.] + +[Footnote 230: The story of the relations of Cicero, Terentia, +Clodius, and Clodia, in Pint. _Cic._ 29 is too full of inaccuracies to +be depended on. In the 41st chapter what he says of the divorce and +its causes must be received with caution; it seems to come from some +record left by Tiro, Cicero's freedman and devoted friend, and as +Cicero obviously loved this man much more than his wife, we can +understand why the two should dislike each other.] + +[Footnote 231: Plutarch, _Ti. Gracch._ 1; _Gaius Gracch._ 19. The +letters of Cornelia which are extant are quite possibly genuine.] + +[Footnote 232: The recent edition of the _Ars amatoria_ by Paul Brandt +has an introduction in which these points are well expressed.] + +[Footnote 233: Catullus 72. 75.] + +[Footnote 234: _Cicéron et ses amis_, p. 175.] + +[Footnote 235: Decimus Brutus, one of the tyrannicides of March 15, +44.] + +[Footnote 236: Sall. _Cat_. 25.] + +[Footnote 237: Plut. _Lucullus_ 6.] + +[Footnote 238: Cic. _ad Fam._ viii. 7: a letter of Caelius, in which +he tells of a lady who divorced her husband without pretext on the +very day he returned from his province.] + +[Footnote 239: Plut. _Cato min._ 25 and 52. Plutarch seems to be +using here the Anti-Cato of Caesar, but the facts must have been well +known.] + +[Footnote 240: e.g. _ad Att._ xv. 29.] + +[Footnote 241: _ad Fam._ ix. 26.] + +[Footnote 242: The so-called Laudatio Turiae is well known to all +students of Roman law, as raising a complicated question of Roman +legal inheritance; but it may also be reckoned as a real fragment of +Roman literature, valuable, too, for some points in the history of +the time it covers. It was first made accessible and intelligible by +Mommsen in 1863, and the paper he then wrote about it has lately been +reprinted in his _Gesammelte Schriften_, vol. i., together with a +new fragment discovered on the same site as the others in 1898. This +fragment, and a discussion of its relation to the whole, will he found +in the _Classical Review_ for June 1905, p. 261; the laudatio without +the new fragment in _C.I.L._ vi. 1527.] + +[Footnote 243: App. _B.C._ iv. 44. The identification has been +impugned of late, but, as I think, without due reason. See my article +in _Classical Rev._, 1905, p. 265.] + +[Footnote 244: This is how I interpret the new fragment. See +_Classical Rev. l.c._ p. 263 foll.] + +[Footnote 245: For the legal question see Mommsen, _Gesammelte +Schriften_, i. p. 407 foll.] + +[Footnote 246: The account that follows is put together from Appian +iv. 44, Valerius Maximus vi. 7. 2, and the Laudatio. Appian preserved +some fifty stories of escapes at this time, and the only one that fits +with the Laudatio is that of Lucretius.] + +[Footnote 247: Newman, _Politics of Aristotle_, i. p. 372.] + +[Footnote 248: A list of the best authorities will be found at the +beginning of Professor Wilkins' book. Of these by far the most useful +for a student is the section in Marquardt's _Privatleben_, p. 79 foll. +The two volumes of Cramer (_Geschichte der Erziehung_, etc.), which +cover all antiquity, are, as he says, most valuable for their breadth +of view. See also H. Nettleship, _Lectures and Essays_, ch. iii. +foll.] + +[Footnote 249: Plut. _Cato the Elder_, ch. xx.] + +[Footnote 250: Plut. _Aem. Paul._ ch. vi.] + +[Footnote 251: Plut. _Cato minor 1 ad fin._ What is told in the +earlier part of this chapter may perhaps be invention, based on the +character of the grown man; but this information at the end may be +derived from a contemporary source.] + +[Footnote 252: Val. Max. iii. 1. 2.] + +[Footnote 253: There is a single story of Cicero's boyhood in +Plutarch's _Life_ of him, ch. ii., that parents used to visit his +school because of his fame as a scholar, etc., but to this I do not +attach much importance.] + +[Footnote 254: So in _ad Q.F._ iii. 1. 7: de Cicerone tuo quod me +semper rogas, etc.] + +[Footnote 255: Ib.] + +[Footnote 256: Ib. iii. 3. 4.] + +[Footnote 257: Ib. iii. 9.] + +[Footnote 258: See the few fragments in the Appendix to Riese's +edition of the remains of Varro's Menippean Satires, p. 248 foll.] + +[Footnote 259: _De Rep._ iv. 3. 3.] + +[Footnote 260: Plut. _Cato_ 20.] + +[Footnote 261: There is probably an allusion to the Stoic view, that +reason is not attained till the fourteenth year, in Virgil's line in +_Ecl._ 4. 27.] + +[Footnote 262: in Nonius, p. 108, s.v. ephippium. Cp. the account of +the education of Cato's young son, Plut. _Cato_, 20. Cp. also Virg. +_Aen._ ix. 602 foll.] + +[Footnote 263: in Nonius, p. 156, s.v. puerae.] + +[Footnote 264: p. 281, ed. Müller.] + +[Footnote 265: Her. _Odes_ iii. 6.] + +[Footnote 266: Dionys. Hal. ii. 26.] + +[Footnote 267: Cic. _pro Cluentio_ 60. 165; Marq. _Privatleben_, p. +87.] + +[Footnote 268: See a paper by the author in _Classical Rev._ vol. x. +p. 317, in which evidence is collected in support of this view. That +the praetexta had a quasi-sacred character seems certain; see e.g. +Hor. _Epod._ 5. 7; Persius, v. 30; pseudo-Quintilian, _Declam._ 340. +See Henzen, _Acta Fratrum Arvalium_ 15, for the pueri patrimi et +matrimi, representing in that ancient cult the children of the old +Roman family.] + +[Footnote 269: Cic. _de Legibus_, ii. 59.] + +[Footnote 270: Polyb. vi. 53. For an account of the practice of +laudatio see Marq. _Privatleben_, p. 346 foll. This, too, degenerated +into falsification.] + +[Footnote 271: A full list of games will be found in Marquardt, +_Privatleben_, p. 814 foll.] + +[Footnote 272: The question is discussed by Quintilian, i. 2.] + +[Footnote 273: Plut. Aem. Fault. 6.] + +[Footnote 274: Full details about elementary schools in Wilkins, ch. +iv., and Marq p. 90 foll.] + +[Footnote 275: Quintil. i. 3. 14.] + +[Footnote 276: Plutarch is careful to tell us that Aem. Paullus +exercised this supervision himself (ch. vi.).] + +[Footnote 277: _Pro Flacco_ 4, 9. Cp. _ad Quint. Fratr._ i. 2. 4.] + +[Footnote 278: That the boy was not always respectful is shown in an +amusing passage in Plautus. _Bacchides_, III. iii. 34 foll.] + +[Footnote 279: Sen. _Controversiae_, vii. 3. 8.] + +[Footnote 280: London, O.J. Clay and Sons, 1895.] + +[Footnote 281: Fortuna occurs many times, as in the so-called +sententiae Varronis printed at the end of Riese's edition of the +fragments of Varro's Menippean satires. This is characteristic of the +period.] + +[Footnote 282: Hor. _Epist._ i. I. 70.] + +[Footnote 283: Marq. _Privatleben_, p. 95 foll.; Wilkins, p. 53.] + +[Footnote 284: There is a good example of this in the well-known case +of Brutus' loan to the Salaminians of Cyprus: see especially Cic. ad +Alt. v. 21. 12.] + +[Footnote 285: Hor. Ars Poet. 323 foll.] + +[Footnote 286: Mommsen, _Hist. of Rome_, iv. p. 563.] + +[Footnote 287: Quintilian was of opinion that Greek authors should +precede Latin: i. I. 12.] + +[Footnote 288: _De Oratore_, i. 187.] + +[Footnote 289: There are many subjects in the book of other kinds, but +all are illustrated in exactly the same way.] + +[Footnote 290: H. Jordan, _M. Catonis praeter librum de re rustica +quae extant_, p. 80.] + +[Footnote 291: Full information on this point will be found in +Marquardt, _Privatleben_, p. 131 foll.] + +[Footnote 292: See my _Roman Festivals_, p. 56. The Liberalia (March +17) was the usual day for the change, and a convenient one for the +enrolment of tirones.] + +[Footnote 293: See the very interesting note (11) in Marq. p. 123, as +to the enrolment in municipal towns.] + +[Footnote 294: Pro Caelio, 4. 9.] + +[Footnote 295: Livy xlv. 37. 3.] + +[Footnote 296: Pro Caelio, 30. 72.] + +[Footnote 297: _Pro Caelio_, 31. 74.] + +[Footnote 298: _Roman Education_, ch. v.] + +[Footnote 299: Rhetorica ad Herenniwm, init. The date of this work was +about 82 B.C. See a paper by the author in Journal of Philology, x. +197.] + +[Footnote 300: H. Nettleship, _Lectures_, etc., p. III; Wilkins, p. +85; Quintil. xii. 2.] + +[Footnote 301: Wilkins, _l.c._] + +[Footnote 302: Quintil. i. 4. 5; xii. 1. 1; xii. 2 and 7.] + +[Footnote 303: _Ib._ xii. 1. 11.] + +[Footnote 304: Plut. _Cic._ 4; _Caes._ 3.] + +[Footnote 305: _ad Fam._ xvi. 21. The translation is based on Mr. +Shuckburgh's.] + +[Footnote 306: See _Der Horn, Gutsbetrieb_, by H. Gummerus, reprinted +from _Klio_, 1906: an excellent specimen of economic research, to +which I am much indebted in this chapter.--E. Meyer, _Die Sclaverei im +Altertum_, p. 46.] + +[Footnote 307: Strabo, p. 668.] + +[Footnote 308: Livy, xlv. 34.] + +[Footnote 309: Livy, _Epit._ 68.] + +[Footnote 310: Caesar, _B.G._ ii. 33.] + +[Footnote 311: _ad Att._ v. 20. 5.] + +[Footnote 312: Wallon (_Hist. de l'Esclavage_, ii. p. 38) has noted +that Virgil alone shows a feeling of tenderness for the lot of the +captive, quoting _Aen_. iii. 320 foll. (the speech of Andromache): but +this was for the fate of a princess, and a mythical princess. No +Latin poet of that age shows any real sympathy with captives or with +slaves.] + +[Footnote 313: Cic. _pro lege Manilia_ 12. 23. Plutarch, in his _Life +of Pompey_ 24, adds that Romans of good standing would join in the +pirates' business in order to make profit in this scandalous way.] + +[Footnote 314: Suet. _Aug._ 32, of the period before Augustus.] + +[Footnote 315: Varro, _R.R._ ii. 10; Diodorus xxxvi. 3. 1.] + +[Footnote 316: Hor. _Epist_. i. 6. 39:-- + + "Mancipiis locuples eget aeris Cappadocum rex: + Ne fueris hic tu." +] + +[Footnote 317: Varro, _R.R._ i. 17.] + +[Footnote 318: _Ib_. 2. 10. 3.] + +[Footnote 319: Hor. _Epode_ 2. 65. Cp. Tibull. ii. 1. 25 "turbaque +vernarum, saturi bona signa coloni."] + +[Footnote 320: See Gummerus, _op. cit._ p. 63, who considers the +_obaeratus_ of Varro as the equivalent of the _addictus_ of the Roman +law of debt.] + +[Footnote 321: See the well-known description of the Forum in Plautus' +_Curculio_, iv. 1: "pone aedem Castoris, ibi sunt subito quibu' credas +male"; Marq. _Privatleven_, p. 168; Wallon, _op. cit_. ch. ii.] + +[Footnote 322: Gellius iv. 2 gives an extract from the edict of +the aediles drawn up with the object of counteracting such sharp +practice.] + +[Footnote 323: Livy xxxix. 44.] + +[Footnote 324: _N.H._. vii. 55. This story affords a good example +of the tricks of the trade: the boys were not twins, and came from +different countries, though exactly alike.] + +[Footnote 325: _Bevölkerung_, p. 403.] + +[Footnote 326: Cic. _Off_. ii. 21. 73.] + +[Footnote 327: Galen v. p. 49, ed. Kuhn; Galen was a native of this +great city.] + +[Footnote 328: Dr. Gummerus promises it.] + +[Footnote 329: Sittengeschichte, i., ed. 5, p. 264.] + +[Footnote 330: Probably by Clodius in 58.] + +[Footnote 331: _Asconius ad Cic. pro Cornel_., ed. Clark, p. 75; +Waltzing, _Corporations professionelles_, i. p. 90 foll.] + +[Footnote 332: Baking as a trade only came in, as we saw, in 174; +Plautus died in 184; some doubt is thus thrown on the Roman character +of the passage, or the allusion may not be to a public bakery.] + +[Footnote 333: See a remarkable passage of Athenaeus (vi. 104) quoted +by Marquardt, _Privatleben_, p. 156, on the use of slaves at Rome for +unproductive labour.] + +[Footnote 334: Sallust, e.g., says of his own life in retirement +that he would not engage in "agrum colendo aut venando, servilibus +officiis."--_Catil._ 4.] + +[Footnote 335: Wallon, _Hist. de l'Esclavage_, vol. ii. ch. iii.] + +[Footnote 336: Sall. _Catil_. 12.] + +[Footnote 337: iv. 3. 11 and 12. Plutarch says that as military +tribune Cato the younger had fifteen slaves with him.--Cato minor 9.] + +[Footnote 338: Cato, R.R. 2. I.] + +[Footnote 339: In ch. 185 he mentions towns where many other objects +may be bought best and cheapest: at Rome, e.g., clothing and rugs, at +Cales and Minturnae farm-instruments of iron, etc. See also Gummerus, +_op. cit._ p. 36.] + +[Footnote 340: _R.R._ 10 and 11.] + +[Footnote 341: Assiduos homines quinquaginta praebeto, i.e. the +contractor: ch. 144.] + +[Footnote 342: See the discussion of this word in Gummerus, p. 62 +foll. Varro defines them as those "qui suas operas in servitutem dant +pro pecunia quam debebant" (_de Ling. Lat._ vii. 105), i.e. they give +their labour as against servitude.] + +[Footnote 343: _R.R._ i. 22.] + +[Footnote 344: Cp. Plut. _Cato the Elder_ 21; a slave must be at work +when he is not asleep.] + +[Footnote 345: This is a point on which I cannot enter, but there can +hardly be a doubt that in the long run free labour is cheaper. +See Cairnes, _Slave Power in America_, ch. iii.; Salvioli, _Le +Capitalisme_, p. 253; Columella, _Praejatio_.] + +[Footnote 346: Gummerus, p. 81. At the same time the small cultivator +is an obvious fact in Columella, cultivating his bit of land without +working for others.] + +[Footnote 347: For Spartacus, Appian, _B.G._ i. 116; for Caelius, +Caesar, _B.C._ iii. 22; and cp. _B.C._ i. 56.] + +[Footnote 348: _R.R._ ii. 10.] + +[Footnote 349: Columella i. 8.] + +[Footnote 350: Gaius ii. 15.] + +[Footnote 351: For examples of slaves' devotion to their masters, +Appian, _B.C._ iv. 29; Seneca, _de Benef_. iii. 25.] + +[Footnote 352: _ad Fam_. xvi. 1; read also the charming letters which +follow. Tiro was manumitted by Cicero at an unknown date.] + +[Footnote 353: _ad Att_. xii. 10.] + +[Footnote 354: See the article "Manumissio" in _Dict. of +Antiquities_.] + +[Footnote 355: Only in exercising the jus suffragii he was limited +with all his fellow libertini to one of the four city tribes.] + +[Footnote 356: Val. Max. viii. 6. 2.] + +[Footnote 357: Sall. _Cat_. 24 and 56; Wallon, ii. p. 318 foll.] + +[Footnote 358: See, e.g., Cic. _ad Att_. ii. 24. 3; Asconius, _in +Milonianam_ (ed. Clark, p. 31); Milo's host of slaves had gladiators +among them, and were organised in military fashion (an antesignanus, +p. 32), when he fell in with Clodius.] + +[Footnote 359: _Pro Sestio_, 15. 34.] + +[Footnote 360: _De Pet. Consulatus_, 5. 17.] + +[Footnote 361: _ad Quint. Fratr._ i. 2 _ad fin_.] + +[Footnote 362: Strabo, p. 381.] + +[Footnote 363: Dion. Hal. iv. 23.] + +[Footnote 364: Wallon, op. cit. ii. p. 436.] + +[Footnote 365: See Otto Seeck, _Geschichte des Untergangs der antiken +Welt_, ch. iv. and v.] + +[Footnote 366: See Marquardt, _Privatleben_, p. 172.] + +[Footnote 367: Wallon (ii. p. 255 foll.) has collected a number of +examples. Plautus' slaves are as much Athenian as Roman, but the +conditions would be much the same in each case. Cp. Varro, _Men. Sat_. +ed. Riese, p. 220: "Crede mihi, plures dominos servi comederunt quam +canes."] + +[Footnote 368: Petronius, _Sat_. 75.] + +[Footnote 369: Diodorus xxxiv. 38.] + +[Footnote 370: "Coli rura ab ergastulis pessimum est et quicquid +agitur a desperantibus," wrote Pliny (_Nat. Hist_. xviii. 36) in the +famous passage about latifundia.] + +[Footnote 371: _R.R._ i. 17.] + +[Footnote 372: See some excellent remarks on this subject in _Ecce +Homo_, towards the end of ch. xii. ("Universality of the Christian +Republic ").] + +[Footnote 373: _The Slave Power_, ch. v., and especially p. 374 foll. +A living picture of the mean white may be found in Mark Twain's +_Huckleberry Finn_, drawn from his own early experience, particularly +in ch. xxi.] + +[Footnote 374: "Regum nobis induimus animos," wrote Seneca in a +well-known letter about the claims of slaves as human beings, _Ep_. +47.] + +[Footnote 375: _Life in Ancient Athens_, p. 55.] + +[Footnote 376: For this view of the Lar see Wissowa, _Religion und +Kultus der Römer_, p. 148 foll.; and a note by the author in _Archiv +fur Religionswissenschaft_, 1906, p. 529.] + +[Footnote 377: _Fasti_, vi. 299.] + +[Footnote 378: Cato, _R.R._, ch. ii. init.; Horace, _Epode_ 2. 65; +_Sat_. ii. 6. 65.] + +[Footnote 379: _Romische Religion_, p. 214.] + +[Footnote 380: Or lectulus adversus, i.e. opposite the door; Ascon. +ed. Clark, p. 43, a good passage for the contents of an atrium.] + +[Footnote 381: See Mau's _Pompeii_, p. 248.] + +[Footnote 382: Mau, _Pompeii_, p. 240.] + +[Footnote 383: The extent to which this could be carried can be +guessed from Sall. _Cat._ 12.] + +[Footnote 384: Quintus Cicero, growing rich with Caesar in Gaul, had a +fancy for a domus suburbana: Cic. _ad Q. Fr._ iii. I. 7. Marcus tells +his brother in this letter that he himself had no great fancy for such +a residence, and that his house on the Palatine had all the charm of +such a suburbana. His villa at Tusculum, as we shall see, served the +purpose of a house close to the city.] + +[Footnote 385: A great number of passages about the noise and crowds +of Rome are collected in Mayor's _Notes to Juvenal_, pp. 173, 203, +207.] + +[Footnote 386: Some interesting remarks on the general aspect of the +city will be found in the concluding chapter of Lanciani's _Ruins and +Excavations_. For the bore elsewhere than in Rome, see below, p. 256.] + +[Footnote 387: _ad Fam_. ii. 12: "Urbem, Urbem, mi Rufe, cole, et in +ista luce viva Omnis peregrinatio (foreign travel) obscura et sordida +est iis, quorum industria Roma potest illustris esse," etc.] + +[Footnote 388: Lucr. ii. 22 foll.; iii. 1060 foll. Cp. Seneca, _Ep._ +69: "Frequens migratio instabilis animi est!"] + +[Footnote 389: _de Oratore_, ii. 22.] + +[Footnote 390: These houses, with the coast on which they stood, +have long sunk into the sea, and we are only now, thanks to the +perseverance of Mr. R.T. Günther of Magdalen College, realising their +position and former magnificence. See his volume on _Earth Movements +in the Bay of Naples_.] + +[Footnote 391: See Cic. _pro Caelio_, §§ 48-50.] + +[Footnote 392: _Cicero's Villen_, Leipzig, 1889.] + +[Footnote 393: Varro, _R.R._ iii. 13.] + +[Footnote 394: The villa had once been Sulla's also: and the +aristocratic connection gave its owner some trouble. See above, p. +102.] + +[Footnote 395: Schmidt, _op. cit._ p. 31.] + +[Footnote 396: _de Finibus_, iii. 2. 7.] + +[Footnote 397: _de Legibus_, ii. 1.] + +[Footnote 398: _op. cit_. p. 15. I am assured by a travelling friend +that the Fibreno is a delicious stream.] + +[Footnote 399: _ad Quint. Fratr_. iii. 1.] + +[Footnote 400: _ad Att._ xiii. 19. 2.] + +[Footnote 401: For further details of the amenities of the villa at +Arpinum see Schmidt, _op. cit._] + +[Footnote 402: _ad Att._ ii. 14 and 15.] + +[Footnote 403: O.E. Schmidt, _Briefwechsel Cicero's_, pp. 66 and 454; +but see his _Cicero's Villen_, p. 46, note.] + +[Footnote 404: _ad Att_. xii. 19 init.] + +[Footnote 405: See Seneca, _Epist_. 69, on the disturbing influence of +constant change of scene.] + +[Footnote 406: There is an exception in the young Cicero's letter to +Tiro, translated above, p. 202.] + +[Footnote 407: Censorinus, _De die natali_, 23. 6.; Pliny, _N.H._ vii. +213. On the whole subject of the division of the day see Marquardt, +_Privatlben_, p. 246 foll.] + +[Footnote 408: In the XII Tables only sunrise and sunset were +mentioned (Pliny, _l.c._ 212). Later on noon was proclaimed by the +Consul's marshal (Varro, _de Ling. Lat_. vi. 5), and also the end of +the civil day. Cp. Varro, _L.L._ vi. 89.] + +[Footnote 409: Cic. _pro Quinctio_, 18. 59.] + +[Footnote 410: See the article "Horologium" in _Dict. of Antiquities_, +vol. i.] + +[Footnote 411: Our modern hours are called equinoctial, because they +are fixed at the length of the natural hour at the equinoxes. This +system does not seem to have come in until late in the Empire period.] + +[Footnote 412: For the water-clock see Marquardt, _op. cit_. p. 773 +foll.] + +[Footnote 413: The lines are so good that I may venture to quote them +in full from Gell. iii 3 (cp. Ribbeck, _Fragm. Gomicorum_, ii. p. 34): +"parasitus esuriens dicit: + + Ut illum di perdant primus qui horas repperit, + Quique adeo primus statuit hic solarium. + Qui mihi comminuit misero articulatim diem, + Nam olim me puero venter erat solarium, + Multo omnium istorum optimum et verissimum: + Ubivis ste monebat esse, nisi quom nihil erat. + Nunc etiam quom est, non estur, nisi soli libet. + Itaque adeo iam oppletum oppidum est solariis, + Maior pars populi iam aridi reptant fame." + +The fourth line contains a truth of human nature, of which +illustrations might easily be found at the present day.] + +[Footnote 414: Pliny, _N.H._ xv. 1 foll, supplies the history of the +oil industry. For the candles see Marquardt, _Privatleben_, p. 690.] + +[Footnote 415: See above, p. 93.] + +[Footnote 416: Marq. _Privatleben_, p. 264.] + +[Footnote 417: Cic. _ad Q.F._ ii. 3. 7. For the lippitudo, _ad Att._ +vii. 14.] + +[Footnote 418: Hor. _Epist_. ii. 1. 112; Pliny, _Ep_. iii. 5, 8, 9.] + +[Footnote 419: Hor. _Epist._ ii. 1. 103: "Romae dulce diu fuit et +solenne reclusa Mane domo vigilare, clienti promere iura" etc. It is +curious that all our information on this early business comes from the +literature of the Empire. The single passage of Cicero which Marquardt +could find to illustrate it unluckily relates to his practice as +governor of Cilicia (_ad Att._ vi. 2. 5).] + +[Footnote 420: e.g. _ad Q.F._ i. 2. 16.; and Q. Cic. _Commentariolum +petitionis_, sec. 17.] + +[Footnote 421: See what he says of M. Manilius in _De Orat_. iii. +133.] + +[Footnote 422: The word seems to be connected with ieiunium (Plant. +_Curculio_ I. i. 73; Festus, p. 346), and thus answers to our +break_fast_. The verb is ientare: Afranius: fragm. "ientare nulla +invitat."] + +[Footnote 423: Galen, vol. vi. p. 332. I take this citation from +Marquardt, _Privatleben_, p. 257; others will be found in the notes +to that page. Marquardt seems to have been the first to bring the +evidence of the medical writers to bear on the subject of Roman +meals.] + +[Footnote 424: See the interesting account of these (salutatores, +deductores, assectatores) in the _Commentariolum petitionis_ of Q. +Cicero, 9. 34 foll.] + +[Footnote 425: See above, p. 109.] + +[Footnote 426: Q. Cicero, _Comment. Pet._9. 37.] + +[Footnote 427: See the author's _Roman Festivals_, pp. 125 foll.] + +[Footnote 428: Plutarch, _C. Gracchus_, 6.] + +[Footnote 429: Cic. _ad Fam._ ii. 12.] + +[Footnote 430: Fragm. 9. Baehrens, _Fragm. Poet. Rom._ p. 141. Cp. +Galen, vol. x. p. 3 (Kuhn).] + +[Footnote 431: Livy xlv. 36; Cic. _ad Fam_. i. 2; for a famous case of +"obstruction" by lengthy speaking, Gell. iv. 10.] + +[Footnote 432: Festus, p. 54.] + +[Footnote 433: _ad Fam._ vii. 30.] + +[Footnote 434: _de Divinatione_, ii. 142, written in 44 B.C.] + +[Footnote 435: Varro, _R.R._ i. 2; the words are put into the mouth +of one of the speakers in the dialogue. See, for examples from later +writers, Marq., _Privatleben_, p. 262.] + +[Footnote 436: _ad Att_. xiii. 52; the habit may have often been +dropped in winter.] + +[Footnote 437: Seneca, _Ep_. 86. The whole passage is most +interesting, as illustrating the difference in habits wrought in the +course of two centuries.] + +[Footnote 438: Mau, _Pompeii_, p. 300. See above, p. 244.] + +[Footnote 439: See the plan in Mau, p. 357; Marquardt, _Privatleben_, +p. 272.] + +[Footnote 440: See Professor Purser's explanation and illustrations in +the _Dict. of Antiquities_, vol. i. p. 278.] + +[Footnote 441: The subject of the public baths at Rome properly +belongs to the period of the Empire, and is too extensive to be +treated in a chapter on the daily life of the Roman of Cicero's time. +Public baths did exist in Rome already, but we hear very little of +them, which shows that they were not as yet an indispensable adjunct +of social life; but the fact that Seneca in the letter already quoted +describes the aediles as testing the heat of the water with their +hands shows (1) that the baths were public, (2) that they were of hot +water and not, as later, of hot air (_thermae_). The latter invention +is said to have come in before the Social war (Val. Max. ix. 1. +1.). Some baths seem to have been run as a speculation by private +individuals, and bore the name of their builder (e.g. balneae Seniae, +Cic. _pro Cael_. 25. 61). In summer the young men still bathed in the +Tiber (_pro Cael_. 15. 36). At Pompeii the oldest public baths (the +Stabian; Mau, p. 183) date from the second century B.C.] + +[Footnote 442: The tradition was that the paterfamilias originally +also sat instead of reclining. See Marq. _Privatleben_, p. 292 note +3.] + +[Footnote 443: Columella, ii. 1. 19, a very interesting chapter; +Plutarch, _Cato min_. 56.] + +[Footnote 444: Plut. _Lucullus_ 40; see above, p. 242.] + +[Footnote 445: Plut. _Quaest. Conv._ 1. 3 foll.; and Marq. p. 295.] + +[Footnote 446: Hor. _Sat_. i. 4. 86; cp. Cic. _in Pisonem_, 27. 67.] + +[Footnote 447: Cic. _de Senect_. 14. 46.] + +[Footnote 448: Lucilius, fragm. 30; 120 foll.; 168, 327 etc. Varro +wrote a Menippean satire on gluttony, of which a fragment is preserved +by Gellius, vi. 16.] + +[Footnote 449: See the interesting passage in _Cic. pro Murena_, 36. +75, about the funeral feast of Scipio Aemilianus.] + +[Footnote 450: Catull. 47. 5: "vos convivia lauta sumptuose De die +facitis?"] + +[Footnote 451: 26. 65 foll; Hor. _Od_. iii. 19, and the commentators.] + +[Footnote 452: _ad Fam_. vii. 26, of the year 57 B.C. The sumptuary +law must have been a certain lex Aemilia of later date than Sulla. +(See Gell. ii. 24: "qua lege non sumptus cenarum, sed ciborum genus et +modus praefinitus est.") This chapter of Gellius, and Macrob. iii. 17, +are the safest passages to consult on the subject of the growth of +gourmandism.] + +[Footnote 453: See Munro, _Elucidations of Catullus_, p. 92 foll.] + +[Footnote 454: Tibull. ii. 1. 51 foll. Cp. ii. 5. 83 foll. Several are +also described by Ovid in his _Fasti_. A charming account of feste in +a Tuscan village of to-day will be found in _A Nook in the Apennines_, +by Leader Scott, chapters xxviii. and xxix.: a book full of value for +Italian rural life, ancient and modern.] + +[Footnote 455: Wissowa, _Religion und Kultus_, p. 366. "Feriae" came +in time to be limited to public festivals, while "festus dies" covered +all holidays.] + +[Footnote 456: de Legibus, ii. 8. 19: cp. 12. 29.] + +[Footnote 457: Georg. i. 268 foll. Cato had already said the same +thing: _R.R._ ii. 4.] + +[Footnote 458: Thus Ovid describes the rites performed by the Flamen +Quirinalis at the old agricultural festival of the Robigalia (Robigus, +deity of the mildew) as if it were a curious bit of old practice which +most people knew nothing about.--_Fasti_, iv. 901 foll.] + +[Footnote 459: Greenidge, _Legal Procedure in Cicero's time_, p. 457.] + +[Footnote 460: It is the same word as our _fair_.] + +[Footnote 461: _Fasti_, iii. 523 foll.; Fowler, _Roman Festivals_, p. +51.] + +[Footnote 462: _Roman Festivals_, p. 185. The custom doubtless had a +religious origin.] + +[Footnote 463: _Ib_. p. 268. Augustus limited the days to three.] + +[Footnote 464: Wissowa, _Religion und Kultus_, p. 170. The cult of +Saturn was largely affected by Greek usage, but this particular custom +was more likely descended from the usage of the Latin farm.] + +[Footnote 465: See above, p. 172. Marquardt, _Privatleben_, p. 586; +Frazer, _Golden Bough_ (ed. 2), vol. iii. p. 188 foll.] + +[Footnote 466: Cic. _Verr_. I. 10. 31; where Cicero complains of the +difficulties he experienced in conducting his case in consequence of +the number of ludi from August to November in that year.] + +[Footnote 467: Fowler, _Roman Festivals_, p. 217 foll.] + +[Footnote 468: See the account in Dion. Hal. vii. 72, taken from +Fabius Pictor.] + +[Footnote 469: See Friedländer in Marquardt, _Staatsverwaltung_, iii. +p. 508, note 3.] + +[Footnote 470: For full accounts of this procession, and the whole +question of the Ludi Romani, see Friedländer, _l.c._; Wissowa, +_Religion und Kultus_, p. 383 foll.; or the article "Triumphus" in +the _Dict. of Antiquities_, ed. 2. All accounts owe much to Mommsen's +essay in _Römische Forschungen_, ii. p. 42 foll.] + +[Footnote 471: On the parallelism between the Ludi Plebeii and Romani +see Mommsen, _Staatsrecht_, ii. p. 508, note 4.] + +[Footnote 472: Fowler, _Roman Festivals_, p. 179 foll.] + +[Footnote 473: _Ib_. p. 69.] + +[Footnote 474: _Ib_. p. 72 foll.] + +[Footnote 475: Fowler, _Roman Festivals_, p. 91 foll.] + +[Footnote 476: Livy xxii. 10.7; Dionys. vii. 71.] + +[Footnote 477: Pliny, N.S. xxxiii. 138. The same thing happened once +or twice under Augustus.] + +[Footnote 478: Livy xl. 44.] + +[Footnote 479: ii. 16, 57 foll.] + +[Footnote 480: We have some details of the ridiculously lavish +expenditure of this aedile in Pliny, N.H. xxxvi. 114. He built a +temporary theatre, which was decorated as though it were to be a +permanent monument of magnificence.] + +[Footnote 481: Verr. v. 14. 36.] + +[Footnote 482: Plut. Caes. 5.] + +[Footnote 483: Cio. _ad Fam_. viii. 9.] + +[Footnote 484: _ad Att_. vi. I. 21.] + +[Footnote 485: There is no evidence that slaves were admitted under +the Republic. Columella, who wrote under Nero, is the first to mention +their presence at the games (_R.R._ i. 8. 2), unless we consider the +vilicus of Horace, _Epist_. i. 14. 15, as a slave. See Friedländer in +Marq. p. 491, note 4.] + +[Footnote 486: See above, p. 13; Fowler, _Roman Festivals_, p. 208.] + +[Footnote 487: _Roman Festivals_, p. 241.] + +[Footnote 488: _Ib_. p. 77 foll.] + +[Footnote 489: Dionys. Hal. in. 68 gives this number for Augustus' +time, and so far as we know Augustus had not enlarged the Circus.] + +[Footnote 490: Gell. iii. 10. 16.] + +[Footnote 491: Pliny, _N.H._ x. 71: he seems to be referring to an +earlier time, and this Caecina may have been the friend of Cicero. In +another passage of Pliny we hear of the red faction about the time of +Sulla (vii. 186; Friedl. p. 517). Cp. Tertullian, _de Spectaculis_, +9.] + +[Footnote 492: For a graphic picture of the scene in the Circus in +Augustus' time see Ovid, _Ars Amatoria_, i. 135 foll.] + +[Footnote 493: ch. 59.] + +[Footnote 494: See Schol. Bob. on the _pro Sestio_, new Teubner ed., +p. 105.] + +[Footnote 495: Val. Max. ii. 3. 2. The conjecture as to the object +of the exhibition by the consuls is that of Bücheler, in _Rhein. +Mus._1883, p. 476 foll.] + +[Footnote 496: The example was set, according to Livy, _Epit_. 16, by +a Junius Brutus at the beginning of the first Punic war.] + +[Footnote 497: _ad Fam_. ii. 3.] + +[Footnote 498: The origin of these bloody shows at funerals needs +further investigation. It may be connected with a primitive and savage +custom of sacrificing captives to the Manes of a chief, of which we +have a reminiscence in the sacrifice of captives by Aeneas, in Virg. +_Aen_. xi. 82.] + +[Footnote 499: See Lucian Müller's _Ennius_, p. 35 foll., where he +maintains against Mommsen the intelligence and taste of the Romans of +the 2nd century B.C.] + +[Footnote 500: Cic. _Brutus_, 28. 107, where he speaks of having known +the poet himself.] + +[Footnote 501: _ad_ Att. ii. 19.] + +[Footnote 502: _Pro Sestio_, 55. 117 foll.] + +[Footnote 503: _ad Q. Fratr_. iii. 5.] + +[Footnote 504: It is only fair to say that this information comes from +a letter of Asinius Pollio to Cicero (_ad Fam_. x. 32. 3), and as +Pollio was one who had a word of mockery for every one, we may +discount the story of the tears.] + +[Footnote 505: Tibicines, usually mistranslated flute-players; this +characteristic Italian instrument was really a primitive oboe played +with a reed, and usually of the double form (two pipes with a +connected mouthpiece), still sometimes seen in Italy.] + +[Footnote 506: See above, p. 70.] + +[Footnote 507: Val. Max. ii. 4. 2; Livy, _Epit_. 48.] + +[Footnote 508: Tacitus, _Ann_. xiv. 20.] + +[Footnote 509: Tertullian, _de Spectaculis_, 10; Pliny, _N.H._ viii. +20.] + +[Footnote 510: See the excellent account in Hülsen, vol. iii. of +Jordan's _Topographie_, p. 524 foll. Some of the arches of the +supporting arcade are still visible.] + +[Footnote 511: _ad Fam_. vii. I. Professor Tyrrell calls this letter a +rhetorical exercise; is it not rather one of those in which Cicero is +taking pains to write, therefore writing less easily and naturally +than usual?] + +[Footnote 512: I have used Mr. Shuckburgh's translation, with one or +two verbal changes.] + +[Footnote 513: Pliny, _Nat. Hist_. viii. 21.] + +[Footnote 514: _de Div_. i. 37. 80. Cp. the story in Plut. _Cic_. 5.] + +[Footnote 515: Hor. _Ep_. ii. 82; Quintil. ii. 3. Ill.] + +[Footnote 516: Val. Max. viii. 10. 2. Cicero was said to have learnt +gesticulation both from Aesopus and Roscius.--Plut. _Cic_. 5.] + +[Footnote 517: Pliny, _N.H._ vii. 128.] + +[Footnote 518: _Pro Archia_, 8.] + +[Footnote 519: _De Oratore_, i. 28. 129.] + +[Footnote 520: _De Oratore_, iii. 27, 59.] + +[Footnote 521: A useful succinct account of the literature of +this difficult subject will be found in Schanz, _Gesch. der rom. +Litteratur_, vol. i. (ed. 3) p. 21 foll.] + +[Footnote 522: This is the view of Mommsen, _Hist_. iii. p. 455, which +is generally accepted. For further information see Teuffel, _Hist. of +Roman Literature_, i. (ed. 2) p. 9. That they were in fashion before +the mimus is gathered from Cic. _ad Fam_. ix. 16.] + +[Footnote 523: Plut. _Sulla_, 2: ep. 36.] + +[Footnote 524: Political allusions in mimes, were, however, not +unknown. Cp. Cic. _ad Alt_. xiv. 3, written in 44 B.C., after Caesar's +death.] + +[Footnote 525: All the passages about Publilius are collected in Mr. +Bickford Smith's edition of his _Sententiae_, p. 10 foll. On mimes +generally the reader may be referred to Professor Purser's excellent +article in Smith's _Diet. of Antiq_. ed. 2.] + +[Footnote 526: Animo aequissimo, _ad Fam_. xii. 19. He means perhaps +rather that flattering allusions to Caesar did not hurt his feelings.] + +[Footnote 527: See Ribbeck, _Fragm. Comic. Lat_. p. 295 foll.] + +[Footnote 528: Seneca, _Epist_. 108. 8.] + +[Footnote 529: See another excellent article of Professor Purser's in +the _Dict. of Antiq_.] + +[Footnote 530: See the _Hibbert Journal_ for July 1907, p. 847. In the +second sense Cicero often uses the plural "religiones," esp. in _de +Legibus_, ii.] + +[Footnote 531: See Middleton, _Rome in 1887_, p. 423; Horace, _Sat_. +i. 8. 8 foll.; Nissen, _Italische Landeskunde_, ii. p. 522.] + +[Footnote 532: Fowler, _Roman Festivals_, p. 336 foll.] + +[Footnote 533: _Monumentum Ancyranum_ (Lat.), 4. 17.] + +[Footnote 534: _de Nat. Deor._ i. 29. 82.] + +[Footnote 535: Valerius Maximus, _Epit._ 3. 4; Wissowa, _Rel. und +Kult._ p. 293.] + +[Footnote 536: See, e.g. Dill, _Roman Society from Nero to Marcus +Aurelius_, ch. v.] + +[Footnote 537: See, e.g., _pro Sestio_, 15. 32; _in Vatinium_, 7. 18.] + +[Footnote 538: Augustine, _Civ. Dei_, iv. 27.] + +[Footnote 539: Cp. i. 63 foll.; iii. 87 and 894; v. 72 and 1218; and +many other passages.] + +[Footnote 540: iii. 995 foll.; v. 1120 foll.] + +[Footnote 541: iii. 70; v. 1126.] + +[Footnote 542: ii. 22 foll.; iii. 1003; v. 1116.] + +[Footnote 543: _Roman Poets of the Republic_, p. 306.] + +[Footnote 544: The secret may be found in the last 250 lines of Bk. +iii., and at the beginning and end of Bk. v.] + +[Footnote 545: v. 1203; ii. 48-54.] + +[Footnote 546: v. 1129.] + +[Footnote 547: "Philosophy has never touched the mass of mankind +except through religion" (_Decadence_, by Rt. Hon. A.J. Balfour, p. +53). This is a truth of which Lucretius was profoundly, though not +surprisingly, ignorant.] + +[Footnote 548: See above, p. 115.] + +[Footnote 549: e.g. xxi. 62.] + +[Footnote 550: Ribbeck, _Fragm. Trag. Rom._ p. 54: Ego deum genus esse +semper dixi et dicam coelitum, Sed eos non curare opinor quid agat +humanum genus.] + +[Footnote 551: See above, p. 114.] + +[Footnote 552: See H.N. Fowler, _Panaetii et Hecatonis librorum +fragmenta_, p. 10; Hirzel, _Untersuchungen zu Cicero's philosophischen +Schriften_, i. p. 194 foll.] + +[Footnote 553: See above, p. 115.] + +[Footnote 554: Schmekel, _Die Mittlere Stoa_, p. 85 foll.; Hirzel, +_Untersuchungen_, etc., i. p. 194 foll.] + +[Footnote 555: The fragments are collected by E. Agahd, Leipzig, 1898. +The great majority are found in St. Augustine, _de Civitate Dei_.] + +[Footnote 556: As Wissowa says (_Religion und Kultus der Römer_, p. +100), Jupiter does not appear in Roman language and literature as a +personality who thunders or rains, but rather as the heaven itself +combining these various manifestations of activity. The most familiar +illustration of the usage alluded to in the text is the line of Horace +in _Odes_ i. 1. 25: "manet sub Iove frigido venator."] + +[Footnote 557: ap. Aug. _Civ. Dei_, iv. 11.] + +[Footnote 558: _Ib._ vii. 9.] + +[Footnote 559: ap. Aug. _Civ. Dei_, vii. 13: animus mundi is here so +called, but evidently identified with Jupiter.] + +[Footnote 560: _Ib._ vii. 9.] + +[Footnote 561: _Ib._ iv. 11, 13.] + +[Footnote 562: Aug. _de consensu evangel._ i. 23, 24. Cp. _Civ. Dei_, +iv. 9.] + +[Footnote 563: _Ib._ i. 22. 30; _Civ. Dei_, xix. 22.] + +[Footnote 564: See Wissowa, _Religion und Kultus_, p. 103.] + +[Footnote 565: _de Rep_. iii. 22. See above, p. 117.] + +[Footnote 566: _de Legilus_, ii. 10.] + +[Footnote 567: _de Nat. Deor._. i. 15. 40: "idem etiam legis perpetuae +et eternae vim, quae quasi dux vitae et magistra officiorum sit, Iovem +dicit esse, eandemque fatalem necessitatem appellat, sempiternam rerum +futurarum veritatem." Chrysippus of course was speaking of the Greek +Zeus.] + +[Footnote 568: e.g. _de Off._ iii. 28; _de Nat. Deor._ i. 116.] + +[Footnote 569: Glover, _Studies in Virgil_, p. 275.] + +[Footnote 570: It is interesting to note that in the religious revival +of Augustus Jupiter by no means has a leading place. See Carter, +_Religion of Numa_, p. 160, where, however, the attitude of Augustus +towards the great god is perhaps over-emphasised. On the relation of +Virgil's Jupiter to Fate, see E. Norden, _Virgils epische Technik_, p. +286 foll. Seneca, it is worth noting, never mentions Jupiter as the +centre of the Stoic Pantheon.--Dill, _Roman Society from Nero to M. +Aurelius_, p. 331.] + +[Footnote 571: See an article by the author in _Hibbert Journal_, July +1907, p. 847.] + +[Footnote 572: Plut. _Sulla_, 6.] + +[Footnote 573: Valerius Maximus ii. 3.] + +[Footnote 574: _de Div_. i. 32. 68.] + +[Footnote 575: Plut. _Brutus_, 36, 37.] + +[Footnote 576: Sall. _Cat._ 51; Cic. _Cat._ iv. 4. 7.] + +[Footnote 577: Cic. _de Rep._ iv. 24.] + +[Footnote 578: Reid, _The Academics of Cicero_, Introduction, p. 18.] + +[Footnote 579: _ad Att._ xii. 36.] + +[Footnote 580: ad Att. xii. 37.] + +[Footnote 581: Suetonius, _Jul_. 88. See E. Kornemann in _Klio_, vol. +i. p. 95.] + +[Footnote 582: We do not know exactly when this preface was written. +Prefaces are now composed, as a rule, when a work is finished: but +this does not seem to have been the practice in antiquity, and +internal evidence is here strongly in favour of an early date.] + +[Footnote 583: _Epode_ 16. 54; cp. 30 foll.] + +[Footnote 584: Sir W.M. Ramsay, quoted in _Virgil's Messianic +Eclogue_, p. 54.] + +[Footnote 585: Dr. J.B. Mayor, in _Virgil's Messianic Eclogue_, p. 118 +foll.] + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Social life at Rome in the Age of +Cicero, by W. 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Warde Fowler + +Release Date: February 24, 2004 [EBook #11256] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME *** + + + + +Produced by Ted Garvin, Nicolas Hayes and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + +SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME IN THE AGE OF CICERO + +BY W. WARDE FOWLER, M.A. + + 'Ad illa mihi pro se quisque acriter intendat animum, + quae vita, quae mores fuerint.'--LIVY, _Praefatio_. + + + + +AMICO VETERRIMO + +I.A. STEWART + +ROMAE PRIMUM VISAE + +COMES MEMOR + +D.D.D. + + + + +PREFATORY NOTE + +This book was originally intended to be a companion to Professor +Tucker's _Life in Ancient Athens_, published in Messrs. Macmillan's +series of Handbooks of Archaeology and Art; but the plan was abandoned +for reasons on which I need not dwell, and before the book was quite +finished I was called to other and more specialised work. As it +stands, it is merely an attempt to supply an educational want. At our +schools and universities we read the great writers of the last age of +the Republic, and learn something of its political and constitutional +history; but there is no book in our language which supplies a picture +of life and manners, of education, morals, and religion in that +intensely interesting period. The society of the Augustan age, which +in many ways was very different, is known much better; and of late my +friend Professor Dill's fascinating volumes have familiarised us with +the social life of two several periods of the Roman Empire. But the +age of Cicero is in some ways at least as important as any period of +the Empire; it is a critical moment in the history of Graeco-Roman +civilisation. And in the Ciceronian correspondence, of more than nine +hundred contemporary letters, we have the richest treasure-house of +social life that has survived from any period of classical antiquity. + +Apart from this correspondence and the other literature of the time, +my mainstay throughout has been the _Privatleben der Römer_ of +Marquardt, which forms the last portion of the great _Handbuch der +Römischen Altertümer_ of Mommsen and Marquardt. My debt is great also +to Professors Tyrrell and Purser, whose labours have provided us with +a text of Cicero's letters which we can use with confidence; the +citations from these letters have all been verified in the new Oxford +text edited by Professor Purser. One other name I must mention with +gratitude. I firmly believe that the one great hope for classical +learning and education lies in the interest which the unlearned public +may be brought to feel in ancient life and thought. We have just lost +the veteran French scholar who did more perhaps to create and +maintain such an interest than any man of his time; and I gladly here +acknowledge that it was Boissier's _Cicéron et ses amis_ that in my +younger days made me first feel the reality of life and character +in an age of which I then hardly knew anything but the perplexing +political history. + +I have to thank my old pupils, Mr. H.E. Mann and Mr. Gilbert Watson, +for kind help in revising the proofs. + +W.W.F. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER I + +TOPOGRAPHICAL + +Virgil's hero arrives at Rome by the Tiber: we follow his example; +justification of this; view from Janiculum and its lessons; advantages +of the position of Rome, for defence and advance; disadvantages as to +commerce and salubrity; views of Roman writers; a walk through the +city in 50 B.C.; Forum Boarium and Circus maximus; Porta Capena; via +Sacra; summa sacra via and view of Forum; religious buildings at +eastern end of Forum; Forum and its buildings in Cicero's time; ascent +to the Capitol; temple of Jupiter and the view from it. + + +CHAPTER II + +THE LOWER POPULATION + +Spread of the city outside original centre; the plebs dwelt mainly +in the lower ground; little known about its life: indifference +of literary men; housing: the insulae; no sign of home life; bad +condition of these houses; how the plebs subsisted; vegetarian diet; +the corn supply and its problems; the corn law of Gaius Gracchus; +results, and later laws; the water-supply; history of aqueducts; +employment of the lower grade population; aristocratic contempt for +retail trading; the trade gilds; relation of free to slave labour; +bakers; supply of vegetables; of clothing; of leather; of iron, etc.; +gave employment to large numbers; porterage; precarious condition of +labour; fluctuation of markets; want of a good bankruptcy law. + + +CHAPTER III + +THE MEN OF BUSINESS AND THEIR METHODS + +Meaning of equester ordo; how the capitalist came by his money; +example of Atticus; incoming of wealth after Hannibalic war; +suddenness of this; rise of a capitalist class; the contractors; the +public contracting companies; in the age and writings of Cicero; their +political influence; and power in the provinces; the bankers and +money-lenders; origin of the Roman banker; nature of his business; +risks of the money-lender; general indebtedness of society; Cicero's +debts; story of Rabirius Postumus; mischief done by both contractors +and money-lenders. + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE GOVERNING ARISTOCRACY + +The old noble families; their exclusiveness; Cicero's attitude +towards them; new type of noble; Scipio Aemilianus: his "circle"; its +influence on the Ciceronian age in (1) manners; (2) literary capacity; +(3), philosophical receptivity; Stoicism at Rome; its influence on the +lawyers; Sulpicius Rufus, his life and work; Epicureanism, its general +effect on society; case of Calpurnius Piso; pursuit of pleasure and +neglect of duty; senatorial duties neglected; frivolity of the younger +public men; example of M. Caelius Rufus; sketch of his life and +character; life of the Forum as seen in the letters of Caelius. + + +CHAPTER V + +MARRIAGE AND THE ROMAN LADY + +Meaning of matrimonium: its religious side; shown from the oldest +marriage ceremony; its legal aspect; marriage cum manu abandoned; +betrothal; marriage rites; dignified position of Roman matron; the +ideal materfamilias; change in the character of women; its causes; the +ladies of Cicero's time; Terentia; Pomponia; ladies of society and +culture: Clodia; Sempronia; divorce, its frequency; a wonderful Roman +lady: the Laudatio Turiae; story of her life and character as recorded +by her husband. + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE EDUCATION OF THE UPPER CLASSES + +An education of character needed; Aristotle's idea of education; +little interest taken in education at Rome; biographies silent; +education of Cato the younger; of Cicero's son and nephew; Varro +and Cicero on education; the old Roman education of the body and +character; causes of its breakdown; the new education under Greek +influence; schools, elementary; the sententiae in use in schools; +arithmetic; utilitarian character of teaching; advanced schools; +teaching too entirely linguistic and literary; assumption of toga +virilis; study of rhetoric and law; oratory the main object; results +of this; Cicero's son at the University of Athens: his letter to Tiro. + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE SLAVE POPULATION + +The demand for labour in second century B.C.; how it was supplied; the +slave trade; kidnapping by pirates, etc.; breeding of slaves; prices +of slaves; possible number in Cicero's day; economic aspect of +slavery: did it interfere with free labour?; no apparent rivalry +between them; either in Rome; or on the farm; the slave-shepherds +of South Italy; they exclude free labour; legal aspect of slavery: +absolute power of owner; prospect of manumission; political results of +slave system; of manumission; ethical aspect: destruction of family +life; no moral standard; effects of slavery on the slave-owners. + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE HOUSE OF THE RICH MAN IN TOWN AND COUNTRY + +Out-of-door life at Rome; but the Roman house originally a home; +religious character of it; the atrium and its contents; development of +atrium: the peristylium; desire for country houses: crowding at Rome; +callers, clients, etc.; effects of this city life on the individual; +country house of Scipio Africanus; watering-places in Campania; +meaning of villa in Cicero's time: Hortensius' park; Cicero's villas: +Tusculum; Arpinum; Formiae; Puteoli; Cumae; Pompeii; Astura; constant +change of residence, and its effects. + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE DAILY LIFE OF THE WELL-TO-DO + +Roman division of the day; sun-dials; hours varied according to the +season; early rising of Romans; want of artificial light; Cicero's +early hours; early callers; breakfast, followed by business; morning +in the Forum; lunch (prandium); siesta; the bath; dinner: its hour +becomes later; dinner-parties: the triclinium; drinking after dinner; +Cicero's indifference to the table; his entertainment of Caesar at +Cumae. + + +CHAPTER X + +HOLIDAYS AND PUBLIC AMUSEMENTS + +The Italian festa, ancient and modern; meaning of the word feriae; +change in its meaning; holidays of plebs; festival of Anna Perenua; +The Saturnalia; the ludi and their origin; ludi Romani and plebeii; +other ludi; supported by State; by private individuals; admission +free; Circus maximus and chariot-racing; gladiators at funeral games; +stage-plays at ludi; political feeling expressed at the theatre; +decadence of tragedy in Cicero's time; the first permanent theatre, 55 +B.C.; opening of Pompey's theatre; Cicero's account of it; the great +actors of Cicero's day: Aesopus; Roscius; the farces; Publilius Syrus +and the mime. + + +CHAPTER XI + +RELIGION + +Absence of real religious feeling; neglect of worship, except in the +family; foreign cults, e.g. of Isis; religious attitude of Cicero and +other public men: free thought, combined with maintenance of the ius +divinum; Lucretius condemns all religion as degrading: his failure to +produce a substitute for it; Stoic attitude towards religion: Stoicism +finds room for the gods of the State; Varro's treatment of theology on +Stoic lines; his monotheistic conception of Jupiter Capitolinus; +the Stoic Jupiter a legal rather than a moral deity; Jupiter in the +Aeneid; superstition of the age; belief in portents, visions, etc.; +ideas of immortality; sense of sin, or despair of the future. + + +EPILOGUE + + +INDEX + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + +PLAN OF HOUSE OF THE SILVER WEDDING AT POMPEII + +MAP TO ILLUSTRATE THE POSITION OF CICERO'S VILLAS + +PLAN OF THE VILLA OF DIOMEDES AT POMPEII + +PLAN OF A TRICLINIUM + + + + +MAP + + +ROME IN THE LAST YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC _At end of Volume_ + + + + +Translations of passages in foreign languages in this book will be +found in the Appendix following page 362. + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +TOPOGRAPHICAL + +The modern traveller of to-day arriving at Rome by rail drives to his +hotel through the uninteresting streets of a modern town, and thence +finds his way to the Forum and the Palatine, where his attention +is speedily absorbed by excavations which he finds it difficult to +understand. It is as likely as not that he may leave Rome without once +finding an opportunity of surveying the whole site of the ancient +city, or of asking, and possibly answering the question, how it +ever came to be where it is. While occupied with museums and +picture-galleries, he may well fail "totam aestimare Romam."[1] +Assuming that the reader has never been in Rome, I wish to transport +him thither in imagination, and with the help of the map, by an +entirely different route. But first let him take up the eighth book of +the _Aeneid_, and read afresh the oldest and most picturesque of all +stories of arrival at Rome;[2] let him dismiss all handbooks from his +mind, and concentrate it on Aeneas and his ships on their way from the +sea to the site of the Eternal City. + +Virgil showed himself a true artist in bringing his hero up the Tiber, +which in his day was freely used for navigation up to and even above +the city. He saw that by the river alone he could land him exactly +where he could be shown by his friendly host, almost at a glance, +every essential feature of the site, every spot most hallowed by +antiquity in the minds of his readers. Rowing up the river, which +graciously slackened its swift current, Aeneas presently caught sight +of the walls and citadel, and landed just beyond the point where +the Aventine hill falls steeply almost to the water's edge. Here in +historical times was the dockyard of Rome; and here, when the poet was +a child, Cato had landed with the spoils of Cyprus, as the nearest +point of the river for the conveyance of that ill-gotten gain to the +treasury under the Capitol.[3] Virgil imagines the bank clothed with +wood, and in the wood--where afterwards was the Forum Boarium, a +crowded haunt--Aeneas finds Evander sacrificing at the Ara maxima of +Hercules, of all spots the best starting-point for a walk through the +heart of the ancient city. To the right was the Aventine, rising to +about a hundred and thirty feet above the river, and this was the +first of the hills of Rome to be impressed on the mind of the +stranger, by the tale of Hercules and Cacus which Evander tells his +guest. In front, but close by, was the long western flank of the +Palatine hill, where, when the tale had been told and the rites of +Hercules completed, Aeneas was to be shown the cave of the Lupercal; +and again to the left, approaching the river within two hundred yards, +was the Capitol to be: + + Hinc ad Tarpeiam sedem et Capitolia ducit, + Aurea nunc, olim silvestribus horrida dumis. + +Below it the hero is shown the shrine of the prophetic nymph Carmenta, +with the Porta Carmentalis leading into the Campus Martius; then the +hollow destined one day to be the Forum Romanum, and beyond it, in +the valley of the little stream that here found its way down from the +plain beyond, the grove of the Argiletum. Here, and up the slope of +the Clivus sacer, with which we shall presently make acquaintance, +were the lowing herds of Evander, who then takes his guest to repose +for the night in his own dwelling on the Palatine, the site of the +most ancient Roman settlement.[4] + +What Evander showed to his visitor, as we shall presently see, +comprised the whole site of the heart and life of the city as it was +to be, all that lay under the steep sides of the three almost isolated +hills, the Capitoline, Palatine, and Aventine. The poet knew that he +need not extend their walk to the other so-called hills, which come +down as spurs from the plain of the Campagna,--Quirinal, Esquiline, +Caelian. Densely populated as those were in his own day, they were not +essential organs of social and politics life; the pulse of Rome was to +be felt beating most strongly in the space between them and the river +where too the oldest and most cherished associations of the Roman +people, mythical and historical, were fixed. I propose to take the +reader, with a single deviation, over the same ground, and to ask him +to imagine it as it was in the period with which we are concerned in +this book. But first, in order to take in with eye and mind the whole +city and its position, let us leave Aeneas, and crossing to the right +bank of the Tiber by the Pons Aemilius,[5] let us climb to the fort of +the Janiculum, an ancient outwork against attack from the north, by +way of the via Aurelia, and here enjoy the view which Martial has made +forever famous: + + Hinc septem dominos videre montes + Et totam licet aestimare Romam, + Albanos quoque Tusculosque colles + Et quodcunque iacet sub urbe frigus. + +No one who has ever stood on the Janiculum, and looked down on the +river and the city, and across the Latin plain to the Alban mountain +and the long line of hills--the last spurs of the Apennines--enclosing +the plain to the north, can fail to realise that _Rome was originally +an outpost of the Latins_, her kinsmen and confederates, against the +powerful and uncanny Etruscan race who dwelt in the undulating hill +country to the north. The site was an outpost, because the three +isolated hills make it a natural point of defence, and of attack +towards the north if attack were desirable; no such point of similar +vantage is to be found lower down the river, and if the city had been +placed higher up, Latium would have been left open to attack,--the +three hills would have been left open to the enemy to gain a firm +footing on Latin soil. It was also, as it turned out, an admirable +base of operations for carrying on war in the long and narrow +peninsula, so awkward, as Hannibal found to his cost, for working out +a definite plan of conquest. From Rome, astride of the Tiber, armies +could operate on "interior lines" against any combination--could +strike north, east, and south at the same moment. With Latium faithful +behind her she could not be taken in the rear; the unconquerable +Hannibal did indeed approach her once on that side, but fell away +again like a wave on a rocky shore. From the sea no enemy ever +attempted to reach her till Genseric landed at Ostia in A.D. 455. + +Thus it is not difficult to understand how Rome came to be the leading +city of Latium; how she came to work her conquering way into Etruria +to the north, the land of a strange people who at one time threatened +to dominate the whole of Italy; how she advanced up the Tiber valley +and its affluents into the heart of the Apennines, and southward into +the Oscan country of Samnium and the rich plain of Campania. A glance +at the map of Italy will show us at once how apt is Livy's remark that +Rome was placed in the centre of the peninsula.[6] That peninsula +looks as if it were cleft in twain by the Tiber, or in other words, +the Tiber drains the greater part of central Italy, and carries the +water down a well-marked valley to a central point on the western +coast, with a volume greater than that of any other river south of the +Po. A city therefore that commands the Tiber valley, and especially +the lower part of it, is in a position of strategic advantage with +regard to the whole peninsula. Now Rome, as Strabo remarked, was the +only city actually situated on the bank of the river; and Rome was not +only on the river, but from the earliest times astride of it. She held +the land on both banks from her own site to the Tiber mouth at Ostia, +as we know from the fact that one of her most ancient priesthoods[7] +had its sacred grove five miles down the river on the northern bank. +Thus she had easy access to the sea by the river or by land, and an +open way inland up the one great natural entrance from the sea into +central Italy.[8] Her position on the Tiber is much like that of +Hispalis (Seville) on the Baetis, or of Arles on the Rhone, cities +opening the way of commerce or conquest up the basins of two great +rivers. In spite of some disadvantages, to be noticed directly, there +was no such favourable position in Italy for a virile people apt to +fight and to conquer. Capua, in the rich volcanic plain of Campania, +had far greater advantages in the way of natural wealth; but Capua was +too far south, in a more enervating climate, and virility was never +one of her strong points. Corfinium, in the heart of the Apennines, +once seemed threatening to become a rival, and was for a time the +centre of a rebellious confederation; but this city was too near the +east coast--an impossible position for a pioneer of Italian dominion. +Italy looks west, not east; almost all her natural harbours are on her +western side; and though that at Ostia, owing to the amount of silt +carried down by the Tiber, has never been a good one, it is the only +port which can be said to command an entrance into the centre of the +peninsula. + +No one, however, would contend that the position of Rome is an ideal +one. Taken in and by itself, without reference to Italy and the +Mediterranean, that position has little to recommend it. It is too far +from the sea, nearly twenty miles up the valley of a river with an +inconveniently rapid current, to be a great commercial or industrial +centre; and such a centre Rome has never really been in the whole +course of her history. There are no great natural sources of wealth in +the neighbourhood--no mines like those at Laurium in Attica, no vast +expanse of corn-growing country like that of Carthage. The river too +was liable to flood, as it still is, and a familiar ode of Horace +tells us how in the time of Augustus the water reached even to the +heart of the city.[9] Lastly, the site has never really been a healthy +one, especially during the months of July and August,[10] which are +the most deadly throughout the basin of the Mediterranean. Pestilences +were common at Rome in her early history, and have left their mark in +the calendar of her religious festivals; for example, the Apolline +games were instituted during the Hannibalic war as the result of a +pestilence, and fixed for the unhealthy month of July. Foreigners from +the north of Europe have always been liable to fever at Rome; invaders +from the north have never been able to withstand the climate for long; +in the Middle Ages one German army after another melted away under her +walls, and left her mysteriously victorious. + +There are some signs that the Romans themselves had occasional +misgivings about the excellence of their site. There was a tradition, +that after the burning of the city by the Gauls, it was proposed that +the people should desert the site and migrate to Veii, the conquered +Etruscan city to the north, and that it needed all the eloquence of +Camillus to dissuade them. It has given Livy[11] the opportunity of +putting into the orator's mouth a splendid encomium on the city and +its site; but no such story could well have found a place in Roman +annals if the Capitol had been as deeply set in the hearts of the +people as was the Acropolis in the hearts of the Athenians. At a later +time of deep depression Horace[12] could fancifully suggest that the +Romans should leave their ancient home like the Phocaeans of old, and +seek a new one in the islands of the blest. Some idea was abroad that +Caesar had meant to transfer the seat of government to Ilium, and +after Actium the same intention was ascribed to Augustus, probably +without reason; but the third ode of Horace's third book seems to +express the popular rumour, and in an interesting paper Mommsen[13] +has stated his opinion that the new master of the Roman world may +really have thought of changing the seat of government to Byzantium, +the supreme convenience and beauty of which were already beginning to +be appreciated.[14] + +Virgil, on the other hand, though he came from the foot of the Alps +and did not love Rome as a place to dwell in, is absolutely true to +the great traditions of the site. For him "rerum facta est pulcherrima +Roma" (_Georg_. ii. 534); and in the _Aeneid_ the destiny of Rome is +so foretold and expressed as to make it impossible for a Roman reader +to think of it except in connexion with the city. He who needs to be +convinced of this has but to turn once more to the eighth _Aeneid_, +and to add to the charming story of Aeneas' first visit to the seven +hills, the splendid picture of the origin and growth of Roman dominion +engraved on the shield which Venus gives her son. Cicero again, though +he was no Roman by birth, was passionately fond of Rome, and in his +treatise _de Republica_, praised with genuine affection her "nativa +praesidia."[15] He says of Romulus, "that he chose a spot abounding in +springs, healthy though in a pestilent region; for her hills are open +to the breezes, yet give shade to the hollows below them." And Livy, +in the passage already quoted, in language even more perfect than +Cicero's, wrote of all the advantages of the site, ending by +describing it as "regionum Italiae medium, ad incrementum urbis natum +unice locum." It is curious that all these panegyrics were written by +men who were not natives of Rome; Virgil came from Mantua, Livy from +Padua, Cicero from Arpinum. They are doubtless genuine, though in +some degree rhetorical; those of Cicero and Livy can hardly be called +strictly accurate. But taken together they may help us to understand +that fascination of the site of Rome, to which Virgil gave such +inimitable expression. + +On this site, which once had been crowded only when the Roman farmers +had taken refuge within the walls with their families, flocks, and +herds on the threatening appearance of an enemy, by the time of Cicero +an enormous population had gathered. Many causes had combined to bring +this population together, which can be only glanced at here. As in +Europe and America at the present day, so in all the Mediterranean +lands since the age of Alexander, there had been a constantly +increasing tendency to flock into the towns; and the rise of huge +cities, such as Antioch, Alexandria, Carthage, Corinth, or Rhodes, +with all the inevitably ensuing social problems and complications, is +one of the most marked characteristics of the last three centuries +B.C. In Italy in particular, apart from the love of a pleasant social +life free from manual toil, with various convenient resorts and +amusements, the long series of wars had served to increase the +population, in spite of the constant loss by the sword or pestilence; +for the veteran soldier who had been serving, perhaps for years, +beyond sea, found it hard to return to the monotonous life of +agriculture, or perhaps found his holding appropriated by some +powerful landholder with whom it would be hopeless to contest +possession. The wars too brought a steadily increasing population +of slaves to the city, many of whom in course of time would be +manumitted, would marry, and so increase the free population. These +are only a few of the many causes at work after the Punic wars which +crammed together in the site of Rome a population which, in the latter +part of the last century B.C., probably reached half a million or even +more.[16] + +Let us now descend from the Janiculum, and try to imagine ourselves in +the Rome of Cicero's time, say in the last year of the Republic, 50 +B.C., as we walk through the busy haunts of this crowded population. +We will not delay on the right bank of the Tiber, which had probably +long been the home of tradesmen in their gilds,[17] and where farther +down the rich were buying land for gardens[18] and suburban villas; +but cross by the Pons Aemilius, with the Tiber island on our left, and +the opening of the Cloaca maxima, which drained the water from the +Forum, facing us, as it still does, a little to our right. We find +ourselves close to the Forum Boarium, an open cattle-market, with +shops (tabernae) all around it, as we know from Livy's record of +a fire here, which burnt many of these shops and much valuable +merchandise.[19] Here by the river was in fact the market in the +modern sense of the word; the Forum Romanum, which we are making for, +was now the centre of political and judicial business, and of social +life. + +We might go direct to the great Forum, up the Velabrum, or valley +(once a marsh), right in front of us between the Capitol on the left +and the Palatine on the right. But as we look in the latter direction, +we are attracted by a long low erection almost filling the space +between the Palatine and the Aventine, and turning in that direction +we find ourselves at the lower end of the Circus Maximus, which as +yet is the chief place of amusement of the Roman people. Two famous +shrines, one at each end of it, remind us that we are on historic +ground. At the end where we stand, and where are the _carceres_, the +starting-point for the competing chariots, was the Ara maxima of +Hercules, which prompted Evander to tell the tale of Cacus to his +guest; at the other end was the subterranean altar of Consus the +harvest-god, with which was connected another tale, that of the rape +of the Sabines. All the associations of this quarter point to the +agricultural character of the early Romans; both cattle and harvesting +have their appropriate myth. But nothing is visible here now, except +the pretty little round temple of a later date, which is believed to +have been that of Portunus, the god of the landing-place from the +river.[20] + +The Circus, some six hundred yards long, at the time of Cicero was +still mainly a wooden erection in the form of a long parallelogram, +with shops or booths sheltering under its sides; we shall visit it +again when dealing with the public entertainments.[21] Above it on the +right is the Aventine hill, a densely populated quarter of the lower +classes, crowned with the famous temple of Diana, a deity specially +connected with the plebs.[22] The Clivus Patricius led up to this +temple; down this slope, on the last day of his life, Gaius Gracchus +had hurried, to cross the river and meet his murderers in the grove of +Furrina, of which the site has lately been discovered. If we were to +ascend it we should see, on the river-bank below and beyond it, +the warehouses and granaries for storing the corn for the city's +food-supply, which Gracchus had been the first to extend and organise. + +But to ascend the Aventine would take us out of our course. Pushing +on to the farther end of the Circus, where the chariots turned at the +_metae_, we may pause a moment, for in front of us is a gate in the +city wall, the Porta Capena, by which most travellers from the south, +using the via Appia or the via Latina, would enter the city.[23] +Outside the wall there was then a small temple of Mars, from which the +procession of the Equites started each year on the Ides of Quinctilis +(July) on its way to the Capitol, by the same route that we are about +to take. We shall also be following the steps of Cicero on the happy +day September 4, 57 B.C., when he returned from exile. "On my arrival +at the Porta Capena," he writes to Atticus, "the steps of the temples +were already crowded from top to bottom by the populace; they showed +their congratulations by the loudest applause, and similar crowds and +applause followed me right up to the Capitol, and in the Forum and on +the Capitol itself there was again a wonderful throng" (_ad Att._ iv. +1). + +We are now, as the map will show, at the south-eastern angle of the +Palatine, of which, in fact, we are making the circuit;[24] a and here +we turn sharp to the left, by what is now the via di San Gregorio, +along a narrow valley or dip between the Palatine and Caelian +hills--the latter the first we have met of the "hills" which are not +isolated, but spurs of the plain of the Campagna. The Caelian need not +detain us; it was thickly populated towards the end of the Republican +period, but was not a very fashionable quarter, nor one of the chief +haunts of social life. It held many of those large lodging-houses +(insulae) of which we shall hear more in the next chapter; one of +these stood so high that it interfered with the view of the augur +taking the auspices on the Capitol, and was ordered to be pulled +down.[25] Going straight on reach the north-eastern angle of the +Palatine, where now stands the arch of Constantine, with the Colosseum +beyond it, and turning once more to the left, we begin to ascend a +gentle slope which will take us to a ridge between the Palatine and +the Esquiline[26]--another of the spurs of the plain beyond--known by +the name of the Velia. And now we are approaching the real heart of +the city. + +At this point starts the Sacra via,[27] so called because it is the +way to the most sacred spots of the ancient Roman city,--the temples +of Vesta and the Penates, and the Regia, once the dwelling of the Rex, +now of the Pontifex Maximus; and it will lead us, in a walk of about +eight hundred yards, through the Forum to the Capitol. It varied in +breadth, and took by no means a straight course, and later on was +crowded, cramped, and deflected by numerous temples and other +buildings; but as yet, so far as we can guess, it was fairly free and +open. We follow it and ascend the slope till we come to a point known +as the _summa sacra via_, just where the arch of Titus now stands, and +where then was the temple of Jupiter Stator, and where also a shrine +of the public Penates and another of the Lares (of which no trace is +now left) warn us that we are close on the penetralia of the Roman +State. Here a way to the left leads up to the Palatine the residence +then of many of the leading men of Rome, Cicero being one of them. + +But our attention is not long arrested by these objects; it is soon +riveted on the Forum below and in front of us, to which the Sacred Way +leads by a downward slope, the Clivus sacer. At the north-western end +it is closed in by the Capitoline hill, with its double summit, the +arx to the right, and the great temple of Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva +facing south-east towards the Aventine. It is of this view that +Virgil must have been thinking when he wrote of the happy lot of the +countryman who + + nec ferrea iura + insanumque forum aut populi tabularia vidit.[28] + +For the Forum is crowded with bustling human figures, intent on the +business of politics, or of the law-courts (ferrea iura), or of +money-making, and just beyond it, immediately under the Capitol, are +the record-offices (tabularia) of the Roman Empire. The whole Sacra +via from this point is crowded; here Horace a generation later was to +meet his immortal "bore," from whom he only escaped when the "ferrea +iura" laid a strong hand on that terrible companion. Down below, at +the entrance to the Forum by the arch of Fabius (fornix Fabiana), the +jostling was great. "If I am knocked about in the crowd at the arch," +says Cicero, to illustrate a point in a speech of this time, "I do not +accuse some one at the top of the via Sacra, but the man who jostles +me."[29] + +The Forum--for from this point we can take it all in, geologically and +historically--lies in a deep hollow, to the original level of which +excavation has now at last reached. This hollow was formed by a stream +which came down between the Esquiline and the Quirinal beyond it, +and made its exit towards the river on the other side by way of the +Velabrum. As the city extended itself, amalgamating with another +community on the Quirinal, this hollow became a common meeting-place +and market, and the stream was in due time drained by that Cloaca +which we saw debouching into the Tiber near the bridge we crossed. +The upper course of this stream, between Esquiline and Quirinal, is a +densely populated quarter known as the Argiletum, and higher up as the +Subura,[30] where artisans and shops abounded. The lower part of its +course, where it has become an invisible drain, is also a crowded +street, the vicus Tuscus, leading to the Velabrum, and so to our +starting-point at the Forum Boarium. + +Let us now descend the Clivus sacer, crossing to the right-hand side +of the slope, which the via Sacra now follows, and reach the Forum by +the fornix Fabiana. Close by to our left is the round temple of +Vesta, where the sacred fire of the State is kept ever burning by its +guardians, the Vestal Virgins, and here too is their dwelling, the +Atrium Vestae, and also that of the Pontifex Maximus (Regia), in whose +potestas they were; these three buildings, then insignificant to look +at, constituted the religious focus of the oldest Rome.[31] A little +farther again to the left is the temple of Castor and the spring of +Juturna, lately excavated, where the Twins watered their steeds after +the battle of the lake Regillus. In front of us we can see over the +heads of the crowd the Rostra at the farther end of the Forum, where +an orator is perhaps addressing a crowd (_contio_) on some political +question of the moment, and giving some occupation to the idlers +in the throng; and to the right of the Rostra is the Comitium +or assembling-place of the people, with the Curia, the ancient +meeting-hall of the senate. In Cicero's day the mere shopman had been +got rid of from the Forum, and his place is taken by the banker and +money-lender, who do their business in _tabernae_ stretching in rows +along both sides of the open space. Much public business, judicial and +other, is done in the Basilicae,--roofed halls with colonnades, of +which there are already five, and a new one is arising on the south +side, of which the ground-plan, as it was extended soon afterwards by +Julius Caesar, is now completely laid bare. But it is becoming evident +that the business of the Empire cannot be much longer crowded into +this narrow space of the Forum, which is only about two hundred yards +long by seventy; and the next two generations will see new Fora +laid out larger and more commodious, by Julius and Augustus in the +direction of the Quirinal. + +Now making our way towards the Capitol, we pass the famous temple or +rather gate of the double-headed Janus, standing at the entrance +to the Forum from the Argiletum and the Porta Esquilina; then the +Comitium and Curia (which last was burnt by the mob in 52 B.C., at the +funeral of Clodius), and reach the foot of the Clivus Capitolinus, +just where was (and is) the ancient underground prison, called +Tullianum, from the old word for a spring (_tullus_), the scene of the +deaths of Jugurtha and many noble captives, and of the Catilinarian +conspirators on December 5, 63. Here the via Sacra turns, in front of +the temple of Concordia, to ascend the Capitol. Behind this temple, +extending farther under the slope, is the Tabularium, already +mentioned, which is still much as it was then; and below us to the +south is the temple of Saturnus, the treasury (_aerarium_) of the +Roman people. Thus at this end of the Forum, under the Capitol, +are the whole set of public offices, facing the ancient religious +buildings around the Vesta temple at the other end. + +The way now turns again to the right, and reaches the depression +between the two summits of the Capitoline hill. Leaving the arx on the +left, we reach by a long flight of steps the greatest of all Roman +temples, placed on a long platform with solid substructures of +Etruscan workmanship, part of which is still to be seen in the garden +of the German Embassy. The temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, with +his companions Juno and Minerva, was in a special sense the religious +centre of the State and its dominion. Whatever view he might take of +the gods and their cults, every Roman instinctively believed that this +great Jupiter, above all other deities, watched over the welfare of +Rome, and when a generation later Virgil placed the destiny of Rome's +mythical hero in the hands of Jupiter, every Roman recognised in this +his own inherited conviction. Here, on the first day of their office, +the higher magistrates offered sacrifice in fulfilment of the vows of +their predecessors, and renewed the same vows themselves. The consul +about to leave the city for a foreign war made it his last duty to +sacrifice here, and on his return he deposited here his booty. Here +came the triumphal procession along the Sacred Way, the conquering +general attired and painted like the statue of the god within the +temple; and upon the knees of the statue he placed his wreath of +laurel, rendering up to the deity what he had himself deigned to +bestow. Here too, from a pedestal on the platform, a statue of Jupiter +looked straight over the Forum,[32] the Curia, and the Comitium; and +Cicero could declare from the Rostra, and know that in so declaring he +was touching the hearts of his hearers, that on that same day on which +it had first been so placed, the machinations of Catiline and his +conspirators had been detected.[33] "Ille, ille Iupiter restitit; +ille Capitolium, ille haec templa, ille cunctam urbem, ille vos omnes +salvos esse voluit." + +The temple had been destroyed by fire in the time of Sulla, and its +restoration was not as yet finally completed at the time of our +imaginary walk.[34] It faced towards the river and the Aventine, i.e. +south-east, according to the rules of augural lore, like all Roman +public buildings of the Republican period. From the platform on which +it stands we look down on the Forum Boarium, from which we started, +connected with the Forum by the Velabrum and the vicus Tuscus; and +more to the right below us is the Campus Martius, with access to the +city by that Porta Carmentalis which Evander showed to Aeneas. This +spacious exercise-ground of Roman armies is already beginning to be +built upon; in fact the Circus Flaminius has been there for more than +a century and a half, and now the new theatre of Pompeius, the first +stone theatre in Rome, rises beyond it towards the Vatican hill. But +there is ample space left; for it is nearly a mile from the Capitol +to that curve of the Tiber above which the Church of St. Peter now +stands; and on this large expanse, at the present day, the greater +part of a population of nearly half a million is housed. I do not +propose to take the reader farther. We have been through the heart of the +city, as it was at the close of the Republican period, and from the +platform of the great temple we can see all else that we need to keep +in mind in these chapters. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +THE LOWER POPULATION (PLEBS URBANA) + +The walk we have been taking has led us only through the heart of +the city, in which were the public buildings, temples, basilicas, +porticos, etc., of which we hear so much in Latin literature. It was +on the hills which are spurs of the plain beyond, and which look down +over the Forum and the Campus Martius, the Caelian, Esquiline, and +Quirinal, with the hollows lying between them, and also on the +Aventine by the river, that the mass of the population lived. The most +ancient fortification of completed Rome, the so-called Servian wall +and _agger_, enclosed a singularly large space, larger, we are told, +than the walls of any old city in Italy;[35] it is likely that a +good part of this space was long unoccupied by houses, and served to +shelter the cattle of the farmers living outside, when an enemy was +threatening attack. But in Cicero's time, as to-day, all this space +was covered with dwellings; and as the centre of the city came to be +occupied with public buildings, erected on sites often bought from +private owners, the houses were gradually pushed out along the roads +beyond the walls. Exactly the same process has been going on for +centuries in the University city of Oxford where the erection of +colleges gradually absorbed the best sites within the old walls, so +that many of the dwelling-houses are now quite two miles from the +centre of the city. The fact is attested for Rome by the famous +municipal law of Julius Caesar, which directs that for a mile outside +the gates every resident is to look after the repair of the road in +front of his own house.[36] + +As a general rule, the heights in Rome were occupied by the better +class of residents, and the hollows by the lower stratum of +population. This was not indeed entirely so, for poor people no doubt +lived on the Aventine, the Caelian, and parts of the Esquiline. But +the Palatine was certainly an aristocratic quarter; the Carinae, the +height looking down on the hollow where the Colosseum now stands, had +many good houses, e.g. those of Pompeius and of Quintus Cicero, and +we know of one man of great wealth, Atticus, who lived on the +Quirinal.[37] It was in the narrow hollows leading down from these +heights to the Forum, such as the Subura between Esquiline and +Quirinal, and the Argiletum farther down near the Forum, that we meet +in literature what we may call the working classes; the Argiletum, for +example, was famous both for its booksellers and its shoemakers,[38] +and the Subura is the typical street of tradesmen. And no doubt the +big lodging-houses in which the lower classes dwelt were to be found +in all parts of Rome, except the strictly aristocratic districts like +the Palatine. + +The whole free population may roughly be divided into three classes, +of which the first two, constituting together the social aristocracy, +were a mere handful in number compared with the third. At the top of +the social order was the governing class, or _ordo senatorius_: then +came the _ordo equester_, comprising all the men of business, bankers, +money-lenders, and merchants (_negotiatores_) or contractors for the +raising of taxes and many other purposes (_publicani_). Of these two +upper classes and their social life we shall see something in later +chapters; at present we are concerned with the "masses," at least +320,000 in number,[39] and the social problems which their existence +presented, or ought to have presented, to an intelligent Roman +statesman of Cicero's time. + +Unfortunately, just as we know but little of the populous districts of +Rome, so too we know little of its industrial population. The upper +classes, including all writers of memoirs and history, were not +interested in them. There was no philanthropist, no devoted inquirer +like Mr. Charles Booth, to investigate their condition or try to +ameliorate it. The statesman, if he troubled himself about them at +all, looked on them as a dangerous element of society, only to be +considered as human beings at election time; at all other times merely +as animals that had to be fed, in order to keep them from becoming an +active peril. The philosopher, even the Stoic, whose creed was by far +the most ennobling in that age, seems to have left the dregs of the +people quite out of account; though his philosophy nominally took the +whole of mankind into its cognisance, it believed the masses to be +degraded and vicious, and made no effort to redeem them.[40] The Stoic +might profess the tenderest feeling towards all mankind, as Cicero +did, when moved by some recent reading of Stoic doctrine; he might say +that "men were born for the sake of men, that each should help the +other," or that "Nature has inclined us to love men, for this is the +foundation of all law";[41] but when in actual social or political +contact with the same masses Cicero could only speak of them with +contempt or disgust. It is a melancholy and significant fact that what +little we do know from literature about this class is derived from the +part they occasionally played in riots and revolutionary disorders. +It is fortunately quite impossible that the historian of the future +should take account of the life of the educated and wealthy only; but +in the history of the past and especially of the last three centuries +B.C., we have to contend with this difficulty, and can only now and +then find side-lights thrown upon the great mass of mankind. The +crime, the crowding, the occasional suffering from starvation and +pestilence, in the unfashionable quarters of such a city as Rome, +these things are hidden from us, and rarely even suggested by the +histories we commonly read. + +The three questions to which I wish to make some answer in this +chapter are: (1) how was this population housed? (2) how was it +supplied with food and clothing? and (3) how was it employed? + +1. It was of course impossible in a city like Rome that each man, +married or unmarried, should have his own house; this is not so even +in the great majority of modern industrial towns, though we in England +are accustomed to see our comparatively well-to-do artisans dwelling +in cottages spreading out into the country. At Rome only the wealthy +families lived in separate houses (_domus_), about which we shall have +something to say in another chapter. The mass of the population lived, +or rather ate and slept (for southern climates favour an out-of-door +life), in huge lodging-houses called islands (_insulae_), because they +were detached from other buildings, and had streets on all sides of +them, as islands have water.[42] These _insulae_ were often three or +four stories high;[43] the ground-floor was often occupied by shops, +kept perhaps by some of the lodgers, and the upper floors by single +rooms, with small windows looking out on the street or into an +interior court. The common name for such a room was _coenaculum_, or +dining-room, a word which seems to be taken over from the _coenaculum_ +of private houses, i.e. an eating-room on the first floor, where there +was one. Once indeed we hear of an _aedicula_, in an insula, which was +perhaps the equivalent of a modern "flat"; it was inhabited by a young +bachelor of good birth, M. Caelius Rufus, the friend of Cicero, and +in this case the insula was probably one of a superior kind.[44] +The common lodging-house must have been simply a rabbit-warren, the +crowded inhabitants using their rooms only for eating and sleeping, +while for the most part they prowled about, either idling or getting +such employment as they could, legitimate or otherwise. + +In such a life there could of course have been no idea of home, or of +that simple and sacred family life which had once been the ethical +basis of Roman society.[45] When we read Cicero's thrilling language +about the loss of his own house, after his return from exile, and then +turn to think of the homeless crowds in the rabbit-warrens of Rome, we +can begin to feel the contrast between the wealth and poverty of that +day. "What is more strictly protected," he says, "by all religious +feeling, than the house of each individual citizen? Here is his altar, +his hearth, here are his Di Penates: here he keeps all the objects +of his worship and performs all his religious rites: his house is +a refuge so solemnly protected, that no one can be torn from it by +force."[46] The warm-hearted Cicero is here, as so often, dreaming +dreams: the "each individual citizen" of whom he speaks is the citizen +of his own acquaintance, not the vast majority, with whom his mind +does not trouble itself. + +These insulae were usually built or owned by men of capital, and were +often called by the names of their owners. Cicero, in one of his +letters,[47] incidentally mentions that he had money thus invested; +and we are disposed to wonder whether his insulae were kept in good +repair, for in another letter he happens to tell his man of business +that shops (tabernae) belonging to him were tumbling down and +unoccupied. It is more than likely that many of the insulae were badly +built by speculators, and liable to collapse. The following passage +from Plutarch's _Life of Crassus_ suggests this, though, if Plutarch +is right, Crassus did not build himself, but let or sold his sites and +builders to others: "Observing (in Sulla's time) the accidents that +were familiar at Rome, conflagrations and tumbling down of houses +owing to their weight and crowded state, he bought slaves who were +architects and builders. Having collected these to the number of more +than five hundred, it was his practice to buy up houses on fire, and +houses next to those on fire: for the owners, frightened and anxious, +would sell them cheap. And thus the greater part of Rome fell into +the hands of Crassus: but though he had so many artisans, he built no +house except his own, for he used to say that those who were fond of +building ruined themselves without the help of an enemy."[48] The +fall of houses, and their destruction in the frequent fires, became +familiar features of life at Rome about this time, and are alluded to +by Catullus in his twenty-third poem, and later on by Strabo in his +description of Rome (p. 235). It must indeed have often happened that +whole families were utterly homeless;[49] and in those days there +were no insurance offices, no benefit societies, no philanthropic +institutions to rescue the suffering from undeserved misery. As we +shall see later on, they were constantly in debt, and in the hands of +the money-lender; and against his extortions their judicial remedies +were most precarious. But all this is hidden from our eyes: only now +and again we can hear a faint echo of their inarticulate cry for help. + +2. The needs of these poorer classes in respect of food and drink were +very small; it was only the vast number of them that made the supply +difficult. The Italians, like the Greeks,[50] were then as now almost +entirely vegetarians; cattle and sheep were used for the production +of cheese, leather, and wool or for sacrifices to the gods; the only +animal commonly eaten, until luxury came in with increasing wealth, +was the pig, and grain and vegetables were the staple food of the poor +man, both in town and country. Among the lesser poems ascribed to +Virgil there is one, the _Moretum_, which gives a charming picture of +the food-supply of the small cultivator in the country. He rises very +early, gropes his way to the hearth, and stirs the embers into flame: +then takes from his meal-bin a supply of grain for three days and +proceeds to grind it in a hand-mill, knead it with water, shape it +into round cakes divided into four parts like a "hot-cross bun," and, +with the help of his one female slave, to bake these in the embers. He +has no sides of smoked bacon, says the poet, hanging from his roof, +but only a cheese, so to add to his meal he goes into his garden and +gathers thence a number of various herbs and vegetables, which he then +makes into the hotch-potch, or _pot-au-feu_ which gives the name to +the poem. This bit of delicate genre-painting, which is as good in its +way as anything in Crabbe's homely poems, has indeed nothing to tell +us of life in an insula at Rome; but it may serve to show what was the +ordinary food of the Italian of that day.[51] The absence of the sides +of bacon ("durati sale terga suis," line 57) is interesting. No doubt +the Roman took meat when he could get it; but to have to subsist on +it, even for a short time, was painful to him, and more than once +Caesar remarks on the endurance of his soldiers in submitting to eat +meat when corn was not to be had.[52] + +The corn which was at this time the staple food of the Romans of the +city was wheat, and wheat of a good kind; in primitive times it had +been an inferior species called _far_, which survived in Cicero's day +only in the form of cakes offered to the gods in religious ceremonies. +The wheat was not brought from Italy or even from Latium; what each +Italian community then grew was not more than supplied its own +inhabitants,[53] and the same was the case with the country villas +of the rich, and the huge sheep-farms worked by slaves. By far the +greater part of Italy is mountainous, and not well suited to the +production of corn on a large scale; and for long past other causes +had combined to limit what production there was. Transport too, +whether by road or river, was full of difficulty, while on the other +hand a glance at the map will show that the voyage for corn-ships +between Rome and Sicily, Sardinia, or the province of Africa (the +former dominion of Carthage), was both short and easy--far shorter and +easier than the voyage from Cisalpine Gaul or even from Apulia, where +the peninsula was richest in good corn-land. So we are not surprised +to find that, according to tradition, which is fully borne out by more +certain evidence,[54] corn had been brought to Rome from Sicily as +early as 492 B.C. to relieve a famine, or that since Sicily, Sardinia, +and Africa had become Roman provinces, their vast productive capacity +was utilised to feed the great city. + +Nor indeed need we be surprised to find that the State has taken over +the task of feeding the Roman population, and of feeding it cheaply, +if only we are accustomed to think, not merely to read, about life in +the city at this period. Nothing is more difficult for the ordinary +reader of ancient history than to realise the difficulty of feeding +large masses of human beings, whether crowded in towns or soldiers in +the field. Our means of transport are now so easily and rapidly set +in action and maintained, that it would need a war with some great +sea-power to convince us that London or Glasgow might, under certain +untoward circumstances, be starved; and as our attention has never +been drawn to the details of food-supply, we do not readily see why +there should have been any such difficulty at Rome as to call for the +intervention of the State. Perhaps the best way to realise the problem +is to reflect that every adult inhabitant needed about four and a half +pecks of corn per month, or some three pounds a day; so that if the +population of Rome be taken at half a million in Cicero's time, a +million and a half pounds would be demanded as the daily consumption +of the people.[55] I have already said that in the last three +centuries B.C. there was a universal tendency to leave the country for +the towns; and we now know that many other cities besides Rome +not only felt the same difficulty, but actually used the same +remedy--State importation of cheap corn.[56] Even comparatively small +cities like Dyrrhachium and Apollonia in Epirus, as Caesar tells us +while narrating his own difficulty in feeding his army there, used for +the most part imported corn.[57] And we must remember that while some +of the greatest cities on the Mediterranean, such as Alexandria and +Antioch, were within easy reach of vast corn-fields, this was not the +case with Rome. Either she must organise her corn-supply on a secure +basis, or get rid of her swarms of poor inhabitants; the latter +alternative might have been possible if she had been willing to let +them starve, but probably in no other way. To attempt to put them out +upon the land again was hopeless; they knew nothing of agriculture, +and were unused to manual labour, which they despised. + +Thus ever since Rome had been a city of any size it had been the duty +of the plebeian aediles to see that it was adequately supplied with +corn, and in times of dearth or other difficulty these magistrates had +to take special measures to procure it. With a population steadily +rising since the war with Hannibal, and after the acquisition of two +corn-growing provinces, to which Africa was added in 146 B.C., it was +natural that they should turn their attention more closely to the +resources of these; and now the provincial governors had to see that +the necessary amount of corn was furnished from these provinces at a +fixed price, and that a low one.[58] In 123 B.C. Gaius Gracchus took +the matter in hand, and made it a part of his whole far-reaching +political scheme. The plebs urbana had become a very awkward element +in the calculations of a statesman, and to have it in a state of +starvation, or even fearing such a state, was dangerous in the +extreme, as every Roman statesman had to learn in the course of the +two following centuries. The aediles, we may guess, were quite unequal +to the work demanded of them; and at times victorious provincial +governors would bring home great quantities of corn and give it away +gratis for their private purposes, with bad results both economic +and moral. Gracchus saw that the work of supply needed thorough +organisation in regard to production, transport, warehousing, and +finance, and set about it with a delight in hard work such as no Roman +statesman had shown before, believing that if the people could be +fed cheaply and regularly, they would cease to be "a troublesome +neighbour."[59] We do not know the details of his scheme of +organisation except in one particular, the price at which the corn +was to be sold per _modius_ (peck): this was to be six and one-third +_asses_, or rather less than half the normal market-price of the day, +so far as it can be made out. Whether he believed that the cost of +production could be brought down to this level by regularity of demand +and transport we cannot tell; it seems at any rate probable that he +had gone carefully into the financial aspect of the business.[60] But +there can hardly be a doubt that he miscalculated, and that the result +of the law by which he sought to effect his object was a yearly +loss to the treasury, so that after his time, and until his law was +repealed by Sulla, the people were really being fed largely at the +expense of the State, and thus lapsing into a state of semipauperism, +with bad ethical consequences. + +One of these consequences was that inconsiderate statesmen would only +too readily seize the chance of reducing the price of the corn still +lower, as was done by Saturninus in 100 B.C., for political purposes. +To prevent this Sulla abolished the Gracchan system _in toto_; but it +was renewed in 73 B.C., and in 58 the demagogue P. Clodius made the +distribution of corn gratuitous. In 46 Caesar found that no less than +320,000 persons were receiving corn from the State for nothing; by a +bill, of which we still possess a part,[61] he reduced the number to +150,000, and by a rigid system of rules, of which we know something, +contrived to ensure that it should be kept at that point. With the +policy of Augustus and his successors in regard to the corn-supply +(_annona_) I am not here concerned; but it is necessary to observe +that with the establishment of the Empire the plebs urbana ceased to +be of any importance in politics, and could be treated as a petted +population, from whom no harm was to be expected if they were kept +comfortable and amused. Augustus seems to have found himself compelled +to take up this attitude towards them, and he was able to do so +because he had thoroughly reorganised the public finance and knew what +he could afford for the purpose. But in time of Cicero the people were +still powerful legislation and elections, and the public finance was +disorganised and in confusion; and the result was that the corn-supply +was mixed up with politics,[62] and handled by reckless politicians +in a way that was as ruinous to the treasury as it was to the moral +welfare of the city. The whole story, from Gracchus onwards, is a +wholesome lesson on the mischief of granting "outdoor relief" in any +form whatever, without instituting the means of inquiry into each +individual case. Gracchus' intentions were doubtless honest and good; +but "ubi semel recto deerratum est, in praeceps pervenitur." + +The drink of the Roman was water, but he mixed it with wine whenever +he had the chance. Fortunately for him he had no other intoxicating +drink; we hear neither of beer nor spirits in Roman literature. Italy +was well suited to the cultivation of the vine; and though down to the +last century of the Republic the choice kinds of wine came chiefly +from Greece, yet we have unquestionable proof that wine was made in +the neighbourhood of Rome at the very outset of Roman history. In the +oldest religious calendar[63] we find two festivals called Vinalia, +one in April and the other in August; what exactly was the relation of +each of them to the operations of viticulture is by no means clear, +but we know that these operations were under the protection of +Jupiter, and that his priest, the Flamen Dialis, offered to him the +first-fruits of the vintage. The production of rough wine must indeed +have been large, for we happen to know that it was at times remarkably +cheap. In 250 B.C., in many ways a wonderfully productive year, wine +was sold at an _as_ the _congius_, which is nearly three quarts;[64] +under the early Empire Columella (iii. 3. 10) reckoned the amphora +(nearly 6 gallons) at 15 sesterces, i.e. about eightpence That the +common citizen did expect to be able to qualify his water with wine +seems proved by a story told by Suetonius, that when the people +complained to Augustus that the price of wine was too high, he +curtly and wisely answered that Agrippa had but lately given them an +excellent water-supply.[65] It looks as though they were claiming to +have wine as well as grain supplied them by the government at a low +price or gratuitously; but this was too much even for Augustus. For +his water the Roman, it need hardly be said, paid nothing. On the +whole, at the time of which we are speaking he was fairly well +supplied with it; but in this, as in so many other matters of urban +administration, it was under Augustus that an abundant supply was +first procured and maintained by an excellent system of management. +Frontinus, to whose work _de Aqueductibus_ we owe almost all that we +know about the Roman water-supply, tells us that for four hundred and +forty-one years after the foundation of the city the Romans contented +themselves with such water as they could get from the Tiber, from +wells, and from natural springs, and adds that some of the springs +were in his day still held in honour on account of their health-giving +qualities.[66] Cicero describes Rome, in his idealising way, as "locum +fontibus abundantem," and twenty-three springs are known to have +existed; but as early 312 B.C. it was found necessary to seek +elsewhere for a purer and more regular supply. More than six miles +from Rome, on the via Collatina, springs were found and utilised for +this purpose, which have lately been re-discovered at the bottom of +some stone quarries; and hence the water was brought by underground +pipes along the line of the same road to the city, and through it to +the foot of the Aventine, the plebeian quarter. This was the Aqua +Appia, named after the famous censor Appius Claudius Caecus, whom +Mommsen has shown to have been a friend of the people.[67] Forty years +later another censor, Manius Curius Dentatus, brought a second supply, +also by an underground channel, from the river Anio near Tibur +(Tivoli), the water of which, never of the first quality, was used for +the irrigation of gardens and the flushing of drains. In 144 B.C. +it was found that these two old aqueducts were out of repair and +insufficient, and this time a praetor, Q. Marcius Rex (probably +through the influence of a family clique), was commissioned to set +them in order and to procure a fresh supply. He went much farther than +his predecessors had gone for springs, and drew a volume of excellent +and clear cold water from the Sabine hills beyond Tibur, thirty-six +miles from the city, which had the highest reputation at all times; +and for the last six miles of its course it was carried above ground +upon a series of arches.[68] One other aqueduct was added in 125 B.C. +the Aqua Tepula, so called because its water was unusually warm; and +the whole amount of water entering Rome in the last century of the +Republic is estimated at more than 700,000 cubic metres per diem, +which would amply suffice for a population of half a million. At the +present day Rome, with a population of 450,000, receives from all +sources only 379,000.[69] Baths, both public and private, were already +beginning to come into fashion; of these more will be said later +on. The water for drinking was collected in large _castella_, or +reservoirs, and thence distributed into public fountains, of which +one still survives--the "Trofei di Mario," in the Piazza Vittorio +Emmanuele on the Esquiline.[70] When the supply came to be large +enough, the owners of insulae and domus were allowed to have water +laid on by private pipes, as we have it in modern towns; but it is not +certain when this permission was first given. + +3. But we must return to the individual Roman of the masses, whom we +have now seen well supplied with the necessaries of life, and try +to form some idea of the way in which he was employed, or earned a +living. This is by no means an easy task, for these small people, as +we have already seen, did not interest their educated fellow-citizens, +and for this reason we hear hardly anything of them in the literature +of the time. Not only a want of philanthropic feeling in their +betters, but an inherited contempt for all small industry and retail +dealing, has helped to hide them away from us: an _inherited_ +contempt, because it is in fact a survival from an older social +system, when the citizen did not need the work of the artisan and +small retailer, but supplied all his own wants within the circle of +his household, i.e. his own family and slaves, and produced on his +farm the material of his food and clothing. And the survival was all +the stronger, because even in the late Republic the abundant supply of +slaves enabled the man of capital still to dispense largely with the +services of the tradesman and artisan. + +Cicero expresses this contempt for the artisan and trading classes in +more than one striking passage. One, in his treatise on Duties, is +probably paraphrased from the Greek of Panaetius, the philosopher who +first introduced Stoicism to the Romans, and modified it to suit +their temperament, but it is quite clear that Cicero himself entirely +endorses the Stoic view. "All gains made by hired labourers," he says, +"are dishonourable and base, for what we buy of them is their labour, +not their artistic skill: with them the very gain itself does but +increase the slavishness of the work. All retail dealing too may be +put in the same category, for the dealer will gain nothing except +by profuse lying, and nothing is more disgraceful than untruthful +huckstering. Again, the work of all artisans (_opifices_) is sordid; +there can be nothing honourable in a workshop."[71] + +If this view of the low character of the work of the artisan and +retailer should be thought too obviously a Greek one, let the reader +turn to the description by Livy[72]--a true gentleman--of the low +origin of Terentius Varro, the consul who was in command at Cannae; he +uses the same language as Cicero. "He sprang from an origin not merely +humble but sordid: his father was a butcher, who sold his own meat, +and employed his son in this slavish business." The story may not be +true, and indeed it is not a very probable one, but it well represents +the inherited feeling towards retail trade of the Roman of the higher +classes of society,--a feeling so tenacious of life, that even in +modern England, where it arose from much the same causes as in the +ancient world, it has only within the last century begun to die +out.[73] + +Yet in Rome these humble workers existed and made a living for +themselves from the very beginning, as far as we can guess, of real +city life. They are the necessary and inevitable product of the growth +of a town population, and of the resulting division of labour. The +following passage from a work on industrial organisation in England +may be taken as closely representing the same process in early +Rome:[74] "The town arose as a centre in which the surplus produce of +many villages could be profitably disposed of by exchange. Trade +thus became a settled occupation, and trade prepared the way for +the establishment of the handicrafts, by furnishing capital for the +support of the craftsmen, and by creating a regular market for their +products. It was possible for a great many bodies of craftsmen,--the +weavers, tailors, butchers, bakers, etc., to find a livelihood, each +craft devoting itself to the supply of a single branch of those wants +which the village household had attempted very imperfectly to satisfy +by its own labours." + +As in mediaeval Europe, so in early Rome, the same conditions produced +the same results: we find the craftsmen of the town forming themselves +into _gilds_, not only for the protection of their trade, but from a +natural instinct of association, and providing these gilds, on the +model of the older groups of family and gens, with a religious centre +and a patron deity. The gilds (_collegia_) of Roman craftsmen were +attributed to Numa, like so many other religious institutions; they +included associations of weavers, fullers, dyers, shoemakers, doctors, +teachers, painters, etc.,[75] and were mainly devoted to Minerva as +the deity of handiwork. "The society that witnessed the coming of +Minerva from Etruria ... little knew that in her temple on the +Aventine was being brought to expression the trade-union idea."[76] +These _collegia opificum_, most unfortunately, pass entirely out +of our sight, until they reappear in the age of Cicero in a very +different form, as clubs used for political purposes, but composed +still of the lowest strata of the free population (_collegia +sodalicia_).[77] The history and causes of their disappearance and +metamorphosis are lost to us; but it is not hard to guess that the +main cause is to be found in the great economic changes that followed +the Hannibalic war,--the vast number of slaves imported, and +the consequent resuscitation of the old system of the economic +independence of the great households; the decay of religious practice, +which affected both public and private life in a hundred different +ways; and that steady growth of individualism which is characteristic +of eras of town life, and especially of the last three centuries B.C. +It is curious to notice that by the time these old gilds emerge into +light again as clubs that could be used for political purposes, a new +source of gain, and one that was really sordid, had been placed within +the reach of the Roman plebs urbana: it was possible to make money by +your vote in the election of magistrates. In that degenerate when the +vast accumulation of capital made it possible for a man to purchase +his way to power, in spite of repeated attempts to check the evil by +legislation, the old principle of honourable association was used to +help the small man to make a living by choosing the unprincipled and +often the incompetent to undertake the government of the Empire. + +Apart, however, from such illegal means of making money, there was +beyond doubt in the Rome of the last century B.C. a large amount of +honest and useful labour done by free citizens. We must not run away +with the idea that the whole labour of the city was performed by +slaves, who ousted the freeman from his chance of a living. There was +indeed a certain number of public slaves who did public work for the +State; but on the whole the great mass of the servile population +worked entirely within the households and on the estates of the rich, +and did not interfere to any sensible degree with the labour of the +small freeman. As has been justly observed by Salvioli,[78] never at +any period did the Roman proletariat complain of the competition of +slave labour as detrimental to its own interests. Had there been no +slave labour there, the small freeman might indeed have had a wider +field of enterprise, and have been better able to accumulate a small +capital by undertaking work for the great families, which was done, +as it was, by their slaves. But he was not aware of this, and the two +kinds of labour, the paid and the unpaid, went on side by side without +active rivalry. No doubt slavery helped to foster idleness, as it did +in the Southern States of America before the Civil War;[79] no doubt +there were plenty of idle ruffians in the city, ready to steal, +to murder, or to hire themselves out as the armed followers of a +political desperado like Clodius; but the simple necessities of the +life of those who had no slaves of their own gave employment, we may +be certain, to a great number of free tradesmen and artisans and +labourers of a more unskilled kind. + +To begin with, we may ask the pertinent question, how the corn sold +cheap by the State was made into bread for the small consumer. Pliny +gives us very valuable information, which we may accept as roughly +correct, that until the year 171 B.C. there were no bakers in +Rome.[80] "The Quirites," he says, "made their own bread, which was +the business of the women, as it is still among most peoples." The +demand which was thus supplied by a new trade was no doubt caused by +the increase of the lower population of the city, by the return of old +soldiers, often perhaps unmarried, and by the manumission of slaves, +many of whom would also be inexperienced in domestic life and its +needs; and we may probably connect it with the growth of the system of +insulae, the great lodging-houses in which it would not be convenient +either to grind your corn or to bake your bread. So the bakers, called +_pistores_ from the old practice of pounding the grain in a mortar +(_pingere_), soon became a very important and flourishing section of +the plebs, though never held in high repute; and in connexion with the +distributions of corn some of them probably rose above the level of +the small tradesman, like the _pistor redemptor_, Marcus Vergilius +Eurysaces, whose monument has come down to us.[81] It should be noted +that the trade of the baker included the grinding of the corn; there +were no millers at Rome. This can be well illustrated from the +numerous bakers' shops which have been excavated at Pompeii.[82] In +one of these, for example, we find the four mills in a large apartment +at the rear of the building, and close by is the stall for the donkeys +that turned them, and also the kneading-room, oven, and store-room. +Small bakeries may have had only hand-mills, like the one with which +we saw the peasant in the _Moretum_ grinding his corn; but the donkey +was from quite early times associated with the business, as we know +from the fact that at the festival of Vesta, the patron deity of all +bakers, they were decorated with wreaths and cakes.[83] + +The baking trade must have given employment to a large number of +persons. So beyond doubt did the supply of vegetables, which were +brought into the city from gardens outside, and formed, after the +corn, the staple food of the lower classes. We have already seen +in the _Moretum_ the countryman adding to his store of bread by a +hotch-potch made of vegetables, and the reader of the poem will have +been astonished at the number mentioned, including garden herbs for +flavouring purposes. The ancients were fully alive to the value of +vegetable food and of fruit as a healthy diet in warm climates, and +the wonderfully full information we have on this subject comes from +medical writers like Galen, as well as from Pliny's _Natural History_, +and from the writers on agriculture. The very names of some Roman +families, e.g. the Fabii and Caepiones, carry us back to a time when +beans and onions, which later on were not so much in favour, were a +regular part of the diet of the Roman people. The list of vegetables +and herbs which we know of as consumed fills a whole page in +Marquardt's interesting account of this subject, and includes most +of those which we use at the present day.[84] It was only when the +consumption of meat and game came in with the growth of capital +and its attendant luxury, that a vegetarian diet came to be at all +despised. This is another result of the economic changes caused by the +Hannibalic war, and is curiously illustrated by the speech of the cook +of a great household in the _Pseudolus_ of Plautus, who prides himself +on not being as other cooks are, who make the guests into beasts of +the field, stuffing them with all kinds of food which cattle eat, and +even with things which cattle would refuse![85] we may take it that at +all times the Roman of the lower class consumed fruit and vegetables +largely, and thus gave employment to a number of market-gardeners and +small purveyors. Fish he did not eat; like meat, it was too expensive; +in fact fish-eating only came in towards the end of the republican +period, and then only as a luxury for those who could afford to keep +fish-ponds on their estates. How far the supply of other luxuries, +such as butchers' meat, gave employment to freemen, is not very clear; +and perhaps we need here only take account of such few other products, +e.g. oil and wine, as were in universal demand, though not always +procurable by the needy. There were plenty of small shops in Rome +where these things were sold; we have a picture of such a shop +(_caupona_) in another of the minor Virgilian poems, the _Copa_, i.e. +hostess, or perhaps in this case the woman who danced and sang for the +entertainment of the guests. She plied her trade in a smoky tavern +(fumosa taberna), all the contents of which are charmingly described +in the poem.[86] + +Let us now see how the other chief necessity of human life, the supply +of clothing, gave employment to the free Roman shopkeeper. + +The clothing of the whole Roman population was originally woollen; +both the outer garment, the _toga_, the inner (_tunica_) were of this +material, and the sheep which supplied it were pastured well and +conveniently in all the higher hilly regions of Italy. Other +materials, linen, cotton, and silk, came in later with the growth +of commerce, but the manufacture of these into clothing was chiefly +carried on by slaves in the great households, and we need not take +any account of them here. The preparation of wool too was in well +regulated households undertaken even under the Empire by the women +of the family, including the materfamilias herself, and in many an +inscription we find the _lanificium_ recorded as the honourable +practice of matrons.[87] But as in the case of food, so with the +simple material of clothing, it was soon found impossible in a city +for the poorer citizens to do all that was necessary within their +own houses; this is proved conclusively by the mention of gilds of +fullers[88] (_fullones_) among those traditionally ascribed to Numa. +Fulling is the preparation of cloth by cleansing in water after it +has come from the loom; but the fuller's trade of the later republic +probably often comprised the actual manufacture of the wool for +those who could not do it themselves. He also acted as the washer of +garments already in use, and this was no doubt a very important part +of his business, for in a warm climate heavy woollen material is +naturally apt to get frequently impure and unwholesome. Soap was +not known till the first century of the Empire, and the process of +cleansing was all the more lengthy and elaborate; the details of the +process are known to us from paintings at Pompeii, where they adorn +the walls of fulleries which have been excavated. A plan of one of +them will be found in Mau's _Pompeii_, p. 388. The ordinary woollen +garments were simply bleached white, not dyed; and though dyers are +mentioned among the ancient gilds by Plutarch, it is probable that he +means chiefly fullers by the Greek word [_Greek: Bapheis_]. + +Of the manufacture of leather we do not know so much. This, like that +of wool, must have originally been carried on in the household, but +it is mentioned as a trade as early as the time of Plautus.[89] The +shoemakers' business was, however, a common one from the earliest +times, probably because it needs some technical skill and experience; +the most natural division of labour in early societies is sure to +produce this trade. The shoemakers' gild was among the earliest, +and had its centre in the _atrium sutorium_;[90] and the individual +shoemakers carried on their trade in booths or shops. The Roman shoe, +it may be mentioned here, was of several different kinds, according +to the sex, rank, and occupation of the wearer; but the two most +important sorts were the _calceus_, the shoe worn with the toga in the +city, and the mark of the Roman citizen; and the _pero_ or high boot, +which was more serviceable in the country. + +Among the old gilds were also those of the smiths (_fabri ferrarii_) +and the potters (_figuli_), but of these little need be said here, +for they were naturally fewer in number than the vendors of food and +clothing, and the raw material for their work had, in later times at +least, to be brought from a distance. The later Romans seem to have +procured their iron-ore from the island of Elba and Spain, Gaul, +and other provinces,[91] and to have imported ware of all kinds, +especially the finer sorts, from various parts of the Empire; the +commoner kinds, such as the _dolia_ or large vessels for storing wine +and oil, were certainly made in Rome in the second century B.C., for +Cato in his book on agriculture[92] remarks that they could be best +procured there. But both these manufactures require a certain amount +of capital, and we may doubt whether the free population was largely +employed in them; we know for certain that in the early Empire +the manufacture of ware, tiles, bricks, etc., was carried on by +capitalists, some of them of noble birth, including even Emperors +themselves, and beyond doubt the "hands" they employed were chiefly +slaves.[93] + +But industries of this kind may serve to remind us of another kind of +employment in which the lower classes of Rome and Ostia may have found +the means of making a living. The importation of raw materials, and +that of goods of all kinds, which was constantly on the increase +throughout Roman history, called for the employment of vast numbers of +porters, carriers, and what we should call dock hands, working both +at Ostia, where the heavier ships were unladed or relieved of part of +their cargoes in order to enable them to come up the Tiber,[94] and +also at the wharves at Rome under the Aventine. We must also remember +that almost all porterage in the city had to be done by men, with the +aid of mules or donkeys; the streets were so narrow that in trying to +picture what they looked like we must banish from our minds the +crowds of vehicles familiar in a modern city. Julius Caesar, in his +regulations for the government of the city of Rome, forbade waggons to +be driven in the streets in the day-time.[95] Even supposing that a +large amount of porterage was done by slaves for their masters, we may +reasonably guess that free labour was also employed in this way at +Rome, as was certainly the case at Ostia, and also at Pompeii, where +the pack-carriers (_saccarii_) and mule-drivers (_muliones_) are among +the corporations of free men who have left in the form of _graffiti_ +appeals to voters to support a particular candidate for election to a +magistracy.[96] + +Thus we may safely conclude that there was a very considerable amount +of employment in Rome available for the poorer citizens, quite apart +from the labour performed by slaves. But before closing this chapter +it is necessary to point out the precarious conditions under which +that employment was carried on, as compared with the industrial +conditions of a modern city. It is true enough that the factory system +of modern times, with the sweating, the long hours of work, and the +unwholesome surroundings of our industrial towns, has produced much +misery, much physical degeneracy; and we have also the problem of the +unemployed always with us. But there were two points in which the +condition of the free artisan and tradesman at Rome was far worse +than it is with us, and rendered him liable to an even more hopeless +submersion than that which is too often the fate of the modern +wage-earner. + +First, let us consider that markets, then as now, were liable to +fluctuation,--probably more liable then than now, because the +supply both of food and of the raw material of manufacture was more +precarious owing to the greater difficulties of conveyance. Trade +would be bad at times, and many things might happen which would compel +the man with little or no capital to borrow money, which he could only +do on the security of his stock, or indeed, as the law of Rome still +recognised, of his person. Money-lenders were abundant, as we shall +find in the next chapter, interest was high, and to fall into +the hands of a money-lender was only another step on the way to +destruction. At the present day, if a tradesman fails in business, he +can appeal to a merciful bankruptcy law, which gives him every chance +to satisfy his creditors and to start afresh; or in the case of a +single debt, he can be put into a county court where every chance is +given him to pay it within a reasonable time. All this machinery, most +of which (to the disgrace of modern civilisation) is quite recent in +date was absent at Rome. The only magistrates administering the civil +law were the praetors, and though since the reforms of Sulla there +were usually eight of these in the city, we can well imagine how hard +it would be for the poor debtor in a huge city to get his affairs +attended to. Probably in most cases the creditor worked his will with +him, took possession of his property without the interference of the +law, and so submerged him, or even reduced him to slavery. If he chose +to be merciful he could go to the praetor, and get what was called a +_missio in bona_, i.e. a legal right to take the whole of his debtor's +property, waiving the right to his person. And it must be noted that +no more humane law of bankruptcy was introduced until the time of +Augustus. No wonder that at least three times in the last century +of the Republic there arose a cry for the total abolition of debts +(_tabulae novae_): in 88 B.C., after the Social War; in 63, during +Cicero's consulship, when political and social revolutionary projects +were combined in the conspiracy of Catiline; and in 48, when the +economic condition of Italy had been disturbed by the Civil War, and +Caesar had much difficulty in keeping unprincipled agitators from +applying violent and foolish remedies. But to this we shall return in +the next chapter. + +Secondly, let us consider that in a large city of to-day the person +and property of all, rich or poor are adequately protected by a sound +system of police and by courts of first instance which are sitting +every day. Assault and murder, theft and burglary, are exceptional. It +might be going too far to say that at Rome they were the rule; but it +is the fact that in what we may call the slums of Rome there was no +machinery for checking them. No such machinery had been invented, +because according to the old rules of law, still in force, a father +might punish his children, a master his slaves, and a murderer or +thief might be killed by his intended victim if caught red-handed. +This rude justice would suffice in a small city and a simple social +system; but it would be totally inadequate to protect life and +property in a huge population, such as that of the Rome of the last +century B.C. Since the time of Sulla there had indeed been courts for +the trial of crimes of violence, and at all times the consuls with +their staff of assistants had been charged with the peace of the city; +but we may well ask whether the poor Roman of Cicero's day could +really benefit either by the consular imperium or the action of the +Sullan courts. A slave was the object of his master's care, and +theft from a slave was theft from his owner,--if injured or murdered +satisfaction could be had for him. But in that age of slack and sordid +government it is at least extremely doubtful whether either the person +or the property of the lower class of citizen could be said to have +been properly protected in the city. And the same anarchy prevailed +all over Italy,--from the suburbs of Rome, infested by robbers, to +the sheep-farm of the great capitalist, where the traveller might be +kidnapped by runaway slaves, to vanish from the sight of men without +leaving a trace of his fate. + +It is the great merit of Augustus that he made Rome not only a city of +marble, but one in which the person and property of all citizens +were fairly secure. By a new and rational bankruptcy law, and by a +well-organised system of police, he made life endurable even for the +poorest. If he initiated a policy which eventually spoilt and degraded +the Roman population, if he failed to encourage free industry as +persistently as it seems to us that he might have done, he may perhaps +be in some degree excused, as knowing the conditions and difficulties +of the problem before him better than we can know them. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +THE MEN OF BUSINESS AND THEIR METHODS + +The highest class in the social scale at Rome was divided, roughly +rather than exactly, into two sections, according as they did or did +not aim at being elected to magistracies and so entering the senate. +To the senatorius ordo, which will be dealt with in the next chapter, +belonged all senators, and all sons of senators whether or no they had +as yet been elected to the quaestorship, which after Sulla was the +magistracy qualifying for the senate. But outside the senatorial ranks +there were numbers of wealthy and well educated men, most of whom +were engaged in one way or another in business; by which term is here +meant, not so much trading and mercantile operations, as banking, +money-lending, the undertaking of State contracts, and the raising of +taxes. The general name for this class was, strange to say, equites, +or knights, as they are often but unfortunately called in modern +histories of Rome. They were in fact at this time the most unmilitary +part of the population, and they inherited the title only because the +property qualification for the equites equo privato, i.e. the cavalry +who served with their horses, had been taken as the qualification also +for equestrian judices, to whom Gaius Gracchus had given the decision +of cases in the quaestio de repetundis.[97] This law of Gracchus had +had the result of constituting an ordo equester alongside of the ordo +senatorius, with a property qualification of 400,000 sesterces, or +about £3200, not of income but of capital. Any one who had this sum +could call himself an eques, provided he were not a senator, even if +he had never served in the cavalry or mounted a horse. + +We are concerned here with the business which these men carried on, +not with their history as a body in the State; this latter difficult +subject has been handled by Dr. Greenidge in his _Roman Public +Life_, and by many other writers. We have to take them here as the +representatives of capital and the chief uses to which it was put in +the age of Cicero; for, as a matter of fact, they were then doing by +far the greatest part of the money-making of the Empire. They were not +indeed always doing it for themselves; they often represented men of +senatorial rank, and acted as their agents in the investment of money +and in securing the returns due. For the senator was not allowed, by +the strict letter of the law, to engage in business which would take +him out of Italy;[98] his services were needed at home, and if indeed +he had performed his proper work with industry and energy he never +could have found time to travel on his own business. At the time of +which we are speaking there were ways in which he could escape +from his duties,--ways only too often used; but many senators did +undoubtedly employ members of the equestrian order to transact their +business abroad, so that it is not untrue to say that the equites +had in their hands almost the whole of the monetary business of the +Empire. + +The property qualification may seem to us small enough, but it is of +course no real index to the amount of capital which a wealthy eques +might possess. Nothing is more astonishing in the history of the last +century of the republic than the vast sums of money in the hands of +individuals, and the enormous sums lent and borrowed in private by the +men whose names are familiar to us as statesmen. It is told of Caesar +that as a very young man he owed a sum equivalent to about £280,000; +of Crassus that he had 200 million sesterces invested in land +alone.[99] Cicero, though from time to time in difficulties, always +found it possible to borrow the large sums which he spent on houses, +libraries, etc. These are men of the ordo senatorius; of the equites +proper, the men who dealt rather in lending than borrowing, we have +not such explicit accounts, because they were not in the same degree +before the public. But of Atticus, the type of the best and highest +section of the ordo equester, and of the amount and the sources of his +wealth, we happen to know a good deal from the little biography of him +written by his contemporary and friend Cornelius Nepos, taken together +with Cicero's numerous letters to him. His father had left him the +moderate fortune of £16,000. With this he bought land, not in Italy +but in Epirus, where it was probably to be had cheap. The profits +arising from this land, with which he took no doubt much trouble and +pains, he invested again in other ways. He lent money to Greek cities: +to Athens indeed without claiming any interest; to Sicyon without much +hope of repayment; but no doubt to many others at a large profit. He +also undertook the publishing of books, buying slaves who were skilled +copyists; and in this, as in so many other ways, his friendship was of +infinite value to Cicero. When we reflect that every highly educated +man at this time owned a library and wished to have the last new +book, we can understand how even this business might be extensive and +profitable, and are not astonished to find Cicero asking Atticus to +see that copies of his Greek book on his own consulship were to be had +in Athens and other Greek towns.[100] This shrewd man also invested in +gladiators, whom he could let out at a profit, as no doubt he would +let out his library slaves.[101] Lastly, he owned houses in Rome; in +fact he must have been making money in many different ways, spending +little himself, and attending personally and indefatigably to all his +business, as indeed with true and disinterested friendship he +attended to that of Cicero In him we see the best type of the Roman +businessman: not the bloated millionaire living in coarse luxury, but +the man who loved to be always busy for himself or his friends, and +whose knowledge of men and things was so thorough that he could make +a fortune without anxiety to himself or discomfort to others. What +amount of capital he realised in these various ways we do not know, +but the mass of his fortune came to him after he had been pursuing +them for many years, in the form of a legacy from an uncle. This uncle +was a typical capitalist and money-lender of a much lower and coarser +type than his nephew; Nepos aptly describes him as "familiarem L. +Luculli, divitem, _difficillima natura_." The nephew was the only man +who could get on with this Peter Featherstone of Roman life, and this +simple fact tells us as much about the character and disposition of +Atticus as anything in Cicero's correspondence with him. The happy +result was that his uncle left him a sum which we may reckon at about +£80,000 (_centies sestertium_),[102] and henceforward he may be +reckoned, if not as a millionaire, at any rate as a man of large +capital, soundly invested and continually on the increase. + +There is no doubt then as to the fact of the presence of capital on a +large scale in the Rome of the last century B.C., or of the business +talents of many of its holders, or again of the many profitable ways +in which it might be invested. But in order to learn a little more of +the history of capital at Rome, which is of the utmost importance for +a proper understanding not only of the economic, but of the social and +ethical characteristics of the age, it is necessary to go as far back +as the war with Hannibal at least. + +That there had been surplus capital in the hands of individuals long +before the war with Hannibal is a well known fact, proved by the old +Roman law of debt, and by the traditions of the unhappy relations +of debtor and creditor. But in order not to go back too far, we may +notice a striking fact which meets us at the very outset of that +momentous war. In 215 B.C., and again the next year, the treasury was +almost empty; then for the first time, so far as we know, private +individuals came to the rescue, and lent large sums to the State;[103] +these were partners in certain associations to be described later on +in this chapter, which had made money by undertaking State contracts +in the previous wars. The presence of Hannibal in Italy strained the +resources of the State to the utmost in every way; it cut the Romans +off from their supply of the precious metals, forced them to reduce +the weight of the _as_ to one ounce, and, curiously enough, also to +issue gold coins for the first time,--a measure probably taken on +account of the dearth of silver,--and to make use of the uncoined gold +in the treasury or in private hands. At the end of the war the supply +of silver was recovered; henceforward all reckonings were made in +silver, and the gold coinage was not long continued. + +At this happy time, when Rome felt that she could breathe again after +the final defeat of her deadly enemy, began the great inpouring of +wealth of which the capitalism of Cicero's time is the direct result. +The chief sources of this wealth, so far as the State was concerned, +were the indemnities paid by conquered peoples, especially Carthage +and Antiochus of Syria, and the booty brought home by victorious +generals. Of these Livy has preserved explicit accounts, and the best +example is perhaps that of the booty brought by Scipio Asiaticus +from Asia Minor in 189 B.C., of which Pliny remarks that it first +introduced luxury into Italy.[104] It has been roughly computed that +the total amount from indemnities may be taken at six million of our +pounds, in the period of the great wars of the second century B.C., +and from booty very much the same sum. Besides this we have to take +account of the produce of the Spanish silver mines, of which the +Romans came into possession with the Carthaginian dominions in Spain; +the richest of these were near Carthago Nova, and Polybius tells us +that in his day they employed 40,000 miners, and produced an immense +revenue.[105] + +All this went into the aerarium, except what was distributed out of +the booty to the soldiers, both Romans and socii, the former naturally +taking as a rule double the amount paid to the latter. But the influx +of treasure into the State coffers soon began to tell upon the +financial welfare of the whole citizen community; the most striking +proof of this is the fact that, in 167 B.C., after the second +Macedonian war, the _tribulum_ or property-tax was no longer imposed +upon all citizens. Henceforward the Roman citizen had hardly any +burdens to bear except the necessity of military service, and there +are very distinct signs that he was beginning to be unwilling to +bear even that one. He saw the prominent men of his time enriching +themselves abroad and leading luxurious lives, and the spirit of ease +and idleness began inevitably to affect him too. Polybius indeed, +writing about 140-130 B.C., declines to state positively that the +great Romans were corrupt or extortionate,[106] and those who were his +intimate friends, Aemilius Paullus and his sons, were distinguished +for their "abstinentia": but the mere occurrence of this word +"abstinentia" in the epitomes of Livy's lost books which dealt with +this time, betrays the fact too obviously. In 149 was passed the +first of the long series of laws intended, but in vain, to check the +tendency of provincial governors to extort money from their subjects; +and as this law established for the first time a standing court to try +offences of this kind, the inference is inevitable that such offences +were common and on the increase. + +The remarkable fact about this inpouring of wealth is its +extraordinary suddenness. Within the lifetime of a single individual, +Cato the Censor, who died an old man in 149 B.C., the financial +condition of the State and of individuals had undergone a complete +change. Cato loved to make money and knew very well how to do it, as +his own treatise on agriculture plainly shows; but he wished to do it +in a legitimate way, and to spend profitably the money he made, and +he spared no pains to prevent others from making it illegally and +spending it unprofitably. He saw clearly that the sudden influx of +wealth was disturbing the balance of the Roman mind, and that the +desire to make money was taking the place of the idea of duty to the +State. He knew that no Roman could serve two masters, Mammon and the +State, and that Mammon was getting the upper hand in his views of +life. If the accumulation of wealth had been gradual instead of +sudden, natural instead of artificial, this could hardly have +happened; as in England from the fourteenth century onwards, the +steady growth of capital would have produced no ethical mischief, no +false economic ideas, because it would have been an _organic_ growth, +resting upon a sound and natural economic basis.[107] As the French +historian has said with singular felicity,[108] "Money is like water +of a river: if it suddenly floods, it devastates; divide it into a +thousand channels where it circulates quietly, and it brings life and +fertility to every spot." + +It was in this period of the great wars, so unwholesome and perilous +economically, that the men of business, as defined at the beginning of +this chapter--the men of capital outside the ordo senatorius--first +rose to real importance. In the century that followed, and as we see +them more especially in Cicero's correspondence, they became a great +power in the State, and not only in Rome, but in every corner of the +Empire. We have now to see how they gained this importance and +this power, and what use they made of their capital and their +opportunities. This is not usually explained or illustrated in the +ordinary histories of Rome, yet it is impossible without explaining it +to understand either the social or the public life of the Rome of this +period. + +The men of business may be divided into two classes, according as they +undertook work for the State or on their own account entirely. It does +not follow that these two classes were mutually exclusive; a man might +very well invest his money in both kinds of undertaking, but these two +kinds were totally distinct, and called by different names. A public +undertaking was called _publicum_,[109] and the men who undertook it +_publicani_; a private undertaking was _negotium_, and all private +business men were known as _negotiatores_. The publicani were always +organised in joint-stock companies (_societates publicanorum_); +the negotiatores might be in private partnership with one or more +partners,[110] but as a rule seem to have been single individuals. We +will deal first with the publicani. + +In a passage of Livy quoted just now it is stated that at the +beginning of the Hannibalic war money was advanced to the State by +societates publicanorum; Livy also happens to mention that three of +these competed for the privilege. Thus it is clear that the system of +getting public work done by contract was in full operation before that +date, together with the practice on the part of the contractors of +uniting in partnerships to lessen the risk. System and practice are +equally natural, and it needs but a little historical imagination to +realise their development. As the Roman State became involved in wars +leading to the conquest of Italy, and in due time to the acquisition +of dominions beyond sea, armies and fleets had to be equipped and +provisioned, roads had to be made, public rents to be got in, new +buildings to be erected for public convenience or worship, corn had to +be procured for the growing population, and, above all, taxes had +to be collected both in Italy and in the provinces as these were +severally acquired.[111] The government had no apparatus for carrying +out these undertakings itself; it had not, as we have, separate +departments or bureaux with a permanent staff of officials attached to +each, and even if it had been so provided, it would still have +found it most convenient, as modern governments also do, to get the +necessary work carried out in most cases by private contractors. Every +five years the censors let the various works by auction to contracting +companies, who engaged to carry them out for fixed sums, and make what +profit they could out of the business (_censoria locatio_). This saved +an immense amount of trouble to the senate and magistrates, who were +usually busily engaged in other matters; nor was there at first any +harm in the system, so long as the Romans were morally sound, and +incapable of jobbing or scamping their work. The very fact that they +united into companies for the purpose of undertaking these contracts +shows that they were aware of the risk involved, and wished as far as +possible to neutralise it; it did not mean greed for money, but rather +anxiety not to lose the capital invested. + +But as Rome advanced her dominion in the second century B.C., and +had to see to an ever-increasing amount of public business, it was +discovered that the business of contracting was one which might indeed +be risky, but with skill and experience, and especially with a trifle +of unscrupulousness, might be made a perfectly safe and paying +investment. This was especially the case with the undertakings for +raising the taxes in the newly acquired provinces as well as in Italy, +more particularly in those provinces, viz. Sicily and Asia, which paid +their taxes in the form of tithe and not in a lump sum. The collection +of these revenues could be made a very paying concern seeing that it +was not necessary to be too squeamish about the rights and claims of +the provincials. And, indeed, by the time of the Gracchi all these +joint-stock companies had become the one favourite investment in +which every one who had any capital, however small, placed it without +hesitation. Polybius, who was in Rome at this time for several years, +and was thoroughly acquainted with Roman life, has left a valuable +record in his sixth book (ch. xvii.) of the universal demand for +shares in these companies; a fact which proves that they were believed +to be both safe and profitable. + +These societates were managed by the great men of business, as our +joint-stock companies are directed by men of capital and consequence. +Polybius tells us that among those who were concerned, some took the +contracts from the censors: these were called _mancipes_, because +the sign of accepting the contract at the auction was to hold up the +hand.[112] Others, Polybius goes on, were in association with these +mancipes, and, as we may assume, equally responsible with them; these +were the _socii_. It was of course necessary that security should be +given for the fulfilment of the contract, and Polybius does not omit +to mention the _praedes_ or guarantors[113]. Lastly, he says that +others again gave their property on behalf of these official members +of the companies, or in their name, for the public purpose in hand. +These last words admit of more than one interpretation, but as in the +same passage Polybius tells us that all who had any money put it into +these concerns, we may reasonably suppose that he means to indicate +the _participes_, or small holders of shares, which were called +_partes_, or if very small, _particulae_[114]. The socii and +participes seem to be distinguished by Cicero in his Verrine orations +(ii. 1. 55), where he quotes an addition made by Verres illegally as +praetor to a lex censoria: "qui de censoribus redemerit, eum socium ne +admittito neve partem dato." If this be so, we may regard the socius +as having a share both in the management and the liability, while the +particeps merely put his money into the undertaking[115]. The actual +management, on which Polybius is silent, was in Rome in the hands of a +_magister_, changing yearly, like the magistrates of the State, and +in the provinces of a _pro-magister_ answering to the pro-magistrate, +with a large staff of assistants[116]. Communications between +the management at home and that in the provinces were kept up by +messengers (_tabellarii_), who were chiefly slaves; and it is +interesting incidentally to notice that these, who are constantly +mentioned in Cicero's letters, also acted as letter-carriers for +private persons to whom their employers were known. + +Such a business as this, involving the interests of so many citizens, +must have necessitated something very like the Stock Exchange or +Bourse of modern times; and in fact the basilicas and porticoes which +we met with in the Forum during our walk through Rome did actually +serve this purpose.[117] The reader of Cicero's letters will have +noticed how often the Forum is spoken of as the centre of life at +Rome--going down to the Forum was indeed the equivalent of "going into +the City," as well as of "going down to Westminster." All who had +investments in the societates would wish to know the latest news +brought by _tabellarii_ from the provinces, e.g. of the state of the +crop in Sicily or Asia, or of the disposition of some provincial +governor towards the publicani of his province, or again of the +approach of some enemy, such as Mithridates or Ariovistus, who by +defeating a Roman army might break into Roman territory and destroy +the prospects of a successful contractual enterprise. Assuredly +Cicero's love for the Forum was not a political one only; he loved it +indeed as the scene of his great triumphs as an advocate, but also +no doubt because he was concerned in some of the companies which had +their headquarters there. When urging the people to give Pompeius +extraordinary powers to drive Mithridates out of reach of Roman Asia, +where he had done incalculable damage, he dwells both with knowledge +and feeling on the value of the province, not only to the State, but +to innumerable private citizens who had their money invested in its +revenues[118]. "If some," he pleads, "lose their whole fortunes, +they will drag many more down with them. Save the State from such a +calamity: and believe me (though you see it well enough) that the +whole system of credit and finance which is carried on here at Rome in +the Forum, is inextricably bound up with the revenues of the Asiatic +province. If those revenues are destroyed, our whole system of credit +will come down with a crash. See that you do not hesitate for a moment +to prosecute with all your energies a war by which the glory of the +Roman name, the safety of our allies, our most valuable revenues, +and the fortunes of innumerable citizens, will be effectually +preserved.[119]" + +This is a good example of the way in which political questions might +be decided in the interests of capital, and it is all the more +striking, because a few years earlier Sulla had done all he could to +weaken the capitalists as a distinct class. Pompeius went out with +abnormal powers, and might be considered for the time as their +representative; the result in this case was on the whole good, for the +work he did in the East was of permanent value to the Empire. But the +constitution was shaken and never wholly recovered, and nothing that +he was able to do could restore the unfortunate province of Asia +to its former prosperity. Four years later the company which had +contracted for raising the taxes in the province sought to repudiate +their bargain. This was disgraceful, as Cicero himself expressly +says;[120] but it is quite possible that they had great difficulty +in getting the money in, and feared a dead loss,[121] owing to +the impoverishment of the provincials. This matter again led to a +political crisis; for the senate, urged by Cato, was disposed to +refuse the concession, and the alliance between the senatorial class +and the business men (_ordinum concordia_), which it had been Cicero's +particular policy to confirm, in order to mass together all men of +property against the dangers of socialism and anarchy, was thereby +threatened so seriously that it ceased to be a factor in politics. + +These companies and their agents were indeed destined to be a thorn in +Cicero's side as a provincial governor himself. When called upon to +rule Cilicia in 51 B.C. he found the people quite unable to pay their +taxes and driven into the hands of the middleman in order to do +so;[122] his sympathies were thus divided between the unfortunate +provincials, for whom he felt a genuine pity, and the interests of +the company for collecting the Cilician taxes, and of those who had +invested their money in its funds. In his edict, issued before his +entrance into the province, he had tried to balance the conflicting +interests; writing of it to Atticus, who had naturally as a capitalist +been anxious to know what he was doing, he says that he is doing all +he can for the publicani, coaxing them, praising them, yielding to +them--but taking care that they do no mischief;[123] words which +perhaps did not altogether satisfy his friend. All honest provincial +governors, especially in the Eastern provinces, which had been the +scene of continual wars for nearly three centuries, found themselves +in the same difficulty. They were continually beset by urgent appeals +on behalf of the tax-companies and their agents--appeals made +without a thought of the condition of a province or its tax-paying +capacity--so completely had the idea of making money taken possession +of the Roman mind. Among the letters of Cicero are many such appeals, +sent by himself to other provincial governors, some of them while he +was himself in Cilicia. We may take two as examples, before bringing +this part of our subject to a close. + +The first of these letters is to P. Silius Nerva, propraetor of +Bithynia, a province recently added to the Empire by Pompeius. Cicero +here says that he is himself closely connected with the partners +in the company for collecting the pasture-dues (scriptura) of the +province, "not only because that company as a body is my client, but +also because I am very intimate with most of the individual partners." +Can we doubt that he was himself a shareholder? He urges Nerva to do +all he can for Terentius Hispo, the pro-magister of the company, +and to try to secure for him the means of making all the necessary +arrangements with the taxed communities--relying, we are glad to find, +on the tact and kindness of the governor.[124] The second letter, to +his own son-in-law, Furius Crassipes, quaestor of Bithynia, shall be +quoted here in full from Mr. Shuckburgh's translation:[125] + +"Though in a personal interview I recommended as earnestly as I could +the publicani of Bithynia, and though I gathered that by your own +inclination no less than from my recommendation, you were anxious to +promote the advantage of that company in every way in your power, I +have not hesitated to write you this, since those interested thought +it of great importance that I should inform you what my feeling +towards them was. I wish you to believe that, while I have ever had +the greatest pleasure in doing all I can for the order of publicani +generally, yet this particular company of Bithynia has my special +good wishes. Owing to the rank and birth of its members, this company +constitutes a very important part of the state: for it is made up of +members of the other companies: and it so happens that a very large +number of its members are extremely intimate with me, and especially +the man who is at present at the head of the business, P. Rupilius, +its pro-magister. Such being the case, I beg you with more than common +earnestness to protect Cn. Pupius, an employé of the company,[126] by +every sort of kindness and liberality in your power, and to secure, as +you easily may, that his services shall be as satisfactory as possible +to the company, while at the same time securing and promoting the +property and interests of the partners--as to which I am well aware +how much power a quaestor possesses. You will be doing me in this +matter a very great favour, and I can myself from personal experience +pledge you my word that you will find the partners of the Bithynia +company gratefully mindful of any services you can do them." + +If Cicero, the most tender-hearted of Roman public men, could urge +the claims of the companies so strongly, and, as in this last letter, +without any allusion to the interests of the province and its people, +we may well imagine how others, less scrupulous, must have combined +with the capitalists to work havoc in regions that only needed peace +and mild government to recover from centuries of misery. Such a letter +is the best comment we can have on the pernicious system of raising +taxes by contract--a system which was to be modified, regulated, and +eventually reduced to harmless dimensions under the benevolent and +scientific government of the early Empire. + +We must now turn to the other department of the activity of the men of +business, that of banking and money-lending (_negotiatores_). + +On the north or sunny side of the Forum we noticed in our walk round +the city the shops of the bankers (_tabernae argentariae_). +The _argentarii_ were originally, as their name suggests, only +money-changers, a class of small business men that arose in response +to a need felt as soon as increasing commerce and extended empire +brought foreign coin in large quantities to Rome. The Italian +communities outside the Roman State issued their own coinage until +they were admitted to the civitas after the Social War,--a fact which +alone is sufficient to show the need of men who made it their business +to know the current value of various coins in Roman money; and as +Rome became involved in the affairs of the East, there were always +circulating in the city the tetradrachms of Antioch and Alexandria, +the Rhodian drachmas, and the cistophori of the kings of Pergamus, +afterwards coined in the province of Asia.[127] No doubt the +money-changing business was a profitable one, and itself led to the +formation of capital which could be used in taking deposits and making +advances; and, as Professor Purser puts it,[128] the mere possession +of a quantity of coin for purposes of change would be likely to +develop spontaneously the profession of banking. In the same way the +_nummularii_, or assayers of the coin, having a mass of it in their +hands, would tend to develop a private business as well as their +official public one. All these, argentarii or nummularii, might be +called _foeneratores_, from the interest (_foenus_) which they charged +in their transactions. The profession was a respectable one, for +honesty and exactness in accounts were absolutely necessary to success +in it.[129] If the reader will turn to Cicero's speech in defence +of Caecina (6. 16), he will find these accounts appealed to, though +apparently not actually produced in court; but in the _Noctes Atticae_ +of Aulus Gellius (xiv. 2) a judge who is describing a civil case which +came before him, mentions, among the documents produced, _mensae +rationes_, i.e. the accounts kept by the banker. + +Your argentarius seems to have been ready to undertake for you almost +all that a modern banker will do for his customer. He would take +deposits of money, either for the depositor's use or to bear interest, +and would make payments on his behalf on receipt of a written order, +answering to our cheque;[130] this was a practice probably introduced +from Greece, for in the Eastern Mediterranean the whole business of +credit and exchange had long been reduced to a system. Again, if you +wished to be supplied with money during a journey, or to pay a sum to +any one at a distance, e.g. in Greece or Asia, your argentarius +would arrange it for you by giving you letters of credit or bills of +exchange on a banker at such towns as you might mention, and so save +you the trouble of carrying a heavy weight of coin with you. When, +Cicero sent his son to the University of Athens, he wished to give +him a generous allowance,--too generous, as we should think, for it +amounted to about £640 a year,--and he asked Atticus whether it could +be managed for him by _permutatio_, i.e. exchange, and received an +affirmative answer[131]. So too when his beloved freedman secretary +Tiro fell ill of fever at Patrae, Cicero finds it easy to get a local +banker there to advance him all the money he needed, and to pay the +doctor, engaging himself to repay the money to any agent whom the +banker might name[132]. + +Your argentarius would also attend for you, or appoint an agent to +attend, at any public auction in which you were interested as seller +or purchaser, and would pay or receive the money for you,--a practice +which must have greatly helped him in getting to know the current +value of all kinds of property, and indeed in learning to understand +human nature on its business side. In the passage from the _pro +Caecina_ quoted just now, a lady, Caesennia, wished to buy an estate; +she employs an agent, Aebutius, no doubt recommended by her banker, +and to him the estate is knocked down. He undertakes that the +argentarius of the vendor, who is present at the auction, shall be +paid the value, and this is ultimately done by Caesennia, and the sum +entered in the banker's books (tabulae). + +But perhaps the most important part of the business was the finding +money for those who were in want of it, i.e. making advances on +interest. The poor man who was in need of ready money could get it +from the argentarius in coin if he had any security to offer, and, +as we saw in the last chapter, might get entangled more and more +hopelessly in the nets of the money-lender. Whether the same +argentarius did this small business and also the work of supplying the +rich man with credit, we do not know; it may have been the case that +the great money-lenders like Atticus themselves employed argentarii, +and so kept them going. That Atticus would undertake, anyhow, for a +friend like Cicero, any amount of money-finding, we know well from +many letters of Cicero, written when he was anxious to buy a piece +of land at any cost on which to erect a shrine to his beloved +daughter[133]; and we may be pretty sure that Atticus could not have +done all that Cicero importunately pressed upon him if he had not had +a number of useful professional agents at command. From these same +letters we also learn that finding money by no means necessarily meant +finding coin; in a society where every one was lending or borrowing, +and probably doing both at the same time, what actually passed was +chiefly securities, mortgages, debts, and so on. If you wanted to hand +over a hundred thousand or so to a creditor, what your agent had as +often as not to do was to persuade that creditor to accept as payment +the debts owing to yourself from others, i.e. you would hand over to +him, if he would accept them, the bonds or other securities given you +by your own debtors.[134] + +It is plain then that the money-lenders had an enormous business, even +in Rome alone, and risky as it undoubtedly was, it must often have +been a profitable one. And it was not only at Rome that men were +borrowing and lending, but over the whole Empire. For reasons which it +would need an economic treatise to explain, private men, cities, and +even kings were in want of money; it was needed to meet the increased +cost of living and the constantly increasing standard of living among +the educated;[135] it was needed by the cities of Greece and the East +to repair the damages done in the wars of the last three hundred +years; it was needed by the poorer provincials to pay the taxes for +which neither the publicani nor the Roman government could afford to +wait; and it was needed by the kings who had come within the dismal +shadow of the Roman Empire, in order to carry on their own government, +or to satisfy the demands of the neighbouring provincial governor, or +to bribe the ruling men at Rome to get some decree passed in their +favour. Cicero, at the end of his life, looking back to his own +consulship in 63, says that at no time in his recollection was the +whole world in such a condition of indebtedness,[136] and in a famous +passage in his second Catilinarian oration he has drawn a picture of +the various classes of debtors in Rome and Italy at that time (_Cat._ +ii. § 18 foll.). He tells us of those who have wealth and yet will not +pay their debts; of those who are in debt and look to a revolution to +absolve them; of the veterans of the Sullan army, settled in colonies +such as Faesulae, who had rushed into debt in order to live luxurious +lives; of old debtors of the city, getting deeper and deeper into the +quagmire, who joined the conspiracy as a last desperate venture. There +was in fact in that famous year a real social fermentation going on, +caused by economic disturbance of the most serious kind; the germs of +the disease can be traced back to the Hannibalic war and its effects +on Italy, but all the symptoms had been continually exacerbated by the +negligence and ignorance of the government, and brought to a head by +the Social and Civil Wars in 90-82 B.C. In 63 the State escaped an +economic catastrophe through the vigilance of Cicero and the alliance +of the respectable classes under his leadership. In 49, and again in +48, it escaped a similar disaster through the good sense of Caesar and +his agents, who succeeded in steering between Scylla and Charybdis by +saving the debtors without ruining the lenders.[137] + +Wonderful figures are given by later writers, such as Plutarch, of the +debts and loans of the great men of this time, and they may stand as +giving us a general impression of private financial recklessness. But +the only authentic information that has come down to us is what +Cicero drops from time to time in his correspondence about his own +affairs,[138] and even this needs much explanation which we are unable +to apply to it. What is certain is that Cicero never had more than a +very moderate income on which he could depend, and that at times he +was hard up for money, especially of course after his exile and the +confiscation of his property; and that on the other hand he never had +any difficulty in getting the sums he needed, and never shows the +smallest real anxiety about his finances. His profession as a +barrister only brought him a return indirectly in the form of an +occasional legacy or gift, since fees were forbidden by a lex Cincia; +his books could hardly have paid him, at least in the form of money; +his inherited property was small, and his Italian villas were not +profitable farms, nor was it the practice to let such country houses, +as we do now, when not occupying them; he declined a provincial +government, the usual source of wealth, and when at last compelled +to undertake one, only realised what was then a paltry sum,--some +£17,500, all of which, while in deposit at Ephesus, was seized by +the Pompeians in the Civil War.[139] Yet even early in life he could +afford the necessary expenses for election to successive magistracies, +and could live in the style demanded of an important public man. +Immediately after his consulship he paid £28,000 for Crassus' house +on the Palatine, and it is here that we first discover how he managed +such financial operations. Here are his own words in a letter to a +friend of December 62 B.C.:[140] "I have bought the house for 3,500 +sestertia ... so you may now look on me as so deeply in debt as to be +eager to join a conspiracy if any one would admit me! ... Money is +plentiful at 6 per cent, and the success of my measures (in the +consulship) has caused me to be regarded as a good security." + +The simple fact was that Cicero was always regarded as a safe man to +lend money to, by the business men and the great capitalists; partly +because he was an honest man,--a _vir bonus_ who would never dream of +repudiation or bankruptcy; partly because he knew every one, and had +a hundred wealthy friends besides the lender of the moment and among +them, most faithful of all, the prudent and indefatigable Atticus. +Undoubtedly then it was by borrowing, and regularly paying interest +on the loans, that he raised money whenever he wanted it. He may have +occasionally made money in the companies of tax-collectors; we have +seen that he probably had shares in some of their ventures. But there +is no clear evidence in his letters of this source of wealth,[141] and +there is abundant evidence of the borrowing. After his return from +exile, though the senate had given him somewhat meagre compensation +for the loss of his property, he began at once to borrow and to build: +"I am building in three places," he writes to his brother,[142] "and +am patching up my other houses. I live somewhat more lavishly than I +used to do; I am obliged to do so." Here again we know from whom he +borrowed,--it was this same brother, who of course had no more certain +income than his own, probably less. But he had been governor of Asia +for three years (61-58 B.C.), and must have realised large sums even +in that exhausted province; and at this moment he was legatus to +Pompeius as special commissioner for organising the supply of +corn, and thus was in immediate contact with one of the greatest +millionaires of the day. In order to repay his brother all Marcus +had to do was to borrow from other friends. "In regard to money I am +crippled. But the liberality of my brother I have repaid, in spite of +his protests, by the aid of my friends, that I might not be drained +quite dry myself" (_ad Att._ iv. 3). Two years later an unwary reader +might feel some astonishment at finding that Quintus himself was now +deep in debt;[143] but as he continues to read the correspondence his +astonishment will vanish. With the prospect before him of a prolonged +stay in Gaul with Caesar, Quintus might doubtless have borrowed to any +extent; and in fact with Caesar's help--the proceeds of the Gallic +wars--both brothers found themselves in opulence. The Civil War, and +the repayment of his debts to Caesar, nearly ruined Marcus towards the +end of his life, but nothing prevented his contriving to find money +for any object on which he had set his heart; when in his grief for +the loss of his daughter he wishes to buy suburban gardens where a +shrine to her memory may (strange to say) attract public notice, he +tells Atticus to buy what is necessary _at any cost_. "Manage the +business your own way; do not consider what my purse demands--about +that I care nothing--but what I _want_."[144] + +Such being the financial method of Cicero and his brother, we cannot +be surprised to find that the younger generation of the family +followed faithfully in the footsteps of their elders. We have seen +that the young Marcus had a large allowance at Athens and on the whole +he seems to have kept fairly well within it, in spite of some trouble; +but his cousin the younger Quintus, coming to see his uncle in +December 45, showed him a gloomy countenance, and on being asked the +meaning of it, said that he was going with Caesar to the Parthian war +in order to avoid his creditors, and presumably to make money to pay +them with.[145] He had not even enough money for the journey out. His +uncle did not offer to give him any, but he does not seem to have +thought very seriously of the young man's embarrassments. + +One more example of the financial dealings of the business men of this +extraordinary age, and we will bring this chapter to an end. It is a +story which has luckily been preserved in Cicero's speech in defence +of a certain Rabirius Postumus in the year 54, who was accused under +Caesar's law de pecuniis repetundis (extortion in the provinces). It +is a remarkable revelation of all the most striking methods of making +and using money in the last years of the Republic. + +The father of this Rabirius, says Cicero, had been a distinguished +member of the equestrian order, and "fortissimus et maximus +publicanus"; not greedy of money, but most liberal to his friends--in +other words, he was not a miser, for that character was rare in this +age, but lent his money freely in order to acquire influence and +consideration. The son took up the same line of business, and engaged +in a wide sphere of financial operations. He dealt largely in the +stock of the tax-companies; he lent money to cities in several +provinces; he lent money to Ptolemy Auletes, King of Egypt, both +before he was expelled from his kingdom by sedition, and afterwards +when he was in Rome in 59 and 58, intriguing to induce the senate +to have him restored. Rabirius never doubted that he would be so +restored, and seems to have failed to see the probability of such a +policy being contested or quarrelled about, as actually happened in +the winter of 57-56. He lent, and persuaded his friends to lend:[146] +he represented the king's cause as a good investment; and then, like +the investing agent of to-day who slips so easily from carelessness +into crime, he had to go on lending more and more, because he feared +that if he stopped the king might turn against him. + +He had staked the mass of his substance on a desperate venture. But +time went on and Ptolemy was not restored, and without the revenues of +his kingdom he of course could not pay his creditors. At last, at the +end of the year 56, Gabinius, then governor of Syria, had pressure +put on him by the creditors--among them perhaps both Caesar and +Pompeius--to march into Egypt without the authority of the senate. He +took Rabirius with him, and, in order to secure the repayment, +the latter was made superintendent (dioikaetaes) of the Egyptian +revenues[147]. Unluckily for him, his wily debtor did after all turn +against him, and he escaped from Egypt with difficulty and with the +loss of all his wealth. When Gabinius was accused de repetundis and +found guilty of accepting enormous sums from Ptolemy, Rabirius was +involved in the same prosecution as having received part of the money; +Cicero defended him, and as it seems with success, on the plea that +equites were not liable to prosecution under the lex Julia. Towards +the end of his speech he drew a clever picture of his unlucky client's +misfortunes, and declared that he would have had to quit the Forum, +i.e. to leave the Stock Exchange in disgrace, if Caesar had not come +to his rescue by placing large sums at his disposal. + +What Rabirius did was simply to gamble on a gigantic scale, and get +others to gamble with him. The luck turned against him, and he came +utterly to grief. There seems indeed to have been a perfect passion +for dealing with money in this wild way among the men of wealth and +influence; it was the fancy of the hour, and no disgrace attached to +it if a man could escape ruin. Thus the vast capital accumulated--the +sources of which were almost entirely in the provinces and the +kingdoms on the frontiers--was hardly ever used productively. It never +returned to the region whence it came, to be used in developing +its resources; the idea of using it even in Italy for industrial +undertakings was absent from the mind of the gambler. Those numberless +villas, of which we shall speak in another chapter, were homes of +luxury and magnificence, not centres of agricultural industry. There +are indeed some signs that in this very generation the revival of +Italian agriculture was beginning, and more especially the cultivation +of the olive and the vine; Varro, some twenty years later, could claim +that Italy was the best cultivated country in the world.[148] It may +be that the din of the "insanum forum" and its wild speculation has +prevented our hearing of the quiet efforts in the country to put +capital to a legitimate productive use. But of the social life of the +city the Forum was the heart, and of any prudent or scientific use of +capital the Forum knew hardly anything. + +Of the two classes of business men we have been describing, the +tax-farmers and the money-lenders, it is hard to say which wrought the +most mischief in the Empire; they played into each other's hands in +wringing money out of the helpless provincials. Together too they did +incalculable harm, morally and socially, among the upper strata of +Roman society at home. Economic maladies react upon the mental, and +moral condition of a State. Where the idea of making money for its +own sake, or merely for the sake of the pleasure derivable from +excitement, is paramount in the minds of so large a section of +society, moral perception quickly becomes warped. The sense of justice +disappears, because when the fever is on a man he does not stop to ask +whether his gains are ill-gotten; and in this age the only restriction +on the plundering of the subjects of the Empire was a legal one, and +that of no great efficacy. There are many repulsive things in the +exquisite poetry of Catullus, but none of them jar on the modern mind +quite so sharply as his virulent attacks on a provincial governor in +whose suite he had gone to Bithynia in the hope of enriching himself, +and under whose just administration he had failed to do so. There +is lost also the sense of a duty arising out of the possession of +wealth--the feeling that it should do some good in the world, or at +least be in part applied to some useful purpose. Lastly, the exciting +pursuit of wealth helps to produce a curious restlessness and +instability of character, of which we have many examples in the age +we are studying. "Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel," are words +that might be applied to many a young man among Cicero's acquaintance, +and to many women also. + +No sudden operation could cure these evils--they needed the careful +and gradual treatment of a wise physician. As in so many other ways, +so here Augustus showed his wonderful instinct as a social reformer. +The first requisite of all was an age of comparative peace--a healthy +atmosphere in which the patient could recover his natural tone. Next +in importance was the removal of the incitement to enrich yourself and +to spend illegally or unprofitably, and the revival of a sense of duty +towards the State and its rulers. Provincial governors were made +more really responsible, and a scientific census revealed the actual +tax-paying capacity of the provincials; tax-farming was more closely +superintended and gradually disappeared. It is true enough that even +under the Empire great fortunes were made and lost, but the gambling +spirit, the wild recklessness in monetary dealings, are not met with +again. The Roman Forum ceased to be insane, and Italy became once more +the home of much happy and useful country life. The passionate and +reckless self-consciousness of Catullus is succeeded in the next +generation by the calm sweet hopefulness of Virgil; in passing from +the one poet to the other, we feel that we are leaving behind us an +age of over-sensitive self-seeking and entering on one in which duty +and honour, labour on the land and hard work for the State, may be +reckoned as things more likely to make life worth living than all the +accumulated capital of a Crassus. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +THE GOVERNING ARISTOCRACY + +Above the men of business of equestrian rank, in social standing +though not necessarily in wealth, there was in Cicero's time an +aristocracy which a Roman of that day would perhaps have found it a +little difficult to explain or define to a foreigner. Fortunately all +foreigners coming to Rome would know what was meant by the senate, +the great council which received envoys from all nations outside the +Empire; and the stranger might be told in the first place that all +members of that august assembly, with their families, were considered +as elevated above the equestrian order, and as forming the main body +of the aristocracy proper. But if the informant were by chance a +conservative Roman of old family, he might proceed to qualify this +definition. "There are now in the senate," he might say, "plenty of +men who are only there because they have held the quaestorship, which +Sulla made the qualification for a seat, and there are many equites +whom Sulla made into senators by the form of a vote of the people; +such men, even the great orator Cicero himself, I do not reckon as +really members of the nobility, because they do not belong to old +families who have done the State good service in past time. They have +no images of their ancestors in their houses; they come from municipal +towns, or spring from some low family in the city; they may have +raised themselves by their talents, perhaps only by their money, +but they have no guarantee of antiquity, their names are not in our +annals. All we true conservative Romans (and a, Roman is hardly a +Roman if not conservative) profoundly believe that a man whose family +has once attained to high public honour and done good public service, +will be a safer person to elect as a magistrate than one whose family +is unknown and untried--a belief which is surely based on a truth of +human nature. I should count a man who happens not to be in the senate +himself, for want of wealth or inclination, but whose family has its +images and its traditions of great ancestors, as far more truly an +"optimate" than most of these new men. Fortunately our most famous +families, whose names are known all over the Empire, are still to be +found in the senate, and indeed form a powerful body there, capable of +resisting to the last the revolutionary dangers that threaten us. The +people still elect to magistracies the Aemilii, Lutatii, Claudii, +Cornelii, Julii, and many more families that have been famous in our +history, and will, I trust, continue to elect them so long as our +Republic lasts."[149] + +There was indeed a glamour about these splendid names, as there is +about the titles of our ancient noble families; their holders may +almost be said to have claimed high office as a right, like the Whig +families Of the Revolution for a century after their triumph. Though +we may use the word in a wider sense in this chapter, these grand old +families were the true aristocracy, and inspired just that respect in +the minds of men outside their circle which is still so familiar to us +in England. Cicero was to such men an "outsider," a _novus homo_; and +the close reader of Cicero's letters, if he is looking out (as he +should be) for Cicero's constantly changing attitude of mind as he +addresses himself to various correspondents, cannot fail to see how +comparatively awkward and stilted he often is when writing to one of +these great nobles, with whom he has never been really intimate; and +how easily his pen glides along when he is letting himself talk to +Atticus, or Poetus, or M. Marius, men who were outside the pale of +nobility. It is true that he is sometimes embarrassed in other ways +when writing to great personages, as, for example, Lentulus Spinther, +consul in 57, or to Appius Claudius, consul in 53; but had they been +men of his own kind he never would have felt that embarrassment in the +same degree. When writing to such men he rarely or never indulges +in those little sportive jokes or allusions which enliven his more +intimate correspondence, nor does he tell the truth so strictly, for +they might not always care to hear it. + +Here is a specimen which will give some idea of his manner in writing +to an aristocrat: he is congratulating L. Aemilius Paullus, who +secured his election to the consulship in the summer of 51 B.C.: + +"Though I never doubted that the Roman people, considering your +eminent services to the Republic and _the splendid position of your +family_, would enthusiastically elect you consul by a unanimous vote, +yet I felt extreme delight when the news reached me; and I pray +the gods to render your official career fortunate, and to make the +administration of your office worthy of your own position and _that +of your ancestors_.... And would that it had been in my power to have +been at home to see that wished-for day, and to have given you the +support which your noble services and kindness to me deserved! But +since the unexpected and unlooked-for accident of my having to take +a province has deprived me of that opportunity, yet, that I may be +enabled to see you as consul actually administering the state in a +manner worthy of your position, I earnestly beg you to take care to +prevent my being treated unfairly, or having additional time added +to my year of office. If you do that, you will abundantly crown your +former acts of kindness to me."[150] + +This Aemilius Paullus, like Spinther and many others, belonged to +a respectable but somewhat characterless type of aristocrat; these +formed a considerable and a powerful section of the senate, where they +were an obstacle to reform and administrative efficiency. They were +really a survival from the old type of Roman noble, which had done +excellent work in its day; men in whom the individual had been kept in +strict subordination to the State, and whose personal idiosyncrasies +and ambitions only excited suspicion. But towards the end of the +Republican period the individual had free play; at no time in ancient +history do we meet with so many various and interesting kinds of +individuality, even among the nobilitas itself. This is not merely the +result of the abundant literature in which their traits have come down +to us; it was a fact of the age, in which the idea of the State had +fallen into the background, and the individual found no restraint +on his thoughts and little on his actions, no hindrance to the +development of his capacity either for good or evil. Sulla, +Catiline, Pompeius, Cato, Clodius, Caesar, all have their marked +characteristics, familiar to all who read the history of the Roman +revolution. Caesar is the most remarkable example of strong character +among the men of high aristocratic descent, and it is interesting to +notice how entirely he was without the exclusive tendency which we +associate with aristocrats. He was intimate with men of all ranks; his +closest friends seem to have been men who were noble. While the high +aristocrats looked down as a rule on Cicero the novus homo, and for +some years positively hated him[151], Caesar, though differing from +him _toto coelo_ in politics, was always on pleasant terms of personal +intercourse with him; he had a charm of manner, a literary taste, and +a genuine admiration for genius, which was invariably irresistible +to the sensitive "novus homo." With Pompey, though he trusted him +politically as he never trusted Caesar, Cicero was never so intimate. +They had not the same common interests; Cicero could laugh at Pompey +behind his back, but hardly once in his correspondence does he attempt +to raise a jest about Caesar. + +Thus in the governing or senatorial aristocracy we find men of a great +variety of character, from the old-fashioned nobilis, exclusive in +society and obstructive in politics, to the man of individual genius +and literary ability, whether of blue blood like Caesar, or like +Cicero the scion of a municipal family which has never gained or +sought political distinction. But for the purposes of this chapter +we may discern and discuss two main types of character in this +aristocracy: first, that on which the new Greek culture had worked to +advantage, not destroying the best Roman qualities, but drawing them +into usefulness in new ways; secondly, that on which the same culture +had worked to its harm by taking advantage of weak points in the Roman +armour, sapping the true Roman quality without substituting any other +excellence. We will briefly trace the growth of these two types, and +take an example of each among Cicero's intimate friends, not from +the famous personages familiar to every one, but from eminent and +interesting men of whom the ordinary student knows comparatively +little. + +Ever since the Hannibalic war, and probably even before it, Roman +nobles had felt the power of Greek culture; they had begun to think, +to learn about peoples who were different from themselves in habits +and manners, and to advance, the best of them at least, in wisdom and +knowledge; and this is true in spite of the unquestioned fact that it +was in this same era that the seeds were sown of moral and political +degeneracy. We shall have abundant opportunity of noting the effects +of this degeneracy in the last age of the Republic, but it is pleasant +to dwell for a moment on that more wholesome Greek influence which +enticed the finer minds among the Roman nobility into a new region of +culture, stimulating thought and strengthening the springs of conduct. + +Even the old Cato himself, most rigid of Roman conservatives, was not +unmoved by this influence,[152] and it was to him that Rome owed the +introduction of Ennius, the greatest literary figure of that age, into +Roman society[153]. But the first genuine example of the new culture, +of the Hellenic enthusiasm of the age, is to be found in Aemilius +Paullus, the conqueror of Macedonia, a true Roman aristocrat who was +delighted to learn from Greeks. Plutarch's _Life_ of this man is a +valuable record of the tendencies of the time. After his failure to +obtain a second consulship, Plutarch tells us[154] that he retired +into private life, devoting himself to religious duties and to the +education of his children, training these in the old Roman habits in +which he had himself been trained, but also in Greek culture, and that +with even greater enthusiasm. He had about them Greek teachers, not +only of grammar, rhetoric, and philosophy, but of the fine arts, and +even of out-door pursuits, such as hunting (to which the Romans were +not greatly addicted), and of the care of horses and dogs; and he made +a point of being present himself at all their exercises, bodily and +mental. The result of this wholesome Xenophontic education is seen in +his son, the great Scipio Aemilianus, who was adopted into the family +of the Scipios in the lifetime of his father. Whatever view we may +take of this great man's conduct in war and politics, there can hardly +be a doubt that the Romans themselves were right in treasuring his +memory as one of the best of their race. When we put all the facts of +his life together, from his early youth, of which his friend Polybius +has left us a most beautiful picture,[155] to his sudden and probably +violent death in the maturity of his powers, we are compelled to +believe that he was really a man of wide sympathies, a strong sense of +justice which guided him steadily through good report and ill, perfect +purity of life, and hatred of all that was low and bad, whether +in rich or poor. He was not, like his father, a Roman aristocrat +patronising Greek culture;[156] in him we see a perfectly natural +and mature combination of the noblest qualities of the Roman and the +wholesomest qualities of the Greek. "It was an awakening truth," +says a great authority, "in the minds of Romans like Scipio, that +intellectual culture must be built upon a foundation of moral +rectitude: and such a foundation they could find in the storehouse of +their own domestic traditions."[157] When Cicero, who held him to +be the greatest of Romans, wrote his dialogue on the State (_de +Republica_), with the new idea pervading it of the moral and political +ascendancy of a single man, he made Scipio the hero and the one +ascendant figure in his work, and ended it with an imitation of the +Platonic "myth," in the form of a "dream of Scipio." + +Scipio gathered round him a circle of able and cultured men, both +Roman and Greek, including almost every living Roman of ability, and +among the Greeks the historian Polybius and the philosopher Panaetius, +of whom we shall have more to learn in the course of this volume. Of +this circle the best and ablest men of Cicero's earlier days were +mentally the children, and his own views both of literature and +politics were largely formed upon the Scipionic tradition. Indeed to +understand the mental and moral furniture of the Roman mind in the +Ciceronian age, it is absolutely necessary to study that of the +generation which made that mind what it was; but here space can only +be found to point out how the enlightenment of the Scipionic circle +opened out new ways in manners, in literature, in philosophical +receptivity, and lastly in the study of the law, which was destined to +be Rome's greatest contribution to civilisation. + +Manners, the demeanour of the individual in social intercourse, are a +valuable index, if not an entirely conclusive one, of the mental and +moral tone of society in any age. Ease and courteousness of bearing +mean, as a rule, that the sense of another's claims as a human being +are always present to the mind. Whatever be the shortcomings of the +last age of the Republic, we must give due credit to the fact that in +their outward demeanour towards each other the educated men of that +age almost invariably show good breeding. It is true enough that +public vituperation, in senate or law-courts, was a fact of every day, +and the wealth of violent personal abuse which a gentleman like Cicero +could expend on one whom for the time he hated, or who had done +him some wrong, passes all belief.[158] But the history of this +vituperation is a curious one; it was a traditional method of hostile +oratory, and sprang from an old Roman root, the tendency to defamation +and satire, which may itself be attributed in part to the Italian +custom of levelling abuse at a public man (e.g. at his triumph) in +order to avert evil from him.[159] To single out a man's personal +ugliness, to calumniate his ancestry in the vilest terms,--these were +little more than traditional practices, oratorical devices, which the +rhetorical education of the day encouraged, and which no one took +very seriously.[160] But we are concerned in this chapter mainly with +private life; and there we find almost universal consideration and +courtesy. In the whole of the Ciceronian correspondence there is +hardly a letter that does not show good breeding, and there are many +that are the natural result of real kindly feeling and true sympathy. + +A good example of the best type of Roman manners is to be found in +Plutarch's _Life_ of Gaius Gracchus, the younger contemporary of +Scipio, who had married his sister. Plutarch draws a picture of him so +vivid that by common consent it is ascribed to the memoirs of some one +who knew him. "In all his dealings with men," says the biographer, "he +was always dignified yet always courteous"; that is, while he inspired +respect, men felt also that he would do anything in his power for +them. That this was said of him by a Roman, and not invented for him +by Plutarch, seems probable because the combination is one peculiarly +Roman; so Livy, when he wishes to describe the finest type of Roman +character, says that a certain man was "haud minus libertatis alienae +quam suae dignitatis memor."[161] This same combination meets us also +in the little pictures of the social life of cultivated men which +Cicero has left us in some of his dialogues. There the speakers are +usually of the nobility, often distinguished members of senatorial +families, as in the _de Oratore_, where the chief _personae_ are +Crassus, Antonius, and Scaevola, the conservative triumvirate of the +day. They all seem grave, or but seldom gently jocular, respectful to +each other, and perhaps a trifle tedious; they never quarrel, however +deeply they may differ, and we may guess that they did not hold their +opinions strongly enough to urge them to open rupture. We seem to see +the same grave faces, with rather noses and large mouths, which meet +us in the sculptures of Augustus' Ara Pacis,[162]--full of dignity, +but a little wanting in animation. + +There is one singular exception to the good manners of the period; but +as the result rather of affectation than of nature, it may help to +prove our rule. Again and again in Plutarch's _Life_ of Cato the +younger the mention of his rudeness proves the strength of the +tradition about him. It was said that this lost him the consulship, +as he declined to make himself agreeable in the style expected from +candidates[163]. Even in a letter to Cicero, an old friend, though not +actually rude, he is absurdly patronising and impertinent to a man +many years his senior, and writes in very bad taste. Probably the +enmity between him and Caesar arose or was confirmed in this way, +as Cato always made a point of being rudest to those whom he most +disliked. He fancied that he was imitating his great ancestor, and +asserting the virtue of good old Roman bluntness against modern Greek +affectation; he did not in the least see that he was himself a curious +example of Roman affectation, shown up by the real amenities of +intercourse, for which Romans had largely to thank Greece[164]. + +In literature too the average capacity of this aristocracy was high, +though the greatest literary figures of the age, if we except Caesar, +do not, strictly speaking, belong to it; Cicero was a novus homo, and +Lucretius and Catullus were not of the senatorial order. But the new +education, as we shall see later on, was admirably calculated to +train men in the art of speaking and writing, if not in the habit of +independent thinking; and among the nobles who reaped the full fruits +of this education every one could write in Latin and probably also +in Greek, and if he aimed at public distinction, could speak without +disgracing himself in the senate and the courts. Oratory was, in fact, +the staple product of the age, and the chief _raison d'être_ of its +literary activity. Long ago the practice had begun of writing out +successful speeches delivered in the senate, in the courts, or at +funerals; the means of publication were easy, as a consequence of the +number of Greek slaves who could act as copyists, and thus oratory +formed the basis of a prose literature which is essentially +Roman,[165] rooted in the practical necessities of the life of the +Roman noble, though deeply tinged with the Greek ideas and forms of +expression acquired in the process of education in vogue. Treatises on +rhetoric, the art of effective expression in prose, form an important +part of it; two of them still survive from the time of Sulla,--the +_Rhetorica ad Herennium_ of an unknown author, and Cicero's early +treatise _de Inventione_. Later on Cicero wrote his admirable dialogue +_de Oratore_ and other works on the same subject, ending with his +_Brutus_, a catalogue raisonnée, invaluable to us, of all the great +Roman orators down to his own time. + +In history writing the standard was not so high. The rhetorical +education made men good professional orators, but indifferent and +dilettante historians, and the example of more accurate historical +investigation and reflection set by Polybius was not followed, except +perhaps by Caelius Antipater in the Gracchan age.[166] History was +affected for the worse by the rhetorical art, as indeed poetry was +destined also to be; Sallust, though we owe much to him, was in fact +an amateur, who thought more of style and expression than of truth +and fact. Caesar, who did not profess to be a historian, but only to +provide the materials for history,[167] stands alone in making facts +more important than words, and rarely troubles his reader with +speeches or other rhetorical superfluities.[168] Biographies and +autobiographies were fashionable; of the former only those of +Cornelius Nepos, one of Cicero's many friends, have come down to us, +and none of the latter, but we know a long list of eminent men who +wrote their own memoirs, including Catulus the elder, Rutilius the +famous victim of equestrian judges, Sulla, and Lucullus. But far above +all other prose writers of the age stand two men, neither of them +Roman by birth, but yet members of the senatorial order; the one a man +of encyclopaedic learning, with what we may almost call a scientific +interest in the subjects which he treated in awkward and homely Latin, +the other a man of comparatively little learning, but gifted with so +exquisite a sense of the beautiful in expression, and at the same +time with a humanity so real and in that day so rare, that it is not +without good cause that he has recently been called the most highly +cultured man of all antiquity.[169] Of Varro's numerous works we have +unluckily but few survivals; of Cicero's we have still such a mass +as will for ever provide ample material for studying the life, the +manners, the thought of his day. + +A large part of this mass consists of the correspondence of which we +are making such frequent use in these chapters. Letter-writing is +perhaps the most pleasing and genuine of all the literary activities +of the time; men took pains to write well, yet not with any definite +prospect of publication, such as was the motive a century later in +the days of Seneca and Pliny. The nine hundred and odd letters of the +Ciceronian collection are most of them neither mere communications +nor yet rhetorical exercises, but real letters, the intercourse of +intimate friends at a distance, in which their inmost thoughts can +often be seen. Cicero is indeed apt to become rhetorical even in his +letters, when writing under excitement about politics; but the most +delightful letters in the collection are those in which he writes +to his friends in happy and natural language of his daily life and +occupations, his books, his villas, his children, his joys and +sorrows. It is strange that the great historian of Rome in our time +entirely failed to see the charm and the value of these letters, as of +all Cicero's writings; his countrymen have now agreed to differ from +him, and to restore a great writer to his true position. + +In philosophical receptivity too the brightest and finest minds among +this aristocracy show an ability which is almost astonishing, when we +consider that there had been no education in Rome worth the name until +the second century B.C.[170] I use the word receptivity, because the +Romans of our period never really learnt to think for themselves; they +never grappled with a problem, or struck out a new line of thought. +But so far as we can judge by Cicero's philosophical works, the only +ones of his age which have come down to us, the power to read with +understanding and to reproduce with skill was unquestionably of a high +order. The opportunities for study were not wanting; private libraries +were numerous, and all Cicero's friends who had collected books were +glad to let him have the use of them.[171] Greek philosophers were +often domesticated in wealthy families, and could discourse with the +statesman when he had leisure from public business. Much of this was +no more than fashion, and real endeavour and earnestness were rare; +but the fact remains that one philosophical system, more especially on +its ethical side, took real possession of the best type of Roman mind, +and had permanent and saving influence on it. + +Stoicism was brought to Rome by Panaetius of Rhodes, the intimate +friend of Scipio, a mild and tactful Greek whose Rhodian birth gave +him perhaps some advantage in associating with the old allies of his +state. He came to Rome at a critical moment, when even the best men +were drifting into pure material self-seeking; and the results of his +teaching were during two centuries so wholesome and inspiring that we +may almost think of him as a missionary. The ground had been prepared +for him in some sense by Polybius, who introduced him to Scipio and +his circle, and who was then engaged in writing his history. From +Polybius the Romans, the best of them at least, first learnt to +realise their own empire and the great change it had wrought in the +world; to think about what they had done and the qualities that +enabled them to do it. From Panaetius they were to learn a +philosophical creed which might direct and save them in the future, +which might serve as ballast in public and private life, just when the +ship was beginning to drift in moral helplessness. He was the founder +of a school of practical wisdom, singularly well adapted to the Roman +character and intellect, which were always practical rather than +speculative; and far better suited to ordinary human life than the old +rigid and austere Stoic ethics, of which the younger Cato was the +only eminent Roman disciple. From what we know of Panaetius' ethical +teaching,--and in the first two books of Cicero's work, _de Officiis_, +we have a fairly complete view of it,--we do not find the old doctrine +that absolute wisdom and justice are the only ends to pursue, and +everything else indifferent; a doctrine which put the old-fashioned +Stoic out of court in public life. The relative element, the useful, +played a great part in the teaching of Panaetius. Though his system +is based on the highest principles to which moral teaching could then +appeal, it did not exclude the give and take, the compromise without +which no practical man of affairs can make way, nor yet the wealth and +bodily comforts that secure leisure for thought.[172] + +Panaetius' mission was carried on by another Rhodian philosopher, the +famous Posidonius, who lived long enough to know Cicero himself +and many of his contemporaries; a man less inspiring perhaps than +Panaetius, but of greater knowledge and attainment; a traveller, +geographer, and a man of the world, whose writings on many subjects, +though lost to us, really lie at the back of a great part of the Roman +literary output of his time.[173] He was the disciple of Panaetius; +envoy from Rhodes to Rome in the terrible year 86; and later on the +inmate of Roman families, and the admired friend of Cicero Pompeius, +and Varro. Philosophy was only one of the many pursuits of this +extraordinary man, whose literary and historical influence can be +traced in almost every leading Roman author for a century at least; +but his philosophical importance was during his lifetime perhaps +predominant. The generation that knew him was rich in Stoics; for +example, Aelius Stilo, the master of Varro, "doctissimus eorum +temporum," as Gellius calls him;[2] Rutilius, who was mentioned just +now as having written memoirs; and among others probably the great +lawyer Mucius Scaevola. Cato, as we have seen, was not a follower of +the Roman school of Stoicism, but of the older and uncompromising +doctrine; but Cicero, though never a professed Stoic, was really +deeply influenced, and towards the end of his life almost fascinated, +by a creed which suited his humanity while it stimulated his instinct +for righteousness.[174] And, like Cicero, many other men of serious +character felt the power of Stoicism almost unconsciously, without +openly professing it. + +Stoicism then was in several ways congenial to the Roman spirit, but +in one direction it had an inspiring influence which has been of +lasting moment to the world. Up to the time of Panaetius and the +Scipionic circle the Roman idea and study of law had been of a crabbed +practical character, wanting in breadth of treatment, destitute of any +philosophical conception of the moral principles which lie behind all +law and government. The Stoic doctrine of universal law ruling the +world--a divine law, emanating from the universal Reason--seems to +have called up life in these dry bones. It might be held by a Roman +Stoic that human law comes into existence when man becomes aware of +the divine law, and recognises its claim upon him. Morality is thus +identical with law in the widest sense of the word, for both are +equally called into being by the Right Reason, which is the universal +primary force.[175] It is not possible here to show how this grand and +elevating idea of law may have affected Roman jurisprudence, but we +will just notice that the first quasi-philosophical treatment of law +is found following the age of Panaetius and the Scipionic circle; that +the phrase _ius gentium_ then begins to take the meaning of general +principles or rules common to all peoples, and founded on "natural +reason";[176] and that this led by degrees to the later idea of the +Law of Nature, and to the cosmopolitanism of the Roman legal system, +which came to embrace all peoples and degrees in its rational and +beneficent influence. If the Greek had a genius for beauty, and the +Jew for righteousness, the Roman had a genius for law; and the power +of Stoicism in ennobling and enriching his native conception of it is +probably not to be easily over-estimated. + +Thus behind the stormy scenes of public life in this period there is a +process going on which will be of value not only to the Roman Empire +but to modern civilisation. It was carried on more especially by two +men of the highest character, Q. Mucius Scaevola, Cicero's adviser +in his early days, and often his model in later life; and Servius +Sulpicius Rufus, his exact contemporary and lifelong friend. Neither +Scaevola nor Sulpicius were, so far as we know, professed disciples +of Stoicism; but that they applied perhaps half unconsciously the +principles of Stoicism to their own legal studies is almost certain. +The combination of legal training and Stoic influence (whether direct +or unconscious) seems to have been capable of bringing the Roman +aristocratic character to a high pitch of perfection; and it will be +pleasant to take this friend of Cicero, whose public career we can +clearly trace, and one or two of whose letters we still possess, as +our example of a really well spent life in an age when time and talent +were constantly abused and wasted. + +Sulpicius and Cicero were born in the same year, 106; they went hand +in hand in early life, and remained friends till their deaths in 43, +Sulpicius dying a few months before Cicero. They were both attached +in early youth to the Scaevola just mentioned, the first of the great +series of scientific Roman lawyers. But the consulship of Cicero +made a wide divergence in their lives. In that year Sulpicius was a +candidate for the consulship and failed; and then, resigning further +attempts to obtain the highest honour, he retired for the next twelve +years into private life, devoting himself to the work which has made +his name immortal. His writings are lost; nothing remains of them but +a few chance fragments and allusions; but he was reckoned the second +of the great writers on legal subjects, and it is probable that he +contributed as much as any of them to the work of making Roman +law what it has been as a power in the world, a factor in modern +civilisation. For he treated it, as his friend said of him,[177] with +the hand and mind of an artist, laying out his whole subject and +distributing it into its constituent parts, by definition and +interpretation making clear what seemed obscure, and distinguishing +the false from the true in legal principle. In the splendid panegyric +pronounced on him in the senate after his death,[178] Cicero again +emphatically declared him to be unrivalled in jurisprudence. In +beautiful but untranslatable language he claims that he was "non magis +iuris consultus, quam iustitiae,"--an encomium which all great +lawyers might well envy; he aimed rather at enabling men to be rid of +litigation than at encouraging them to engage in it. + +From such passages we might conjecture, even if we knew nothing +more about him, that Sulpicius was a man of very fine clay, of real +_humanitas_ in the widest sense of that expressive word; and this +is entirely borne out in other ways.[179] Emerging at last from +retirement, he stood again for the consulship in 52 B.C., and was +elected. The year of his office, 51, was the first in which the +enemies of Caesar, with Cato at their head, began to attack his +position and clamour for his recall from his command; this violent +hostility Sulpicius tried, not without temporary success, to restrain, +and the fact that a man of so just a mind should have taken this +line is one of the best arguments for the reasonableness of Caesar's +cause.[180] When war broke out he was greatly perplexed how to act; +his breadth of view made decision difficult, and he seems to have +been at all times more a student than a man of action. With some +heart-burnings he joined Caesar in the struggle, and accepted from him +the government of Achaia; it was at this time that he wrote the famous +letter of consolation to Cicero on the death of his beloved daughter +Tullia, which is full of true feeling and kindliness, though evidently +composed with effort, if not with difficulty. After Caesar's death he +of course acted with Cicero against Antony, and in the spring of +43, making always for peace and good-will, he gave his life for his +country in a way that claims our admiration more really than the +suicide of Cato the professional Stoic; he headed an embassy to +Antony, though dangerously ill at the time, and died in this last +effort to obtain a hearing for the voice of justice. He has a +_monumentum aere perennius_ in the speech of his old friend urging the +senate to vote him a public funeral and a statue, as one who had laid +down his life for his country. + +We must now turn to consider how the mischievous side of the new Greek +culture, in combination with other tendencies of the time, found its +way into weak points in the armour of the Roman aristocracy. + +The pursuit of ease and pleasure, to which the attainment of wealth +and political power were too often merely subordinated, is a leading +characteristic of the time. It is seen in many different forms, in +many different types of character; but at the root of the whole +corruption is the spirit of the coarser side of Epicureanism. As with +Roman Stoicism, so too with Roman Epicureanism, it is not so much the +professed holding of philosophical tenets that affected life; in the +case of the latter system, it was the coincidence of its popularity +with the decay of the old Roman faith and morality, and with the +abnormal opportunities of self-indulgence. Cato as a professed Stoic, +Lucretius as an enthusiastic Epicurean, stand quite apart from +the mass of men who were actuated one way or the other by these +philosophical creeds. The majority simply played with the philosophy, +while following the natural bent of their individual character; but +such dilettanteism was often quite enough to affect that character +permanently for good or evil. + +"Epicureanism popularised inevitably turns to vice." Was it really +popular at Rome? Cicero tells us in a valuable passage[181] that one +Amafinius had written on it, and that a great number of copies of his +book were sold, partly because the arguments were easy to follow, +partly because the doctrine was pleasant, and partly too because men +failed to get hold of anything better. The date of this Amafinius is +uncertain, but it is probable that Cicero is here speaking of the +latter part of the second century B.C.; and he goes on to say that +other writers took up the same line of teaching, and established it +over the whole of Italy (Italiam totam occupaverunt). If this was +in the time of the Social and Civil Wars, of the proscriptions, of +increasing crime and self-seeking, we can well understand that the +doctrine was popular. We have a remarkable example of it in the life +of a public man of Cicero's own time, the object of the most envenomed +invective that he ever uttered.[182] We cannot believe a tithe of what +he says about this man, Calpurnius Piso, consul in 58; but in this +particular matter of the damage done him by Epicurean teaching we have +independent evidence which confirms it. Piso, then a young man, made +acquaintance with a Greek of this school of thought, learnt from him +that pleasure was the sole end of life, and failing to appreciate the +true meaning and bearing of the doctrine, fell into the trap. It was +a dangerous doctrine, Cicero says, for a youth of no remarkable +intelligence; and the tutor, instead of being the young man's guide to +virtue, was used by him as an authority for vice.[183] This Greek was +a certain Philodemus, a few of whose poems are preserved in the _Greek +Anthology_; and a glance at them will show at once how dangerous such +a man would be as the companion of a Roman youth. He may not himself +have been a bad man--Cicero indeed rather suggests the contrary, +calling him _vere humanus_--but the air about him was poisonous. In +his pupil, if we can trust in the smallest degree the picture drawn of +him by Cicero, we may see a specimen of the young men of the age whose +talents might have made them useful in the world, but for the strength +of the current that drew them into self-indulgence. + +Not only the pursuit of pleasure, but its correlative, the avoidance +of work and duty, can be abundantly illustrated in this age; and this +too may have had a subtle connexion with Epicurean teaching, which had +always discouraged the individual from distraction in the service of +the State, as disturbing to the free development of his own virtue. +Sulla did much hard work, but made the serious blunder of retiring to +enjoy himself just when his new constitutional machinery needed the +most careful watching and tending. Lucullus, after showing a wonderful +capacity for work and a greater genius for war than perhaps any man of +his time, retired from public life as a millionaire and a quietist, +to enjoy the wealth that has become proverbial, and a luxury that is +astonishing, even if we make due allowance for the exaggeration of our +accounts of it. To his library we have already been introduced; those +who would see him in his banqueting-hall, or rather one of the many +in his palace, may turn to the fortieth chapter of Plutarch's most +interesting _Life_ of him, and read the story there told of the dinner +he gave to Cicero and Pompeius in the "Apollo" dining-room.[184] + +The same cynical carelessness about public affairs and neglect of +duty, as compared with private ease or advantage, seems to have been +characteristic of the ordinary senator. Active and busy in his own +interest, he was indifferent to that of the State. There are distinct +signs that the attendance in the senate was not good. When Cicero was +away in Cilicia his correspondent writes of difficulties in getting +together a sufficient number even for such important business as the +settlement of provincial governments.[185] On the other hand, much +private business was done, and many jobs perpetrated, in a thin +senate; in 66 a tribune proposed that no senator should be dispensed +from the action of a law unless two hundred were present.[186] It was +in such a thin senate, we may be sure, that the virtuous Brutus was +dispensed from the law which forbade lending to foreign borrowers in +Rome, and thus was enabled to lend to the miserable Salaminians of +Cyprus at 48 per cent, and to recover his money under the bond.[187] +Writing to his brother in December 57, Cicero speaks of business done +in a senate full for the time of year, which was midwinter, just +before the Saturnalia, when only two hundred were present out of about +six hundred. In February 54, a month when the senate had always much +business to get through, it was so cold one day that the few members +present clamoured for dismissal and obtained it.[188] And when the +senate did meet there was a constant tendency to let things go. No +reform of procedure is mentioned as even thought of, at a time when +it was far more necessary than in our Parliament; business was talked +about, postponed obstructed, and personal animosities and private +interests seem, so far as we can judge from the correspondence of the +time, to have been predominant. With wearisome iteration the letters +speak of nothing done, of business postponed, or of the passing of +some senatus consultum, the utter futility of which is obvious even +now.[189] Even the magistrates seem to have been growing careless; we +hear of a praetor presiding in the court de repetundis who had not +taken the trouble to acquaint himself with the text of the law which +governed its procedure;[190] and that praetors were worse than +careless about their action in civil cases is proved by another law of +the same tribune Cornelius mentioned just now, "that praetors should +abide by the rules laid down in their edicts."[191] + +But all these futilities, and much of the same kind outside of the +senate, together with the quarrels of individuals, the chances and +incidents of elections, and all such gossip as forms the staple +commodity of the society papers of to-day, were a source of infinite +delight to another type of pleasure-loving public man, the last to be +illustrated here. + +If the older noble families were apathetic and idle, there were plenty +of young men, rising most often from the class below, whose minds were +intensely active--active in the pursuit of pleasure, but pleasure in +the comparatively harmless form of amusement and excitement. One of +these, the son of a banker at Puteoli, Marcus Caelius Rufus, stands +out as a living portrait in his own letters to Cicero, of which no +fewer than seventeen are preserved.[192] Of his early years too we +know a good deal, told us in the speech in defence of him spoken by +Cicero in the year 56; and these combined sources of information make +him the most interesting figure in the life of his age. M. Boissier +has written a delightful essay on him in his _Cicéron et ses amis_, +and Professor Tyrrell has done the like in the introduction to the +fourth volume of his edition of Cicero's letters; but they have +treated him less as a type of the youth of his day than as the friend +and pupil of Cicero. Caelius will always repay fresh study; he was +amusing and interesting to his contemporaries, and so he will be for +ever to us. He is a veritable Proteus--you never know what shape he +will take next; + + Omnia transformat sese in miracula rerum---- + +we can trace no less than six such transformations in the story of +his life. And this instability, let us note at once, was not the +restlessness of a jaded _roué_, but the coruscation of a clever mind +wholly without principle, intensely interested in his _monde_, in the +life in which he moved, with all its enjoyment and excitement. + +Caelius' father brought his son to Cicero, as soon as he had taken +his toga virilis, to study law and oratory, and Cicero was evidently +attracted by the bright and lively boy; he never deserted him, and +the last letter of Caelius to his old preceptor was written only just +before his own sad end. But Cicero was not the man to keep an unstable +character out of mischief; he loved young men, especially clever ones, +and was apt to take an optimistic view of them, as he did of his own +son and nephew. Caelius, always attracted by novelty, left Cicero and +attached himself to Catiline; and for this vagary, as well as for his +own want of success in controlling his pupil, Cicero rather awkwardly +and amusingly apologises in the early chapters of his speech in his +defence. Wild oats must be sown, he says; when a youth has given full +fling to his propensities to vice, they will leave him, and he may +become a useful citizen,--a dangerous view of a preceptor's duty, +which reminds us of the treatment, of the boy Nero by his philosopher +guardian long afterwards.[193] + +Caelius escaped the fate of Catiline and his crew only to fall into +the hands of another clique not less dangerous for his moral welfare. +He became one of a group of brilliant young men, among whom were +probably Catullus and Calvus the poets, who were lovers, and +passionate lovers, of the infamous Clodia; they were needy, she found +them money, and they hovered about her like moths about a candle. In +such a life of passion and pleasure quarrels were inevitable. If the +Lesbia of Catullus be Clodia, as we may believe, she had thrown the +poet over with a light heart. It was apparently of his own free will +that Caelius deserted her: in revenge she turned upon him with an +accusation of theft and attempt to poison. What truth there was in the +charges we do not really know, but Cicero defended him successfully, +and in this way we come to know the details of this unsteady life. + +In gratitude, and possibly in shame, Caelius now returned to his old +friend, and abandoned the whole ring of his vicious companions for +diligent practice in the courts, where he obtained considerable fame +as an orator. A fragment of a speech of his preserved by Quintilian +shows, as Professor Tyrrell observes, wonderful power of graphic +and picturesque utterance.[194] Cicero, writing of him after his +death,[195] says that he was at this time on the right side in +politics, and that as tribune of the plebs in 56 he successfully +supported the good cause, and checked revolutionary and seditious +movements. All was going well with him until Cicero went as governor +to Cilicia in 51. Cicero seems to have felt complete confidence +in him, and invited him to become his confidential political +correspondent; fifteen out of his seventeen letters were written in +this capacity. These letters show us the man as clearly as if we had +his diary before us. Caelius is no idle scamp or lazy Epicurean; his +mind is constantly active: nothing escapes his notice: the minutest +and most sordid things delight him. He is bright, happy, witty, +frivolous, and doubtless lovable. It is amusing to see how Cicero +himself now and again catches the infection, and tries (in vain) to +write in the same frivolous manner.[196] Caelius has some political +insight; he sees civil war approaching, but he takes it all as a game, +and on the eve of events which were to shake the world he trifles +with the symptoms as though they were the silliest gossip of the +capital.[197] In none of these letters is there the smallest vestige +of principle to be found. On the very eve of civil war he tells +Cicero[198] that as soon as war breaks out the right thing to do is to +join the stronger side. Judging Caesar's side to be the stronger, he +joined it accordingly, and did his best to induce Cicero to do the +same. As M. Boissier happily says, he never cared to "ménager ses +transitions." + +He had, however, to discover that if to change over to Caesar was the +safer course, to turn a political somersault once more, to try and +undermine the work of the master, meant simply ruin. We have the story +of his sixth and last transformation from Caesar himself, who was not, +however, in Italy at the time.[199] Credit in Italy had been seriously +upset by the outbreak of Civil War, and Caesar had been at much pains +to steady it by an ordinance which has been alluded to in the last +chapter.[200] In 48 Caelius was praetor; in the master's absence he +suddenly took up the cause of the debtors, and tried to evoke appeals +against the decisions of his colleague Trebonius,--a great lawyer and +a just man. Failing in this, he started as a downright revolutionary, +proposing first the abolition of house-rent, and finally the abolition +of all debts; and Milo, in exile at Massilia, was summoned to help +him to raise Italy against Caesar. This was too much, and both were +quickly caught and killed as they were stirring up gladiators and +other slave-bands among the latifundia of South Italy. + +Caelius' letters give us a chance of seeing what that life of the +Forum really was which so fascinated the young men of the day, and +some of the old, such as Cicero himself. We can see these children +playing on the very edge of the crater, like the French noblesse +before the Revolution. In both cases there was a semi-consciousness +that the eruption was not far off,--but they went on playing. What was +it that so greatly amused and pleased them? + +What Caelius is always writing of is mainly elections and canvassing, +accusations and trials, games and shows. Elections he treats as pure +sport, as a kind of enjoyable gambling, or as a means of spiting some +one whom you want to annoy. With elections accusations were often +connected: if a man were accused before his election he could not +continue to stand; if condemned after it he was disqualified; here +were ways in which personal spite might deprive him of success at the +last moment.[201] Accusations, too were of course the best means by +which an ambitious young man could come to the front. The whole number +of trials mentioned by Caelius is astonishing; sometimes there is such +a complication of them as is difficult to follow. Every one is ready +to lay an accusation, without the smallest regard for truth. Young +Appius Claudius accuses Servilius, and makes a mess of the attack, +while the praetor mismanages the conduct of the trial, so that nothing +comes of it; but finally Appius is himself accused by the Servilii +_de vi_, in order to keep him from further attacks on Servilius![202] +Appius the father quarrelled with Caelius and egged on others to +accuse him, though he was curule aedile at the time. "Their impudence +was so boundless that they secured that an information should be +laid against me for a very serious crime (under the Scantinian law). +Scarcely had Pola got the words out of his mouth, when I laid an +information under the same law against the censor, Appius. I never saw +a more successful stroke!"[203] + +Of the games, and the panthers to be exhibited at them, about which +Caelius is for ever worrying his friend in Cilicia, we shall see +something in another chapter. There is plenty of other gossip in these +letters, and gossip often about unsavoury matters which need not be +noticed here. It lets in a flood of light upon the causes of the +general incompetence and inefficiency; the life of the Forum was a +demoralising one: + + Uni se atque eidem studio omnes dedere et arti + uerba dare ut caute possint, pugnare dolose: + blanditia certare, bonum simulare uirum se: + insidias facere, ut si hostes sint omnibus omnes.[204] + +From what has been said in this sketch it should be clear that we have +in the aristocracy of this period a complicated society, the various +aspects of which can hardly be united in a single picture. It is +partly a hereditary aristocracy, with all the pride and exclusiveness +of a group of old families accustomed to power and consequence. It is +in the main a society of gentlemen, dignified in manner, and kindly +towards each other, and it is also a society of high culture and +literary ability, though poor in creative genius, and unimaginative. +On the other hand, it is a class which has lost its interest in +the State, and is energetic only when pursuing its own interests: +pleasure-loving, luxurious, gossiping, trifling with serious matters, +short-sighted in politics because anxious only for personal advance. +"Rari nantes in gurgite vasto" are the men who are really in earnest, +but they are there; we must not forget that in Lucretius and Cicero +this society produced one of the greatest poets and one of the most +perfect prose writers that the world treasures; in Sulpicius a lawyer +of permanent value to humanity, and in Caesar not only an author and a +scholar but a man of action unrivalled in capacity and industry. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +MARRIAGE: AND THE ROMAN LADY + +In order to appreciate the position of women of various types in the +society we are examining, it is necessary to make it clear what Roman +marriage originally and ideally meant. In any society, it will be +found that the position and influence of woman can be fairly well +discerned from the nature of the marriage ceremony and the conditions +under which it is carried out. At Rome, in all periods of her history, +a _iustum matrimonium_, i.e. a marriage sanctioned by law and +religion, and therefore entirely legal in all its results, was a +matter of great moment, not to be achieved without many forms and +ceremonies. The reason for this elaboration is obvious, at any rate +to any one who has some acquaintance with ancient life in Greece or +Italy. As we shall see later on, the house was a residence for the +divine members of the family, as well as the human; the entrance, +therefore, of a bride into the household,--of one, that is, who had no +part nor lot in that family life--meant some straining of the relation +between the divine and human members. The human part of the family +brings in a new member, but it has to be assured that the divine part +is willing to accept her before the step taken can be regarded as +complete. She has to enter the family in such a way as to be able to +share in its sacra, i.e. in the worship of the household spirits, +the ancestors in their tombs, or in any special cult attached to the +family. In order to secure this eligibility, she was in the earliest +times subjected to a ceremony which was clearly of a sacramental +character, and which had as its effect the transference of the bride +from the hand (manus) of her father, i.e. from absolute subjection to +him as the head of her own family, to the hand of her husband, i.e. to +absolute subjection to him as the head of her new family. + +This sacramental ceremony was called _confarreatio_, because a sacred +cake, made of the old Italian grain called _far_, and offered to +Jupiter Farreus,[205] was partaken of by bride and bridegroom, in the +presence of the Pontifex Maximus, the Flamen Dialis, and ten other +witnesses. At such a ceremony the auspices had of course been taken, +and apparently a victim was also slain, and offered probably to Ceres, +the skin of which was stretched over two seats (sellae), on which the +bride and bridegroom had to sit.[206] These details of the early form +of patrician marriage are only mentioned here to make the religious +character of the Roman idea of the rite quite plain; in other words, +to prove that the entrance of a bride into a family from outside was +a matter of very great difficulty and seriousness, not to be achieved +without special aid and the intervention of the gods. We may even +go so far as to say that the new materfamilias was in some sort +a priestess of the household, and that she must undergo a solemn +initiation before assuming that position. And we may still further +illustrate the mystical religious nature of the whole rite, if +we remember that throughout Roman history no one could hold the +priesthood of Jupiter (flaminium diale), or that of Mars or Quirinus, +or of the Rex sacrorum, who had not been born of parents wedded by +confarreatio, and that in each case the priest himself must be married +by the same ceremony.[207] This last mentioned fact may also serve to +remind us that it was not only the family and its sacra, its life and +its maintenance, that called for the ceremonies making up a iustum +matrimonium, but also the State and its sacra, its life and its +maintenance.[208] As confarreatio had as its immediate object the +providing of a materfamilias fully qualified in all her various +functions, and as its further object the providing of persons legally +qualified to perform the most important sacra of the state; so +marriage, in whatever form, had as its object at once the maintenance +of the family and its sacra and the production of men able to serve +the State in peace and war. To be a Roman citizen you must be the +product of a iustum matrimonium. From this initial fact flow all the +_iura_ or rights which together make up citizenship; whether the +private rights, which enable you to hold and transfer and to inherit +property under the shelter of the Roman law,[209] or the public +rights, which protect your person against violence and murder, and +enable you to give your vote in the public assembly and to seek +election to magistracies.[210] + +Marriage then was a matter of the utmost importance in Roman life, and +in all the forms of it we find this importance marked by due solemnity +of ritual. In two other forms, besides confarreatio, the bride could +be brought under the hand of her husband, viz., _coemptio_ and _usus_, +with which we are not here specially concerned; for long before the +last century of the Republic all three methods had become practically +obsolete, or were only occasionally used for particular purposes. In +the course of time it had been found more convenient for a woman to +remain after her marriage in the hand of her father, or if he were +dead, in the "tutela" of a guardian (tutor), than to pass into that +of her husband; for in the latter case her property became absolutely +his. The natural tendency to escape from the restrictions of marital +_manus_ may be illustrated by a case such as the following: a woman +under the _tutela_ of a guardian wishes to marry; if she does so, and +passes under the _manus_ of her husband, her _tutor_ loses all control +over her property, which may probably be of great importance for +the family she is leaving; he therefore naturally objects to such a +marriage, and urges that she should be married without _manus_.[211] +In fact the interests of her own family would often clash with those +of the one she was about to enter, and a compromise could be effected +by the abandonment of marriage _cum manu_. + +Now this, the abandonment of marriage _cum manu_, means simply that +certain legal consequences of the marriage ceremony were dropped, +and with them just those parts of the ceremony which produced these +consequences. Otherwise the marriage was absolutely as valid for all +purposes private and public as it could be made even by confarreatio +itself. The sacramental part was absent, and the survival of the +features of marriage by purchase, which we may see in the form of +coemptio, was also absent; but in all other respects the marriage +ceremony was the same as in marriage _cum manu_. It retained all +essential religious features, losing only a part of its legal +character. It will be as well briefly to describe a Roman wedding of +the type common in the last two centuries of the Republic. + +To begin with, the boy and girl--for such they were, as we should look +on them, even at the time of marriage--have been betrothed, in all +probability, long before. Cicero tells us that he betrothed his +daughter Tullia to Calpurnius Piso Frugi early in 66 B.C.; the +marriage took place in 63. Tullia seems to have been born in 76, so +that she was ten years old at the time of betrothal and thirteen at +that of marriage. This is probably typical of what usually happened; +and it shows that the matter was really entirely in the hands of the +parents. It was a family arrangement, a _mariage de convenance_, +as has been and is the practice among many peoples, ancient and +modern.[212] The betrothal was indeed a promise rather than a definite +contract, and might be broken off without illegality; and thus if +there were a strong dislike on the part of either girl or boy a way of +escape could be found.[213] However this may be, we may be sure that +the idea of the marriage was not that of a union for love, though it +was distinguished from concubinage by an "affectio maritalis" as well +as by legal forms, and though a true attachment might, and often did, +as in modern times in like circumstances, arise out of it. It was the +idea of the service of the family and the State that lay at the root +of the union. This is well illustrated, like so many other Roman +ideas, in the _Aeneid_ of Virgil. Those who persist in looking on +Aeneas with modern eyes, and convict him of perfidy towards Dido, +forget that his passion for Dido was a sudden one, not sanctioned by +the gods or by favourable auspices, and that the ultimate union with +Lavinia, for whom he forms no such attachment, was one which would +recommend itself to every Roman as justified by the advantage to the +State. The poet, it is true, betrays his own intense humanity in +his treatment of the fate of Dido, but he does so in spite of his +theme,--the duty of every Roman to his family and the State. A Roman +would no doubt fall in love, like a youth of any other nation, but his +passion had nothing to do with his life of duty as a Roman. This idea +of marriage had serious consequences, to which we shall return later +on. + +When the day for the wedding arrives, our bride assumes her bridal +dress, laying aside the toga praetexta of her childhood and dedicating +her dolls to the Lar of her family; and wearing the reddish veil +(_flammeum_) and the woollen girdle fastened with a knot called the +knot of Hercules,[214] she awaits the arrival of the bridegroom in +her father's house. Meanwhile the auspices are being taken;[215] in +earlier times this was done by observing the flight of birds, but now +by examination of the entrails of a victim, apparently a sheep. If +this is satisfactory the youthful pair declare their consent to the +union and join their right hands as directed by a pronuba, i.e. a +married woman, who acts as a kind of priestess. Then after another +sacrifice and a wedding feast, the bride is conducted from her old +home to that of her husband, accompanied by three boys, sons of living +parents, one carrying a torch while the other two lead her by either +hand; flute-players go before, and nuts are thrown to the boys. This +_deductio_, charmingly described in the beautiful sixty-fifth poem of +Catullus, is full of interesting detail which must be omitted here. +When the bridegroom's house is reached, the bride smears the doorposts +with fat and oil and ties a woollen fillet round each: she is +then lifted over the threshold, is taken by her husband into the +partnership of fire and water--the essentials of domestic life--and +passes into the atrium. The morrow will find her a materfamilias, +sitting among her maids in that atrium, or in the more private +apartments behind it: + + Claudite ostia, virgines + Lusimus satis. At boni + Coniuges, bene vivite, et + Munere assiduo valentem + Exercete iuventam. + +Even the dissipated Catullus could not but treat the subject of +marriage with dignity and tenderness, and in this last stanza of his +poem he alludes to the duties of a married pair in language which +would have satisfied the strictest Roman. He has also touched another +chord which would echo in the heart of every good citizen, in the +delicious lines which just precede those quoted, and anticipate the +child--a son of course--that is to be born, and that will lie in +his mother's arms holding out his little hands, and smiling on his +father.[216] Nothing can better illustrate the contrast in the mind +of the Roman between passionate love and serious marriage than a +comparison of this lovely poem with those which tell the sordid +tale of the poet's intrigues with Lesbia (Clodia). The beauty and +_gravitas_ of married life as it used to be are still felt and still +found, but the depths of human feeling are not stirred by them. Love +lies beyond, is a fact outside the pale of the ordered life of the +family or the State. + +No one who studies this ceremonial of Roman marriage, in the light of +the ideas which it indicates and reflects, can avoid the conclusion +that the position of the married woman must have been one of +substantial dignity, calling for and calling out a corresponding type +of character. Beyond doubt the position of the Roman materfamilias was +a much more dignified one than that of the Greek wife. She was far +indeed from being a mere drudge or squaw; she shared with her husband +in all the duties of the household, including those of religion, and +within the house itself she was practically supreme.[217] She lived in +the atrium, and was not shut away in a women's chamber; she nursed her +own children and brought them up; she had entire control of the female +slaves who were her maids; she took her meals with her husband, but +sitting, not reclining, and abstaining from wine; in all practical +matters she was consulted, and only on questions political or +intellectual was she expected to be silent. When she went out arrayed +in the graceful _stola matronalis_, she was treated with respect, +and the passers-by made way for her; but it is characteristic of +her position that she did not as a rule leave the house without the +knowledge of her husband, or without an escort.[218] + +In keeping with this dignified position was the ideal character of the +materfamilias. Ideal we must call it, for it does not in all respects +coincide with the tradition of Roman women even in early times; but +we must remember that at all periods of Roman history the woman whose +memory survives is apt to be the woman who is not the ideal matron, +but one who forces herself into notice by violating the traditions of +womanhood. The typical matron would assuredly never dream of playing +a part in history; her influence was behind the scenes, and therefore +proportionally powerful. The legendary mother of Coriolanus (the +Volumnia of Shakespeare), Cornelia the mother of the Gracchi, Aurelia, +Caesar's mother, and Julia his daughter, did indirectly play a far +greater part in public life than the loud and vicious ladies who have +left behind them names famous or infamous; but they never claimed the +recognition of their power. + +This peculiar character of the Roman matron, a combination of dignity, +industry, and practical wisdom, was exactly suited to attract the +attention of a gentle philosopher like Plutarch, who loved, with +genuine moral fervour, all that was noble and honest in human nature. +Not only does he constantly refer to the Roman ladies and their +character in his _Lives_ and his _Morals_, but in his series of more +than a hundred "Roman questions" the first nine, as well as many +others, are concerned with marriage and the household life; and in +his treatise called _Coniugalia praecepta_ he reflects many of +the features of the Roman matron. From him, in Sir Thomas North's +translation, Shakespeare drew the inspiration which enabled him to +produce on the Elizabethan stage at least one such typical matron. In +Coriolanus he has followed Plutarch so closely that the reader may +almost be referred to him as an authority; and in the contrast between +the austere and dignified Volumnia and the passionate and voluptuous +Cleopatra of the later play, the poet's imagination seems to have been +guided by a true historical instinct. + +We need not doubt that the austere matron of the old type survived +into the age we are specially concerned with; but we hardly come +across her in the literature of the time, just because she was living +her own useful life, and did not seek publicity. Chance has indeed +preserved for us on stone the story of a wonderful lady, whose early +years of married life were spent in the trying time of the civil wars +of 49-43 B.C., and who, if a devoted husband's praises are to be +trusted, as indeed they may be, was a woman of the finest Roman cast, +and endowed with such a combination of practical virtues as we should +hardly have expected even in a Roman matron. But we shall return to +this inscription later on. + +The ladies whom we meet with in Cicero's letters and in the other +literature of the last age of the Republic are not of this type. Since +the second Punic war the Roman lady has changed, like everything else +Roman. It is not possible here to trace the history of the change +in detail, but we may note that it seems to have begun within the +household, in matters of dress and expense, and later on affected the +life and bearing of women in society and politics. Marriages cum manu +became unusual: the wife remained in the potestas of her father, who +in most cases, doubtless, ceased to trouble himself about her, and as +her property did not pass to her husband, she could not but obtain a +new position of independence. Women began to be rich, and in the +year 169 B.C. a law was passed (lex Voconia) forbidding women of the +highest census[219] (who alone would probably be concerned) to inherit +legacies. Even before the end of the great war, and when private +luxury would seem out of place, it had been proposed to abolish the +Oppian law, which placed restrictions on the ornaments and apparel of +women; and in spite of the vehement opposition of Cato, then a young +man, the proposal was successful.[220] At the same time divorce, which +had probably never been impossible though it must have been rare,[221] +began to be a common practice. We find to our surprise that the +virtuous Aemilius Paullus, in other respects a model paterfamilias, +put away his wife, and when asked why he did so, replied that a woman +might be excellent in the eyes of her neighbours, but that only a +husband could tell where the shoe pinched.[222] And in estimating the +changed position of women within the family we must not forget the +fact that in the course of the long and unceasing wars of the second +century B.C., husbands were away from home for years together, and in +innumerable cases must have perished by the sword or pestilence, or +fallen into the hands of an enemy and been enslaved. It was inevitable +that as the male population diminished, as it undoubtedly did in +that century, the importance of woman should proportionately have +increased. Unfortunately too, even when the husbands were at home, +their wives sometimes seem to have wished to be rid of them. In 180 +B.C. the consul Piso was believed to have been murdered by his wife, +and whether the story be true or not, the suspicion is at least +significant.[223] In 154 two noble ladies, wives of consulares, were +accused of poisoning their husbands and put to death by a council of +their own relations.[224] Though the evidence in these cases is not +by any means satisfactory, yet we can hardly doubt that there was a +tendency among women of the highest rank to give way to passion and +excitement; the evidence for the Bacchanalian conspiracy of 186 B.C., +in which women played a very prominent part, is explicit, and shows +that there was a "new woman" even then, who had ceased to be satisfied +with the austere life of the family and with the mental comfort +supplied by the old religion, and was ready to break out into +recklessness even in matters which were the concern of the State.[225] +That they had already begun to exercise an undue influence over their +husbands in public affairs seems suggested by old Cato's famous dictum +that "all men rule over women, we Romans rule over all men, and our +wives rule over us."[226] + +But it would be a great mistake to suppose that the men themselves +were not equally to blame. Wives do not poison their husbands without +some reason for hating them, and the reason is not difficult to guess. +It is a fact beyond doubt that in spite of the charm of family life as +it has been described above, neither law nor custom exacted conjugal +faithfulness from a husband.[227] Old Cato represents fairly well the +old idea of Roman virtue, yet it is clear enough, both from Plutarch's +_Life_ of him (e.g. ch. xxiv.) and from fragments of his own writings, +that his view of the conjugal relation was a coarse one,--that he +looked on the wife rather as a necessary agent for providing the State +with children than as a helpmeet to be tended and revered. And this +being so, we are not surprised to find that men are already beginning +to dislike and avoid marriage; a most dangerous symptom, with which a +century later Augustus found it impossible to cope. In the year 131, +just after Tiberius Gracchus had been trying to revive the population +of Italy by his agrarian law, Metellus Macedonicus the censor did what +he could to induce men to marry "liberorum creandorum causa"; and a +fragment of a speech of his on this subject became famous afterwards, +as quoted by Augustus with the same object. It is equally +characteristic of Roman humour and Roman hardness. "If we could do +without wives," he said to the people, "we should be rid of that +nuisance: but since nature has decreed that we can neither live +comfortably with them nor live at all without them, we must e'en look +rather to our permanent interests than to a passing pleasure."[228] + +Now if we take into account these tendencies, on the part both of men +and women in the married state, and further consider the stormy +and revolutionary character of the half century that succeeded the +Gracchi,--the Social and Civil Wars, the proscriptions of Marius and +Sulla,--we shall be prepared to find the ladies of Cicero's time by no +means simply feminine in charm or homely in disposition. Most of them +are indeed mere names to us, and we have to be careful in weighing +what is said of them by later writers. But of two or three of them we +do in fact know a good deal. + +The one of whom we really know most is the wife of Cicero, Terentia: +an ordinary lady, of no particular ability or interest, who may stand +as representative of the quieter type of married woman. She lived with +her husband about thirty years, and until towards the end of that +period, a long one for the age, we find nothing substantial against +her. If we had nothing but Cicero's letters to her, more than twenty +in number, and his allusions to her in other letters, we should +conclude that she was a faithful and on the whole a sensible wife. But +more than once he writes of her delicate health,[229] and as the poor +lady had at various times a great deal of trouble to go through, it is +quite possible that as she grew older she became short in her temper, +or trying in other ways to a husband so excitable and vacillating. We +find stories of her in Plutarch and elsewhere which represent her as +shrewish, too careful of her own money, and so on;[230] but facts are +of more account than the gossip of the day, and there is not a sign in +the letters that Cicero disliked or mistrusted her until the year 47. +Had there really been cause for mistrust it would have slipped out in +some letter to Atticus. Then, after his absence during the war, +he seems to have believed that she had neglected himself and his +interests: his letters to her grow colder and colder, and the last is +one which, as has been truly said, a gentleman would not write to +his housekeeper. The pity of it is that Cicero, after divorcing her, +married a young and rich wife, and does not seem to have behaved very +well to her. In a letter to Atticus (xii. 32) he writes that Publilia +wanted to come to him with her mother, when he was at Astura devoting +himself to grief for his daughter, and that he had answered that he +wished to be let alone. The letter shows Cicero at his worst, for once +heartless and discourteous; and if he could be so to a young lady who +wished to do her duty by him, what may he not have been to Terentia? I +suspect that Terentia was quite as much sinned against as sinning; +and may we not believe that of the innumerable married women who +were divorced at this time some at least were the victims of their +husbands' callousness rather than of their own shortcomings? + +The wife of Cicero's brother Quintus does, however, seem to have been +a difficult person to get on with. She was a sister of Atticus, but +she did not share her brother's tact and universal good-will. Marcus +Cicero has recorded (_ad Att._ v. I) a scene in which her ill-temper +was so ludicrous that the divorce which took place afterwards needs no +explanation. The two brothers were travelling together, and Pomponia +was with them; something had irritated her. When they stopped to lunch +at a place belonging to Quintus at Arcanum, he asked his wife to +invite the ladies of the party in. "Nothing, as I thought, could be +more courteous, and that too not only in the actual words, but in his +intention and the expression of his face. But she, in the hearing of +us all, exclaimed, 'I am only a stranger here!'" Apparently she had +not been asked by her husband to see after the luncheon; this had been +done by a freedman, and she was annoyed. "There," said Quintus, "that +is what I have to put up with every day!" When he sent her dishes from +the triclinium, where the gentlemen were having their meal, she would +not taste them. This little domestic contretemps is too good to be +neglected, but we must turn to women of greater note and character. + +Terentia and Pomponia and their kind seem to have had nothing in the +way of "higher education," nor do their husbands seem to have expected +from them any desire to share in their own intellectual interests. Not +once does Cicero allude to any pleasant social intercourse in which +his wife took part; and, to say the truth, he would probably have +avoided marriage with a woman of taste and knowledge. There were such +women, as we shall see, probably many of them; ever since the incoming +of wealth and of Greek education, of theatres and amusements and all +the pleasant out-of-door life of the city, what was now coming to be +called _cultus_ had occupied the minds and affected the habits of +Roman ladies as well as men. Unfortunately it was seldom that it was +found compatible with the old Roman ideal of the materfamilias and +her duties. The invasion of new manners was too sudden, as was the +corresponding invasion of wealth; such a lady as Cornelia, the famous +mother of the Gracchi, "who knew what education really meant, who had +learned men about her and could write well herself, and yet could +combine with these qualities the careful discharge of the duties +of wife and mother,"[231]--such ladies must have been rare, and in +Cicero's time hardly to be found. More and more the notion gained +ground that a clever woman who wished to make a figure in society, to +be the centre of her own _monde_, could not well realise her ambition +simply as a married woman. She would probably marry, play fast and +loose with the married state, neglect her children if she had any, and +after one or two divorces, die or disappear. So powerfully did this +idea of the incompatibility of culture and wifehood gain possession +of the Roman mind in the last century B.C., that Augustus found his +struggle with it the most difficult task he had to face; in vain he +exiled Ovid for publishing a work in which married women are most +frankly and explicitly left out of account, while all that is +attractive in the other sex to a man of taste and education is assumed +to be found only among those who have, so far at least, eschewed the +duties and burdens of married life. The culta puella and the cultus +puer of Ovid's fascinating yet repulsive poem[232] are the products of +a society which looks on pleasure, not reason or duty, as the main +end of life,--not indeed pleasure simply of the grosser type, but the +gratification of one's own wish for enjoyment and excitement, without +a thought of the misery all around, or any sense of the self-respect +that comes of active well-doing. + +The most notable example of a woman of _cultus_ in Cicero's day was +the famous Clodia, the Lesbia (as we may now almost assume) who +fascinated Catullus and then threw him over. She had been married to a +man of family and high station, Metellus Celer, who had died, strange +to say, without divorcing her. She must have been a woman of great +beauty and charm, for she seems to have attracted round her a little +côterie of clever young men and poets, to whom she could lend money or +accord praise as suited the moment. Whether Cicero himself had once +come within reach of her attractions, and perhaps suffered by them, is +an open question, and depends chiefly on statements of Plutarch which +may (as has been said above) have no better foundation than the gossip +of society. But we know how two typical young men of the time, Caelius +and Catullus, flew into the candle and were singed; we know how +fiercely she turned on Caelius, exposing herself and him without a +moment's hesitation in a public court; and we know how cruelly she +treated the poet, who hated her for it even while he still loved +her:[233] + + Odi et amo. Quare id faciam, fortasse requiris; + Nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior. + +CATULL. 85. + +She was, as M. Boissier has well said,[234] the exact counterpart +of her still more famous brother: "Elle apportait dans sa conduite +privée, dans ses engagements d'affection, les mêmes emportements et +les mêmes ardeurs que son frère dans la vie publique. Prompte à tous +les excès et ne rougissant pas de les avouer, aimant et haïssant avec +fureur, incapable de se gouverner et détestant toute contrainte, elle +ne démentait pas cette grande et fière famille dont elle descendait." +All this is true; we need not go beyond it and believe the worst that +has been said of her. + +We have just a glimpse of another lady of _cultus_, but only a +glimpse. This was Sempronia, the wife of an honest man and the mother +of another;[235] but according to Sallust, who introduces her to us as +a principal in the conspiracy of Catiline, she was one of those who +found steady married life incompatible with literary and artistic +tastes. "She could play and dance more elegantly than an honest woman +should ... she played fast and loose with her money, and equally so +with her good fame."[236] She had no scruples, he says, in denying a +debt, or in helping in a murder: yet she had plenty of _esprit_, could +write verses and talk brilliantly, and she knew too how to assume an +air of modesty on occasion. Sallust loved to colour his portraits +highly, and in painting this woman he saw no doubt a chance of +literary effect; but that she was really in the conspiracy we cannot +doubt, and that she had private ends to gain by it is also probable. +She seems to be the first of a series of ladies who during the next +century and later were to be a power in politics, and most of whom +were at least capable of crime, public and private. There is indeed +one instance a few years earlier of a woman exercising an almost +supreme influence in the State, and a woman too of the worst kind. +Plutarch tells us in the most explicit way that when Lucullus in 75 +B.C. was trying to secure for himself the command against Mithridates, +he found himself compelled to apply to a woman named Praecia, whose +social gifts and good nature gave her immense influence, which she +used with the pertinacity peculiar to such ladies. Her reputation, +however, was very bad, and among other lovers she had enslaved +Cethegus (afterwards the conspirator), whose power at the time was +immense at Rome. Thus, says Plutarch, the whole power of the State +fell into the hands of Praecia, for no public measure was passed if +Cethegus was not for it, in other words, if Praecia did not recommend +it to him. If the story be true, as it seems to be, Lucullus gained +her over by gifts and flattery, and thus Cethegus took up his cause +and got him the command.[237] + +Even if we put aside as untrustworthy a great deal of what is told us +of the relations of men and women in this period, it must be confessed +that there is quite sufficient evidence to show that they were loose +in the extreme, and show an altogether unhealthy condition of family +and social life. The famous tigress of the story of Cluentius, Sassia, +as she appears in Cicero's defence of him, was beyond doubt a criminal +of the worst kind, however much we may discount the orator's rhetoric; +and her case proves that the evil did not exist only at Rome, but was +to be found even in a provincial town of no great importance. Divorce +was so common as to be almost inevitable. Husbands divorced +their wives on the smallest pretexts, and wives divorced their +husbands.[238] Even the virtuous Cato seems to have divorced his wife +Marcia in order that Hortensius should marry her, and after some years +to have married her again as the widow of Hortensius, with a large +fortune.[239] Cicero himself writes sometimes in the lightest-hearted +way of conjugal relations which we should think most serious;[240] +and we find him telling Atticus how he had met at dinner the actress +Cytheris, a woman of notoriously bad character. "I did not know she +was going to be there," he says, "but even the Socratic Aristippus +himself did not blush when he was taunted about Lais."[241] Caesar's +reputation in such matters was at all times bad, and though many of +the stories about him are manifestly false, his conquest by Cleopatra +was a fact, and we learn with regret that the Egyptian queen was +living in a villa of his in gardens beyond the Tiber during the year +46, when he was himself in Rome. + +It will be a relief to the reader, after spending so much time in this +unwholesome atmosphere, to turn for a moment in the last place to a +record, unique and entirely credible, of a truly good and wholesome +woman, and of a long period of uninterrupted conjugal devotion. About +the year 8 B.C., not long before Ovid wrote those poems in which +married life was assumed to be hardly worth living, a husband in +high life at Rome lost the wife who had for forty-one years been his +faithful companion in prosperity, his wise and courageous counsellor +in adversity. He recorded her praises and the story of her devotion to +him in a long inscription, placed, as we may suppose, on the wall of +the tomb in which he laid her to rest, and a most fortunate chance has +preserved for us a great part of the marble on which this inscription +was engraved. It is in the form of a laudatio, or funeral encomium; +yet we cannot feel sure that he actually delivered it as a speech, +for throughout it he addresses, not an audience, but the lost wife +herself, in a manner unique among such documents of the kind as have +come down to us. He speaks to her as though she were still living, +though passed from his sight; and it is just this that makes it more +real and more touching than any memorial of the dead that has come +down to us from either Italy or Greece.[242] + +In such a record names are of no great importance; it is no great +misfortune that we do not know quite for certain who this man and his +wife were. But there is a very strong probability that her name was +Turia, and that he was a certain Q. Lucretius Vespillo, who served +under Pompeius in Epirus in 48 B.C., whose romantic adventures in the +proscriptions of 43 are recorded by Appian,[243] and who eventually +became consul under Augustus in 19 B.C. We may venture to use these +names in telling the remarkable story. For telling it here no apology +is needed, for it has never been told in English as a whole, so far as +I am aware. + +It begins when the pair were about to be married, probably in 49 B.C., +and with a horrible family calamity, not unnatural at the moment of +the outbreak of a dangerous civil war. Both Turia's parents were +murdered suddenly and together at their country residence--perhaps, +as Mommsen suggested, by their own slaves. Immediately afterwards +Lucretius had to leave with Pompeius' army for Epirus, and Turia was +left alone, bereft of both her parents, to do what she could to secure +the punishment of the murderers. Alone as she was, or aided only by a +married sister, she at once showed the courage and energy which are +obvious in all we hear of her. She seems to have succeeded in tracking +the assassins and bringing them to justice: "even if I had been there +myself," says her husband, "I could have done no more." + +But this was by no means the only dangerous task she had to undertake +in those years of civil war and insecurity. When Lucretius left her +they seem to have been staying at the villa where her parents had been +murdered; she had given him all her gold and pearls, and kept him +supplied in his absence with money, provisions, and even slaves, which +she contrived to smuggle over sea to Epirus.[244] And during the march +of Caesar's army through Italy she seems to have been threatened, +either in that villa or another, by some detachment of his troops, and +to have escaped only through her own courage and the clemency of one +whose name is not mentioned, but who can hardly be other than the +great Julius himself, a true gentleman, whose instinct and policy +alike it was throughout this civil war to be merciful to opponents. + +A year later, while Lucretius was still away, yet another peril came +upon her. While Caesar was operating round Dyrrhachium, there was a +dangerous rising in Campania and Southern Italy, for which our giddy +friend Caelius Rufus was chiefly responsible; gladiators and ruffianly +shepherd slaves were enlisted, and by some of these the villa where +she was staying was attacked, and successfully defended by her--so +much at least it seems possible to infer from the fragment recently +discovered. + +One might think that Turia had already had her full share of trouble +and danger, but there is much more to come. About this time she had to +defend herself against another attack, not indeed on her person, but +on her rights as an heiress. An attempt was made by her relations to +upset her father's will, under which she and Lucretius were appointed +equal inheritors of his property. The result of this would have been +to make her the sole heiress, leaving out her husband and her +married sister; but she would have been under the legal _tutela_ or +guardianship of persons whose motive in attacking the will was to +obtain administration of the property.[245] No doubt they meant to +administer it for their own advantage; and it was absolutely necessary +that she should resist them. How she did it her husband does not tell +us, but he says that the enemy retreated from his position, yielding +to her firmness and perseverance (constantia). The patrimonium came, +as her father had intended, to herself and her husband; and he dwells +on the care with which they dealt with it, he exercising a _tutela_ +over her share, while she exercised a _custodia_ over his. Very +touchingly he adds, "but of this I leave much unsaid, lest I should +seem to be claiming a share in the praise that is due to you alone." + +When Lucretius returned to Italy, apparently pardoned by Caesar +for the part he had taken against him, the marriage must have been +consummated. Then came the murder of the Dictator, which plunged Italy +once more into civil war, until in 43 Antony Octavian and Lepidus made +their famous compact, and at once proceeded to that abominable work of +proscription which made a reign of terror at Rome, and spilt much +of the best Roman blood. The happiness of the pair was suddenly +destroyed, for Lucretius found himself named in the fatal lists.[246] +He seems to have been in the country, not far from Rome, when he +received a message from his wife, telling him of impending peril that +he might have to face at any moment, and warning him strongly against +a certain rash course--perhaps an attempt to escape to Sextus Pompeius +in Sicily, a course which cost the lives of many deluded victims. +She implored him to return to their own house in Rome, where she had +devised a secure hiding-place for him. She meant no doubt to die with +him there if he were discovered. + +He obeyed his good genius and made for Rome, by night it would seem, +with only two faithful slaves. One of these fell lame and had to +be left behind; and Lucretius, leaning on the arm of the other, +approached the city gate. Suddenly they became aware of a troop of +soldiers issuing from it, and Lucretius took refuge in one of the many +tombs that lined the great roads outside the walls. They had not been +long in this dismal hiding when they were surprised by a party of +tomb-wreckers--ghouls who haunted these roads by night and lived by +robbing tombs or travellers. Luckily they wanted rather to rob than to +murder, and the slave gave himself up to them to be stripped, while +his master, who was no doubt disguised, perhaps as a slave, contrived +to slip out of their hands and reached the city gate safely. Here he +waited, as we might expect him to do, for his brave companion, and +then succeeded in making his way into the city and to his house, where +his wife concealed him between the roof and the ceiling of one of +their bedrooms, until the storm should blow over. + +But neither life nor property was safe until some pardon and +restitution were obtained from one at least of the triumvirs. When at +last these were conceded by Octavian, he was himself absent in the +campaign that ended with Philippi, and Lepidus was consul in charge +of Rome. To Lepidus Turia had to go, to beg the confirmation of +Octavian's grace, and this brutal man received her with insult and +injury. She fell at his feet, as her husband describes with bitter +indignation, but instead of being raised and congratulated, she was +hustled, beaten like a slave, and driven from his presence. But +her perseverance had its ultimate reward. The clemency of Octavian +prevailed on his return to Italy, and this treatment of a lad; was +among the many crimes that called for the eventual degradation of +Lepidus. + +This was the last of their perilous escapes. A long period of happy +married life awaited them, more particularly after the battle of +Actium, when "peace and the republic were restored." One thing only +was wanting to complete their perfect felicity--they had no children. +It was this that caused Turia to make a proposal to her husband which, +coming from a truly unselfish woman, and seen in the light of Roman +ideas of married life, is far from unnatural; but to us it must seem +astonishing, and it filled Lucretius with horror. She urged that he +should divorce her, and take another wife in the hope of a son and +heir. If there is nothing very surprising in this from a Roman point +of view, it is indeed to us both surprising and touching that she +should have supported her request by a promise that she would be as +much a mother to the expected children as their own mother, and would +still be to Lucretius a sister, having nothing apart from him, nothing +secret, and taking away with her no part of their inheritance. + +To us, reading this proposal in cold blood just nineteen hundred years +after it was made, it may seem foolishly impracticable; to her, whose +whole life was spent in unselfish devotion to her husband's interests, +whose warm love for him was always mingled with discretion, it was +simply an act of pietas--of wifely duty. Yet he could not for a moment +think so himself: his indignation at the bare idea of it lives for +ever on the marble in glowing words. "I must confess," he says, "that +the anger so burnt within me that my senses almost deserted me: that +you should ever have thought it possible that we could be separated +but by death, was most horrible to me. What was the need of children +compared with my loyalty to you: why should I exchange certain +happiness for an uncertain future? But I say no more of this: you +remained with me, for I could not yield without disgrace to myself and +unhappiness to both of us. The one sorrow that was in store for me was +that I was destined to survive you." + +These two, we may feel sure, were wholly worthy of each other. What +she would have said of him, if he had been the first to go, we can +only guess; but he has left a portrait of her, as she lived and worked +in his household, which, mutilated though it is, may be inadequately +paraphrased as follows: + +"You were a faithful wife to me," he says, "and an obedient one: you +were kind and gracious, sociable and friendly: you were assiduous at +your spinning (lanificia): you followed the religious rites of your +family and your state, and admitted no foreign cults or degraded magic +(superstitio): you did not dress conspicuously, nor seek to make +a display in your household arrangements. Your duty to our whole +household was exemplary: you tended my mother as carefully as if she +had been your own. You had innumerable other excellences, in common +with all other worthy matrons, but these I have mentioned were +peculiarly yours." + +No one can study this inscription without becoming convinced that it +tells an unvarnished tale of truth--that here was really a rare and +precious woman; a Roman matron of the very best type, practical, +judicious, courageous, simple in her habits and courteous to all her +guests. And we feel that there is one human being, and one only, +of whom she is always thinking, to whom she has given her whole +heart--the husband whose words and deeds show that he was wholly +worthy of her. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +THE EDUCATION OF THE UPPER CLASSES + +From what has been said in preceding chapters of the duties and the +habits of the two sections of the upper stratum of society, it will +readily be inferred that the kind of education called for was one +mainly of character. In these men, whether for the work of business or +of government, what was wanted was the will to do well and justly, +and the instinctive hatred of all evil and unjust dealing. Such an +education of the will and character is supplied (whatever be its +shortcomings in other ways) by our English public school education, +for men whose work in life is in many ways singularly like that of the +Roman upper classes. Such an education, too, was outlined by Aristotle +for the men of his ideal state; and Mr. Newman's picture of the +probable results of it is so suggestive of what was really needed at +Rome that I may quote it here.[247] + +"As its outcome at the age of twenty-one we may imagine a bronzed and +hardy youth, healthy in body and mind, able to bear hunger and hard +physical labour ... not untouched by studies which awake in men the +interest of civilised beings, and prepare them for the right use of +leisure in future years, and though burdened with little knowledge, +possessed of an educated sense of beauty, and an ingrained love of +what is noble and hatred of all that is the reverse. He would be +more cultivated and human than the best type of young Spartan, more +physically vigorous and reverential, though less intellectually +developed, than the best type of young Athenian--a nascent soldier and +servant of the state, not, like most young Athenians of ability, a +nascent orator. And as he would be only half way through his education +at an age when many Greeks had finished theirs, he would be more +conscious of his own immaturity. We feel at once how different he +would be from the clever lads who swarmed at Athens, youths with an +infinite capacity for picking holes, and capable of saying something +plausible on every subject under the sun." + +If we note, with Mr. Newman, that Aristotle here makes if anything too +little of intellectual training (as indeed may also be said of our +own public schools), and add to his picture something more of that +knowledge which, when united with an honest will and healthy body, +will almost infallibly produce a sound judgment, we shall have a type +of character eminently fitted to share in the duties and the trials of +the government of such empires as the Roman and the British. But at +Rome, in the age of Cicero, such a type of character was rare indeed; +and though this was due to various causes, some of which have been +already noticed,--the building up of a Roman empire before the Romans +were ripe to appreciate the duties of an imperial state, and the +sudden incoming of wealth in an age when the idea of its productive +use was almost unknown,--yet it will occur to every reader that there +must have been also something wrong in the upbringing of the youth of +the upper classes to account for the rarity of really sound character, +for the frequent absence of what we should call the sense of duty, +public and private. I propose in this chapter to deal with the +question of Roman education just so far as to show where in Cicero's +time it was chiefly defective. It is a subject that has been very +completely worked out, and an excellent summary of the results will +be found in the little volume on Roman education written by the late +Professor A.S. Wilkins, just before his lamented death: but he was +describing its methods without special reference to its defects, and +it is these defects on which I wish more particularly to dwell.[248] + +Let us notice, in the first place, how little is said in the +literature of the time, including biographies, of that period of life +which is now so full of interest to readers of memoirs, so full of +interest to ourselves as we look back to it in advancing years. It +may be that we now exaggerate the importance of childhood, but it is +equally certain that the Romans undervalued the importance of it. It +may be that we over-estimate the value of our public-school life, but +it is certain that the Romans had no such school life to be proud of. +Biography was at this time a favourite form of literature, and some of +the memoirs then written were available for use by later writers, such +as Valerius Maximus, Suetonius, and Plutarch; yet it is curious how +little has come down to us of the childhood or boyhood of the great +men of the time. Plutarch indeed was deeply interested in education, +including that of childhood, and we can hardly doubt that he would +have used in his Roman Lives any information that came in his way. He +does tell us something, for which we are eternally indebted to him, of +old Cato's method of educating his son,[249] and something too, in his +_Life of Aemilius Paullus_,[250] of the education of the eldest son of +that family, the great Scipio Aemilianus. But in each of these Lives +we shall find that this information is used rather to bring out the +character of the father than to illustrate the upbringing of the son; +and as a rule the Lives begin with the parentage of the hero, and then +pass on at once to his early manhood. + +The Life of the younger Cato, however, is an exception to the rule, +which we must ascribe to the attraction which all historians and +philosophers felt to this singular character. Plutarch knew the naiue +and character of Cato's paedagogus, Sarpedon,[251] and tells us that +he was an obedient child, but would ask for the reason of everything, +in those questions beginning with "why" which are often embarrassing +to the teacher. Two stories in the second and third chapters of this +Life are also found in that insipid medley of fact and fable drawn +up in the reign of Tiberius, by Valerius Maximus, for educational +purposes;[252] a third, which is peculiarly significant, and seems to +bear the stamp of truth, is only to be found in Plutarch. I give it +here in full: + +"On another occasion, when a kinsman on his birthday invited some boys +to supper and Cato with them, in order to pass the time they played in +a part of the house by themselves, younger and older together: and the +game consisted of accusations and trials, and the arresting of those +who were convicted. Now one of the boys convicted, who was of a +handsome presence, being dragged off by an older boy to a chamber and +shut up, called on Cato for aid. Cato seeing what was going on came to +the door, and pushing through those who were posted in front of it +to prevent him, took the boy out; and went off home with him in a +passion, accompanied by other boys." + +This is a unique picture of the ways and games of boys in the last +century of the Republic. Like the children of all times, they play at +that in which they see their fathers most active and interested; and +this particular game must have been played in the miserable years of +the civil wars and the proscriptions, as Cato was born in 95 B.C. +Whether the part played by Cato in the story be true or not, the +lesson for us is the same, and we shall find it entirely confirmed +in the course of this chapter. The main object of education was the +mastery of the art of oratory, and the chief practical use of that +art was to enable a man to gain a reputation as an advocate in the +criminal courts.[253] + +Cicero had one boy, and for several years two, to look after, one his +own son Marcus, born in 65 B.C., and the other Quintus, the son of +his brother, a year older. Of these boys, until they took the toga +virilis, he says hardly anything in his letters to Atticus, though +Atticus was the uncle of the elder boy. Only when his brother Quintus +was with Caesar in Gaul do we really begin to hear anything about +them, and even then more than once, after a brief mention of the young +Quintus, he goes off at once to tell his brother about the progress +of the villas that are being built for him. But it is clear that the +father wished to know about the boy as well as about the villas;[254] +and in one letter we find Cicero telling Quintus that he wishes to +teach his boy himself, as he has been teaching his own son. "I'll do +wonders with him if I can get him to myself when I am at leisure, for +at Rome there is not time to breathe (nam Romae respirandi non est +locus)."[255] It is clear that the boys, who were only eleven and +twelve in this year 54, were being educated at home, and as clear too +that Cicero, who was just then very much occupied in the courts, had +no time to attend to them himself. Young Quintus, we hear, gets on +well with his rhetoric master; Cicero does not wholly approve the +style in which he is being taught, and thinks he may be able to teach +him his own more learned style, though the boy himself seems to prefer +the declamatory method of the teacher.[256] The last entry in these +letters to the absent father is curious:[257] "I love your Cicero as +he deserves and as I ought. But I am letting him leave me, because I +don't want to keep him from his masters, and because his mother is +going away,--and without her I am nervous about his greediness!" Up to +this point he has written in the warmest terms of the boy, but here, +as so often in Cicero's letters about other people, disapprobation is +barely hinted in order not to hurt the feelings of his correspondent. + +The one thing that is really pleasing in these allusions is the +genuine desire of both parents that their boys shall be of good +disposition and well educated. But of real training or of home +discipline we unluckily get no hint. We must go elsewhere for what +little we know about the training of children. Let us now turn to +this for a while, remembering that it means parental example and +the discipline of the body as well as the acquisition of elementary +knowledge. Unfortunately, no book has survived from that age in which +the education of children was treated of. Varro wrote such a book, +but we know of it little more than its name, _Catus, sive de liberis +educandis_.[258] In the fourth book of his _de Republica_ Cicero seems +to have dealt with "disciplina puerilis," but from the few fragments +that survive there is little to be learnt, and we may be pretty sure +that Cicero could not write of this with much knowledge or experience. +The most famous passage is that in which he quotes Polybius as blaming +the Romans for neglecting it;[259] certainly, he adds, they never +wished that the State should regulate the education of children, or +that it should be all on one model; the Greeks took much unnecessary +trouble about it. The Greeks of his own time whom Cicero knew did not +inspire him with any exalted idea of the results of Greek education; +but we should like to know whether in this book of his work on the +State he did not express some feeling that on the children themselves, +and therefore on their training, the fortunes of the State depend. +Such had been the feeling of the old Romans, though their State laid +down no laws for education, but trusted to the force of tradition and +custom. Old Cato believed himself to be acting like an old Roman when +he looked after the washing and dressing of his baby, and guided the +child with personal care as he grew up, writing books for his use in +large letters with his own hand.[260] But since Cato's day the idea +of the State had lost strength; and this had an unfortunate effect +on education, as on married life. The one hope of the age, the Stoic +philosophy, was concerned with those who had attained to reason, i.e. +to those who had reached their fourteenth year; in the Stoic view +the child was indeed potentially reasonable, and thus a subject of +interest, but in the Stoic ethics education does not take a very +prominent place.[261] We are driven to the conclusion that a real +interest in education as distinct from the acquisition of knowledge +was as much wanting at Rome in Cicero's day as it has been till lately +in England; and that it was not again awakened until Christianity had +made the children sacred, not only because the Master so spoke of +them, but because they were inheritors of eternal life. + +Yet there had once been a Roman home education admirably suited +to bring up a race of hardy and dutiful men and women. It was an +education in the family virtues, thereafter to be turned to account +in the service of the State. The mother nursed her own children and +tended them in their earliest years. Then followed an education which +we may call one in bodily activity, in demeanour, in religion, and in +duty to the State. It is true that we have hardly any evidence of this +but tradition; but when Varro, in one of the precious fragments of his +book on education, describes his own bringing up in his Sabine home at +Reate, we may be fairly sure that it adequately represents that of +the old Roman farmer.[262] He tells us that he had a single tunic +and toga, was seldom allowed a bath, and was made to learn to ride +bareback--which reminds us of the life of the young Boer of the +Transvaal before the late war. In another fragment he also tells us +that both boys and girls used to wait on their parents at table.[263] +Cato the elder, in a fragment preserved by Festus,[264] says that +he was brought up from his earliest years to be frugal, hardy, and +industrious, and worked steadily on the farm (in the Sabine country), +in a stony region where he had to dig and plant the flinty soil. The +tradition of such a healthy rearing remained in the memory of the +Romans, and associated itself with the Sabines of central Italy, the +type of men who could be called _frugi_: + + rusticorum mascula militum + proles, Sabellis docta ligonibus + versare glebas et severae + matris ad arbitrium recisos + portare fustis.[265] + +It was an education also in demeanour, and especially in +obedience[266] and modesty. In that chapter of Plutarch's _Life of +Cato_ which has been already quoted, after describing how the father +taught his boy to ride, to box, to swim, and so on, he goes on, "And +he was as careful not to utter an indecent word before his son, as he +would have been in the presence of the Vestal Virgins." The _pudor_ of +childhood was always esteemed at Rome: "adolescens pudentissimus" is +the highest praise that can be given even to a grown youth;[267] and +there are signs that a feeling survived of a certain sacredness of +childhood, which Juvenal reflects in his famous words, "Maxima debetur +puero reverentia." The origin of this feeling is probably to be found +in the fact that both boys and girls were in ancient times brought +up to help in performing the religious duties of the household, as +camilli and camillae (acolytes); and this is perhaps the reason why +they wore, throughout Roman history, the toga praetexta with the +purple stripe, like magistrates and sacrificing priests.[268] It is +hardly necessary to say that this religious side of education was an +education in the practice of cult, and not in any kind of creed or +ideas about the gods; but so far as it went its influence was good, as +instilling the habit of reverence and the sense of duty from a very +early age. Though the Romans of Cicero's time had lost their old +conviction of the necessity of propitiating the gods of the State, it +is probable that the tradition of family worship still survived in the +majority of households. + +Again, we may be sure that the idea of duty to the State was not +omitted in this old-fashioned education. Cato wrote histories for his +son in large letters, "so that without stirring out of the house, +he might gain a knowledge of the illustrious actions of the ancient +Romans, and of the customs of his country": but it is significant that +in the next two or three generations the writers of annals took to +glorifying--and falsifying--the achievements of members of their own +families, rather than those of the State as a whole. Boys learnt the +XII Tables by heart, and Cicero tells us that he did this in his own +boyhood, though the practice had since then been dropped.[269] That +ancient code of law would have acted, we may imagine, as a kind of +catechism of the rules laid down by the State for the conduct of its +citizens, and as a reminder that though the State had outgrown the +rough legal clothing of its infancy, it had from the very beginning +undertaken the duty of regulating the conduct of its citizens in their +relations with each other. Again, when a great Roman died, it is said +to have been the practice for parents to take their boys to hear the +funeral oration in praise of one who had done great service to the +State.[270] + +All this was admirable, and if Rome had not become a great imperial +state, and if some super-structure of the humanities could have been +added in a natural process of development, it might have continued +for ages as an invaluable educational basis. But the conditions under +which alone it could flourish had long ceased to be. It is obvious +that it depended entirely on the presence of the parents and their +interest in the children; as regards the boys it depended chiefly on +the father. Now ever since the Roman dominion was extended beyond sea, +i.e. ever since the first two Punic wars, the father of a family must +often have been away from home for long periods; he might have to +serve in foreign wars for years together, and in numberless cases +never saw Italy again. Even if he remained in Rome, the ever +increasing business of the State would occupy him far more than +was compatible with a constant personal care for his children. The +conscientious Roman father of the last two centuries B.C. must have +felt even more keenly than English parents in India the sorrow of +parting from their children at an age when they are most in need of +parental care. We have to remember that in Cicero's day letter-writing +had only recently become possible on an extended scale through the +increasing business of the publicani in the provinces (see above, p. +74); the Roman father in Spain or Asia seldom heard of what his wife +and children were doing, and the inevitable result was that he began +to cease to care. In fact more and more came to depend on the mothers, +as with our own hard-working professional classes; and we have seen +reason to believe that in the last age of the Republic the average +mother was not too often a conscientious or dutiful woman. The +constant liability to divorce would naturally diminish her interest in +her children, for after separation she had no part or lot in them. And +this no doubt is one reason why at this particular period we hear so +little of the life of children. There is indeed no reason to suppose +that they themselves were unhappy; they had plenty of games, which +were so familiar that the poets often allude to them--hoops, tops, +dolls, blind man's buff, and the favourite games of "nuts" and +"king."[271] But the real question is not whether they could enjoy +their young life, but whether they were learning to use their bodies +and minds to good purpose. + +When a boy was about seven years old, the question would arise in +most families whether he should remain at home or go to an elementary +school.[272] No doubt it was usually decided by the means at the +command of the parents. A wealthy father might see his son through his +whole education at home by providing a tutor (paedagogus), and more +advanced teachers as they were needed. Cato indeed, as we have seen, +found time to do much of the work himself, but he also had a slave +who taught his own and other children. Aemilius Paullus had +several teachers in his house for this purpose, under his own +superintendence.[273] Cicero too, as we have seen, seems to have +educated his son at home, though he himself is said to have attended a +school. But we may suppose that the ordinary boy of the upper classes +went to school, under the care of a paedagogus, after the Greek +fashion, rising before daylight, and submitting to severe discipline, +which, together with the absolute necessity for a free Roman of +attaining a certain level of acquirement, effectually compelled him to +learn to read, write, and cipher.[274] This elementary work must +have been done well; we hear little or nothing of gross ignorance or +neglected education. + +There were, however, very serious defects in this system of elementary +education. Not only the schoolmaster himself, but the paedagogus who +was responsible for the boy's conduct, was almost always either a +slave or a freedman; and neither slave nor freedman could be an object +of profound respect for a Roman boy. Hence no doubt the necessity of +maintaining discipline rather by means of corporal punishment (to +which the Romans never seem to have objected, though Quintilian +criticises it)[275] than by moral force; a fact which is attested both +in literature and art. The responsibility again which attached to the +paedagogus for the boy's morals must have been another inducement to +the parents to renounce their proper work of supervision.[276] And +once more, the great majority of teachers were Greeks. As the boy was +born into a bilingual Graeco-Roman world, of which the Greeks were the +only cultured people, this might seem natural and inevitable; but we +know that in his heart the Roman despised the Greek. Of witnesses in +their favour we might expect Cicero to be the strongest, but Cicero +occasionally lets us know what he really thinks of their moral +character. In a remarkable passage in his speech for Flaccus, which +is fully borne out by remarks in his private letters, he says that he +grants them all manner of literary and rhetorical skill, but that +the race never understood or cared for the sacred binding force of +testimony given in a court of law.[277] Thus the Roman boy was in the +anomalous position of having to submit to chastisement from men whom +as men he despised. Assuredly we should not like our public schoolboys +to be taught or punished by men of low station or of an inferior +standard of morals It is men, not methods, that really tell in +education; the Roman schoolboy needed some one to believe in some one +to whom to be wholly loyal; the very same overpowering need which +was so obvious in the political world of Rome in the last century +B.C.[278] + +Of this elementary teaching little need be said here, as it did not +bear directly on life and conduct. There is, however, one feature of +it which may claim our attention for a moment. Both in reading and +writing, and also for learning by heart, _sententiae_ [Greek: gnomai] +were used, which remind us of our copy-book maxims. Of these we have a +large collection, more than 700, selected from the mimes of Publilius +Syrus, who came to Rome from Syria as a slave in the age of which we +are writing, and after obtaining his freedom gained great reputation +as the author of many popular plays of this kind, in which he +contrived to insert these wise saws and maxims. It is not likely that +they found their way into the schools all at once, but in the early +Empire we find them already alluded to as educational material by +Seneca the elder,[279] and we may take them as a fair example of the +maxims already in use in Cicero's time, making some allowance for +their superior neatness and wisdom. Here are a few specimens, taken +almost at random; it will be seen that they convey much shrewd good +sense, and occasionally have the true ring of humanity as well as the +flavour of Stoic _sapientia_. I quote from the excellent edition by +Mr. Bickford-Smith.[280] + + Avarus ipse miseriae causa est suae. + Audendo virtus crescit, tardando timor. + Cicatrix conscientiae pro vulnere est. + Fortunam[281] citius reperias quam retineas. + Cravissima est probi hominis iracundia. + Homo totiens moritur, quotiens amittit suos. + Homo vitae commodatus, non donatus est. + Humanitatis optima est certatio. + Iucundum nil est, nisi quod reficit varietas. + Malum est consilium quod mutari non potest. + Minus saepe pecces, si scias quod nescias. + Perpetuo vincit qui utitur clementia. + Qui ius iurandum servat, quovis pervenit. + Ubi peccat aetas maior, male discit minor. + +I have quoted these to show that Roman children were not without +opportunity even in early schooldays of laying to heart much that +might lead them to good and generous conduct in later life, as well as +to practical wisdom. But we know the fate of our own copy-book maxims; +we know that it is not through them that our children become good men +and women, but by the example and the un-systematised precepts of +parents and teachers. No such neat [Greek gnomai] can do much good +without a sanction of greater force than any that is inherent in +them and such a sanction was not to be found in the ferula of the +grammaticus or the paedagogus. Once more it is men and not methods +that supply the real educational force. + +Probably the greatest difficulty which the Roman boy had to face in +his school life was the learning of arithmetic; it was this, we may +imagine, that made him think of his master, as Horace did of the +worthy Orbilius,[282] as a man of blows (plagosus). This is not the +place to give an account of the methods of reckoning then used; they +will be found fully explained in Marquardt's _Privatleben_, +and compressed into a page by Professor Wilkins in his _Roman +Education_[283]. It is enough to say that they were as indispensable +as they were difficult to learn. "An orator was expected, according to +Quintilian (i. 10. 35), not only to be able to make his calculations +in court, but also to show clearly to his audience how he arrived at +his results." From the small inn-keeper to the great capitalist, every +man of business needed to be perfectly at home in reckoning sums of +money. The magistrates, especially quaestors and aediles, had staffs +of clerks who must have been skilled accountants; the provincial +governors and all who were engaged in collecting the tributes of the +provinces, as well as in lending the money to enable the tax-payers to +pay (see above, 71 foll.), were constantly busy with their ledgers. +The humbler inhabitants of the Empire had long been growing familiar +with the Roman aptitude for arithmetic.[284] + + Grais ingenium, Grais dedit ore rotundo + Musa loqui, praeter laudem nullius avaris. + Romani pueri longis rationibus assem + discunt in partes centum diducere. "Dicat + films Albini: si de quincunce remota est + uncia, quid superat? poteras dixisse." "triens." "eu! + rem poteris servare tuam."[285] + +This familiar passage may be quoted once more to illustrate the +practical nature of the Roman school teaching and the ends which it +was to serve. Utilitarian to the backbone, the ordinary Roman, like +the ordinary British, parent, wanted his son to get on in life; it +was only the parent of a higher class who sacrificed anything to the +Muses, and then chiefly because in a public career it was _de rigueur_ +that the boy should not be ignorant or boorish. + +When the son of well-to-do parents had mastered the necessary +elements, he was advanced to the higher type of school kept by a +_grammaticus_, and there made his first real acquaintance with +literature; and this was henceforward, until he began to study +rhetoric and philosophy, the staple of his work. We may note, by the +way, that science, i.e. the higher mathematics and astronomy, +was reckoned under the head of philosophy, while medicine and +jurisprudence had become professional studies,[286] to learn which it +was necessary to attach yourself to an experienced practitioner, as +with the art of war In the grammar schools, as we may call them, the +course was purely literary and humanistic, and it was conducted both +in Greek and Latin, but chiefly in Greek, as a natural result of the +comparative scantiness of Latin literature.[287] Homer, Hesiod, and +Menander were the favourite authors studied; only later on, after the +full bloom of the Augustan literature, did Latin poets, especially +Virgil and Horace, take a place of almost equal importance. The study +of the Greek poets was apparently a thorough one. It included the +teaching of language, grammar, metre, style, and subject matter, and +was aided by reading aloud, which was reckoned of great importance, +and learning by heart, on the part of the pupils. In the discussion +of the subject matter any amount of comment was freely allowed to +the master, who indeed was expected to have at his fingers' ends +explanations of all sorts of allusions, and thus to enable the boys to +pick up a great deal of odd knowledge and a certain amount of history, +mixed up of course with a large percentage of valueless mythology. +"In grammaticis," says Cicero, "poetarum pertractatio, historiarum +cognitio, verborum interpretatio, pronuntiandi quidam sonus."[288] The +method, if such it can be called, was not at all unlike that pursued +in our own public schools, Eton, for example, before new methods and +subjects came in. Its great defect in each case was that it gave but +little opportunity for learning to distinguish fact from fancy, +or acquiring that scientific habit of mind which is now becoming +essential for success in all departments of life, and which at Rome +was so rare that it seems audacious to claim it even for such a man of +action as Caesar, or for such a man of letters as Varro. In England +this defect was compensated to some extent by the manly tone of school +life, but at Rome that side of school education was wanting, and the +result was a want of solidity both intellectual and moral. + +The one saving feature, given a really good and high-minded teacher, +might be the appeal to the example of the great and good men of the +past, both Greek and Roman, and the study of their motives in action, +in good fortune and ill. This is the kind of teaching which we find +illustrated in the book of Valerius Maximus, which has already been +alluded to, who takes some special virtue or fine quality as the +subject of most of his chapters,[289]--fortitudo, patientia, +abstinentia, moderatio, pietas erga parentes, amicitia, and so on, +and illustrates them by examples and stories drawn mainly from Roman +history, partly also from Greek. This kind of appeal to the young mind +was undoubtedly good, and the finest product of the method is the +immortal work of Plutarch, the Lives of the great men of Greece and +Rome, drawn up for ethical rather than historical purposes. But here +again we must note a serious drawback. Any one who turns over the +pages of Valerius will see that these stories of the great men of the +past are so detached from their historical surroundings that they +could not possibly serve as helps in the practical conduct of life; +they might indeed do positive mischief, by leading a shallow reasoner +to suppose that what may have been justifiable at one time and under +certain circumstances, regicide, for example, or exposure of oneself +in battle, is justifiable at all times and in all circumstances. Such +an appeal failed also by discouraging the habit of thinking about the +facts and problems of the day; and right-minded men like Cicero and +Cato the younger both suffered from this weakness of a purely literary +early training. Another drawback is that this teaching inevitably +exaggerated the personal element in history, at the very time too when +personalities were claiming more than their due share of the world's +attention; and thus the great lessons which Polybius had tried to +teach the Graeco-Roman world, of seeking for causes in historical +investigation, and of meditating on the phenomena of the world you +live in, were passed over or forgotten. + +But so far as the study of language, of artistic diction, of +elocution, and intelligent reading could help a boy to prepare himself +for life, this education was good; more especially good as laying a +foundation for the acquirement of that art of oratory which, from old +Cato's time onwards, had been the chief end to be aimed at by all +intending to take part in public life. Cato indeed had well said to +his son, "Orator est, Marce fili, vir bonus dicendi peritus,"[290] +thus putting the ethical stamp of the man in the first place; and +his "rem tene, verba sequentur" is a valuable bit of advice for all +learners and teachers of literature. But more and more the end of all +education had come to be the art of oratory, and particularly the art +as exercised in the courts of law, where in Cicero's time neither +truth nor fact was supreme, and where the first thing required was +to be a clever speaker,--a vir bonus by all means if you were so +disposed. But to this we shall return directly. + +In such schools, if he were not educated at home, the boy remained +till he was invested with the toga virilis, or pura. In the late +Republic this usually took place between the fourteenth and +seventeenth years;[291] thus the two young Ciceros seem both to have +been sixteen when they received the toga virilis, while Octavian and +Virgil were just fifteen, and the son of Antony only fourteen. In +former times it seems probable that the boy remained "praetextatus" +till he was seventeen, the age at which he was legally capable of +military service, and that he went straight from the home to the +levy;[292] in case of severe military pressure, or if he wished it +himself, he might begin his first military exercises and even his +active service, in the praetexta. But as in so many other ways, so +here the life of the city brought about a change; in a city boys are +apt to develop more rapidly in intelligence if not in body, and as the +toga virilis was the mark of legal qualification as a man, they might +be of more use to the family in the absence of the father if invested +with it somewhat earlier than had been the primitive custom. But there +was no hard and fast rule; boys develop with much variation both +mentally and physically, and, like the Eton collar of our own +schoolboys, the toga of childhood might be retained or dropped +entirely at the discretion of the parents. + +There is, however, a great difference in the two cases in regard +to the assumption of the manly dress. With us it does not mean +independence; as a rule the boy remains at school for a year or two at +least under strict discipline. At Rome it meant, on the contrary, that +he was "of age," and in the eye of the law a man, capable of looking +after his own education and of holding property. This was a survival +from the time when at the age of puberty the boy, as among all +primitive peoples, was solemnly received into the body of citizens and +warriors; and the solemnity of the Roman ceremony fully attests this. +After a sacrifice in the house, and the dedication of his boyish toga +and bulla to the Lar familiaris, he was invested with the plain toga +of manhood (libera, pura), and conducted by his father or guardian, +accompanied (in characteristic Roman fashion, see below, p. 271) +by friends and relations, to the Forum, and probably also to the +tabularium under the Capitol, where his name was entered in the list +of full citizens.[293] + +With the new arrangement, under which boys might become legally men +at an earlier age than in the old days, it is obvious that there must +often have been an interval before they were physically or mentally +qualified for a profession. As the sole civil profession to which boys +of high family would aspire was that of the bar, a father would send +his son during that interval to a distinguished advocate to be taken +as a pupil. Cicero himself was thus apprenticed to Mucius Scaevola the +augur: and in the same way the young Caelius, as soon as he had taken +his toga virilis, was brought by his father to Cicero. The relation +between the youth and his preceptor was not unlike that of the +_contubernium_ in military life, in which the general to whom a lad +was committed was supposed to be responsible for his welfare and +conduct as well as for his education in the art of war: thus Cicero +says of Caelius[294] that at that period of his life no one ever saw +him "except with his father or with me, or in the very well-conducted +house of M. Crassus" (who shared with Cicero in the guardianship). +"Fuit assiduus mecum," he says a little farther on. This kind of +pupilage was called the _tirocinium fori_, in which a lad should be +pursuing his studies for the legal profession, and also his bodily +exercises in the Campus Martius, so that he might be ready to serve +in the army for the single campaign which was still desirable if not +absolutely necessary. When he had made his first speech in a court of +law, he was said _tirocinium ponere_,[295] and if it were a success, +he might devote himself more particularly henceforward to the art and +practice of oratory. No doubt all really ambitious young men, who +aimed at high office and an eventual provincial government, would, +like Caesar, endeavour to qualify themselves for the army as well as +the Forum. Cicero, however, whose instincts were not military, served +only in one campaign, at the age of seventeen, and apparently he +advised Caelius to do no more than this. Caelius served under +Q. Pompeius proconsul of Africa, to whom he was attached as +_contubernalis_, choosing this province because his father had estates +there.[296] It was only on his return with a good character from +Pompeius that he proceeded to exhibit his skill as an orator by +accusing some distinguished person--in this case the Antonius who was +afterwards consul with Cicero.[297] + +To attain the skill in oratory which would enable the pupil to make +a successful appearance in the Forum, he must have gone through an +elaborate training in the art of rhetoric. Cicero does not tell us +whether he himself gave Caelius lessons in rhetoric, or whether he +sent him to a professional teacher; he had himself written a treatise +on a part of the subject--the _de Inventione_ of 80 B.C., the earliest +of all his prose works--and was therefore quite able to give the +necessary instruction if he found time to do so. It is not the object +of this chapter to explain the meaning of rhetoric as the Graeco-Roman +world then understood it, or the theory of a rhetorical education; +for this the reader must be referred to Professor Wilkins' little +book,[298] or, better still, to the main source of our knowledge, the +_Institutio Oratoris_ of Quintilian. Something may, however, be said +here of the view taken of a rhetorical training by Cicero himself, +very clearly expressed in the exordium of the treatise just mentioned, +and often more or less directly reiterated in his later and more +mature works on oratory. + +"After much meditation," he says, "I have been led to the conclusion +that wisdom without eloquence is of little use to a state, while +eloquence without wisdom is often positively harmful, and never of any +value. Thus if a man, abandoning the study of reason and duty, which +is always perfectly straight and honourable, spends his whole time in +the practice of speaking, he is being brought up to be a hindrance +to his own development, and a dangerous citizen." This reminds us of +Cato's saying that an orator is "vir bonus dicendi peritus." Less +strongly expressed, the same view is also found in the exordium of +another and more mature treatise on rhetoric, by an author whose name +is unknown, written a year or two before that of Cicero: "Non enim +parum in se fructus habet copia dicendi et commoditas orationis, si +recta intelligentia et definita animi moderatione gubernetur."[299] +We may assume that in Cicero's early years the best men felt that the +rhetorical art, if it were to be of real value to the individual and +the state, must be used with discretion, and accompanied by high aims +and upright conduct. + +Yet within a generation of the date when these wise words were +written, the letters of Caelius show us that the art was used utterly +without discretion, and to the detriment both of state and individual. +The high ideal of culture and conduct had been lost in the actual +practice of oratory, in a degenerate age, full of petty ambitions +and animosities. We ourselves know only too well how a thing good in +itself as a means is apt to lose its value if raised into the place of +an end;--how the young mind is apt to elevate cricket, football, golf, +into the main object of all human activity. So it was with rhetoric; +it was the indispensable acquirement to enable a man to enjoy +thoroughly the game in the Forum, and thus in education it became the +staple commodity. The actual process of acquiring it was no doubt an +excellent intellectual exercise,--the learning rules of composition, +the exercises in applying these rules, i.e. the writing of themes or +essays (proposita, communes loci), in which the pupil had "to find and +arrange his own facts,"[300] and then the declamatio, or exercise in +actual speaking on a given subject, which in Cicero's day was called +causa, and was later known as controversia.[301] Such practice must +have brought out much talent and ingenuity, like that of our own +debating societies at school and college. But there were two great +defects in it. First, as Professor Wilkins points out, the subjects +of declamation were too often out of all relation to real life, e.g. +taken from the Greek mythology; or if less barren than usual, were far +more commonplace and flat than those of our debating societies. To +harangue on the question whether the life of a lawyer or a soldier is +the best, is hardly so inspiring as to debate a question of the day +about Ireland or India, which educates in living fact as well as in +the rules of the orator's art. Secondly, the whole aim and object of +this "finishing" portion of a boy's education was a false one. Even +the excellent Quintilian, the best of all Roman teachers, believed +that the statesman (civilis vir) and the orator are identical: that +the statesman must be vir bonus because the vir bonus makes the best +orator; that he should be sapiens for the same reason.[302] And the +object of oratory is "id agere, ut iudici quae proposita fuerint, +vera et honesta _videantur_":[303] i.e. the object is not truth, but +persuasion. We might get an idea of how such a training would fail +in forming character, if we could imagine all our liberal education +subordinated to the practice of journalism. But fortunately for us, in +this scientific age, words and the use of words no longer serve as the +basis of education or as the chief nurture of young life. We need to +see facts, to understand causes, to distinguish objective truth from +truth reflected in books. But the perfect education must be a skilful +mingling of the two methods; and it may be as well to take care that +we do not lose contact with the best thoughts of the best men, because +they are contained in the literature we show some signs of neglecting. +We may say of science what Cicero said of rhetoric, that it cannot do +without sapientia. + +Of schools of philosophy I have already said something in the last +chapter, and as the study of philosophy was hardly a part of the +regular curriculum of education properly so called, I shall pass it +over here. The philosopher was usually to be found in wealthy houses, +and if he were a wholesome person, and not a Philodemus, he might +assuredly exercise a good influence on a young man. Or a youth might +go to Athens or Rhodes or to some other Greek city, to attend the +lectures of some famous professor. Cicero heard Phaedrus the Epicurean +at Rome and then Philo the Academician, who had a lasting influence on +his pupil, and then, at the age of twenty-seven, went to Greece for +two years, studying at Athens, Rhodes, and elsewhere. Caesar also went +to Rhodes, and he and Cicero both attended the lectures of Molo in +rhetoric, in which study, as well as in philosophy, lectures were to +be heard in all the great Greek cities.[304] Cicero sent his own son +to "the University in Athens" at the age of twenty, giving him an +ample allowance and doubtless much good advice. The young man soon +outran his allowance and got into debt; the good advice he seems to +have failed to utilise, and in fact gave his father considerable +anxiety. + +The following letter, which seems to show that a youth who had +excellent opportunities might still be lacking in principle and +self-control, is the only one which survives of the letters of +undergraduates of that day. It was written by the young Cicero, after +he had repented and undertaken to reform, not to his father himself, +but to the faithful friend and freedman of his father, Tiro, who +afterwards edited the collection of letters in which he inserted +it.[305] It is on the whole a pleasing letter, and seems to show real +affection for Tiro, who had known the writer from his infancy. It is +a little odd in the choice of words, perhaps a trifle rhetorical. The +reader shall be left to decide for himself whether it is perfectly +straight and genuine. In any case it may aptly conclude this chapter. + +"I had been anxiously expecting letter-carriers day after day, when at +last they arrived forty-six days after they left you. Their arrival +was most welcome to me. I took the greatest possible pleasure in +the letter of the kindest and best beloved of fathers, but your own +delightful letter put the finishing touch to my joy. So I no longer +repent of dropping letter-writing for a time, but am rather glad I did +so, for my silence has brought me a great reward in your kindness. I +am very glad indeed that you accepted my excuse without hesitation. + +"I am sure, my dearest Tiro, that the reports about me which reach you +answer your best wishes and hopes. I will make them good, and I will +do my best that this beginning of a good report about me may daily be +repeated. So you may with perfect confidence fulfil your promise of +being the trumpeter (buccinator) of my reputation. For the errors of +my youth have caused me so much remorse and suffering, that it is not +only my heart that shrinks from what I did--my very ears abhor the +mention of it. I know for a fact that you have shared my trouble and +sorrow, and I don't wonder; you always wished me to do well not only +for my sake but for your own. So as I have been the means of giving +you pain, I will now take care that you shall feel double joy on my +account. + +"Let me tell you that my attachment to Cratippus is that of a son +rather than a pupil: I enjoy his lectures, but I am especially charmed +by his delightful manners. I spend whole days with him, and often part +of the night, for I get him to dine with me as often as I can. We have +grown so intimate that he often drops in upon us unexpectedly while we +are at dinner, lays aside the stiff air of a philosopher, and joins +in our jests with the greatest good will. He is such a man, so +delightful, so distinguished, that you ought to make his acquaintance +as soon as ever you can. As for Bruttius, I never let him leave me. +He is a man of strict and moral life, as well as being the most +delightful company. Surely it is not necessary that in our daily +literary studies there should never be any fun at all. I have taken a +lodging close to him, and as far as I can with my pittance I subsidise +his narrow means. I have also begun practising declamation in Greek +with Cassius; in Latin I like having my practice with Bruttius. My +intimate friends and daily company are those whom Cratippus brought +with him from Mitylene,--good scholars, of whom he has the highest +opinion. I also see a great deal of Epicrates the leading man at +Athens, and Leonides, and people of that sort. So now you know how I +am going on. + +"You say something in your letter about Gorgias. The fact is that I +found him very useful in my daily practice of declamation, but I put +my father's injunctions before everything else, and he had written +telling me to give up Gorgias at once. I wouldn't shilly-shally about +it, for fear my making a fuss might put some suspicion in my father's +head. Moreover it occurred to me that it would be offensive for me +to express an opinion on a decision of my father's. However, your +interest and advice are welcome and acceptable. + +"Your apology for want of time I readily accept, for I know how busy +you always are. I am very glad you have bought an estate, and you have +my best wishes for the success of your purchase. Don't be surprised at +my congratulations coming at this point in my letter, for it was at +the corresponding point in yours that you told me of this. You must +drop your city manners (urbanitates); you are a 'rusticus Romanus!' +How clearly I see your dearest face before me at this moment! I seem +to see you buying things for the farm, talking to your bailiff, saving +the seeds at dessert in your cloak. But as to the matter of money, I +am sorry I was not there to help you. Don't doubt, my dear Tiro, +about my helping you in the future, if fortune will but stand by me, +especially as I know that this estate has been bought for our mutual +advantage. As to my commissions about which you are taking trouble, +many thanks! I beg you to send me a secretary at the first +opportunity, if possible a Greek: for he will save me much trouble in +copying out notes. Above all, take care of your health, that we may +have some literary talk together some day. I commend Anteros to you. +Adieu." + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +THE SLAVE POPULATION + +In the last age of the Republic the employment of slave labour reached +its high-water mark in ancient history.[306] We have already met with +evidence of this in examining the life of the upper classes; in the +present chapter we must try to sketch, first, the conditions under +which it was possible for such a vast slave system to arise and +flourish, and secondly, the economical and ethical results of it +both in city and country. The subject is indeed far too large and +complicated to be treated in a single short chapter, but our object +throughout this book is only to give such a picture of society in +general as may tempt a student to further and more exact inquiry. + +We have seen that the two upper classes of society were engaged in +business of various kinds, and especially in banking and carrying +out public contracts, or in the work of government, and in Italian +agriculture. All this business, public and private, called for a +vast amount of labor, and in part, of skilled labour; the great men +provided the capital, but the details of the work, as it had gradually +developed since the war with Hannibal, created a demand for workmen +of every kind such as had never before been known in the Graeco-Roman +world. Clerks, accountants, messengers, as well as operatives, were +wanted both by the Government and by private capitalists. In the +households of the rich the great increase of wealth and luxury had +led to a constant demand for helps of all kinds, each with a certain +amount of skill in his own particular department; and on the estates +in the country, which were steadily growing bigger, and were tending +to be worked more and more on capitalistic lines, labour, both skilled +and unskilled, was increasingly required. Thus the demand for labour +was abnormally great, and had been created with abnormal rapidity, +and the supply could not possibly be provided by the free population +alone. The lower classes of city and country were not suited to the +work wanted, either by capacity or inclination. It was not for a free +Roman to be at the beck and call of an employer, like the clerks and +underlings of to-day, or to act as servant in a great household; and +for a great part of the necessary work he was not sufficiently well +educated. Far less was it possible for him to work on the great +cattle-runs. And the State wanted the best years of his life for +service in the army, which, as has been well remarked, was the real +industry of the Roman freeman. But luckily in one sense, and in +another unluckily, for Rome, there was an endless supply of labour +to be had, of every quality and capacity, for the very same abnormal +circumstances which had created the demand also provided the supply. +The great wars and the wealth accruing from them in various ways had +produced a capitalist class in need of labour, and also created a +slave-market on a scale such as the world has never known before or +since. + +Ever since the time of Alexander and the wars of his successors with +each other and their neighbours, it is probable that the supply of +captives sold as slaves had been increasing; and in the second century +B.C. the little island of Delos had come to be used as a convenient +centre for the slave trade. Strabo tells us in a well-known passage +that 10,000 slaves might be sold there in a single day.[307] But Rome +herself was in the time of Cicero the great emporium for slaves; the +wars which were most productive of prisoners had been for long in the +centre and the west of the Mediterranean basin. All armies sent out +from Rome were accompanied by speculators in this trade, who bought +the captives as they were put up to auction after a battle, and then +undertook the transport to Rome of all who were suited for employment +in Italy or were not bought up in the province which was the seat of +war. The enormous number of slaves thus made available, even if we +make allowance for the uncertainty of the numbers as they have +come down to us, surpasses all belief; we may take a few examples, +sufficient to give some idea of a practice which had lasting and +lamentable results on Roman society. + +After the campaign of Pydna and the overthrow of the Macedonian +kingdom, Aemilius Paullus, one of the most humane of Romans, sold into +slavery, under orders from the senate, 150,000 free inhabitants of +communities in Epirus which had sided with Perseus in the war.[308] +After the war with the Cimbri and Teutones, 90,000 of the latter and +60,000 of the former are said to have been sold;[309] and though the +numbers may be open to suspicion, as they amount again to 150,000, the +fact of an enormous capture is beyond question. Caesar, like Aemilius +Paullus one of the most humane of Romans, tells us himself that on a +single occasion, the capture of the Aduatuci, he sold 53,000 prisoners +on the spot.[310] And of course every war, whether great or small, +while it diminished the free population by slaughter, pestilence, or +capture, added to the number of slaves. Cicero himself, after +his campaign in Cilicia and the capture of the hill stronghold +Pindonissus, did of course as all other commanders did; we catch a +glimpse of the process in a letter to Atticus: "mancipia venibant +Saturnalibus tertiis."[311] It is hardly necessary to point out that +we should be getting our historical perspective quite wrong if we +allowed ourselves to expect in these cultured Roman generals any +sign of compassion for their victims; it was a part of their mental +inheritance to look on men who had surrendered as simply booty, the +property of the victors; Roman captives would meet with the same fate, +and even for them little pity was ever felt. When Caesar in 49 within +a few months dismissed two surrendered armies of Roman soldiers, once +at Corfinium and again in Spain, he was doubtless acting from motives +of policy, but the enslavement of Roman citizens by their fellows +would, we may hope, have been repugnant to him, if not to his own +soldiers.[312] + +War then was the principal source of the supply of slaves, but it was +not the only one. When a slave-trade is in full swing, it will be +fostered in all possible ways. Brigandage and kidnapping were rife +all over the Empire and in the countries beyond its borders in the +disturbed times with which we are dealing. The pirates of Cilicia, +until they were suppressed by Pompeius in 66, swarmed all over the +Mediterranean, and snapped up victims by raids even on the coasts of +Italy, selling them in the market at Delos without hindrance. Cicero, +in his speech in support of the appointment of Pompey, mentions that +well-born children had been carried off from Misenum under the very +eyes of a Roman praetor.[313] Caesar himself was taken by them when a +young man, and only escaped with difficulty. In Italy itself, where +there was no police protection until Augustus took the matter in hand, +kidnapping was by no means unknown; the _grassatores_, as they were +called, often slaves escaped from the prisons of the great estates, +haunted the public roads, and many a traveller disappeared in this +way and passed the rest of his life in a slave-prison.[314] Varro, +in describing the sort of slaves best suited for work on the great +sheep-runs, says that they should be such as are strong enough to +defend the flocks from wild beasts and brigands--the latter doubtless +quite as ready to seize human beings as sheep and cattle. And +slave-merchants seem to have been constantly carrying on their trade +in regions where no war was going on, and where desirable slaves could +be procured; the kingdoms of Asia Minor were ransacked by them, and +when Marius asked Nicomedes king of Bithynia for soldiers during the +struggle with the Cimbri, the answer he got was that there were none +to send--the slave-dealers had been at work there.[315] Every one will +remember the line of Horace in which he calls one of these wretches a +"king of Cappadocia."[316] + +There were two other sources of the slave supply of which however +little need be said here, as the contribution they made was +comparatively small. First, slaves were bred from slaves, and on rural +estates this was frequently done as a matter of business.[317] Varro +recommends the practice in the large sheep-farms,[318] under certain +conditions; and some well-known lines of Horace suggest that on +smaller farms, where a better class of slaves would be required, these +home-bred ones were looked on as the mark of a rich house, "ditis +examen domus."[319] Secondly, a certain number of slaves had become +such under the law of debt. This was a common source of slavery in the +early periods of Roman history, but in Cicero's day we cannot speak of +it with confidence. We have noticed the cry of the distressed freemen +of the city in the conspiracy of Catiline, which looks as though the +old law were still put in force; and in the country there are signs +that small owners who had borrowed from large ones were in Varro's +time in some modified condition of slavery,[320] surrendering their +labour in lieu of payment. But all these internal sources of slavery +are as nothing compared with the supply created by war and the +slave-trade. + +This supply being thus practically unlimited, prices ran comparatively +low, and no Roman of any considerable means at all need be, or was, +entirely without slaves. He had only to go, or to send his agent, to +one of the city slave-markets, such as the temple of Castor,[321] +where the slave-agents (mangones) exhibited their "goods" under the +supervision of the aediles; there he could pick out exactly the kind +of slave he wanted at any price from the equivalent of £10 upwards. +The unfortunate human being was exhibited exactly as horses are now, +and could be stripped, handled, trotted about, and treated with every +kind of indignity, and of course the same sort of trickery went on in +these human sales as is familiar to all horse-dealers of the present +day.[322] The buyer, if he wanted a valuable article, a Greek, for +example, who could act as secretary or librarian, like Cicero's +beloved Tiro, or even a household slave with a special character for +skill in cooking or other specialised work of a luxurious family, +would have to give a high price; even as long ago as the time of the +elder Cato a very large sum might be given for a single choice slave, +and Cato as censor in 184 attempted to check such high prices by +increasing the duties payable on the sales.[323] Towards the close +of the Republican period we have little explicit evidence of prices; +Cicero constantly mentions his slaves, but not their values. Doubtless +for fancy articles huge prices might be demanded; Pliny tells us that +Antony when triumvir bought two boys as twins for more than £800 +apiece, who were no doubt intended for handsome pages, perhaps to +please Cleopatra.[324] But there can be no doubt that ordinary slaves +capable of performing only menial offices in town or country were to +be had at this time quite cheap, and the number in the city alone must +have been very great. + +It is unfortunately quite impossible to make even a probable estimate +of the total number in Rome; the data are not forthcoming. Beloch[325] +remarks aptly that though some families owned hundreds of slaves, the +number of such families was not large, quoting the words of Philippus, +tribune in 104 B.C., to the effect that there were not more than +two thousand persons of any substance in the State.[326] The great +majority of citizens living in Rome had, he thinks, no slaves. He is +forced to take as a basis of calculation the proportion of bond to +free in the only city of the Empire about which we have certain +information on this point; at Pergamum there was one slave to two free +persons.[327] Assuming the whole free population to have been about +half a million in the time of Augustus, or rather more, including +peregrini, he thus arrives at a slave population of something like +280,000; this may not be far off the mark, but it must be remembered +that it is little more than a guess. + +What has been said above will have given the reader some idea of the +conditions of life which created a great demand for labour in the +last two centuries B.C., and of the circumstances which produced an +abundant supply of unfree labour to satisfy that demand. I propose +now to treat the whole question of Roman slavery from three points of +view,--the economic, the legal, and the ethical. In other words, we +have to ask: (1) how the abundance of slave labour affected the social +economy of the free population; (2) what was the position of the slave +in the eye of the law, as regards treatment and chance of manumission; +(3) what were the ethical results of this great slave system, both on +the slaves themselves and on their masters. + +1. From an economical point of view the most interesting question is +whether slave labour seriously interfered with the development of free +industry; and unfortunately this question is an extremely difficult +one to answer. We can all guess easily that the opportunities of free +labour must have been limited by the presence of enormous numbers of +slaves; but to get at the facts is another matter. In regard to rural +slavery we have some evidence to go upon, as we shall see directly, +and this has of late been collected and utilised; but as regards +labour in the city no such research has as yet been made,[328] and the +material is at once less fruitful and more difficult to handle. A few +words on this last point must suffice here. + +We have seen in Chapter II. that there was plenty of employment at +Rome for freemen. Friedländer, than whom no higher authority can be +quoted for the social life of the city, goes so far as to assert that +even under the early Empire a freeman could always obtain work if he +wished for it;[329] and even if we take this as a somewhat exaggerated +statement, it may serve to keep us from rushing to the other extreme +and picturing a population of idle free paupers. In fact we are bound +on general evidence to assume for our own period that he is in the +main right; the poor freeman of Rome had to live somehow, and the +cheap corn which he enjoyed was not given him gratis until a few years +before the Republic came to an end.[330] How did he get the money to +pay even the sum of six asses and a third for a modius of corn, or to +pay for shelter and clothing, which were assuredly not to be had for +nothing? We know again, that the gilds of trades (see above, p. 45) +continued to exist in the last century of the Republic,[331] though +the majority had to be suppressed owing to their misuse as political +clubs. Supposing that the members of these collegia were small +employers of labour, it is reasonable to assume that the labour they +employed was at least largely free; for the capital needed to invest, +at some risk, in a sufficient number of slaves, who would have to be +housed and fed, and whose lives would be uncertain in a crowded and +unhealthy city, could not, we must suppose, be easily found by such +men. Here and there, no doubt, we find traces of slave labour in +factories, e.g. as far back as the time of Plautus, if we can take him +as writing of Rome rather than translating from the Greek: + + An te ibi vis inter istas versarier + Prosedas, pistorum amicas, reginas alicarias, + Miseras schoeno delibutas servilicolas sordidas?[332] + + _Poenulus_, 265 foll. + +But on the whole, we may with all due caution, in default of complete +investigation of the question, assume that the Roman slaves were +confined for the most part to the great and rich families, and were +not used by them to any great extent in productive industry, but +in supplying the luxurious needs of the household[333]. In all +probability research will show that free labour was far more available +than we are apt to think. We hear of no outbreak of feeling against +slave labour, which might suggest a rivalry between the two. +Slave labour, we may think, had filled a gap, created by abnormal +circumstances, and did not oust free labour entirely; but it tended +constantly to cramp it, and doubtless started notions of work in +general which helped to degrade it[334]. Those immense _familiae +urbanae_, of which the historian of slavery has given a detailed +account in his second volume[335], belong rather to the early Empire +than to the last years of the Republic--the evidence for them is +drawn chiefly from Seneca, Juvenal, Tacitus, Martial, etc.; but such +evidence as we have for the age of Cicero seems to suggest that the +vast palaces of the capitalists, which Sallust describes as being +almost like cities[336], were already beginning to be served by a +familia urbana which rendered them almost independent of any aid from +without by labour or purchase. Not only the ordinary domestic helpers +of all kinds, but copyists, librarians, paedagogi as tutors for the +children, and even doctors might all be found in such households in +a servile condition, without reckoning the great numbers who seem +to have been always available as escorts when the great man was +travelling in Italy or in the provinces. Valerius Maximus tells +us[337] that Cato the censor as proconsul of Spain took only three +slaves with him, and that his descendant Cato of Utica during the +Civil Wars had twelve; as both these men were extremely frugal, we can +form an idea from this passage both of the increasing supply of slaves +and of the far larger escorts which accompanied the ordinary wealthy +traveller. + +As regards the familia rustica, the working population of the farm, +the evidence is much more definite. The old Roman farm, in which the +paterfamilias lived with his wife, children, and slaves, was, no +doubt, like the old English holding in a manor, for the most part +self-sufficing, doing little in the way of sale or purchase, and +worked by all the members of the familia, bond and free. In the middle +of the second century B.C., when Cato wrote his treatise on husbandry, +we find that a change has taken place; the master can only pay the +farm an occasional visit, to see that it is being properly managed by +the slave steward[338] (vilicus), and the business is being run upon +capitalistic lines, i.e. with a view to realising the utmost possible +profit from it by the sale of its products. Thus Cato is most +particular in urging that a farm should be so placed as to have easy +communication with market towns, where the wine and oil could be sold, +which were the chief products, and where various necessaries could be +bought cheap, such as pottery and metal-work of all kinds.[339] Thus +the farm does not entirely depend on the labour of its own familia; +nevertheless it rests still upon an economic basis of slave labour. +For an olivetum of 240 jugera Cato puts the necessary hands as +thirteen in number, all non-free; for a vineyard of 100 jugera at +sixteen; and these figures are no doubt low, if we remember his +character for parsimony and profit-making.[340] Free labour was to be +had, and was occasionally needed; at the very outset of his work +Cato (ch. 4) insists that the owner should be a good and friendly +neighbour, in order that he may easily obtain, not only voluntary +help, but hired labourers (operarii). These were needed especially at +harvest time, when extra hands were wanted, as in our hop-gardens, for +the gathering of olives and for the vintage. Sometimes the work was +let out to a contractor, and he gives explicit directions (in chs. 144 +and 145) for the choice of these and the contracts to be made with +them; whether in this case the contractor (redemptor) used entirely +free or slave labour does not appear distinctly, but it seems clear +that a proportion at least was free.[341] What the free labourers did +at other times of the year, whether or no they were small cultivators +themselves, Cato does not tell us. + +For the age with which we are more specially concerned, we have the +evidence of Varro's three books on husbandry, written in his old age, +after the fall of the Republic. Here we find the economic condition of +the farm little changed since the time of Cato. The permanent labour +is non-free, but in spite of the vast increase in the servile labour +available in Italy, there is still a considerable employment of +freemen at certain times, on all farms where the olive and vine were +the chief objects of culture. In the 17th chapter of his first book, +in which he gives interesting advice for the purchase of suitable +slaves, he begins by telling us that all land is cultivated either +by slaves or freemen, or both together, and the free are of three +kinds,--either small holders (pauperculi) with their children; or +labourers who live by wage (conducticii), and are especially needed in +hay harvest or vintage; or debtors who give their labour as payment +for what they owe (obaerati).[342] Varro too, like Cato, recognises +the necessity of purchasing many things which cannot well be +manufactured on a farm of moderate size, and thus the landowner may in +this way also have been indirectly an employer of free labour; but so +far as possible the farm should supply itself with the materials +for its own working,[343] for this gives employment to the slaves +throughout the year,--and they should never be allowed to be +idle.[344] + +Thus it is abundantly clear that even in the time of Cicero there was +a certain demand for free labour in the ordinary Italian oliveyard and +vineyard, and that the necessary supply was forthcoming, though the +permanent industrial basis was non-free, and the tendency was to use +slave-labour more exclusively. The rule that the slave cannot be +allowed to be unemployed was a most important factor in the economical +development, and drove the landowner, who never seems to have had any +doubt about the comparative cheapness of slave-labour,[345] gradually +to make his farm more and more independent of all aid from outside. In +the work of Columella, written towards the end of the first century +A.D., it is plain that the work of the farm is carried on more +exclusively by slave-labour than was the case in the last two +centuries B.C.[346] + +To this not unpleasant picture of the conditions of Italian +agricultural slavery a few words must be added about the great +pastoral farms of Southern Italy. If a man invested his capital in a +comparatively small estate of olives and vineyards, such as that which +Cato treats of, and which seems to have been his own; or even in a +latifundium of the kind which Varro more vaguely pictures, containing +also parks and game and a moderate amount of pasture, he would need +slaves mainly of a certain degree of skill. But on the largest areas +of pasture, chiefly in the hill districts of Southern Italy, where +there was little cultivation except what was necessary for the +consumption of the slaves themselves, these were the roughest and +wildest type of bondsmen. The work was that of the American ranche, +the life harsh, and the workmen dangerous. It was in these districts +and from these men that Spartacus drew the material with which he made +his last stand against Roman armies in 72-71 B.C.; and it was in +this direction that Caelius and Milo turned in 48 B.C. in quest of +revolutionary and warlike bands. These roughs could even be used as +galley-slaves; more than once in the Commentaries on the Civil War +Caesar tells us that his opponents drafted them into the vessels which +were sent to relieve the siege of Massilia[347]. It was here too, in +the neighbourhood of Thurii, that a bloody fight took place between +the slaves of two adjoining estates, strong men of courage, as Cicero +describes them, of which we learn from the fragments of his lost +speech _pro Tullio_. They were of course armed, and as we may +guess from Varro's remarks on the kind of slaves suitable for +shepherding,[348] this was usually the practice, in order to defend +the flocks from wild beasts and robbers, particularly when they were +driven up to summer pasture (as they still are) in the saltus of +the Apennines. The needs of these shepherds would be small, and the +latifundia of this kind were probably almost self-sufficing, no free +labour being required. After their day's work the slaves were fed and +locked up for the night, and kept in fetters if necessary;[349] they +were in fact simply living tools, to use the expression of Aristotle, +and the economy of such estates was as simple as that of a workshop. +The exclusion of free labour is here complete: on the agricultural +estates it was approaching a completion which it fortunately never +reached. Had it reached that completion, the economic influence of +slavery would have been altogether bad; as it was, the introduction +of slave-labour on a large scale did valuable service to Italian +agriculture in the last century B.C. by contributing the material for +its revival at a time when the necessary free labour could not have +been found. However lamentable its results may have been in other +ways, especially on the great pastures, the economic history of Italy, +when it comes to be written, will have to give it credit for an +appreciable amount of benefit. + +2. The legal and political aspect of slavery. A slave was in the eye +of the law not a _persona_, but a _res_, i.e. he had no rights as a +human being, could not marry or hold property, but was himself simply +a piece of property which could be conveyed (res mancipi)[350]. During +the Republican period the law left him absolutely at the disposal of +his master, who had the power of life and death (jus vitae necisque) +over him, and could punish him with chastisement and bonds, and use +him for any purpose he pleased, without reference to any higher +authority than his own. This was the legal position of all slaves; but +it naturally often happened that those who were men of knowledge or +skill, as secretaries, for example, librarians, doctors, or even +as body-servants, were in intimate and happy relations with their +owners[351], and in the household of a humane man no well-conducted +slave need fear bodily degradation. Cicero and his friend Atticus both +had slaves whom they valued, not only for their useful service, but +as friends. Tiro, who edited Cicero's letters after his death, and to +whom we therefore owe an eternal debt of gratitude, was the object +of the tenderest affection on the part of his owner, and the letters +addressed to him by the latter when he was taken ill at Patrae in 50 +B.C. are among the most touching writings that have come down to us +from antiquity. "I miss you," he writes in one of them[352], "yes, but +I also love you. Love prompts the wish to see you in good health: the +other motive would make me wish to see you as soon as possible,--and +the former one is the best." Atticus, too, had his Tiro, Alexis, +"imago Tironis," as Cicero calls him in a letter to his friend,[353] +and many others who were engaged in the work of copying and +transcribing books, which was one of Atticus' many pursuits. All such +slaves would sooner or later be manumitted, i.e. transmuted from a +_res_ to a _persona_; and in the ease with which this process of +transmutation could be effected we have the one redeeming point of the +whole system of bondage. According to the oldest and most efficient +form (vindicta), a legal ceremony had to be gone through in the +presence of a praetor; but the praetor could easily be found, and +there was no other difficulty. This was the form usually adopted by an +owner wishing to free a slave in his own lifetime; but great numbers +were constantly manumitted more irregularly, or by the will of the +master after his death.[354] + +Thus the leading facts in the legal position of the Roman slave were +two: (1) he was absolutely at the disposal of his owner, the law never +interfering to protect him; (2) he had a fair prospect of manumission +if valuable and well-behaved, and if manumitted he of course became a +Roman citizen (libertus or libertinus) with full civil rights,[355] +remaining, however, according to ancient custom, in a certain position +of moral subordination to his late master, owing him respect, and aid +if necessary. Let us apply these two leading facts to the conditions +of Roman life as we have already sketched them. We shall find that +they have political results of no small importance. + +First, we must try to realise that the city of Rome contained at +least 200,000 human beings over whom the State had no direct control +whatever. All such crimes, serious or petty, as are now tried and +disposed of in our criminal courts, were then, if committed by a +slave, punishable only by the master; and in the majority of cases, if +the familia were a large one, they probably never reached his ears. +The jurisdiction to which the slave was responsible was a private one, +like that of the great feudal lord of the Middle Ages, who had his own +prison and his own gallows. The political result was much the same in +each case. Just as the feudal lord, with his private jurisdiction and +his hosts of retainers, became a peril to good government and national +unity until he was brought to order by a strong king like our Henry +II. or Henry VII., so the owner of a large familia of many hundreds +of slaves may almost be said to have been outside of the State; +undoubtedly he became a serious peril to the good order of the +capital. The part played by the slaves in the political disturbances +of Cicero's time was no mean one. One or two instances will show this. +Saturninus, in the year 100, when attacked by Marius under orders +from the senate, had hoisted a pilleus, or cap of liberty which the +emancipated slave wore, as a signal to the slaves of the city that +they might expect their liberty if they supported him;[356] and Marius +a few years later took the same step when himself attacked by Sulla. +Catiline, in 63, Sallust assures us, believed it possible to raise the +slaves of the city in aid of his revolutionary plans, and they flocked +to him in great numbers; but he afterwards abandoned his intention, +thinking that to mix up the cause of citizens with that of slaves +would not be judicious.[357] It is here too that the gladiator slaves +first meet us as a political arm; Cicero had the next spring to defend +P. Sulla on the charge, among others, of having bought gladiators +during the conspiracy with seditious views, and the senate had to +direct that the bands of these dangerous men should be dispersed to +Capua and other municipal towns at a distance. Later on we frequently +hear of their being used as private soldiery, and the government in +the last years of the Republic ceased to be able to control them.[358] +Again, in defending Sestius, Cicero asserts that Clodius in his +tribunate had organised a levy of slaves under the name of collegia, +for purposes of violence, slaughter, and rapine; and even if this +is an exaggeration, it shows that such proceedings were not deemed +impossible.[359] And apart from the actual use of slaves for +revolutionary objects, or as private body-guards, it is clear from +Cicero's correspondence that as an important part of a great man's +retinue they might indirectly have influence in elections and on +other political occasions. Quintus Cicero, in his little treatise on +electioneering,[360] urges his brother to make himself agreeable to +his tribesmen, neighbours, clients, freedmen, and even slaves, "for +nearly all the talk which affects one's public reputation emanates +from domestic sources." And Marcus himself, in the last letter he +wrote before he fled into exile in 58, declares that all his friends +are promising him not only their own aid, but that of their clients, +freedmen, and slaves,--promises which doubtless might have been kept +had he stayed to take advantage of them.[361] + +The mention of the freedmen in this letter may serve to remind us of +the political results of manumission, the second fact in the legal +aspect of Roman slavery. The most important of these is the rapid +importation of foreign blood into the Roman citizen body, which long +before the time of Cicero largely consisted of enfranchised slaves or +their descendants; it was to this that Scipio Aemilianus alluded in +his famous words to the contio he was addressing after his return from +Numantia, "Silence, ye to whom Italy is but a stepmother" (Val. +Max. 6. 2. 3). Had manumission been held in check or in some way +superintended by the State, there would have been more good than harm +in it. Many men of note, who had an influence on Roman culture, were +libertini, such as Livius Andronicus and Caecilius the poets; Terence, +Publilius Syrus, whose acquaintance we made in the last chapter; Tiro +and Alexis, and rather later Verrius Flaccus, one of the most learned +men who ever wrote in Latin. But the great increase in the number of +slaves, and the absence of any real difficulty in effecting their +manumission, led to the enfranchisement of crowds of rascals as +compared with the few valuable men. The most striking example is the +enfranchisement of 10,000 by Sulla, who according to custom took +his name Cornelius, and, though destined to be a kind of military +guarantee for the permanence of the Sullan institutions, only became +a source of serious peril to the State at the time of Catiline's +conspiracy. Caesar, who was probably more alive to this kind of +social danger than his contemporaries, sent out a great number of +libertini,--the majority, says Strabo, of his colonists,--to his new +foundation at Corinth[362]. But Dionysius of Halicarnassus, writing +in the time of Augustus, when he stayed some time in Rome, draws a +terrible picture of the evil effects of indiscriminate manumission, +unchecked by the law[363]. + +"Many," he says, "are indignant when they see unworthy men manumitted, +and condemn a usage which gives such men the citizenship of a +sovereign state whose destiny is to govern the world. As for me, I +doubt if the practice should be stopped altogether, lest greater evil +should be the result; I would rather that it should be checked as far +as possible, so that the state may no longer be invaded by men of such +villainous character. The censors, or at least the consuls, should +examine all whom it is proposed to manumit, inquiring into their +origin and the reasons and mode of their enfranchisement, as in their +examination of the equites. Those whom they find worthy of citizenship +should have their names inscribed on tables, distributed among the +tribes, with leave to reside in the city. As to the crowd of villains +and criminals, they should be sent far away, under pretext of founding +some colony." + +These judicious remarks of a foreigner only expressed what was +probably a common feeling among the best men of that time. Augustus +made some attempt to limit the enfranchising power of the owner; but +the Leges Aelia Sentia and Furia Caninia do not lie within the compass +of this book. No great success could attend these efforts; the +abnormal circumstances which had brought to Rome the great familiae +of slaves reacted inevitably upon the citizen body itself through the +process of manumission. Rome had to pay heavily in this, as in so many +other ways, for her advancement to the sovereignty of the civilised +world. I may be allowed to translate the eloquent words in which +the French historian of slavery, in whose great work the history of +ancient slavery is treated as only a scholar-statesman can treat it, +sums up this aspect of the subject: + +"Emancipation, prevalent as it might appear to be towards the +beginning of the Empire, was not a step towards the suppression of +slavery, but a natural and inevitable sequence of the institution +itself,--an outlet for excess in an epoch overabundant in slaves: a +means of renewing the mass, corrupted by the deleterious influence +of its own condition, before it should be totally ruined. As water, +diverted from its free course, becomes impure in the basin which +imprisons it, and when released, will still retain its impurity; so +it is not to be thought that instincts perverted by slavery, habits +depraved from childhood, could be reformed and redressed in the slave +by a tardy liberation. Thrust into the midst of a society itself +vitiated by the admixture of slavery, he only became more +unrestrainedly, more dangerously bad. Manumission was thus no remedy +for the deterioration of the citizens: it was powerless even to better +the condition of the slave."[364] + +3. The ethical aspect of Roman slavery. What were the moral effects of +the system (1) on the slaves themselves; (2) on the freemen who owned +them? + +First, as regards the slaves themselves, there are two facts to be +fully realised; when this is done, the inferences will be sufficiently +obvious. Let us remember that by far the greater number of the +slaves, both in the city and on the land, were brought from countries +bordering on the Mediterranean, where they had been living in some +kind of elementary civilisation, in which the germs of further +development were present in the form of the natural ties of race and +kinship and locality, of tribe or family or village community, and +with their own religion, customs, and government. Permanent captivity +in a foreign land and in a servile condition snapped these ties once +and for all. To take a single appalling instance, the 150,000 human +beings who were sold into slavery in Epirus by the conqueror of Pydna, +or as many of them as were transported out of their own country--and +these were probably the vast majority,--were thereby deprived for the +rest of their lives of all social and family life, of their ancestral +worship, in fact of everything that could act as a moral tie, as a +restraining influence upon vicious instincts. With the lamentable +effect of this on the regions thus depopulated we are not here +concerned, but it was beyond doubt most serious, and must be taken +into account in reckoning up the various causes which later on brought +about the enfeeblement of the whole Roman Empire.[365] The point for +us is that a large proportion of the population of Rome and of Italy +was now composed of human beings destitute of all natural means of +moral and social development. The ties that had been once broken +could never be replaced. There is no need to dwell on the inevitable +result,--the introduction into the Roman State of a poisonous element +of terrible volume and power. + +The second fact that we have to grasp is this. In the old days, when +such slaves as there then were came from Italy itself, and worked +under the master's own eye upon the farm, they might and did share +to some extent in the social life of the family, and even in its +religious rites, and so might under favourable circumstances come +within the range of its moral influences[366]. But towards the close +of the Republican period those moral influences, as we have seen, +were fast vanishing in the majority of families which possessed large +numbers of slaves. The common kind of slave in the city, who was not +attached to his owner as was a man of culture like Tiro, had no moral +standard except implicit obedience; the highest virtue was to obey +orders diligently, and fear of punishment was the only sanction of his +conduct. The typical city slave, as he appears in Plautus, though by +no means a miserable being without any enjoyment of life, is a liar +and a thief, bent on overreaching, and destitute of a conscience[367]. +We need but reflect that the slave must often have had to do vile +things in the name of his one virtue, obedience, to realise that +the poison was present, and ready to become active, in every Roman +household. "Nec turpe est quod dominus iubet."[368] + +On the latifundia in the country the master was himself seldom +resident, and the slaves were under the control of one or more of +their own kind, promoted for good conduct and capacity. The slaves of +the great sheep and cattle farms were, as we saw, of the wildest +sort, and we may judge of their morality by the story of the +Sicilian slave-owner who, when his slaves complained that they were +insufficiently clothed, told them that the remedy was to rob the +travellers they fell in with.[369] The _ergastula_, where slaves were +habitually chained and treated like beasts, were sowing the seeds +of permanent moral contamination in Italy.[370] But on the smaller +estates of olive-yard and vineyard their condition was better, and +a humane owner who chose his overseers carefully might possibly +reproduce something of the old feeling of participation in the life as +well as the industry of the economic unit. In an interesting chapter +Varro advises that the vilicus should be carefully selected, and +should be conciliated by being allowed a wife and the means of +accumulating a property (_peculium_); he even urges that he should +enforce obedience rather by words than blows.[371] But of the +condition of the ordinary slave on the farm this is the only hint he +gives us, and it never seems to have occurred to him, or to any other +Roman of his day, that the work to be done would be better performed +by men not deprived by their condition of a moral sense; that slave +labour is unwillingly and unintelligently rendered, because the +labourer has no hope, no sense of dutiful conduct leading him to +rejoice in the work of his hands. Nor did any writer recognise the +fact that slaves were potentially moral beings, until Christianity +gave its sanction to dutiful submission as an act of morality that +might be consecrated by a Divine authority.[372] + +Lastly, it is not difficult to realise the mischievous effects of such +a slave system as the Roman upon the slave-owning class itself. Even +those who themselves had no slaves would be affected by it; for +though, as we have seen, free labour was by no means ousted by it, +it must have helped to create an idle class of freemen, with all its +moral worthlessness. Long ago, in his remarkable book on _The Slave +Power_ in America before the Civil War, Professor Cairnes drew a +striking comparison between the "mean whites" of the Southern States, +the result of slave labour on the plantations, and the idle population +of the Roman capital, fed on cheap corn and ready for any kind of +rowdyism.[373] But in the case of the great slave-owners the mischief +was much more serious, though perhaps more difficult to detect. The +master of a horde of slaves had half his moral sense paralysed, +because he had no feeling of responsibility for so many of those with +whom he came in contact every day and hour. When most members of a +man's household or estate are absolutely at his mercy, when he has no +feeling of any contractual relation with them, his sense of duty and +obligation is inevitably deadened, even towards others who are not +thus in his power. Can we doubt that the lack of a sense of justice +and right dealing, more especially towards provincials, but also +towards a man's fellow-citizens, which we have noticed in the two +upper sections of society, was due in great part to the constant +exercise of arbitrary power at home, to the habit of looking upon the +men who ministered to his luxurious ease as absolutely without claim +upon his respect or his benevolence? or that the recklessness of human +life which was shown in the growing popularity of bloody gladiatorial +shows, and in the incredible cruelty of the victors in the Civil +Wars, was the result of this unconscious cultivation, from childhood +onwards, of the despotic temper?[374] Even the best men of the age, +such as Cicero, Caesar, Lucretius, show hardly a sign of any sympathy +with, or interest in, that vast mass of suffering humanity, both bond +and free with which the Roman dominion was populated; to disregard +misery, except when they found it among the privileged classes, had +become second nature to them. We can better realise this if we reflect +that even at the present day, in spite of the absence of slavery and +the presence of philanthropical societies, the average man of wealth +gives hardly more than a passing thought to the discomfort and +distress of the crowded population of our great cities. The ordinary +callousness of human nature had, under the baleful influence of +slavery, become absolute blindness, nor were men's eyes to be opened +until Christianity began to leaven the world with the doctrine of +universal love. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +THE HOUSE OF THE RICH MAN, IN TOWN AND COUNTRY + +We saw that the poorer classes in Rome were lodged in huge _insulae_, +and enjoyed nothing that can be called home life. The wealthy +families, on the other hand, lived in _domus_, i.e. separate +dwellings, accommodating only one family, often, even in the +Ciceronian period, of great magnificence. But even these great houses +hardly suggest a life such as that which we associate with the word +home. As Mr. Tucker has pointed out in the case of Athens,[375] the +warmer climates of Greece and Italy encouraged all classes to spend +much more of their time out of doors and in public places than we +do; and the rapid growth of convenient public buildings, porticoes, +basilicas, baths, and so on, is one of the most striking features in +the history of the city during the last two centuries B.C. Augustus, +part of whose policy it was to make the city population comfortable +and contented, carried this tendency still further, and under the +Empire the town house played quite a subordinate part in Roman +social life. The best way to realise this out-of-door life, lazy and +sociable, of the Augustan age, is to read the first book of Ovid's +_Ars Amatoria_,--a fascinating picture of a beautiful city and its +pleasure-loving inhabitants. But with the Augustan age we are not here +concerned. + +Yet the Roman house, like the Italian house in general, was in origin +and essence really a home. The family was the basis of society, and by +the family we must understand not only the head of the house with +his wife, children, and slaves, but also the divine beings who dwelt +there. As the State comprised both human and divine inhabitants, so +also did the house, which was indeed the germ and type of the State. +Thus the house was in those early times not less but even more than a +house is for us, for in it was concentrated all that was dear to +the family, all that was essential to its life, both natural and +supernatural. And the two--the natural and supernatural--were not +distinct from each other, but associated, in fact almost identical; +the hearth-fire was the dwelling of Vesta, the spirit of the flame; +the Penates were the spirits of the stores on which the family +subsisted, and dwelt in the store-cupboard or larder; the +paterfamilias had himself a supernatural side, in the shape of his +Genius; and the Lar familiaris was the protecting spirit of the +farmland, who had found his way into the house in course of time, +perhaps with the slave labourers, who always had a share in his +worship.[376] + +It would probably be unjust to the Roman of the late Republic to +assume that this beautiful idea of the common life of the human and +divine beings in a house was entirely ignored or forgotten by him. No +doubt the reality of the belief had vanished; it could not be said of +the city family, as Ovid, said of the farm-folk:[377] + + ante focos olim scamnis considere longis + mos erat _et mensae credere adesse deos_. + +The great noble or banker of Cicero's day could no longer honestly +say that he believed in the real presence of his family deities; the +kernel of the old feeling had shrunk away under the influence of Greek +philosophy and of new interests in life, new objects and ambitions. +But the shell remained, and in some families, or in moments of anxiety +and emotion, even the old feeling of _religio_ may have returned. +Cicero is appealing to a common sentiment, in a passage already +once quoted (_de Domo_, 109), when he insists on the real religious +character of a house: "his arae sunt, his foci, his di penates: his +sacra, religiones, caerimoniae continentur." And this was in the heart +of the city; in the country-house there was doubtless more leisure and +opportunity for such feeling. In the second century B.C. old Cato had +described the paterfamilias, on his arrival at his farm from the +city, saluting the Lar familiaris before he goes about his round of +inspection; and even Horace hardly shows a trace of the agnostic when +he pictures the slaves of the farm, and the master with them, sitting +at their meal in front of the image of the Lar[378]. We may perhaps +guess that with the renewal of the love of country life, and with +that revival of the cultivation of the vine and olive, and indeed of +husbandry in general, which is recognisable as a feature of the last +years of the Republic, and which is known to us from Varro's work +on farming, and from Virgil's _Georgics_, the old religion of the +household gained a new life. + +It is not necessary here to give any detailed account of the shape +and divisions of a Roman house of the city; full and excellent +descriptions may be found in Middleton's article "Domus" in the +_Dictionary of Antiquities_, and in Lanciani's _Ruins and Excavations +of Ancient Rome_; and to these should be added Mau's work on Pompeii, +where the houses were of a Roman rather than a Greek type. What we are +concerned with is the house as a home or a centre of life, and it is +only in this aspect of it that we shall discuss it here. + +The oldest Italian dwelling was a mere wigwam with a hearth in the +middle of the floor, and a hole at the top to let the smoke out. But +the house of historical times was rectangular, with one central room +or hall, in which was concentrated the whole indoor life of the +family, the whole meaning and purpose of the dwelling. Here the human +and divine inhabitants originally lived together. Here was the hearth, +"the natural altar of the dwelling-room of man," as Aust beautifully +expresses it;[379] this was the seat of Vesta, and behind it was the +_penus_ or store-closet, the seat of the Penates; thus Vesta and the +Penates are in the most genuine sense the protecting and nourishing +deities of the household. Here, too, was the Lar of the familia with +his little altar, behind the entrance, and here was the _lectus +genialis_,[380] and the Genius of the paterfamilias. As you looked +into the atrium, after passing the _vestibulum_ or space between +street and doorway, and the _ostium_ or doorway with its _janua_, you +saw in front of you the impluvium, into which the rainwater fell from +the _compluvium_, i.e. the square opening in the roof with sloping +sides; on either side were recesses (_alae_), which, if the family +were noble, contained the images of the ancestors. Opposite you was +another recess, the _tablinum_, opening probably into a little garden; +here in the warm weather the family might take their meals. + +This is the atrium of the old Roman house, and to understand that +house nothing more is needed. And indeed architecturally, the atrium +never lost its significance as the centre of the house; it is to the +house as the choir is to a cathedral.[381] And it is easy to see how +naturally it could develop into a much more complicated but convenient +dwelling; for example, the alae could be extended to form separate +chambers or sleeping-rooms, the tablinum could be made into a +permanent dining-room, or such rooms could be opened out on either +side of it. A second story could be added, and in the city, where +space was valuable, this was usually the case. The garden could be +converted, after the Greek fashion, and under a Greek name, into a +_peristylium_, i.e. an open court with a pretty colonnade round it, +and if there were space enough, you might add at the rear of this +again an _exedra_, or an _oecus_, i.e. open saloons convenient for +many purposes. Thus the house came to be practically divided into two +parts, the atrium with its belongings, i.e. the Roman part, and the +peristylium with its developments, forming the Greek part; and the +house reflects the composite character of Roman life in its later +period, just as do Roman literature and Roman art. The Roman part was +retained for reception rooms, and the Lar, the Penates, and Vesta, +with their respective seats, retired into the new apartments for +privacy. When the usual crowd of morning callers came to wait upon a +great man, they would not as a rule penetrate farther than the atrium, +and there he might keep them waiting as long as he pleased. The Greek +part of the house, the peristylium and its belongings, was reserved +for his family and his most intimate friends. In Pompeii, which was an +old Greek town with Roman life and habits superadded, we find atrium +and peristylium both together as early as the second century B.C.[382] +At what period exactly the house of the noble in Rome began thus to +develop is not so certain. But by the time of Cicero every good domus +had without doubt its private apartments at the rear, varying in shape +and size according to the ground on which the house stood.[383] + +The accompanying plan will give a sufficiently clear idea of the +development of the domus from the atrium, and its consequent division +into two parts; it is that of "the house of the silver wedding" at +Pompeii. + +[Illustration: PLAN OF THE HOUSE OF THE SILVER WEDDING. From Mau's +_Pompeii_.] + +But in spite of all the convenience and comfort of the fully developed +dwelling of the rich man at Rome, there was much to make him sigh for +a quieter life than he could enjoy in the noisy city. He might +indeed, if he could afford it, remove outside the walls to a "domus +suburbana," on one of the roads leading out of Rome, or on the hill +looking down on the Campus Martius, like the house of Sallust the +historian, with its splendid gardens, which still in part exists in +the dip between the Quirinal and the Pincian hills.[384] But nowhere +within three miles or more of Rome could a man lose his sense of being +in a town, or escape from the smoke, the noise, the excitement of the +streets. After what has been said in previous chapters, the +crowd in the Forum and its adjuncts can be left to the reader's +imagination; but if he wishes to stimulate it, let him look +at the seventh chapter of Cicero's speech for Plancius, where +the orator makes use of the jostling in the Forum as an +illustration so familiar that none can fail to understand it.[385] A +relief, of which a figure is given in Burn's _Roman Literature and +Roman Art_, p. 79, gives a good idea of the close crowding, though no +doubt it was habitual with Roman artists to overcrowd their scenes +with human figures. Even as early as the first Punic war a lady could +complain of the crowded state of the Forum, and, with the grim humour +peculiar to Romans, could declare that her brother, who had just lost +a great number of Roman lives in a defeat by the Carthaginians, ought +to be in command of another fleet in order to relieve the city of more +of its surplus population. What then must the Forum have been two +centuries later, when half the business of the Empire was daily +transacted there! And even outside the walls the trouble did not +cease; all night long the wagons were rolling into the city, which +were not allowed in the day-time, at any rate after Caesar's municipal +law of 46 B.C. Like the motors of to-day, one might imagine that their +noise would depreciate the value of houses on the great roads. The +callers and clients would be here of a morning, as in the house within +the walls; the bore might be met not only in the Via Sacra, like +Horace's immortal friend, but wherever the stream of life hurried with +its busy eddies[386]. Lucilius drew a graphic picture of this feverish +life, which is fortunately preserved; it refers of course to a time +before Cicero's birth (Fragm. 9, Baehrens): + + nunc vero a mani ad noctem, festo atque profesto, + totus item pariter populus, plebesque patresque, + iactare indu foro se omnes, decedere nusquam: + uni se atque eidem studio omnes dedere et arti, + verba dare ut oaute possint, pugnare dolose: + blanditia certare, bonum simulare virum se: + insidias facere, ut si hostes sint omnibus omnes. + +That this exciting social atmosphere, with its jostling and +over-reaching in the Forum, and its callers and dinner-parties in the +house, had some sinister influence on men's tempers and nerves, there +can be no doubt. Cicero dearly loved the life of the city, but he paid +for it by a sensibility which is constantly apparent in his letters, +and diminished his value as a statesman. When he wrote from Cilicia to +his more youthful friend Caelius, urging him to stick to the city, in +words that are almost pathetic, it never occurred to him that he was +prescribing exactly that course of treatment which had done himself +much damage[387]. The clear sight and strong nerve of Caesar, as +compared with so many of his contemporaries, was doubtless largely due +to the fact that between 70 and 50 B.C., i.e. in the prime of life, he +spent some twelve of the twenty years in the fresher air of Spain and +Gaul. Some men were fairly worn out with dissipation and the resulting +ennui, and could get no relief even in a country villa. Lucretius has +drawn a wonderful picture of such an unfortunate, who hurries from +Rome into the country, and finding himself bored there almost as soon +as he arrives, orders out his carriage to return to the city. To fill +oneself with good things, yet never to be satisfied (explere bonis +rebus, satiareque nunquam), was even for the true Epicurean a most +dismal fate.[388] + +But there was at this time, and had been for many generations, a +genuine desire to escape at times from town to country; and Cicero, in +spite of his pathetic exhortation to Caelius, was himself a keen +lover of the ease and leisure which he could find only in his +country-houses. The first great Roman of whom we know that he had a +rural villa, not only or chiefly for farming purposes, but as a refuge +from the city and its tumult, was Scipio Africanus the elder. His +villa at Liternum on the Campanian coast is described by Seneca in his +86th epistle; it was small, and without the comforts and conveniences +of the later country-house; but its real significance lies not so much +in the increasing wealth that could make a residence possible without +a farm attached to it, but in the growing sense of individuality that +made men wish for such a retreat. There are other signs that Scipio +was a man of strong personality, unlike the typical Roman of his day; +he put a value upon his own thoughts and habits, apart from his duty +to the State, and retired to Liternum to indulge them. The younger +Scipio too (Aemilianus), though no blood-relation of his, had the same +instinct, but in his case it was rather the desire for leisure and +relaxation,--the same love of a real holiday that we all know so well +in our modern life. "Leisure," says Cicero, is not "contentio animi +sed relaxatio"; and in a charming passage he goes on to describe +Scipio and Laelius gathering shells on the sea-shore, and becoming +boys again (repuerascere).[389] This desire for ease and relaxation, +for the chance of being for a while your true self,--a self worth +something apart from its existence as a citizen, is apparent in the +Roman of Cicero's day, and still more in the hard-working functionary +of the Empire. Twice in his life the morbid emperor Tiberius shrank +from the eyes of men, once at Rhodes and afterwards at Capreae,--a +melancholy recluse worn out by hard work. + +Everyman had to provide his own "health resort" in those days: there +was nothing to correspond to the modern hotel. Even at the great +luxurious watering-places on the Campanian coast, Baiae and Bauli, the +houses, so far as we know, were all private residences.[390] I do not +propose to include in this chapter any account of these centres of +luxury and vice, which were far indeed from giving any rest or relief +to the weary Roman; the society of Baiae was the centre of scandal and +gossip, where a woman like Clodia, the Lesbia of Catullus, could live +in wickedness before the eyes of all men.[391] Let us turn to a more +agreeable subject, and illustrate the country-house and the country +life of the last age of the Republic by a rapid visit to Cicero's +own villas. This has fortunately been made easy for us by the very +delightful work of Professor O.E. Schmidt, whose genuine enthusiasm +for Cicero took him in person to all these sites, and inspired him to +write of them most felicitously.[392] + +There being no hotels, among which the change-loving Roman of Cicero's +day could pick and choose a retreat for a holiday, he would buy a site +for a villa first in one place, then in another, or purchase one ready +built, or transform an old farm-house of his own into a residence with +"modern requirements." In choosing his sites he would naturally look +southwards, and find what he sought for either in the choicer parts of +Latium, among the hills and woods of the Mons Albanus and Tusculum, +or in the rich Campanian land, the paradise of the lazy Roman; in the +latter case, he would like to be close to the sea on that delicious +coast, and even in Latium there were spots where, like Scipio and +Laelius, he might wander on the sea-shore. All this country to the +south was beginning to be covered with luxurious and convenient +houses; in the colder and mountainous parts of central Italy the villa +was still the farm-house of the older useful type, of which the object +was the cultivation of olive and vine, now coming into fashion, as +we have already seen. For Cicero and his friends the word _villa_ no +longer suggested farming, as it invariably did for the old Roman, and +as we find it in Cato's treatise on agriculture; it meant gardens, +libraries, baths, and collections of works of art, with plenty of +convenient rooms for study or entertainment. Sometimes the garden +might be extended into a park, with fishponds and great abundance of +game; Hortensius had such a park near Laurentum, fifty jugera enclosed +in a ring-fence, and full of wild beasts of all sorts and kinds. Varro +tells us that the great orator would take his guests to a seat on an +eminence in this park, and summon his "Orpheus" thither to sing and +play: at the sound of the music a multitude of stags, boars, and other +animals would make their appearance--having doubtless been trained +to do so by expectation of food prepared for them.[393] Such was the +taste of the great master of "Asiatic" eloquence. We are reminded of +the fairy tale of the Emperor of China and the mechanical nightingale. + +His great rival in oratory had simpler tastes, in his country life as +in his rhetoric. Cicero had no villa of the vulgar kind of luxury; he +preferred to own several of moderate comfort rather than one or two of +such magnificence. He had in all six, besides one or two properties +which were bought for some special temporary object; and it is +interesting to see what relation these houses had to his life and +habits. At no point could he afford to be very far from Rome, or from +a main road which would take him there easily. The accompanying little +map will show that all his villas lay on or near to one or other of +the two great roads that led southwards from the capital. The via +Latina would take him in an hour or two to Tusculum, where, since +the death of Catulus in 68, he owned the villa of that excellent +aristocrat.[394] The site of the villa cannot be determined with +certainty, but Schmidt gives good reasons for believing that it was +where we used formerly to place it, on the slope of the hill above +Frascati. That it really stood there, and not in the hollow by +Grottaferrata,[395] we would willingly believe, for no one who +has ever been there can possibly forget the glorious view or the +refreshing air of those flowery slopes. No wonder the owner was fond +of it. He tells Atticus, when he first came into possession of it, +that he found rest there from all troubles and toils (_ad Att._ i. 5. +7.), and again that he is so delighted with it that when he gets +there he is delighted with himself too (_ad Att._ i. 6). Much of his +literary work was done here, and he had the great advantage of +being close to the splendid library of Lucullus' neighbouring +villa, which was always open to him.[396] At Tusculum he spent +many a happy day, until his beloved daughter died there in 45, +after which he would not go there for some time; but he got the better +of this sorrow, and loved the place to the end of his life. + +[Illustration: MAP TO ILLUSTRATE THE POSITION OF CICERO'S VILLAS.] + +If this villa was where we hope it was, the great road passed at no +great distance from it, in the valley between Tusculum and the Mons +Albanus; and by following this for some fifty miles to the south-east +through Latium, Cicero would strike the river Liris not far from +Fregellae, and leaving the road there, would soon arrive at his native +place Arpinum, and his ancestral property. For this old home he always +had the warmest affection; of no other does he write in language +showing so clearly that his heart could be moved by natural beauty, +especially when combined with the tender associations of his +boyhood[397]. In the charming introduction to the second book of +his work _de Legibus_ (on the Constitution), he dwells with genuine +delight on this feeling and these associations; and there too we get +a hint of what Dr. Schmidt tells us is the peculiar charm of the +spot,--the presence and the sound of water; for if he is right, the +villa was placed between two arms of the limpid little river Fibrenus, +which here makes a delta as it joins the larger Liris[398]. + +But of this house we know for certain neither the site nor the +plan,--not so much indeed as we know about a villa of the brother +Quintus, not far away, the building of which is described with such +exactness in a letter written to the absent owner[399], that Schmidt +thinks himself justified in applying it by analogy to the villa of +the elder brother. But such reasoning is hardly safe. What we do know +about the old house is that it was originally a true villa rustica,--a +house with land cultivated by the owner that Cicero's father, who had +weak health and literary tastes, had added to it considerably, and +that Cicero himself had made it into a comfortable country residence, +with all necessary conveniences. He did not farm the ancestral land +attached to it, either himself or by a bailiff, but let it in small +holdings[400] (praediola), and we could wish that he had told us +something of his tenants and what they did with the land. It was not, +therefore, a real farm-house, but a farm-house made into a pleasant +residence, like so many manor-houses still to be seen in England. +Its atrium had no doubt retired (so to speak) into the rear of the +building, and had become a kitchen, and you entered, as in most +country-houses of this period, through a vestibule directly into a +peristyle: some idea of such an arrangement may be gained from the +accompanying ground-plan of the villa of Diomedes just outside +Pompeii, which was a city house adapted to rural conditions (villa +pseudurbana).[401] + +If Cicero wished to leave Arpinum for one of his villas on the +Campanian coast, he would simply have to follow the valley of the +Liris until it reached the sea between Minturnae and Formiae, and at +the latter place, a lively little town with charming views over the +sea, close to the modern Gaeta, he would find another house of his +own,--the next he added to his possessions after he inherited Arpinum. +Formiae was a very convenient spot; it lay on the via Appia, and was +thus in direct communication both with Rome and the bay of Naples, +either by land or sea. When Cicero is not resting, but on the move or +expecting to be disturbed, he is often to be found at Formiae, as in +the critical mid-winter of 50-49 B.C.; and here at the end of March +49 he had his famous interview with Caesar, who urged him in vain to +accompany him to Rome. Here he spent the last weary days of his life, +and here he was murdered by Antony's ruffians on December 7, 43. + +[Illustration: PLAN OF THE VILLA OF DIOMEDES. From Man's _Pompeii_.] + +This villa was in or close to the little town, and therefore did not +give him the quiet he liked to have for literary work. It would seem +that the _bore_ existed elsewhere than at Rome; for in a short letter +written from Formiae in April 59, he tells Atticus of his troubles +of this kind: "As to literary work, it is impossible! My house is a +basilica rather than a villa, owing to the crowds of visitors from +Formiae ... C. Arrius is my next door neighbour, or rather he almost +lives in my house, and even declares that his reason for not going to +Rome is that he may spend whole days with me here philosophising. And +then, if you please, on the other flank is Sebosus, that friend of +Catulus! Which way am I to turn? I declare that I would go at once to +Arpinum, if this were not the most, convenient place to await your +visit: but I will only wait till May 6: you see what bores are +pestering my poor ears."[402] + +But his Campanian villas would be almost as easy to reach as Arpinum, +if he wished to escape from Formiae and its bores. To the nearest of +these, the one at or near Cumae, it was only about forty miles' drive +along the coast road, past Minturnae, Sinuessa, and Volturnum, all +familiar halting-places. Of this "Cumanum," however, we know very +little: that volcanic region has undergone such changes that we +cannot recover the site, and its owner never seems to have felt any +particular attachment to it. It was in fact too near Baiae and Bauli +to suit a quiet literary man; the great nobles in their vast luxurious +palaces were too close at hand for a _novus homo_ to be perfectly +at his ease there. Yet near the end of his life Cicero added to +his possessions another property in this neighbourhood, at or near +Puteoli, which was now fast becoming a city of great importance; but +this can be explained by the fact that a banker of Puteoli named +Cluvius, an old friend of his, had just died and divided his property +by will between Caesar and Cicero,--truly a tremendous will! Cicero +seems to have purchased Caesar's share, and to have looked on the +property as a good investment. He began to build a villa here, but had +little chance of using it. It may have been here that he entertained +Caesar and his retinue at the end of the year 45,[403] as described by +him in the famous letter of December 21 (_ad Att_. xiii. 52); when two +thousand men had somehow to be provided for, and in spite of literary +conversation, Cicero could write that his guest was not exactly one +whom you would be in a hurry to see again. + +Across the bay, and just within view from the higher ground between +Baiae and Cumae, lay the little town of Pompeii, under the sleeping +Vesuvius. Here, probably just outside the town, Cicero had a villa of +which he seems to have been really fond, and the society of a quiet +and gentle friend, M. Marius. Whether we can find the remains of this +villa among the excavations of Pompeii is very doubtful: but our +excellent guide Schmidt assures us that he has good reason for +believing that one particular house, just outside the city on the left +side of the road in front of the Porta Herculanea, which has for no +very convincing reason ever since its excavation in 1763 been called +the Villa di Cicerone, really is the house we wish it to be. But alas! +an honest man must confess that the identification wants certainty, +and the chance of finding any object or inscription which may confirm +it is now very small. + +If Cicero were summoned suddenly back to Rome for business, forensic +or political, he would hasten first to Formiae and sleep there, and +thence hurry, by the via Appia and the route so well known to us +from Horace's journey to Brundisium, to another house in the little +sea-coast town of Antium. This was his nearest seaside residence, and +he often used it when unable to go far from Rome. After the death of +his daughter in 45 he seems to have sold this house to Lepidus, and, +unable to stay at Tusculum, where she died, he bought a small villa +on a little islet called Astura, on the very edge of the Pomptine +marshes, and in that melancholy and unwholesome neighbourhood he +passed whole days in the woods giving way to his grief. Yet it was +a "locus amoenus, et in mari ipso, qui et Antio et Circeiis aspici +possit.[404]" It suited his mood, and here he stayed long, writing +letter after letter to Atticus about the erection of a shrine to the +lost one in some gardens to be purchased near Rome. + +This sketch of the country-houses of a man like Cicero may help us +to form some idea of the changeful life of a great personage of the +period. He did not look for the formation of steady permanent habits +in any one place or house; from an early age he was accustomed to +travel, going to Greece or Asia Minor for his "higher education," +acting perhaps as quaestor, and again as praetor or consul, in some +province, then returning to Rome only to leave it for one or other of +his villas, and rarely settling down in one of these for any length of +time. It was not altogether a wholesome life, so far as the mind +was concerned; real thought, the working out of great problems of +philosophy or politics, is impossible under constant change of scene, +and without the opportunity of forming regular habits.[405] And the +fact is that no man at this time seriously set himself to think out +such problems. Cicero would arrive at Tusculum or Arpinum with some +necessary books, and borrowing others as best he could, would sit down +to write a treatise on ethics or rhetoric with amazing speed, having +an original Greek author constantly before him. At places like Baiae +serious work was of course impossible, and would have been ridiculed. +There was no original thinker in this age. Caesar himself was probably +more suited by nature to reason on facts immediately before him than +to speculate on abstract principles. Varro, the rough sensible scholar +of Sabine descent, was a diligent collector of facts and traditions, +but no more able to grapple hard with problems of philosophy or +theology than any other Roman of his time. The life of the average +wealthy man was too comfortable, too changeable, to suggest the +desirability of real mental exertion. + +Nor has this life any direct relation to material usefulness and the +productive investment of capital. Cicero and his correspondents never +mention farming, never betray any interest in the new movement, +if such there was, for the scientific cultivation of the vine and +olive.[406] For such things we must go to Varro's treatise, written, +some years after Cicero's death, in his extreme old age. In the third +book of that invaluable work we shall find all we want to know about +the real _villa rustica_ of the time,--the working farm-house with its +wine-vats and olive-mills, like that recently excavated at Boscoreale +near Pompeii. Yet it would be unfair to such men as Cicero and his +friends, the wiser and quieter section of the aristocracy, to call +their work altogether unproductive. True, it left little permanent +impress on human modes of thought; it wrought no material change for +the better in Italy or the Empire. We may go so far as to allow +that it initiated that habit of dilettantism which we find already +exaggerated in the age lately illuminated for us by Professor Dill in +his book on _Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius_, and far more +exaggerated in the last age of Roman society, which the same author +has depicted in his earlier work. But it may be doubted whether under +any circumstances the Romans could have produced a great prophet or a +great philosopher; and the most valuable work they did was of +another kind. It lay in the humanisation of society by the rational +development of law, and by the communication of Greek thought and +literature to the western world. This was what occupied the best days +of Cicero and Sulpicius Rufus and many others; and they succeeded at +the same time in creating for its expression one of the most perfect +prose languages that the world has ever known or will know. They did +it too, helping each other by kindly and cheering intercourse,--the +_humanitas_ of daily life. It is exactly this humanitas that the +northern mind of Mommsen, in spite of its vein of passionate romance, +could not understand; all the softer side of that pleasant existence +among the villas and statues and libraries was to him simply +contemptible. Let us hope that he has done no permanent damage to +the credit of Cicero, and of the many lesser men who lived the same +honourable and elegant life. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +THE DAILY LIFE OF THE WELL-TO-DO + +Before giving some account of the way in which a Roman of +consideration spent his day in the time of Cicero, it seems necessary +to explain briefly how he reckoned the divisions of the day. + +The old Latin farmer knew nothing of hours or clocks. He simply went +about his daily work with the sun and the light as guides, rising at +or before sunrise, working till noon, and, after a meal and a rest, +resuming his work till sunset. This simple method of reckoning would +suffice in a sunny climate, even when life and business became more +complicated; and it is a fact that the division of the day into hours +was not known at Rome until the introduction of the sun-dial in 263 +B.C.[407] We may well find it hard to understand how such business as +the meeting of the senate, of the comitia, or the exercitus, could +have been fixed to particular times under such circumstances; perhaps +the best way of explaining it is by noting that the Romans were very +early in their habits, and that sunrise is a point of time about +which there can be no mistake[408]. But in any case the date of the +introduction of the sun-dial, which almost exactly corresponds with +the beginning of the Punic wars and the vast increase of civil +business arising out of them, may suggest at once the primitive +condition of the old Roman mind and habit, and the way in which the +Romans had to learn from other peoples how to save and arrange the +time that was beginning to be so precious. + +This first sun-dial came from Catina in Sicily, and was therefore +quite unsuited to indicate the hours at Rome. Nevertheless Rome +contrived to do with it until nearly a century had elapsed; at last, +in 159 B.C., a dial calculated on the latitude of Rome was placed by +the side of it by the censor Q. Marcius Philippus. These two dials +were fixed on pillars behind the Rostra in the Forum, the most +convenient place for regulating public business, and there they +remained even in the time of Cicero[409]. But in the censorship next +following that of Philippus the first water-clock was introduced; this +indicated the hours both of day and night, and enabled every one to +mark the exact time even on cloudy days[410]. + +Thus from the time of the Punic wars the city population reckoned time +by hours, i.e. twelve divisions of the day; but as they continued to +reckon the day from sunrise to sunset on the principle of the old +agricultural practice, these twelve hours varied in length at +different times of the year. In mid-winter the hours were only about +forty-four minutes in length, while at mid-summer they were about +seventy-five, and they corresponded with ours only at the two +equinoxes.[411] This, of course, made the construction of accurate +dials and water-clocks a matter of considerable difficulty. It is not +necessary here to explain how the difficulties were overcome; the +reader may be referred to the article "Horologium" in the _Dictionary +of Antiquities_, and especially to the cuts there given of the dial +found at Tusculum in 1761.[412] + +Sun-dials, once introduced with the proper reckoning for latitude, +soon came into general use, and a considerable number still survive +which have been found in Rome. In a fragment of a comedy by an unknown +author, ascribed to the last century B.C., Rome is described as "full +of sun-dials,"[413] and many have been discovered in other Roman +towns, including several at Pompeii. But for the ordinary Roman, who +possessed no sun-dial or was not within reach of one, the day +fell into four convenient divisions, as with us it falls into +three,--morning, afternoon, and evening. As they rose much earlier +than we do, the hours up to noon were divided into two parts: (1) +_mane_, or morning, which lasted from sunrise to the beginning of the +third hour, and (2) _ad meridiem_, or forenoon; then followed _de +meridie_, i.e. afternoon, and _suprema_, from about the ninth or +tenth hour till sunset. The authority for these handy divisions is +Censorinus, _De die natali_ (23. 9, 24. 3). There seems to be no +doubt that they originated in the management of civil business, and +especially in that of the praetor's court, which normally began at the +third hour, i.e. the beginning of ad meridiem, and went on till the +suprema (tempestas diei), which originally meant sunset, but by a lex +Plaetoria was extended to include the hour or two before dark. + +The first thing to note in studying the daily life at Rome is that the +Romans, like the Greeks, were busy much earlier in the morning than +we are. In part this was the result of their comfortable southern +climate, where the nights are never so long as with us, and where the +early mornings are not so chilly and damp in summer or so cold +in winter. But it was probably still more the effect of the very +imperfect lighting of houses, which made it difficult to carry on +work, especially reading and writing, after dark, and suggested early +retirement to bed and early rising in the morning. The streets, we +must remember, were not lighted except on great occasions, and it was +not till late in Roman history that public places and entertainments +could be frequented after dark. In early times the oil-lamp with a +wick was unknown, and private houses were lighted by torches and rude +candles of wax or tallow.[414] The introduction of the use of olive +oil, which was first imported from Greece and the East and then +produced in Italy, brought with it the manufacture of lamps of various +kinds, great and small; and as the cultivation of the valuable tree, +so easily grown in Italy, increased in the last century B.C.,[415] the +oil-lamp became universal in houses, baths, etc. Even in the small old +baths of Pompeii there were found about a thousand lamps, obviously +used for illumination after dark.[416] But in spite of this and of the +invention of candelabra for extending the use of candles, it was never +possible for the Roman to turn night into day as we do in our modern +town-life. We must look on the lighting of the streets as quite an +exceptional event. This happened, for example, on the night of the +famous fifth of December 63 B.C., when Cicero returned to his house +after the execution of the conspirators; people placed lamps and +torches at their doors, and women showed lights from the roofs of the +houses. + +An industrious man, especially in winter, when this want of artificial +light made time most valuable, would often begin his work before +daylight; he might have a speech to prepare for the senate, or a brief +for a trial, or letters to write, and, as we shall see, as soon as the +sun had well risen it was not likely that he would be altogether his +own master. Thus we find Cicero on a February morning writing to his +brother before sunrise,[417] and it is not unlikely that the soreness +of the eyes of which he sometimes complains may have been the result +of reading and writing before the light was good. In his country +villas he could do as he liked, but at Rome he knew that he would have +the "turba salutantium" upon him as soon as the sun had risen. Cicero +is the only man of his own time of whose habits we know much, but in +the next generation Horace describes himself as calling for pen and +paper before daylight, and later on that insatiable student the elder +Pliny would work for hours before daylight, and then go to the Emperor +Vespasian, who was also a very early riser.[418] After sunrise the +whole population was astir; boys were on their way to school, and +artisans to their labour. + +If Horace is not exaggerating when he says (_Sat._ i. 1. 10) that +the barrister might be disturbed by a client at cock-crow, Cicero's +studies may have been interrupted even before the crowds came; but +this could hardly happen often. As a rule it was during the first two +hours (_mane_) that callers collected. In the old times it had been +the custom to open your house and begin your business at daybreak, and +after saluting your familia and asking a blessing of the household +gods, to attend to your own affairs and those of your clients.[419] +Although we are not told so explicitly, we must suppose that the same +practice held good in Cicero's time; under the Empire it is familiar +to all readers of Seneca or Martial, but in a form which was open to +much criticism and satire. The client of the Empire was a degraded +being; of the client in the last age of the Republic we only know that +he existed, and could be useful to his _patronus_ in many ways,--in +elections and trials especially;[420] but we do not hear of his +pressing himself on the attention of his patron every morning, or +receiving any "sportula." All the same, the number of persons, whether +clients in this sense or in the legal sense, or messengers, men of +business, and ordinary callers, who would want to see a man like +Cicero before he left his house in the morning, would beyond doubt be +considerable. Otherwise they would have to catch him in the street or +Forum; and though occasionally a man of note might purposely walk in +public in order to give his clients their chance, Cicero makes it +plain that this was not his way.[421] + +Within these two first hours of daylight the busy man had to find time +for a morning meal; the idle man, who slept later, might postpone +it. This early breakfast, called _ientaculum_[422], answered to the +"coffee and roll" which is usual at the present day in all European +countries except our own, and which is fully capable of supporting +even a hard-working man for several hours. It is, indeed, quite +possible to do work before this breakfast; Antiochus, the great +doctor, is said by Galen to have visited such of his patients as lived +near him before his breakfast and on foot[423]. But as a rule the meal +was taken before a busy man went out to his work, and consisted of +bread, either dipped in wine or eaten with honey, olives, or cheese. +The breakfast of Antiochus consisted, for example, of bread and Attic +honey. + +The meal over, the man of politics or business would leave his house, +outside which his clients and friends or other hangers-on would be +waiting for him, and proceed to the Forum,--the centre, as we have +seen, of all his activity--accompanied by these people in a kind of +procession. Some would go before to make room for him, while others +followed him; if bent on election business, he would have experienced +helpers,[424] either volunteers or in his pay, to save him from making +blunders as to names and personalities, and in fact to serve him +in conducting himself towards the populace with the indispensable +_blanditia_.[425] Every Roman of importance liked to have, and usually +had, a train of followers or friends in descending to the Forum of a +morning from his house, or in going about other public business; what +Q. Cicero urges on his brother in canvassing for the consulship may +hold good in principle for all the public appearances of a +public man,--"I press this strongly on you, always to be with a +multitude."[426] It may perhaps be paralleled with the love of the +Roman for processions, e.g. the lustrations of farm, city, and +army,[427] and with his instinctive desire for aid and counsel in +all important matters both of public and private life, shown in the +consilium of the paterfamilias and of the magistrate. Examples are +easy to find in the literature of this period; an excellent one is the +graphic picture of Gaius Gracchus and his train of followers, which +Plutarch has preserved from a contemporary writer. "The people +looked with admiration on him, seeing him attended by crowds of +building-contractors, artificers, ambassadors, magistrates, soldiers, +and learned men, to all of whom he was easy of access; while he +maintained his dignity, he was gracious to all, and suited his +behaviour to the condition of every individual; thus he proved the +falsehood of those who called him tyrannical or arrogant."[428] + +Arrived at the Forum, if not engaged in a trial, or summoned to a +meeting of the senate, or busy in canvassing, he would mingle with the +crowd, and spend a social morning in meeting and talking with friends, +or in hearing the latest news from the provinces, or in occupying +himself with his investments with the aid of his bankers and agents. +This is the way in which such a sociable and agreeable man as Cicero +was loved to spend his mornings when not deep in the composition of +some speech or book,--and at Rome it was indeed hardly possible for +him to find the time for steady literary work. It was this social life +that he longed for when in Cilicia; "one little walk and talk with +you," he could write to Caelius at Rome, "is worth all the profits of +a province."[429] But it was also this crowded and talkative Forum +that Lucilius could describe in a passage already quoted, as teeming +with men who, with the aid of hypocrisy and blanditia, spent the +day from morning till night in trying to get the better of their +fellows.[430] + +After a morning spent in the Forum, our Roman might return home in +time for his lunch (_prandium_), which had taken the place of the +early dinner (_cena_) of the olden time. Exactly the same thing +affected the hours of these meals as has affected those of our own +within the last century or so; the great increase of public business +of all kinds has with us pushed the time of the chief meal later and +later, and so it was at Rome. The senate had an immense amount of +business to transact in the two last centuries B.C., and the increase +in oratorical skill, as well as the growing desire to talk in public, +extended its sittings sometimes till nightfall.[431] So too with the +law-courts, which had become the scenes of oratorical display, and +often of that indulgence in personal abuse which has great attractions +for idle people fond of excitement. Thus the dinner hour had come to +be postponed from about noon to the ninth or even the tenth hour,[432] +and some kind of a lunch was necessary. We do not hear much of this +meal, which was in fact for most men little more than the "snack" +which London men of business will take standing at a bar; nor do we +know whether senators and barristers took it as they sat in the curia +or in court, or whether there was an adjournment for purposes +of refreshment. Such an adjournment seems to have taken place +occasionally at least, during the games under the Empire, for +Suetonius (_Claud._ 34) tells us that Claudius would dismiss the +people to take their prandium and yet remain himself in his seat. A +joke of Cicero's about Caninius Rebilus, who was appointed consul by +Caesar on the last day of the year 45 at one o'clock, shows that the +usual hour for the prandium was about noon or earlier; "under the +consulship of Caninius," he wrote to Curius, "no one ever took +luncheon."[433] + +After the prandium, if a man were at home and at leisure, followed the +siesta (_meridiatio_). This is the universal habit in all southern +climates, especially in summer, and indeed, if the mind and body +are active from an early hour, a little repose is useful, if not +necessary, after mid-day. Busy men however like Cicero could not +always afford it in the city, and we find him noting near the end of +his life, when Caesar's absolutism had diminished the amount of his +work both in senate and law-courts, that he had taken to the siesta +which he formerly dispensed with.[434] Even the sturdy Varro in his +old age declared that in summer he could not possibly do without his +nap in the middle of the day.[435] On the other hand, in the famous +letter in which Cicero describes his entertainment of Caesar in +mid-winter 45 B.C., nothing is said of a siesta; the Dictator worked +till after mid-day, then walked on the shore, and returned, not for a +nap but for a bath.[436] + +Caesar, as he was Cicero's guest, must have taken his bath in the +villa, probably that at Cumae (see above, p. 257). Most well-appointed +private houses had by this time a bath-room or set of bath-rooms, +providing every accommodation, according to the season and the taste +of the bather. This was indeed a modern improvement; in the old days +the Romans only washed their arms and legs daily, and took a bath +every market-day, i.e. every ninth day. This is told us in an amusing +letter of Seneca's, who also gives a description of the bath in the +villa of the elder Scipio at Liternum, which consisted of a single +room without a window, and was supplied with water which was often +thick after rain.[437] "Nesciit vivere," says Seneca, in ironical +allusion to the luxury of his own day. In Cicero's time every villa +doubtless had its set of baths, with at least three rooms,--the +_apodyterium_, _caldarium_, and _tepidarium_, sometimes also an open +swimming-bath, as in the House of the Silver Wedding at Pompeii.[438] +In Cicero's letter to his brother about the villa at Arcanum, he +mentions the dressing-room (apodyterium) and the caldarium or hot-air +chamber, and doubtless there were others. Even in the villa rustica of +Boscoreale near Pompeii, which was a working farm-house, we find the +bath-rooms complete, provided, that is, with the three essentials of +dressing-room, tepid-room, and hot-air room.[439] Caesar probably, as +it was winter, used the last of these, took in fact a Turkish bath, as +we should call it, and then went into a tepidarium, where, as Cicero +tells us, he received some messenger. Here he was anointed (unctus), +i.e. rubbed dry from perspiration, with a strigil on which oil was +dropped to soften its action.[440] When this operation was over, about +the ninth hour, which in mid-winter would begin about half-past one, +he was ready for the dinner which followed immediately.[441] This we +may take as the ordinary winter dinner-hour in the country; in summer +it would be an hour or so later. In an amusing story given as a +rhetorical illustration in the work known as _Rhetorica ad Herennium_, +iv. 63, the guests (doomed never to get their dinner that day except +in an inn) are invited for the tenth hour. But in the city it must +have often happened that the hour was later, owing to the press of +business. For example, on one occasion when the senate had been +sitting _ad noctem_, Cicero dines with Pompeius after its dismissal +(_ad Fam_. i. 2.3). Another day we find him going to bed after his +dinner, and clearly not for a siesta, which, as we saw, he never had +time to take in his busy days; this, however, was not actually in Rome +but in his villa at Formiae, where he was at that time liable to much +interruption from callers (_ad Att_. ii. 16). Probably, like most +Romans of his day, he had spent a long time over his dinner, talking +if he had guests, or reading and thinking if he were alone or with his +family only. + +The dinner, _cena_, was in fact the principal private event of the +day; it came when all business was over, and you could enjoy the +privacy of family life or see your friends and unbend with them. At no +other meal do we hear of entertainment, unless the guests were on +a journey, as was the case at the lunch at Arcanum when Pomponia's +temper got the better of her (see above, p. 52). Even dinner-parties +seem to have come into fashion only since the Punic wars, with later +hours and a larger staff of slaves to cook and wait at table. In the +old days of household simplicity the meals were taken in the atrium, +the husband reclining on a _lectus_,[442] the wife sitting by his +side, and the children sitting on stools in front of them. The slaves +too in the olden time took their meal sitting on benches in the +atrium, so that the whole familia was present. This means that the +dinner was in those days only a necessary break in the intervals of +work, and the sitting posture was always retained for slaves, i.e. +those who would go about their work as soon as the meal was over. +Columella, writing under the early Empire, urges that the vilicus or +overseer should sit at his dinner except on festivals; and Cato the +younger would not recline after the battle of Pharsalia for the +rest of his life, apparently as a sign that life was no longer +enjoyable.[443] + +But after the Second Punic war, which changed the habits of the Roman +in so many ways, the atrium ceased to be the common dining-place, and +special chambers were built, either off the atrium or in the interior +part of the house about the peristylium, or even upstairs, for the +accommodation of guests, who might be received in different rooms, +according to the season and the weather.[444] These _triclinia_ were +so arranged as to afford the greatest personal comfort and the best +opportunities for conversation; they indicate clearly that dinner is +no longer an interval in the day's work, but a time of repose and ease +at the end of it. The plan here given of a triclinium, as described by +Plutarch, in his _Quaestiones conviviales_, + + Lectus medius. + +--------------------------------+----------------+ + Chief | | | + Guest | | | Lectus + | | | Summus + +-----------------+--------------+ | + H | | | | + | | | | + Lectus | | Mensa | | + Imus | | | | + | +--------------+ | + | | +----------------+ + | | + | | + | | + | | + +-----------------+ + + PLAN OF A TRICLINIUM. + +will show this sufficiently without elaborate description; but it is +necessary to notice that the host always or almost always occupied the +couch marked H on the plan, while the one immediately above him, i.e. +No. 3 of the _lectus medius_, was reserved for the most important +guest, and called _lectus consularis_. Plutarch's account, and a +little consideration, will show that the host was thus well placed for +the superintendence of the meal, as well as for conversation with his +distinguished guest; and that the latter occupied what Plutarch calls +a free corner, so that any messengers or other persons needing to see +him could get access to him without disturbing the party.[445] The +number that could be accommodated, nine, was not only a sacred and +lucky one, but exactly suited for convenience of conversation and +attendance. Larger parties were not unheard of, even under the +Republic, and Vitruvius tells us that some dining-rooms were fitted +with three or more triclinia; but to put more than three guests on a +single couch, and so increase the number, was not thought courteous or +well-bred. Among the points of bad breeding which Cicero attributes to +his enemy Calpurnius Piso, the consul of 58, one was that he put five +guests to recline on a single couch, while himself occupying one +alone; so Horace: + + Saepe tribus lectis videas cenare quaternos.[446] + +As the guests were made so comfortable, it may be supposed that they +were not in a hurry to depart; the mere fact that they were reclining +instead of sitting would naturally dispose them to stay. The triclinia +were open at one end, i.e. not shut up as our dining-rooms are, and +the air would not get close and "dinnery." Cicero describes old +Cato[447] (no doubt from some passage in Cato's writings) as remaining +in conversation at dinner until late at night. The guests would arrive +with their slaves, who took off their walking shoes, if they had come +on foot, and put on their sandals (_soleae_): each wore a festive +dress (_synthesis_), of Greek origin like the other features of the +entertainment, and there was no question of changing these again in a +hurry. Nothing can better show the difference between the old Roman +manners and the new than the character of these parties; they are +the leisurely and comfortable rendezvous of an opulent and educated +society, in which politics, literature or philosophy could be +discussed with much self-satisfaction. That such discussion did not go +too deeply into hard questions was perhaps the result of the comfort. + +There was of course another side to this picture of the evening of a +Roman gentleman. There was a coarse side to the Roman character, and +in the age when wealth, the slave trade, and idle habits encouraged +self-indulgence, meals were apt to become ends in themselves instead +of necessary aids to a wholesome life. The ordinary three parts or +courses (_mensae_) of a dinner,--the gustatio or light preliminary +course, the cena proper, with substantial dishes, and the dessert of +pastry and fruit, could be amplified and extended to an unlimited +extent by the skill of the slave-cooks brought from Greece and the +East (see above, p. 209); the gourmand had appeared long before +the age of Cicero and had been already satirised by Lucilius and +Varro.[448] Splendid dinner-services might take the place of the +old simple ware, and luxurious drapery and rugs covered the couches +instead of the skins of animals, as in the old time.[449] Vulgarity +and ostentation, such as Horace satirised, were doubtless too often to +be met with. Those who lived for feasting and enjoyment would invite +their company quite early in the day (tempestativum convivium) and +carry on the revelry till midnight.[450] And lastly, the practice of +drinking wine after dinner (_comissatio_), simply for the sake of +drinking, under fixed rules according to the Greek fashion, familiar +to us all in the _Odes_ of Horace, had undoubtedly begun some time +before the end of the Public. In the Actio prima of his Verrine +orations Cicero gives a graphic picture of a convivium beginning +early, where the proposal was made and agreed to that the drinking +should be "more graeco."[451] + +But it would be a great mistake to suppose that this kind of +self-indulgence was characteristic of the average Roman life of this +age. The ordinary student is liable to fall into this error because +he reads his Horace and his Juvenal, but dips a very little way +into Cicero's correspondence; and he needs to be reminded that the +satirists are not deriding the average life of the citizen, any more +than the artists who make fun of the foibles of our own day in the +pages of _Punch_. Cicero hardly ever mentions his meals, his cookery, +or his wine, even in his most chatty letters; such matters did not +interest him, and do not seem to have interested his friends, so far +as we can judge by their letters. In one amusing letter to Poetus, he +does indeed tell him what he had for dinner at a friend's house, but +only by way of explaining that he had been very unwell from eating +mushrooms and such dishes, which his host had had cooked in order not +to contravene a recent sumptuary law.[452] The Letters are worth far +more as negative evidence of the usual character of dinners than +either the invectives (vituperationes) against a Piso or an Antony, +or the lively wit of the satirists. Let us return for an instant, in +conclusion, to that famous letter, already quoted, in which Cicero +describes the entertainment of Caesar at Cumae in December, 45. +It contains an expression which has given rise to very mistaken +conclusions both about Caesar's own habits and those of his day. After +telling Atticus that his guest sat down to dinner when the bath was +over he goes on: "[Greek: Emetikaen] agebat; itaque et edit et bibit +[Greek: adeos] et iucunde, opipare sane et apparate, nec id solum, sed + + bene cocto + condito, sermone bono, et si quaeri, libenter." + +Even good scholars used formerly to make the mistake of supposing that +Caesar, a man habitually abstemious, or at least temperate, had made +up his mind to over-eat himself on this occasion, as he was intending +to take an emetic afterwards. And even now it may be as well to point +out that medical treatment by a course of emetics was a perfectly well +known and valued method at this time;[453] that Caesar, whose health +was always delicate, and at this time severely tried, was then under +this treatment, and could therefore eat his dinner comfortably, +without troubling himself about what he ate and drank: and that the +apt quotation from Lucilius, and the literary conversation which (so +Cicero adds) followed the dinner, prove beyond all question that this +was no glutton's meal, but one of that ordinary and rational type, in +which repose and pleasant intercourse counted for more than the mere +eating and drinking. + +No more work seems to have been done after the cena was over and the +guests had retired. We found Cicero on one occasion going to bed soon +after the meal; and, as he was up and active so early in the morning, +we may suppose that he retired at a much earlier hour than we do. But +of this last act of the day he tells us nothing. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +HOLIDAYS AND AMUSEMENTS + +The Italian peoples, of all races, have always had a wonderful +capacity for enjoying themselves out of doors. The Italian _festa_ +of to-day, usually, as in ancient times, linked to some religious +festival, is a scene of gaiety, bright dresses, music, dancing, +bonfires, races, and improvisation or mummery; and all that we know of +the ancient rural festivals of Italy suggests that they were of much +the same lively and genial character. Tibullus gives us a good idea of +them: + + "Agricola assiduo primum satiatus aratro + Cantavit oerto rustica verba pede; + Et satur arenti primum est modulatus avena + Carmen, ut ornatos diceret ante decs; + Agricola et minio suffusus, Bacche, rubenti + Primus inexperta duxit ab arte choros."[454] + +It would be easy to multiply examples of such merry-making from the +poets of the Augustan age, nearly all of whom were born and bred in +the country, and shared Virgil's tenderness for a life of honest work +and play among the Italian hills and valleys. But in this chapter we +are to deal with the holidays and enjoyments of the great city, and +the rural festivals are only mentioned here because almost all the +characteristics of the urban holiday-making are to be found in germ +there. The Roman calendar of festivals has its origin in the regularly +recurring rites of the earliest Latin husbandman. As the city grew, +these old agricultural festivities lost of course much of their native +simplicity and naïveté; some of them survived merely as religious or +priestly performances, some became degraded into licentious enjoyment; +but the music and dancing, the gay dresses, the racing, the mumming +or acting, are all to be found in the city, developed in one form or +another, from the earliest to the latest periods of Roman history. + +The Latin word for a holiday was _feriae_, a term which belongs to the +language of religious law (_ius divinum_). Strictly speaking, it means +a day which the citizen has resigned, either wholly or in part, to the +service of the gods.[455] As of old on the farm no work was to be done +on such days, so in the city no public business could be transacted. +Cicero, drawing up in antique language his idea of the ius divinum, +writes thus of feriae: "Feriis iurgia amovento, easque in familiis, +operibus patratis, habento": which he afterwards explains as meaning +that the citizen must abstain from litigation, and the slave be +excused from labour.[456] The idea then of a holiday was much the same +as we find expressed in the Jewish Sabbath, and had its root also in +religious observance. But Cicero, whether he is actually reproducing +the words of an old law or inventing it for himself, was certainly +not reflecting the custom of the city in his own day; no such rigid +observance of a rule was possible in the capital of an Empire such +as the Roman had become. Even on the farm it had long ago been found +necessary to make exceptions; thus Virgil tells us:[457] + + "Quippe etiam festis quaedam exercere diebus + Fas et iura sinunt: rivos deducere nulla + Religio vetuit, segeti praetendere saepem, + Insidias avibus moliri, incendere vepres, + Balantumque gregem fluvio mersare salubri." + +So too in the city it was simply impossible that all work should +cease on feriae, of which there were more than a hundred in the year, +including the Ides of every month and some of the Kalends and Nones. +As a matter of fact a double change had come about since the city and +its dominion began to increase rapidly about the time of the Punic +wars. First, many of the old festivals, sacred to deities whose +vogue was on the wane, or who had no longer any meaning for a city +population, as being deities of husbandry, were almost entirely +neglected: even if the priests performed the prescribed rites, no one +knew and no one cared,[458] and it may be doubted whether the State +was at all scrupulous in adhering to the old sacred rules as to +the hours on which business could be transacted on such days.[459] +Secondly, certain festivals which retained their popularity had been +extended from one day to three or more, in one or two cases, as we +shall see, even to thirteen and fifteen days, in order to give +time for an elaborate system of public amusement consisting of +chariot-races and stage-plays, and known by the name of _ludi_, or, as +at the winter Saturnalia, to enable all classes to enjoy themselves +during the short days for seven mornings instead of one. Obviously +this was a much more convenient and popular arrangement than to have +your holidays scattered about over the whole year as single days; and +it suited the rich and ambitious, who sought to obtain popular favour +by shows and games on a grand scale, needing a succession of several +days for complete exhibition. So the old religious word feriae becomes +gradually supplanted, in the sense of a public holiday of amusement, +by the word _ludi_, and came at last to mean, as it still does in +Germany, the holidays of schoolboys.[460] These ludi will form the +chief subject of this chapter; but we must first mention one or two +of the old feriae which seem always to have remained occasions of +holiday-making, at any rate for the lower classes of the population. + +One of these occurred on the Ides of March, and must have been going +on at the moment when Caesar was assassinated in 44 B.C. It was the +festival of Anna Perenna, a mysterious old deity of "the ring of the +year." The lower class of the population, Ovid tells us,[461] streamed +out to the "festum geniale" of Anna, and spent the whole day in the +Campus Martius, lying about in pairs of men and women, indulging +in drinking and all kinds of revelry. Some lay in the open; some +constructed tents, or rude huts of boughs, stretching their togas over +them for shelter. As they drank they prayed for as many years of life +as they could swallow cups of wine. The usual characteristics of the +Italian _festa_ were to be found there: they sang anything they had +picked up in the theatre, with much gesticulation ("et iactant faciles +ad sua verba manus"), and they danced, the women letting down their +long hair. The result of these performances was naturally that they +returned home in a state of intoxication, which roused the mirth of +the bystanders. Ovid adds that he had himself met them so returning, +and had seen an old woman pulling along an old man, both of them +intoxicated. There may have been other popular "jollifications" of +this kind, for example at the Neptunalia on July 23, where we find the +same curious custom of making temporary huts or shelters;[462] but +this is the only one of which we have any account by an eye-witness. +Of the famous Lupercalia in February, and some other festivals which +neither died out altogether nor were converted into ludi, we only know +the ritual, and cannot tell whether they were still used as popular +holidays. + +One famous festival of the old religious calendar did, however, always +remain a favourite holiday, viz. the Saturnalia on December 17, +which was by common usage extended to seven days in all.[463] It was +probably the survival of a mid-winter festivity in the life of the +farm, at a time when all the farm work of the autumn was over, +and when both bond and free might indulge themselves in unlimited +enjoyment. Such ancient customs die hard, or, as was the case with the +Saturnalia, never die at all; for the same features are still to be +found in the Christmas rejoicings of the Italian peasant. Every one +knows something of the character of this holiday, and especially of +the entertainment of slaves by their masters,[464] which has many +parallels in Greek custom, and has been recently supposed to have been +borrowed from the Greeks. Various games were played, and among them +that of "King," at which we have seen the young Cato playing with his +boy companions.[465] Seneca tells us that in his day all Rome seemed +to go mad on this holiday. + +But we must now turn to the real _ludi_, organised by the State on a +large and ever increasing scale. The oldest and most imposing of these +were the Ludi Romani or Magni, lasting from September 5 to September +19 in Cicero's time. These had their origin in the return of a +victorious army at the end of the season of war, when king or consul +had to carry out the vows he had made when entering on his campaign. +The usual form of the vow was to entertain the people on his return, +in honour of Jupiter, and thus they were originally called ludi +_votivi_, before they were incorporated as a regularly recurring +festival. After they became regular and annual, any entertainment +vowed by a general had to take place on other days; thus in the year +70 B.C. Pompey's triumphal ludi votivi immediately preceded the Ludi +Romani of that year,[466] giving the people in all some thirty days of +holiday. The centre-point, and original day, of the Ludi Romani was +the Ides (13th) of September, which was also the day of the epulum +Jovis,[467] and the dies natalis (dedication day) of the Capitoline +temple of Jupiter; and the whole ceremonial was closely connected with +that temple and its great deity. The triumphal procession passed along +the Sacra via to the Capitol, and thence again to the Circus Maximus, +where the ludi were held. The show must have been most imposing; +first marched the boys and youths, on foot and on horseback, then the +chariots and charioteers about to take part in the racing, with crowds +of dancers and flute-players,[468] and lastly the images of the +Capitoline deities themselves, carried on _fercula_ (biers). All such +shows and processions were dear to the Roman people, and this seems to +have become a permanent feature of the Ludi Romani, whether or no an +actual triumph was to be celebrated, and also of some other ludi, e.g. +the Apollinares and the Megalenses.[469] Thus the idea was kept up +that the greatness and prosperity of Rome were especially due to +Jupiter Optimus Maximus, who, since the days of the Tarquinii, had +looked down on his people from his temple on the Capitol.[470] + +The Ludi Plebeii in November seem to have been a kind of plebeian +duplicate of the Ludi Romani. As fully developed at the end of the +Republic, they lasted from the 4th to the 17th; their centre-point and +original day was the Ides (13th), on which, as on September 13, there +was an epulum Jovis in the Capitol.[471] They are connected with the +name of that Flaminius who built the circus Flaminius in the Campus +Martius in 220 B.C., the champion of popular rights, killed soon +afterwards at Trasimene; and it is probable that his object in +erecting this new place of entertainment was to provide a convenient +building free of aristocratic associations. But unfortunately we know +very little of the history of these ludi. + +If we may suppose that the Ludi Plebeii were instituted just before +the second Punic war, it is interesting to note that three other great +ludi were organised in the course of that war, no doubt with the +object of keeping up the drooping spirits of the urban population. The +Ludi Apollinares were vowed by a praetor urbanus in 212, when the +fate of Rome was hanging in the balance, and celebrated in the Circus +Maximus: in 208 they were fixed to a particular day, July 13, and +eventually extended to eight, viz. July 6-13.[472] In 204 were +instituted the Ludi Megalenses, to celebrate the arrival in Rome of +the Magna Mater from Pessinus in Phrygia, i.e. on April 4; but the +ludi were eventually extended to April 10.[473] Lastly, in 202 the +Ludi Ceriales, which probably existed in some form already, were made +permanent and fixed for April 19: they eventually lasted from the 12th +to the 19th.[474] After the war was over we only find one more set of +ludi permanently established, viz. the Florales, which date from 173. +The original day was April 28, which had long been one of coarse +enjoyment for the plebs; like the other ludi, these too were extended, +and eventually reached to May 3.[475] April, we may note, was a month +chiefly consisting of holidays: the Ludi Megalenses, Ceriales, and +Florales occupied no less than seventeen of its twenty-nine days. + +When Sulla wished to commemorate his victory at the Colline gate, he +instituted Ludi Victoriae on November I, the date of the battle, and +these seem to have been kept up after most of Sulla's work had been +destroyed; they are mentioned by Cicero in the passage quoted above +from the Verrines, as Ludi Victoriae, but we hear comparatively little +of them. + +Before we go on to describe the nature of these numerous +entertainments, it may be as well to realise that the spectators had +nothing to pay for them; they were provided by the State free of cost, +as being part of certain religious festivals which it was the duty +of the government to keep up. Certain sums were set aside for this +purpose, differing in amount from time to time; thus in 217 B.C., for +the Ludi Romani, on which up to that time 200,000 sesterces (£16,600) +had been spent, the sum of 333,333-1/3 sest. was voted, because the +number three had a sacred signification, and the moment was one of +extreme peril for the State.[476] On one occasion only before the end +of the Republic do we hear of any public collection for the ludi; in +186 B.C. Pliny tells us that every one was so well off, owing no doubt +to the enormous amount of booty brought from the war in the East, that +all subscribed some small sum for the games of Scipio Asiaticus.[477] +There was no doubt a growing demand for magnificence in the shows, and +thus it came about that the amount provided by the State had to be +supplemented. But the usual way of supplementing it was for the +magistrate in charge of the ludi to pay what he could out of his own +purse, or to get his friends to help him; and as all the ludi except +the Apollinares were in charge of the aediles, it became the practice +for these, if they aspired to reach the praetorship and consulship, to +vie with each other in the recklessness of their expenditure. As early +as 176 B.C. the senate had tried to limit this personal expenditure, +for Ti. Sempronius Gracchus as aedile had that year spent enormous +sums on his ludi, and had squeezed money (it does not appear how) out +of the subject populations of Italy, as well as the provinces, to +entertain the Roman people.[478] But naturally no decrees of the +senate on such matters were likely to have permanent effect; the great +families whose younger members aimed at popularity in this way were +far too powerful to be easily checked. In the last age of the Republic +it had become a necessary part of the aedile's duty to supplement the +State's contribution, and as a rule he had to borrow heavily, and thus +to involve himself financially quite early in his political career. In +his _de Officiis_,[479] writing of the virtue of _liberalitas_, Cicero +gives a list of men who had been munificent as aediles, including the +elder and younger Crassus, Mucius Scaevola (a man, he says, of great +self-restraint), the two Lueulli, Hortensius, and Silanus; and adds +that in his own consulship P. Lentulus outdid all his predecessors, +and was imitated by Scaurus in 58 B.C.[480] Cicero himself had to +undertake the Ludi Romani, Megalenses, and Florales in his aedileship; +how he managed it financially he does not tell us.[481] Caesar +undoubtedly borrowed largely, for his expenditure as aedile was +enormous,[482] and he had no private fortune of any considerable +amount. + +Our friend Caelius Rufus was elected curule aedile while he was in +correspondence with Cicero, and his letters give us a good idea of the +condition of the mind of an ambitious young man who is bent on making +the most of himself. He is in a continual state of fidget about his +games; he has set his heart on getting panthers to exhibit and hunt, +and urges Cicero in letter after letter to procure them for him in +Cilicia. "It will be a disgrace to you," he writes in one of them, +"that Patiscus has sent ten panthers to Curio, and that you should not +send me ten times as many."[483] The provincial governor, he urges, +can do what he pleases; let Cicero send for some men of Cibyra, let +him write to Pamphylia, where they are most abundant, and he will get +what he wants, or rather what Caelius wants. Even after a letter full +of the most important accounts of public business, including copies of +senatus consulta (ad Fam. viii. 8), he harks back at the end to the +inevitable panthers. Cicero tells Atticus that he rebuked Caelius for +pressing him thus hard to do what his conscience could not approve, +and that it was not right, in his opinion, for a provincial governor +to set the people of Cibyra hunting for panthers for Roman games.[484] +From the same passage it would seem that Caelius had also been urging +him to take other steps in his province of which he disapproved, no +doubt with the same object of raising money for the ludi. This letter +to Caelius is not extant, but we may believe that Cicero had the +courage to reprove his old pupil, and that the constant worrying for +panthers was more than even his amiability could stand. But others +were less sensitive; and it is a well known fact in natural history +that the Roman games had a powerful effect, from this time forwards, +in diminishing the numbers of wild animals in the countries bordering +on the Mediterranean, and in bringing about the extinction of species. +In our own day the same work is carried on by the big-game sportsman, +somewhat farther afield; the pleasure of slaughter being now confined +to the few rich and adventurous, who shoot for their own delectation, +and not to make a London holiday. + +Thus to all his ludi the citizen had the right of admission free +of cost.[485] An Englishman may find some difficulty at first in +realising this; it is as if cricket and football matches and theatres +in London were open to the public gratis, and the cost provided by the +London County Council. Yet it is not difficult to understand how the +Roman government drifted into a practice which was eventually found to +have such unfortunate results. It has already been explained that ludi +were originally attached to certain religious festivals, which it was +the duty of the State and its priests and magistrates to maintain. The +Romans, like all Italians, loved shows and out-of-door enjoyment, +and as the population increased and became more liable to excitement +during the stress of the great wars with Carthage, it became necessary +to keep them cheerful and in good humour by developing the old ludi +and instituting new ones, for which it would have been contrary to all +precedent to make them pay. The government, as we may guess from the +history of the ludi which has just been sketched, seems to have been +careful at first not to go too far with this policy, and it was some +time before any ludi but the Romani were made annual and extended to +the length they eventually reached. But the sudden increase of wealth +after the great struggle was over was answerable for this, as for +so many other damaging tendencies. We have seen that the people +themselves in 186 were able and willing to contribute; and now it was +possible for aediles to invest their capital in popular undertakings +which might, later on, pay them well by carrying them on to higher +magistracies and provincial governorships, where fresh fortunes might +be made. The evil results are, of course, as obvious here as in the +parallel case of the corn-supply (see above, p. 34); enormous amounts +of capital were used unproductively, and the people were gradually +accustomed to believe that the State was responsible for their +enjoyment as well as their food. But we must be most careful not to +jump to the conclusion that this was due to any deliberate policy on +the part of the Roman government. They drifted into these dangerous +shoals in spite of the occasional efforts of intelligent steersmen; +and it would indeed have needed a higher political intelligence than +was then and there available, to have fully divined the direction of +the drift and the dangers ahead of them. + +We must now turn in the last place to consider the nature of the +entertainments, and see whether there was any improving or educational +influence in them. + +These had originally consisted entirely of shows of a military +character, as we have seen in the case of the Ludi Romani, and +especially of chariot-racing in the old Circus Maximus. The Romans +seem always to have been fond of horses and racing, though they +never developed a large or thoroughly efficient cavalry force. It +is probable that the position of the Circus Maximus in the vallis +Murcia[486] was due to horse-racing near the underground altar of +Consus, a harvest deity, and the oldest religious calendar has +Equirria (horse-races) on February 27 and March 14, no doubt in +connexion with the preparation of the cavalry for the coming season +of war. And in the very curious ancient rite known as "the October +horse," there was a two-horse chariot-race in the Campus Martius, when +the season of arms was over, and the near horse of the winning pair +was sacrificed to Mars[487]. The Ludi Romani consisted chiefly of +chariot-races until 364 B.C. (when plays were first introduced), +together with other military evolutions or exercises, such perhaps as +the ludus Troiae of the Roman boys, described by Virgil in the fifth +Aeneid. Of the Ludi Plebeii we do not know the original character, but +it is likely that these also began with _circenses_, the regular word +for chariot-races. The Ludi Cereales certainly included circenses, and +plays are only mentioned as forming part of their programme under the +Empire; but on the last day, April 19, there was a curious practice of +letting foxes loose in the Circus Maximus with burning firebrands tied +to their tails[488],--a custom undoubtedly ancient, which may have +suggested the _venationes_ (hunts) of later times, for one of which +Caelius wanted his panthers. Of the other three ludi, Apollinares, +Megalenses, and Florales, we only know that they included both +circenses and plays; we must take it as probable that the former were +in their programme from the first. There is no need to describe +here in detail the manner of the chariot-racing. We can picture to +ourselves the Circus Maximus filled with a dense crowd of some 150,000 +people,[489] the senators in reserved places, and the consul or other +magistrate presiding; the chariots, usually four in number, painted at +this time either red or white, with their drivers in the same colours, +issuing from the carceres at the end of the circus next to the Forum +Boarium and the river, and at the signal racing round a course of +about 1600 yards, divided into two halves by a spina; at the farther +end of this the chariots had to turn sharply and always with a certain +amount of danger, which gave the race its chief interest. Seven +complete laps of this course constituted a missus or race,[490] and +the number of races in a day varied from time to time, according to +the season of the year and the equipment of the particular ludi. The +rivalry between factions and colours, which became so famous later +on and lasted throughout the period of the Empire, was only just +beginning in Cicero's time. We hear hardly anything of such excitement +in the literature of the period; we only know that there were already +two rival colours, white and red, and Pliny tells us the strange +story that one chariot-owner, a Caecina of Volaterrae, used to bring +swallows into the city smeared with his colour, which he let loose to +fly home and so bear the news of a victory.[491] Human nature in big +cities seems to demand some such artificial stimulus to excitement, +and without it the racing must have been monotonous; but of betting +and gambling we as yet hear nothing at all. Gradually, as vast sums +of money were laid out by capitalists and even by senators upon the +horses and drivers, the colour-factions increased in numbers, and +their rivalry came to occupy men's minds as completely as do now the +chances of football teams in our own manufacturing towns.[492] + +Exhibitions of gladiators (_munera_) did not as yet take place at ludi +or on public festivals, but they may be mentioned here, because they +were already becoming the favourite amusement of the common people; +Cicero in the _pro Sestio_[493] speaks of them as "that kind of +spectacle to which all sorts of people crowd in the greatest +numbers, and in which the multitude takes the greatest delight." +The consequence was, of course, that candidates for election to +magistracies took every opportunity of giving them; and Cicero himself +in his consulship inserted a clause in his _lex de ambitu_ forbidding +candidates to give such exhibitions within two years of the +election.[494] They were given exclusively by private individuals up +to 105 B.C., either in the Forum or in one or other circus: in that +year there was an exhibition by the consuls, but there is some +evidence that it was intended to instruct the soldiers in the better +use of their weapons. This was a year in which the State was in sore +need of efficient soldiers; Marius was at the same time introducing a +new system of recruiting and of arming the soldier, and we are told +that the consul Rutilius made use of the best gladiators that were to +be found in the training-school (ludus) of a certain Scaurus, to teach +the men a more skilful use of their weapons.[495] If gladiators could +have been used only for a rational purpose like this, as skilful +swordsmen and military instructors, the State might well have +maintained some force of them. But as it was they remained in private +hands, and no limit could be put on the numbers so maintained. They +became a permanent menace to the peace of society, as has already been +mentioned in the chapter on slavery. Their frequent use in funeral +games is a somewhat loathsome feature of the age. These funeral games +were an old religious institution, occurring on the ninth day after +the burial, and known as Ludi Novemdiales; they are familiar to every +one from Virgil's skilful introduction of them, as a Roman equivalent +for the Homeric games, in the fifth Aeneid, on the anniversary of the +funeral of Anchises. Virgil has naturally omitted the gladiators; but +long before his time it had become common to use the opportunity of +the funeral of a relation to give munera for the purpose of gaining +popularity.[496] A good example is that of young Curio, who in 53 B.C. +ruined himself in this way. Cicero alludes to this in an interesting +letter to Curio.[497] "You may reach the highest honours," he says, +"more easily by your natural advantages of character, diligence, and +fortune, than by gladiatorial exhibitions. The power of giving them +stirs no feeling of admiration in any one: it is a question of means +and not of character: and there is no one who is not by this time +sick and tired of them." To Cicero's refined mind they were naturally +repugnant; but young men like Curio, though they loved Cicero, were +not wont to follow his wholesome advice.[498] + +We turn now to the dramatic element in the ludi, chiefly with the +object of determining whether, in the age of Cicero, it was of any +real importance in the social life of the Roman people. The Roman +stage had had a great history before the last century B.C., into which +it is not necessary here to enter. It had always been possible without +difficulty for those who were responsible for the ludi to put on +the stage a tragedy or comedy either written for the occasion or +reproduced, with competent actors and the necessary music; and there +seems to be no doubt that both tragedies and comedies, whether adapted +from the Greek (fabulae palliatae) or of a national character (fab. +togatae), were enjoyed by the audiences. In the days of the Punic wars +and afterwards, when everything Greek was popular, a Roman audience +could appreciate stories of the Greek mythology, as presented in the +tragedies of Ennius, Pacuvius, and Accius, if without learning to read +in them the great problems of human life, at least as spectacles of +the vicissitudes of human fortune; and had occasionally listened to a +tragedy, or perhaps father a dramatic history, based on some familiar +legend of their own State. And the conditions of social life in Rome +and Athens were not so different but that in the hands of a real +genius like Plautus the New Athenian comedy could come home to the +Roman people, with their delight in rather rough fun and comical +situations: and Plautus was followed by Caecilius and the more refined +Terence, before the national comedy of Afranius and others established +itself in the place of the Greek. It is hardly possible to avoid the +conclusion that in those early days of the Roman theatre the audiences +were really intelligent, and capable of learning something from the +pieces they listened to, apart from their natural love of a show, of +all acting, and of music.[499] + +But before the age with which this book deals, the long succession +of great dramatic writers had come to an end. Accius, the nephew of +Pacuvius, had died as a very old man when Cicero was a boy;[500] and +in the national comedy no one had been found to follow Afranius. The +times were disturbed, the population was restless, and continually +incorporating heterogeneous elements: much amusement could be found in +the life of the Forum, and in rioting and disorder; gladiatorial shows +were organised on a large scale. To sit still and watch a good play +would become more tiresome as the plebs grew more restless, and +probably even the taste of the better educated was degenerating as +the natural result of luxury and idleness. Politics and political +personages were the really exciting features of the time, and there +are signs that audiences took advantage of the plays to express their +approval or dislike of a statesman. In a letter to Atticus, written +in the summer of 59,[501] the first year of the triumvirate, Cicero +describes with enthusiasm how at the Ludi Apollinares the actor +Diphilus made an allusion to Pompey in the words (from an unknown +tragedy then being acted), "Nostra miseria tu es--Magnus," and was +forced to repeat them many times. When he delivered the line + + "Eandem virtutem istam veniet tempus cum graviter gemes," + +the whole theatre broke out into frantic applause. So too in a +well-known passage of the speech _pro Sestio_ he tells from hearsay +how the great tragic actor Aesopus, acting in the Eurysaces of Accius, +was again and again interrupted by applause as he cleverly adapted the +words to the expected recall from exile of the orator, his personal +friend.[502] The famous words "Summum amicum, summo in bello, summo +ingenio praeditum," were among those which the modest Cicero tells us +were taken up by the people with enthusiasm,--greatly, without doubt, +to the detriment of the play. The whole passage is one of great +graphic power, and only fails to rouse us too to enthusiasm when we +reflect that Cicero was not himself present. + +From this and other passages we have abundant evidence that tragedies +were still acted; but Cicero nowhere in his correspondence, where we +might naturally have expected to find it, nor in his philosophical +works, gives us any idea of their educational or aesthetic influence +either on himself or others. He is constantly quoting the old plays, +especially the tragedies, and knows them very well: but he quotes them +almost invariably as literature only. Once or twice, as we shall see, +he recalls the gesture or utterance of a great actor, but as a rule he +is thinking of them as poetry rather than as plays. It may be noted +in this connexion that it was now becoming the fashion to write plays +without any immediate intention of bringing them on the stage. We read +with astonishment in a letter of Cicero to his brother Quintus, then +in Gaul, that the latter had taken to play-writing, and accomplished +four tragedies in sixteen days, and this apparently in the course of +the campaign.[503] One, the _Erigona_, was sent to his brother from +Britain, and lost on the way. We hear no more of these plays, and +have no reason to suppose that they were worthy to survive. No man of +literary eminence in that day wrote plays for acting, and in fact the +only person of note, so far as we know, who did so, was the younger +Cornelius Balbus, son of the intimate friend and secretary of Caesar. +This man wrote one in Latin about his journey to his native town +of Gades, had it put on the stage there, and shed tears during its +performance.[504] + +When we hear of plays being written without being acted, and of +tragedies being made the occasion of expressing political opinions, +we may be pretty sure that the drama is in its nonage. An interesting +proof of the same tendency is to be found in the first book of the +_Ars Amatoria_ of Ovid, though it belongs to the age of Augustus. In +this book Ovid describes the various resorts in the city where the +youth may look out for his girl; and when he comes to the theatre, +draws a pretty picture of the ladies of taste and fashion crowding +thither,--but + + Spectatum veniunt: veniunt spectentur ut ipsae. + +And then, without a word about the play, or the smallest hint that he +or the ladies really cared about such things, he goes off into the +familiar story of the rape of the Sabine women, supposed to have taken +place when Romulus was holding his ludi. + +It is curious, in view of what thus seems to be a flagging interest +in the drama as such, to find that the most remarkable event in the +theatrical history of this time is the building of the first permanent +stone theatre. During the whole long period of the popularity of +the drama the government had never consented to the erection of a +permanent theatre after the Greek fashion; though it was impossible to +prohibit the production of plays adapted from the Greek, there seems +to have been some strange scruple felt about giving Rome this outward +token of a Greek city. Temporary stages were erected in the Forum +or the circus, the audience at first standing, but afterwards +accommodated with seats in a _cavea_ of wood erected for the occasion. +The whole show, including play, actors, and pipe-players[505] to +accompany the voices where necessary, was contracted for, like all +such undertakings,[506] on each occasion of Ludi scaenici being +produced. At last, in the year 154 B.C., the censors had actually +set about the building of a theatre, apparently of stone, when the +reactionary Scipio Nasica, acting under the influence of a temporary +anti-Greek movement, persuaded the senate to put a stop to this +symptom of degeneracy, and to pass a decree that no seats were in +future to be provided, "ut scilicet remissioni animorum standi +virilitas propria Romanae gentis iuncta esset."[507] Whether this +extraordinary decree, of which the legality might have been questioned +a generation later, had any permanent effect, we do not know; +certainly the senators, and after the time of Gaius Gracchus the +equites, sat on seats appropriated to them. But Rome continued to +be without a stone theatre until Pompey, in the year of his second +consulship, 55 B.C., built one on a grand scale, capable of holding +40,000 people. Even he, we are told, could not accomplish this without +some criticism from the old and old-fashioned,--so lasting was the +prejudice against anything that might seem to be turning Rome into a +Greek city.[508] There was a story too, of which it is difficult to +make out the real origin, that he was compelled by popular feeling +to conceal his design by building, immediately behind the theatre, a +temple of Venus Victrix, the steps of which were in some way connected +with his auditorium.[509] The theatre was placed in the Campus +Martius, and its shape is fairly well known to us from fragments of +the Capitoline plan of the city;[510] adjoining it Pompey also built +a magnificent _porticus_ for the convenience of the audience, and +a _curia_, in which the senate could meet, and where, eleven years +later, the great Dictator was murdered at the feet of Pompey's statue. + +In spite of the magnificence of this building, it was by no means +destined to revive the earlier prosperity of the tragic and comic +drama. Even at the opening of it the signs of degeneracy are apparent. +Luckily for us Cicero was in Rome at the time, and in a letter to a +friend in the country he congratulates him on being too unwell to come +to Rome and see the spoiling of old tragedies by over-display.[511] +"The ludi," he says, "had not even that charm which games on a +moderate scale generally have; the spectacle was so elaborate as to +leave no room for cheerful enjoyment, and I think you need feel no +regret at having missed it. What is the pleasure of a train of six +hundred mules in the Clytemnestra (of Accius), or three thousand bowls +(craterae) in the Trojan Horse (of Livius), or gay-coloured armour of +infantry and cavalry in some mimic battle? These things roused the +admiration of the vulgar: to you they would have brought no delight." +This ostentatious stage-display finds its counterpart to some extent +at the present day, and may remind us also of the huge orchestras of +blaring sound which are the delight of the modern composer and the +modern musical audience. And the plays were by no means the only part +of the show. There were displays of athletes; but these never seem to +have greatly interested a Roman audience, and Cicero says that Pompey +confessed that they were a failure; but to make up for that there were +wild-beast shows for five whole days (_venationes_)--"magnificent," +the letter goes on, "no one denies it, yet what pleasure can it be +to a man of refinement, when a weak man is torn by a very powerful +animal, or a splendid animal is transfixed by a hunting-spear? ... The +last day was that of the elephants, about which there was a good deal +of astonishment on the part of the vulgar crowd, but no pleasure +whatever. Nay, there was even a feeling of compassion aroused by +them, and a notion that this animal has something in common with +mankind."[512] This last interesting sentence is confirmed by a +passage in Pliny's _Natural History_, in which he asserts that the +people were so much moved that they actually execrated Pompey.[513] +The last age of the Republic is a transitional one, in this, as in +other ways; the people are not yet thoroughly inured to bloodshed +and cruelty to animals, as they afterwards became when deprived of +political excitements, and left with nothing violent to amuse them but +the displays of the amphitheatre. + +Earlier in this same letter Cicero had told his friend Marius that on +this occasion certain old actors had re-appeared on the stage, who, +as he thought, had left it for good. The only one he mentions is the +great tragic actor Aesopus, who "was in such a state that no one could +say a word against his retiring from the profession." At one important +point his voice failed him. This may conveniently remind us that +Aesopus was the last of the great actors of tragedy, and that his best +days were in the early half of this century--another sign of the decay +of the legitimate drama. He was an intimate friend of Cicero, and from +a few references to him in the Ciceronian writings we can form some +idea of his genius. In one passage Cicero writes of having seen him +looking so wild and gesticulating so excitedly, that he seemed almost +to have lost command of himself.[514] In the description, already +quoted from the speech _pro Sestio_, of the scene in the theatre +before his recall from exile, he speaks of this "summus artifex" as +delivering his allusions to the exile with infinite force and passion. +Yet the later tradition of his acting was rather that he was serious +and self-restrained; Horace calls him _gravis_, and Quintilian too +speaks of his _gravitas_.[515] Probably, like Garrick, he was capable +of a great variety of moods and parts. How carefully he studied the +varieties of gesticulation is indicated by a curious story preserved +by Valerius Maximus, that he and Roscius the great comedian used to +go and sit in the courts in order to observe the action of the orator +Hortensius.[516] + +Roscius too was an early intimate friend of Cicero, who, like Caesar, +seems to have valued the friendship of all men of genius, without +regard to their origin or profession. Roscius seems to have been a +freedman;[517] his great days were in Cicero's early life, and he died +in 61 B.C., to the deep grief of all his friends.[518] So wonderfully +finished was his acting that it became a common practice to call any +one a Roscius whose work was more than usually perfect. He never could +find a pupil of whom he could entirely approve; many had good points, +but if there were a single blot, the master could not bear it.[519] +In the _de Oratore_ Cicero tells us several interesting things about +him,--how he laid the proper emphasis on the right words, reserving +his gesticulation until he came to them; and how he was never so much +admired when acting with a mask on, because the expression of his face +was so full of meaning[520]. + +In Cicero's later years, when Roscius was dead and Aesopus retired, we +hear no more of great actors of this type. With these two remarkable +men the great days of the Roman drama come to an end, and henceforward +the favourite plays are merely farces, of which a word must here be +said in the last place. + +The origin of these farces, as indeed of all kinds of Latin comedy, +and probably also of the literary satura, is to be found in the jokes +and rude fun of the country festivals, and especially perhaps, as +Horace tells us of the harvest amusements[521]: + + Fescennina per hunc inventa licentia morem + Versibus alternis opprobria rustica fudit, + Libertasque recurrentis accepta per annos + Lusit amabiliter, etc. + + _Epist_. ii. 1. 145 foll. + +These amusements were always accompanied with the music and dancing +so dear to the Italian peoples, and it is easy to divine how they may +have gradually developed into plays of a rude but tolerably fixed +type, with improvised dialogue, acted in the streets, or later in the +intervals between acts at the theatre, and eventually as afterpieces, +more after our own fashion. + +In Cicero's day two kinds of farces were in vogue. In his earlier life +the so-called Atellan plays (fabulae Atellanae) were the favourites: +these were of indigenous Latin origin, and probably took their name +from the ruined town Atella, which might provide a permanent scenery +as the background of the plays without offending the jealousy of any +of the other Latin cities.[522] They were doubtless very comic, but it +was possible to get tired of them, for the number of stock +characters was limited, and the masks were always the same for each +character--the old man Pappus, the glutton Bucco, Dossennus the +sharper, etc. About the time of Sulla the _mimes_ seem to have +displaced these old farces in popular favour, perhaps because their +fun was more varied; the mere fact that the actors did not wear masks +shows that the improvisation could be freer and less stereotyped. But +both kinds were alike coarse, and may be called the comedy of low life +in country towns and in the great city. Sulla's tastes seem to have +been low in the matter of plays, if we may trust Plutarch, who asserts +that when he was young he spent much of his time among _mimi_ and +jesters, and that when he was dictator he "daily got together from the +theatre the lewdest persons, with whom he would drink and enter into a +contest of coarse witticisms."[523] This may be due to the evidence of +an enemy, but it is not improbable; and it is possible that both Sulla +and Caesar, who also patronised the mimes, may have wished to avoid +the personal allusions which, as we have seen, were so often made or +imagined in the exhibition of tragedies, and have aimed at confining +the plays to such as would give less opportunity for unwelcome +criticism.[524] + +About the year 50 B.C., as we have seen in the chapter on education, +there came to Italy the Syrian Publilius, who began to write mimes in +verse, thus for the first time giving them a literary turn. Caesar, +always on the look-out for talent, summoned him to Rome, and awarded +him the palm for his plays.[525] These must have been, as regards wit +and style, of a much higher order than any previous mimes, and in fact +not far removed from the older Roman comedy (fabula togata) in manner. +Cicero alludes to them twice: and writing to Cornificius from Rome in +October 45 he says that at Caesar's ludi he listened to the poems of +Publilius and Laberius with a well-pleased mind.[526] "Nihil mihi +tamen deesse scito quam quicum haec familiariter docteque rideam"; +here the word _docte_ seems to suggest that the performance was at +least worthy of the attention of a cultivated man. Laberius, also +a Roman knight, wrote mimes at the same time as Publilius, and was +beaten by him in competition; of him it is told that he was induced by +Caesar to act in his own mime, and revenged himself for the insult, as +it was then felt to be by a Roman of good birth, in a prologue which +has come down to us.[527] We may suppose that his plays were of the +same type as those of Publilius, and interspersed with those wise +sayings, _sententiae_, which the Roman people were still capable of +appreciating. Even in the time of Seneca applause was given to any +words which the audience felt at once to be true and to hit the +mark.[528] + +Thus the mime was lifted from the level of the lowest farcical +improvisation to a recognised position in literature, and quite +incidentally became useful in education. But the coarseness remained; +the dancing was grotesque and the fun ribald, and, as Professor Purser +says, the plots nearly always involved "some incident of an amorous +nature in which ordinary morality was set at defiance." The Roman +audience of the early Empire enjoyed these things, and all sorts +of dancing, singing, and instrumental music, and above all the +_pantomimus_,[529] in which the actor only gesticulated, without +speaking; this and the fact that the real drama never again had a fair +chance is one of the many signs that the city population was losing +both virility and intelligence. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +RELIGION + + +It is easy to write the word "religion" at the head of this chapter, +but by no means easy to find anything in this materialistic period +which answers to our use of the word. In the whole mass, for example, +of the Ciceronian correspondence, there is hardly anything to show +that Cicero and his friends, and therefore, as we may presume, the +average educated man of the day, were affected in their thinking or +their conduct by any sense of dependence on, or responsibility to, a +Supreme Being. If, however, it had been possible to substitute for +the English word the Latin _religio_ it would have made a far more +appropriate title to this chapter, for _religio_ meant primarily awe, +nervousness, scruple--much the same in fact as that feeling which in +these days we call superstition; and secondarily the means taken, +under the authority of the State, to quiet such feelings by the +performance of rites meant to propitiate the gods.[530] In both of +these senses _religio_ is to be found in the last age of the Republic; +but, as we shall see, the tendency to superstitious nervousness was +very imperfectly allayed and the worship that should have allayed it +was in great measure neglected. + +It may be, indeed, that in quiet country districts the joyous rural +festivals went on--we have many allusions and a few descriptions of +them in the literature of the Augustan period,--and also the worship +of the household deities, in which there perhaps survived a feeling of +_pietas_ more nearly akin to what we call religious feeling than in +any of the cults (_sacra publica_) undertaken by the State for the +people. Even in the city the cult of the dead, or what may perhaps be +better called the religious attention paid to their resting-places, +and the religious ceremonies attending birth, puberty, and marriage, +were kept up as matters of form and custom among the upper and +wealthier classes. But the great mass of the population of Rome, we +may be almost sure, knew nothing of these rites; the poor man, for +example, could no more afford a tomb for himself than a house, and his +body was thrown into some _puticulus_ or common burying-place,[531] +where it was impossible that any yearly ceremonies could be performed +to his memory, even if any one cared to do so. And among the higher +strata of society, outside of these _sacra privata_, carelessness +and negligence of the old State cults were steadily on the increase. +Neither Cicero nor any of his contemporaries but Varro has anything +to tell us of their details, and the decay had gone so far that Varro +himself knew little or nothing about many of the deities of the old +religious calendar,[532] or of the ways in which they had at one +time been worshipped. Vesta, with her simple cult and her virgin +priestesses, was almost the only deity who was not either forgotten +or metamorphosed in one way or another under the influence of Greek +literature and mythology; Vesta was too well recognised as a symbol +of the State's vitality to be subject to neglect like other and less +significant cults. The old sacrificing priesthoods, such as the +Fratres Arvales and the lesser Flamines, seem not to have been filled +up by the pontifices whose duty it was to do so: and the Flamen +Dialis, the priest of Jupiter himself, is not heard of from 89 to +11 B.C., when he appears again as a part of the Augustan religious +restoration. The explanation is probably that these offices could not +be held together with any secular one which might take the holder +away from Rome; and as every man of good family had business in the +provinces, no qualified person could be found willing to put himself +under the restriction. The temples too seem to have been sadly +neglected; Augustus tells us himself[533] that he had to restore no +less than eighty-two; and from Cicero we actually hear of thefts +of statues and other temple property[534]--sacrileges which may be +attributed to the general demoralisation caused by the Social and +Civil Wars. At the same time there seems to have been a strong +tendency to go after strange gods, with whose worship Roman soldiers +had made acquaintance in the course of their numerous eastern +campaigns. It is a remarkable fact that no less than four times in a +single decade the worship of Isis had to be suppressed,--in 58, 53, +50, and 48 B.C. In the year 50 we are told that the consul Aemilius +Paullus, a conservative of the old type, actually threw off his toga +praetexta and took an axe to begin destroying the temple, because no +workmen could be found to venture on the work.[535] These are indeed +strange times; the beautiful religion of Isis, which assuredly had +some power to purify a man and strengthen his conscience,[536] was to +be driven out of a city where the old local religion had never had any +such power, and where the masses were now left without a particle of +aid or comfort from any religious source. The story seems to ring +true, and gives us a most valuable glimpse into the mental condition +of the Roman workman of the time. + +Of such foreign worships, and of the general neglect of the old cults, +Cicero tells us nothing; we have to learn or to guess at these facts +from evidence supplied by later writers. His interest in religious +practice was confined to ceremonies which had some political +importance. He was himself an augur, and was much pleased with his +election to that ancient college; but, like most other augurs of +the time, he knew nothing of augural "science," and only cared to +speculate philosophically on the question whether it is possible to +foretell the future. He looked upon the right of the magistrate to +"observe the heaven" as a part of an excellent constitution,[537] +and could not forgive Caesar for refusing in 59 B.C. to have his +legislation paralysed by the fanatical declarations of his colleague +that he was going to "look for lightning." He firmly believed in +the value of the _ius divinum_ of the State. In his treatise on the +constitution (_de Legibus_) he devotes a whole book to this religious +side of constitutional law, and gives a sketch of it in quasi-legal +language from which it appears that he entirely accepted the duty of +the State to keep the citizen in right relation to the gods, on whose +good-will his welfare depended. He seems never to have noticed that the +State was neglecting this duty, and that, as we saw just now, temples +and cults were falling into decay, strange forms of religion pressing +in. Such things did not interest him; in public life the State +religion was to him a piece of the constitution, to be maintained +where it was clearly essential; in his own study it was a matter of +philosophical discussion. In his young days he was intimate with the +famous Pontifex Maximus, Mucius Scaevola, who held that there were +three religions,--that of the poets, that of the philosophers, and +that of the statesman, of which the last must be accepted and +acted on, whether it be true or not.[538] Cicero could hardly have +complained if this saying had been attributed to himself. + +This attitude of mind, the combination of perfect freedom of thought +with full recognition of the legal obligations of the State and its +citizens in matters of religion, is not difficult for any one to +understand who is acquainted with the nature of the ius divinum and +the priesthood administering it. That ius divinum was a part of the +ius civile, the law of the Roman city-state; as the ius civile, +exclusive of the ius divinum, regulated the relations of citizen to +citizen, so did the ius divinum regulate the relations of the citizen +to the deities of the community. The priesthoods administering this +law consisted not of sacrificing priests, attached to the cult of a +particular god and temple, but of lay officials in charge of that part +of the law of the State; it was no concern of theirs (so indeed they +might quite well argue) whether the gods really existed or not, +provided the law were maintained. When in 61 B.C. Clodius was caught +in disguise at the women's festival of the Bona Dea, the pontifices +declared the act to be _nefas_,--crime against the ius divinum; but +we may doubt whether any of those pontifices really believed in the +existence of such a deity. The idea of the _mos maiorum_ was still so +strong in the mind of every true Roman, his conservative instincts +were so powerful, that long after all real life had left the divine +inhabitants of his city, so that they survived only as the dead stalks +of plants that had once been green and flourishing, he was quite +capable of being horrified at any open contempt of them. And he was +right, as Augustus afterwards saw clearly; for the masses, who had +no share in the education described in the sixth chapter, who +knew nothing of Greek literature or philosophy, and were full +of superstitious fancies, were already losing confidence in the +authorities set over them, and in their power to secure the good-will +of the gods and their favour in matters of material well-being. +This is the only way in which we can satisfactorily account for the +systematic efforts of Augustus to renovate the old religious rites and +priesthoods, and we can fairly argue back from it to the tendencies of +the generation immediately before him. He knew that the proletariate +of Rome and Italy still believed, as their ancestors had always +believed, that state and individual would alike suffer unless the gods +were properly propitiated; and that in order to keep them quiet and +comfortable the sense of duty to the gods must be kept alive even +among those who had long ceased to believe in them. It was fortunate +indeed for Augustus that he found in the great poet of Mantua one who +was in some sense a prophet as well as a poet, who could urge the +Roman by an imaginative example to return to a living pietas,--not +merely to the old religious forms, but to the intelligent sense of +duty to God and man which had built up his character and his empire. +In Cicero's day there was also a great poet, he too in some sense a +prophet; but Lucretius could only appeal to the Roman to shake off the +slough of his old religion, and such an appeal was at the time both +futile and dangerous. Looking at the matter historically, and not +theologically, we ought to sympathise with the attitude of Cicero +and Scaevola towards the religion of the State. It was based on a +statesmanlike instinct; and had it been possible for that instinct to +express itself practically in a positive policy like that of Augustus, +instead of showing itself in philosophical treatises like the _de +Legibus_, or on occasional moments of danger like that of the Bona Dea +sacrilege, it is quite possible that much mischief might have +been averted. But in that generation no one had the shrewdness or +experience of Augustus, and no one but Julius had the necessary free +hand; and we may be almost sure that Julius, Pontifex Maximus though +he was, was entirely unfitted by nature and experience to undertake +a work that called for such delicate handling, such insight into the +working of the ignorant Italian mind. + +This attitude of inconsistency and compromise must seem to a modern +unsatisfactory and strained, and he turns with relief to the +courageous outspokenness of the great poem of Lucretius on the Nature +of Things, of which the main object was to persuade the Romans to +renounce for good all the mass of superstition, in which he included +the religion of the State, by which their minds were kept in a prison +of darkness, terror, and ignorance. Lucretius took no part whatever in +public life; he could afford to be in earnest; he felt no shadow of +responsibility for the welfare of the State as such. The Epicurean +tenets which he held so passionately had always ranked the individual +before the community, and suggested a life of individual quietism; +Lucretius in his study could contemplate the "rerum natura" without +troubling himself about the "natura hominum" as it existed in the +Italy of his day. "Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas,"--so +wrote of him his great successor and admirer, yet added, with a tinge +of pathos which touches us even now, "Fortunatus et ille deos qui +novit agrestes." Even at the present day an uncompromising unbeliever +may be touched by the simple worship, half pagan though it may seem to +him, of a village in the Apennines; but in the eyes of Lucretius all +worship seemed prompted by fear and based on ignorance of natural law. +Virgil's tender and sympathetic soul went out to the peasant as he +prayed to his gods for plenty or prosperity, as it went out to all +living creatures in trouble or in joy. + +But it is nevertheless true that Lucretius was a great religious poet. +He was a prophet, in deadly earnest, calling men to renounce their +errors both of thought and conduct. He saw around him a world full of +wickedness and folly; a world of vanity, vexation, fear, ambition, +cruelty, and lust. He saw men fearing death and fearing the gods; +overvaluing life, yet weary of it; unable to use it well, because +steeped in ignorance of the wonderful working of Nature.[539] He saw +them, as we have already seen them, the helpless victims of ambition +and avarice, ever, like Sisyphus, rolling the stone uphill and never +reaching the summit.[540] Of cruelty and bloodshed in civil strife +that age had seen enough, and on this too the poet dwells with bitter +emphasis;[541] on the unwholesome luxury and restlessness of the +upper classes,[542] and on their unrestrained indulgence of bodily +appetites. In his magnificent scorn he probably exaggerated the evils +of his day, yet we have seen enough in previous chapters to suggest +that he was not a mere pessimist; there is no trace in his poem of +cynicism, or of a soured temperament. We may be certain that he was +absolutely convinced of the truth of all he wrote. + +So far Lucretius may be called a religious poet, in that with profound +conviction and passionate utterance he denounced the wickedness of +his age, and, like the Hebrew prophets, called on mankind to put away +their false gods and degrading superstitions, and learn the true +secret of guidance in this life. It is only when we come to ask what +that secret was, that we feel that this extraordinary man knew far too +little of ordinary human nature to be either a religious reformer +or an effective prophet: as Sellar has said of him,[543] he had no +sympathy with human activity. His secret, the remedy for all the +world's evil and misery, was only a philosophical creed, which he had +learnt from Epicurus and Democritus. His profound belief in it is one +of the most singular facts in literary history; no man ever put such +poetic passion into a dogma, and no such imperious dogma was ever +built upon a scientific theory of the universe. He seems to have +combined two Italian types of character, which never have been united +before or since,--that of the ecclesiastic, earnest and dogmatic, +seeing human nature from a doctrinal platform, not working and +thinking with it; and secondly the poetic type, of which Dante is the +noblest example, perfectly clear and definite in inward and outward +vision, and illuminating all that it touches with an indescribable +glow of pure poetic imagination. + +Lucretius' secret then is knowledge,[544]--not the dilettanteism of +the day, but real scientific knowledge of a single philosophical +attempt to explain the universe,--the atomic theory of the Epicurean +school. Democritus and Epicurus are the only saviours,--of this +Lucretius never had the shadow of a doubt. As the result of this +knowledge, the whole supernatural and spiritual world of fancy +vanishes, together with all futile hopes or fears of a future life. +The gods, if they exist, will cease to be of any importance to +mankind, as having no interest in him, and doing him neither good nor +harm. Chimaeras, portents, ghosts, death, and all that frightens the +ignorant and paralyses their energies, will vanish in the pure light +of this knowledge; man will have nothing to be afraid of but himself. +Nor indeed need he fear himself when he has mastered "the truth." By +that time, as the scales of fear fall from his eyes, his moral balance +will be recovered; the blind man will see. What will he see? What is +the moral standard that will become clear to him, the sanction of +right living that will grip his conscience? + +It is simply the conviction that as this life is all we have in past, +present, or future, it _must be used well_. After all then, Lucretius +is reduced to ordinary moral suasion, and finds no new power or +sanction that could keep erring human nature in the right path. And +we must sadly allow that no real moral end is enunciated by him; +his ideal seems to be quietism in this life, and annihilation +afterwards.[545] It is a purely self-regarding rule of life. It is not +even a social creed; neither family nor State seems to have any part +in it, much less the unfortunate in this life, the poor, and the +suffering. The poet never mentions slavery, or the crowded populations +of great cities. It might almost be called a creed of fatalism, in +which Natura plays much the same part as Fortuna did in the creed of +many less noble spirits of that age.[546] Nature fights on; we cannot +resist her, and cannot improve on her; it is better to acquiesce and +obey than to try and rule her. + +Thus Lucretius' remedy fails utterly; it is that of an aristocratic +intellect, not of a saviour of mankind.[547] So far as we know, it was +entirely fruitless; like the constitution of Sulla his contemporary, +the doctrine of Lucretius roused no sense of loyalty in Roman or +Italian, because it was constructed with imperfect knowledge of the +Roman and Italian nature. But it was a noble effort of a noble mind; +and, apart from its literary greatness, it has incidentally a lasting +value for all students of religious history, as showing better than +anything else that has survived from that age the need of a real +consecration of morality by the life and example of a Divine man. + +Thus while the Roman statesman found it necessary to maintain the ius +divinum without troubling himself to attempt to put any new life into +the details of the worship it prescribed, content to let much of it +sink into oblivion as no longer essential to the good government of +the State, the greatest poetical genius of the age was proclaiming in +trumpet tones that if a man would make good use of his life he must +abandon absolutely and without a scruple the old religious ideas of +the Graeco-Roman world. But there was another school of thought which +had long been occupied with these difficulties, and had reached +conclusions far better suited than the dogmatism of Lucretius to the +conservative character of the Roman mind, for it found a place for +the deities of the State, and therefore for the ius divinum, in a +philosophical system already widely accepted by educated men. This +school may be described as Stoic, though its theology was often +accepted by men who did not actually call themselves Stoics; for +example, by Cicero himself, who, as an adherent of the New Academy, +the school which repudiated dogmatism and occupied itself with +dialectic and criticism, was perfectly entitled to adopt the tenets +of other schools if he thought them the most convincing. Its most +elaborate exponent in this period was Varro, and behind both Varro and +Cicero there stands the great figure of the Rhodian Posidonius[548], +of whose writings hardly anything has come down to us. It is worth +while to trace briefly the history of this school at Rome, for it is +in itself extremely interesting, as an attempt to reconcile the old +theology--if the term may be used--with philosophical thought, and it +probably had an appreciable influence on the later quasi-religious +Stoicism of the Empire. + +We must go back for a moment to the period succeeding the war with +Hannibal. The awful experience of that war had done much to discredit +the old Roman religious system, which had been found insufficient of +itself to preserve the State. The people, excited and despairing, +had been quieted by what may be called new religious prescriptions, +innumerable examples of which are to be found in Livy's books. +The Sibylline books were constantly consulted, and _lectisternia, +supplicationes, ludi_, in which Greek deities were prominent, were +ordered and carried out. Finally, in 204 B.C., there was brought to +Rome the sacred stone of the Magna Mater Idaea, the great deity of +Pessinus in Phrygia, and a festival was established in her honour, +called by the Greek name Megalesia. All this means, as can be seen +clearly from Livy's language,[549] that the governing classes were +trying to quiet the minds of the people by convincing them that no +effort was being spared to set right their relations with the unseen +powers; they had invoked in vain their own local and native deities, +and had been compelled to seek help elsewhere; they had found their +own narrow system of religion quite inadequate to express their +religious experience of the last twenty years. And indeed that old +system of religion never really recovered from the discredit thus cast +on it. The temper of the people is well shown by the rapidity with +which the orgiastic worship of the Greek Dionysus spread over Italy a +few years later; and the fact that it was allowed to remain, though +under strict supervision, shows that the State religion no longer had +the power to satisfy the cravings of the masses. And the educated +class too was rapidly coming under the influence of Greek thought, +which could hardly act otherwise than as a solvent of the old +religious ideas. Ennius, the great literary figure of this period, +was the first to strike a direct blow at the popular belief in the +efficacy of prayer and sacrifice, by openly declaring that the gods +did not interest themselves in mankind,[550]--the same Epicurean +doctrine preached afterwards by Lucretius. It may indeed be doubted +whether this doctrine became popular, or acceptable even to the +cultured classes; but the fact remains that the same man who did +more than any one before Virgil to glorify the Roman character and +dominion, was the first to impugn the belief that Rome owed her +greatness to her divine inhabitants. + +But in the next generation there arrived in Rome a man whose teaching +had so great an influence on the best type of educated Roman that, as +we have already said, he may almost be regarded as a missionary.[551] +We do not know for certain whether Panaetius wrote or taught about the +nature or existence of the gods; but we do know that he discussed the +question of divination[552] in a work [Greek: Peri pronoias], where he +could hardly have avoided the subject. In any case the Stoic doctrines +which he held, themselves ultimately derived from Plato and the Old +Academy, were found capable in the hands of his great successor +Posidonius of Rhodes of supplying a philosophical basis for the +activity as well as the existence of the gods. These men, it must +be repeated, were not merely professed philosophers, but men of the +world, travellers, writing on a great variety of subjects; they were +profoundly interested, like Polybius, in the Roman character and +government; they became intimate with the finer Roman minds, from +Scipio the younger to Cicero and Varro, and seem to have seen clearly +that the old rigid Stoicism must be widened and humanised, and its +ethical and theological aspects modified, if it were to gain a real +hold on the practical Roman understanding. We have already seen[553] +how their modified Stoic ethics acted for good on the best Romans +of our period. In theology also they left a permanent mark on Roman +thought; Posidonius wrote a work on the gods, which formed the basis +of the speculative part of Varro's _Antiquitates divinae_, and almost +certainly also of the second book of Cicero's de _Natura Deorum_[554]. +Other philosophers of the period, even if not professed Stoics, may +have discussed the same subjects in their lectures and writings, +arriving at conclusions of the same kind. + +It is chiefly from the fragments of Varro's work that we learn +something of the Stoic attempt to harmonise the old religious beliefs +with philosophic theories of the universe[555]. Varro, following his +teacher, held the Stoic doctrine of the _animus mundi_ the Divine +principle permeating all material things which, in combination with +them, constitutes the universe, and is Nature, Reason, God, Destiny, +or whatever name the philosopher might choose to give it. The universe +is divine, the various parts of it are, therefore, also divine, in +virtue of this informing principle. Now in the sixteenth book of his +great work Varro co-ordinated this Stoic theory with the Graeco-Roman +religion of the State as it existed in his time. The chief gods +represented the _partes mundi_ in various ways; even the difference +of sex among the deities was explained by regarding male gods as +emanating from the heaven and female ones from the earth, according +to a familiar ancient idea of the active and passive principle in +generation. The Stoic doctrine of [Greek: daimones] was also utilised +to find an explanation for semi-deities, lares, genii, etc., and thus +another character of the old Italian religious mind was to be saved +from contempt and oblivion. The old Italian tendency to see the +supernatural manifesting itself in many different ways expressed by +adjectival titles, e.g. Mars Silvanus, Jupiter Elicius, Juno Lucina, +etc., also found an explanation in Varro's doctrine; for the divine +element existing in sky, earth, sea, or other parts of the _mundus_, +and manifesting itself in many different forms of activity, might +be thus made obvious to the ordinary human intellect without the +interposition of philosophical terms. + +At the head of the whole system was Jupiter, the greatest of Roman +gods, whose title of Optimus Maximus might well have suggested that no +other deity could occupy this place. Without him it would have been +practically impossible for Varro to carry out his difficult and +perilous task. Every Roman recognised in Jupiter the god who +condescended to dwell on the Capitol in a temple made with hands, and +who, beyond all other gods, watched over the destinies of the Roman +State; every Roman also knew that Jupiter was the great god of the +heaven above him, for in many expressions of his ordinary speech he +used the god's name as a synonym for the open sky.[556] The position +now accorded to the heaven-god in the new Stoic system is so curious +and interesting that we must dwell on it for a moment. + +Varro held, or at any rate taught, that Jupiter was himself that soul +of the world (animus mundi) which fills and moves the whole material +universe.[557] He is the one universal causal agent,[558] from whom +all the forces of nature are derived;[559] or he may be called, in +language which would be intelligible to the ordinary Roman, the +universal Genius.[560] Further, he is himself all the other gods and +goddesses, who may be described as parts, or powers, or virtues, +existing in him.[561] And Varro makes it plain that he wishes to +identify this great god of gods with the Jupiter at Rome, whose temple +was on the Capitol; St. Augustine quotes him as holding that the +Romans had dedicated the Capitol to Jupiter, who by his spirit +breathes life into everything in the universe:[562] or in less +philosophical language, "The Romans wish to recognise Jupiter as king +of gods and men, and this is shown by his sceptre and his seat on the +Capitol." Thus the god who dwelt on the Capitol, and in the temple +which was the centre-point of the Roman Empire, was also the +life-giving ruler and centre of the whole universe. Nay, he goes one +step further, and identifies him with the one God of the monotheistic +peoples of the East, and in particular with the God of the Jews.[563] + +Thus Varro had arrived, with the help of Posidonius and the Stoics, at +a monotheistic view of the Deity, which is at the same time a kind of +pantheism, and yet, strange to say, is able to accommodate itself to +the polytheism of the Graeco-Roman world. But without Jupiter, god of +the heaven both for Greeks and Romans, and now too in the eyes of both +peoples the god who watched over the destiny of the Roman Empire, this +wonderful feat could not have been performed. The identification of +the heaven-god with the animus mundi of the Stoics was not indeed a +new idea; it may be traced up Stoic channels even to Plato. What is +really new and astonishing is that it should have been possible for a +conservative Roman like Varro, in that age of carelessness and doubt, +to bring the heaven-god, so to speak, down to the Roman Capitol, where +his statue was to be seen sitting between Juno and Minerva, and yet to +teach the doctrine that he was the same deity as the Jewish Jehovah, +and that both were identical with the Stoic animus mundi. + +But did Varro also conceive of this Jupiter as a deity "making for +righteousness," or acting as a sanction for morality? It would not +have been impossible or unnatural for a Roman so to think of him, for +of all the Roman deities Jupiter is the one whose name from the most +ancient times had been used in oaths and treaties, and whose _numen_ +was felt to be violated by any public or private breach of faith.[564] +We cannot tell how far Varro himself followed out this line of +thought, for the fragments of his great work are few and far between. +But we know that the Roman Stoics saw in that same universal Power or +Mind which Varro identified with Jupiter the source and strength of +law, and therefore of morality; here it is usually called reason, +_ratio_, the working of the eternal and immutable Mind of the +universe. "True law is right reason," says Cicero in a noble +passage;[565] and goes on to teach that this law transcends all human +codes of law, embracing and sanctioning them all; and that the spirit +inherent in it, which gives it its universal force, is God Himself. In +another passage, written towards the end of his life, and certainly +later than the publication of Varro's work, he goes further and +identifies this God with Jupiter.[566] "This law," he says, "came into +being simultaneously with the Divine Mind" (i.e. the Stoic Reason): +"wherefore that true and paramount law, commanding and forbidding, is +the right reason of almighty Jupiter" (summi Iovis). Once more, in the +first book of his treatise on the gods, he quotes the Stoic Chrysippus +as teaching that the eternal Power, which is as it were a guide in the +duties of life, is Jupiter himself.[567] It is characteristic of the +Roman that he should think, in speculations like these, rather of the +law of his State than of the morality of the individual, as emanating +from that Right Reason to which he might give the name of Jupiter: I +have been unable to find a passage in which Cicero attributes to this +deity the sanction for individual goodness, though there are many that +assert the belief that justice and the whole system of social life +depend on the gods and our belief in them.[568] But the Roman had +never been conscious of individual duty, except in relation to his +State, or to the family, which was a living cell in the organism of +the State. In his eyes law was rather the source of morality than +morality the cause and the reason of law; and as his religion was a +part of the law of his State, and thus had but an indirect connection +with morality, it would not naturally occur to him that even the great +Jupiter himself, thus glorified as the Reason in the universe, could +really help him in the conduct of his life _qua_ individual. It is +only as the source of legalised morality that we can think of Varro's +Jupiter as "making for righteousness." + +Less than twenty-five years after Cicero's death, in the imagination +of the greatest of Roman poets, Jupiter was once more brought before +the Roman world, and now in a form comprehensible by all educated men, +whether or no they had dabbled in philosophy. What are we to say of +the Jupiter of the _Aeneid_? We do not need to read far in the first +book of the poem to find him spoken of in terms which remind us of +Varro: "O qui res hominumque deumque Aeternis regis imperiis," are the +opening words of the address of Venus; and when she has finished, + + Olli subridens hominum sator atque deorum + Vultu, quo caelum tempestatesque serenat, + Oscula libavit natae, dehine talia fatur; + "Parce metu, Cytherea, manent immota tuorum + Fata tibi." + +Jupiter is here, as in Varro's system, the prime cause and ruler of +all things, and he also holds in his hand the destiny of Rome and the +fortunes of the hero who was to lay the first foundation of Rome's +dominion. It is in the knowledge of his will that Aeneas walks, with +hesitating steps, in the earlier books, in the later ones with assured +confidence, towards the goal that is set before him. But the lines +just quoted serve well to show how different is the Jupiter of Virgil +from the universal deity of the Roman Stoic. Beyond doubt Virgil had +felt the power of the Stoic creed; but he was essaying an epic poem, +and he could not possibly dispense with the divine machinery as it +stood in his great Homeric model. His Jupiter is indeed, as has been +lately said,[569] "a great and wise god, free from the tyrannical and +sensuous characteristics of the Homeric Zeus," in other words, he is a +Roman deity, and sometimes acts and speaks like a grave Roman consul +of the olden time. But still he is an anthropomorphic deity, a purely +human conception of a personal god-king; in these lines he smiles on +his daughter Venus and kisses her. This is the reason why Virgil has +throughout his poem placed the Fates, or Destiny, in close relation to +him, without definitely explaining that relation. Fate, as it appears +in the Aeneid, is the Stoic [Greek: eimarmenae] applied to the idea of +Rome and her Empire; that Stoic conception could not take the form of +Jupiter, as in Varro's hands, for the god had to be modelled on the +Homeric pattern, not on the Stoic. It is perhaps not going too far to +say that the god, as a theological conception, never recovered from +this treatment; any chance he ever had of becoming the centre of a +real religious system was destroyed by the Aeneid, the _pietas_ of +whose hero is indeed nominally due to him, but in reality to the +decrees of Fate.[570] + +While philosophers and poets were thus performing intellectual and +imaginative feats with the gods of the State, the strong tendency to +superstition, untutored fear of the supernatural, which had always +been characteristic of the Italian peoples, so far from losing power, +was actually gaining it, and that not only among the lower classes. As +Lucretius mockingly said, even those who think and speak with contempt +of the gods will in moments of trouble slay black sheep and sacrifice +them to the Manes. This feeling of fear or nervousness, which lies at +the root of the meaning of the word _religio_,[571] had been quieted +in the old days by the prescriptions of the pontifices and their jus +divinum, but it was always ready to break out again; as we have seen, +in the long and awful struggle of the Hannibalic war, it was necessary +to go far beyond the ordinary pharmacopoeia within reach of the +priesthoods in order to convince the people that all possible means +were being taken for their salvation. Again, in this last age of the +Republic, there are obvious signs that both ignorant and educated +were affected by the gloom and uncertainty of the times. Increasing +uncertainty in the political world, increasing doubt in the world of +thought, very naturally combined to produce an emotional tendency +which took different forms in men of different temperament. We can +trace this (1) in the importance attached to omens, portents, dreams; +(2) in a certain vague thought of a future life, which takes a +positive shape in the deification of human beings; (3) at the close of +the period, in something approaching to a sense of sin, of neglected +duty, bringing down upon State and individual the anger of the gods. + +1. If we glance over the latter part of the book of prodigies, +compiled by the otherwise unknown writer Julius Obsequens from the +records of the pontifices quoted in Livy's history, we can get a fair +idea of the kind of portent that was troubling the popular mind. +They are much the same as they always had been in Roman +history,--earthquakes, monstrous births, temples struck by lightning, +statues overthrown, wolves entering the city, and so on; they are +extremely abundant in the terrible years of the Social and Civil Wars, +become less frequent after the death of Sulla, and break out again +in full force with the murder of Caesar. They were reported to the +pontifices from the places where they were supposed to have occurred, +and if thought worthy of expiation were entered in the pontifical +books. We may suppose that they were sent in chiefly by the +uneducated. But among men of education we have many examples of this +same nervousness, of which two or three must suffice. Sulla, as we +know from his own Memoirs, which were used directly or indirectly by +Plutarch, had a strong vein of superstition in his nature, and made +no attempt to control it. In dedicating his Memoirs to Lucullus he +advised him "to think no course so safe as that which is enjoined +by the [Greek: daimon] (perhaps his genius) in the night";[572] +and Plutarch tells us several tales of portents on which he acted, +evidently drawn from this same autobiography. We are told of him that +he always carried a small image of Apollo, which he kissed from time +to time, and to which he prayed silently in moments of danger.[573] +Again, Cicero tells us a curious story of himself, Varro, and Cato, +which shows that those three men of philosophical learning were quite +liable to be frightened by a prophecy which to us would not seem to +have much claim to respect.[574] He tells how when the three were +at Dyrrachium, after Caesar's defeat there and the departure of the +armies into Thessaly, news was brought them by the commander of the +Rhodian fleet that a certain rower had foretold that within thirty +days Greece would be weltering in blood; how all three were terribly +frightened, and how a few days later the news of the battle at +Pharsalia reached them. Lastly, we all remember the vision which +appeared to Brutus on the eve of the battle of Philippi, of a huge and +fearsome figure standing by him in silence, which Shakespeare has made +into the ghost of Caesar and used to unify his play. According to +Plutarch, the Epicurean Cassius, as Lucretius would have done, +attempted to convince his friend on rational grounds that the vision +need not alarm him, but apparently in vain.[575] + +2. Lucretius had denied the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, +as the cause of so much of the misery which he believed it to be his +mission to avert. Caesar, in the speech put into his mouth by Sallust, +in the debate on the execution of the conspirators on December 5, 63, +seems to be of the same opinion, and as Cicero alludes to his words in +the speech with which he followed Caesar, we may suppose that Sallust +was reporting him rightly.[576] The poet and the statesman were not +unlike in the way in which they looked at facts; both were of clear +strong vision, without a trace of mysticism. But such men were the +exception rather than the rule; Cicero probably represents better the +average thinking man of his time. Cicero was indeed too full of life, +too deeply interested in the living world around him, to think much +of such questions as the immortality of the soul; and as a professed +follower of the Academic school, he assuredly did not hold any +dogmatic opinion on it. He was at no time really affected by +Pythagoreanism, like his friend Nigidius Figulus, whose works, now +lost, had a great vogue in the later years of Cicero's life, and much +influence on the age that followed. In the first book of his Tusculan +Disputations Cicero discusses the question from the Academic point of +view, coming to no definite conclusion, except that whether we are +immortal or not we must be grateful to death for releasing us from the +bondage of the body. This book was written in the last year of his +life; but ten years earlier, in the beautiful myth, imitated from the +myths of Plato, which he appended to his treatise _de Republica_, he +had emphatically asserted the doctrine. There the spirit of the elder +Scipio appears to his great namesake, Cicero's ideal Roman, and +assures him that the road to heaven (caelum) lies open to those who do +their duty in this life, and especially their duty to the State. "Know +thyself to be a god; as the god of gods rules the universe, so the god +within us rules the body, and as that great god is eternal, so does an +eternal soul govern this frail body."[577] + +The _Somnium Scipionis_ was an inspiration, written under the +influence of Plato at one of those emotional moments of Cicero's +life which make it possible to say of him that there was a religious +element in his mind.[578] Some years later the poignancy of his grief +at the death of his daughter Tullia had the effect of putting him +again in a strong emotional mood. For many weeks he lived alone at +Astura, on the edge of the Pomptine marshes, out of reach of all +friends, forbidding even his young wife and her mother to come near +him; brooding, as it would seem, on the survival of the godlike +element in his daughter. These sad meditations took a practical form +which at first astonishes us, but is not hard to understand when we +have to come to know Cicero well, and to follow the tendencies of +thought in these years. He might erect a tomb to her memory,--but +that would not satisfy him; it would not express his feeling that the +immortal godlike spark within her survived. He earnestly entreats +Atticus to find and buy him a piece of ground where he can build a +_fanum_, i.e. a shrine, to her spirit. "I wish to have a shrine built, +and that wish cannot be rooted out of my heart. I am anxious to avoid +any likeness to a tomb ... in order to attain as nearly as possible to +an apotheosis."[579] A little further on he calls these foolish ideas; +but this is doubtless only because he is writing to Atticus, a man +of the world, not given to emotion or mysticism. Cicero is really +speaking the language of the Italian mind, for the moment free from +philosophical speculation; he believes that his beloved dead lived +on, though he could not have proved it in argument. So firmly does +he believe it that he wishes others to know that he believes it, and +insists that the shrine shall be erected in a frequented place![580] + +Though the great Dictator did not believe in another world, he +consented at the end of his life to become Jupiter Julius, and after +his death was duly canonised as Divus, and had a temple erected to +him. But the many-sided question of the deification of the Caesars +cannot be discussed here; it is only mentioned as showing in another +way the trend of thought in this dark age of Roman history. Whatever +some philosophers may have thought, there cannot be a doubt that the +ordinary Roman believed in the godhead of Julius.[581] + +3. We saw in an earlier chapter with what gay and heedless frivolity +young men like Caelius were amusing themselves even on the very eve of +civil war. In strange contrast with this is the gloom that overspread +all classes during the war itself, and more especially after the +assassination of the Dictator. Caesar seemed irresistible and godlike, +and men were probably beginning to hope for some new and more stable +order of things, when he was suddenly struck down, and the world +plunged again into confusion and doubt; and it was not till after +the final victory of Octavian at Actium, and the destruction of the +elements of disunion with the deaths of Antony and Cleopatra, that +men really began to hope for better times. The literature of those +melancholy years shows distinct signs of the general depression, which +was perhaps something more than weariness and material discomfort; +there was almost what we may call a dim sense of sin, or at least of +moral evil, such a feeling, though far less real and intense, as that +which their prophets aroused from time to time in the Jewish people, +and one not unknown in the history of Hellas. + +The most touching expression of this feeling is to be found in the +preface which Livy prefixed to his history--a wonderful example of the +truth that when a great prose writer is greatly moved, his language +reflects his emotion in its beauty and earnestness. Every student +knows the sentence in which he describes the gradual decay of all that +was good in the Roman character: "donec ad haec tempora, quibus nec +vitia nostra nec remedia pati possumus, perventum est"; but it is +not every student who can recognise in it a real sigh of despair, an +unmistakable token of the sadness of the age.[582] In the introductory +chapters which serve the purpose of prefaces to the _Jugurtha_ and +_Catiline_ of Sallust, we find something of the same sad tone, but +it does not ring true like Livy's exordium; Sallust was a man of +altogether coarser fibre, and seems to be rather assuming than +expressing the genuine feeling of a saddened onlooker. In one of his +earliest poems, written perhaps after the Perusian war of 41 B.C.[583] +even the lively Horace was moved to voice the prevailing depression, +fancifully urging that the Italian people should migrate, like the +Phocaeans of old, to the far west, where, as Sertorius had been told +in Spain, lay the islands of the blest, where the earth, as in the +golden age, yields all her produce untilled: + + Iuppiter ilia piae secrevit litora genti + Ut inquinavit aere tempus aureum; + Aere, dehinc ferro duravit saecula, quorum + Piis secunda vate me datur fuga. + +It may be, as has recently been suggested, that the famous fourth +Eclogue of Virgil, "the Messianic Eclogue," was in some sense meant as +an answer to this poem of Horace. "There is no need," he seems to say +in that poem, written in the year 39, "to seek the better age in a +fabled island of the west. It is here and now with us. The period upon +which Italy is now entering more than fulfils in real life the dream +of a Golden Age. A marvellous child is even now coming into the world +who will see and inaugurate an era of peace and prosperity: darkness +and despair will after a while pass entirely away, and a regenerate +Italy,--regenerate in religion and morals as in fertility and +wealth,--will lead the world in a new era of happiness and good +government."[584] + +But the Golden Age, so fondly hoped for, so vaguely and poetically +conceived, was not to come in the sense in which Virgil, or any other +serious thinker of the day, could dream of it. I may conclude this +chapter with a few sentences which express this most truly and +eloquently. "When there is a fervent aspiration after better things, +springing from a strong feeling of human brotherhood, and a firm +belief in the goodness and righteousness of God, such aspiration +carries with it an invincible confidence that some how, some where, +some when, it must receive its complete fulfilment, for it is prompted +by the Spirit which fills and orders the Universe throughout its whole +development. But if the human organ of inspiration goes on to fix the +how, the where, and the when, and attributes to some nearer object the +glory of the final blessedness, then it inevitably falls into such +mistakes as Virgil's, and finds its golden age in the rule of the +Caesars (which was indeed an essential feature of Christianity), +or perhaps, as in later days, in the establishment of socialism or +imperialism. Well for the seer if he remembers that the kingdom of God +is within us, and that the true golden age must have its foundation in +penitence for misdoing, and be built up in righteousness and loving +kindness."[585] + + + + +EPILOGUE + +These sketches of social life at the close of the Republican period +have been written without any intention of proving a point, or any +pre-conceived idea of the extent of demoralisation, social, moral, or +political, which the Roman people had then reached. But a perusal of +Mr. Balfour's suggestive lecture on "Decadence" has put me upon making +a very succinct diagnosis of the condition of the patient whose life +and habits I have been describing. The Romans, and the Italians, with +whom they were now socially and politically amalgamated, were not in +the last two centuries B.C. an old or worn-out people. It is at any +rate certain that for a century after the war with Hannibal Rome and +her allies, under the guidance of the Roman senate, achieved an amount +of work in the way of war and organisation such as has hardly been +performed by any people before or since; and even in the period dealt +with in this book, in spite of much cause for misgiving at home, the +work done by Roman and Italian armies both in East and West shows +beyond doubt that under healthy discipline the native vigour of the +population could assert itself. We must not forget, however severely +we may condemn the way in which the work was done, that it is to +these armies, in all human probability, that we owe not only the +preservation of Graeco-Italian culture and civilisation, but the +opportunity for further progress. The establishment of definite +frontiers by Pompeius and Caesar, and afterwards by Augustus and +Tiberius, brought peace to the region of the Mediterranean, and with +it made possible the development of Roman law and the growth of a new +and life-giving religion. + +But peoples, like individuals, if offered opportunities of doing +themselves physical or moral damage, are only too ready to accept +them. Time after time in these chapters we have had to look back to +the age following the war with Hannibal in order to see what those +opportunities were; and in each case we have found the acceptance +rapid and eager. We have seen wealth coming in suddenly, and misused; +slave-labour available in an abnormal degree, and utilised with +results in the main unfortunate; the population of the city increasing +far too quickly, yet the difficulties arising from this increase +either ignored or misapprehended. We have noticed the decay of +wholesome family life, of the useful influence of the Roman matron, of +the old forms of the State religion; the misconception of the true end +of education, the result partly of Greek culture, partly of political +life; and to these may perhaps be added an increasing liability to +diseases, and especially to malaria, arising from economic blunders +in Italy and insanitary conditions of life in the city. All these +opportunities of damage to the fibre of the people had been freely +accepted, and with the result that in the age of Cicero we cannot +mistake the signs and symptoms of degeneracy. + +But it would be a mistake to jump to the conclusion that this +degeneracy had as yet gone too far to be arrested. It was assuredly +not that degeneracy of senility which Mr. Balfour is inclined to +postulate as an explanation of decadence. So far as I can judge, the +Romans were at that stage when, in spite of unhealthy conditions of +life and obstinate persistence in dangerous habits, it was not too +late to reform and recover. To me the main interest of the history of +the early Empire lies in seeking the answer to the question how far +that recovery was made. If these chapters should have helped any +student to prepare the ground for the solution of this problem their +object will have been fully achieved. + +[Illustration: _Stanfords Geog. Estab. London_] + + + + + +INDEX + + + Accius + _Aedicula_ + Aediles, the + Aemilia, Via. _See_ Via Aemilia + Aemilius, Pons. See Pons Aemilius + Aeneas + Aerarium, the + Aesopus, the actor + Afranius + Africa, province of + Agrippa + Alexandria + Alexis (Atticus's slave) + Amafinius + _Ambitu, lex de_ + Anio, the river + Anna Perenna, festival of + _Annona_ + Antioch + Antiochus (the physician) + Antium, Cicero's villa at + Antony + _Apodyterium_ + Apollinares, Ludi. _See_ Ludi Apollinares + Apollonia + Appia, Via. _See_ Via Appia + Appius Claudius Caecus + Aqua Appia + Aqua Tepula + Aqueducts + Ara maxima + Ara Pacis + _Argentarii_ + Argiletum, the + Arpinum, Cicero's villa at + _Ars amatoria_ (Ovid's) + Arval brothers, the + Arx, the + Asia, province of + Astura, Cicero's villa at + _Atellanae, fabulae_. See _Fabulae Atellanae_ + _Atrium_ + _sutorium_, + Vestae + Atticus + house of, + wealth of, + as money-lender, + the sister of, + the slave of, + Cicero's letters to, _passim_, + Augury + Augustus + alleged proposal of, to remove the capital, + attitude of towards _plebs urbana_, + water-supply under, + the grandfather of, + as a social reformer, + marriage laws of, + furthers public comfort, + restoration of temples by, + attempts at religious revival, + Aventine hill + + Baiae + Balbus, Cornelius, the younger + Bankruptcy laws + Basilicae, the + Baths, public + Bath-rooms + Bauli + Bithynia, province of + _Blanditia_ + Bona Dea, festival of + Boscoreale + _Brutus_ (Cicero's) + Brutus, Decimus + _Bulla_ + Byzantium + + Caecilius + Caelian hill + Caelius Autipater + Caelius (M.) Rufus + Caesar, Julius + alleged proposal of, to remove the capital + extends one of the Basilicae, + reduces + corn gratuities; + regulations of, for the government of the city; + debts of; + character of; + as historian; + joined by Caelius; + restores credit in Italy; + and Cleopatra; + clemency of; + sale of prisoners by; + dismisses surrendered armies; + foundation at Corinth by; + entertained by Cicero; + habits of; + as aedile; + summons Publilius to Rome; + as Pontifex Maximus; + speech of, in Sallust; + consents to be deified; + and _passim_ + _Calceus_ + _Caldarium_ + Calvus + Camillus + Campagua, the + Campania + Campus Martius + Caninius + Capena, Porta. _See_ Porta Capena + Capital at Rome + Capitol, the + Capitoline hill + Capua + _Carceres_, the + Carinae, the + Carmentalis, Porta. _See_ Porta Carmentalis + _Castella_ + Castor, temple of + Catiline + Cato major + Cato minor + Catullus + Catulus the elder + _Cena_ + Censor, the + _Censoria locatio_ + Ceres + Ceriales, Ludi. _See_ Ludi Ceriales + Cethegus + Chariot-racing + Chrysippus + Cicero, birthplace of; + house of; + borrows money; + as a man of business; + and the publicani; + relation of, to the governing aristocracy; + letters of; + as a philosopher; + and Clodia; + views on education; + influence of philosophers upon; + and the slave question; + and the use of slaves for seditious purposes; + villas of; + undertakes the Ludi Romani; + religious views of; + and _passim_ + Cicero, Marcus + Cicero, Quintus + Cilician pirates + Circus Flaminius + Circus Maximus + Cleopatra + Clients + Clivus Capitolinus + Clivus sacer + Cloaca maxima + Clodia + Clodius + Cluvius + _Coemptio_ + _Coenaculum_ + Coinage + _Collegia_ + Colline gate, Sulla's victory at the, + Colosseum, the + Columella + Comedy + _Comissatio_ + Comitium, the + _Commercii, ius_ + _Compluvium_ + Concordia, temple of + _Conducticii_ + _Confarreatio_ + _Coniugalia praecepta_ (Plutarch's) + _Connubii, ius_ + Constantine, arch of + Consul, the + Consus, altar of + _Contubernium_ + _Convivium_ + _Copa_ ("Virgil's") + Corfinium + Cornelia + Cornelius + Crassus + Cumae, Cicero's villa at + Curia, the + Curio + + Debtors + _Declamatio_ + _Deductio_ + Democritus + _Deorum, De Natura_ (Cicero's) + Diana, temple of + _Die natali, De_ (Censorinus's) + _Diffarreatio_ + Diomedes, villa of + Dionysius of Halicarnassus + Dionysus, worship of + Di Penates. _See_ Penates + Diphilus, the actor + Divorce + _Dolia_ + _Domus_ + _Dos_ + Drama, the + Dyrrhachium, importation of corn + into; battle of + + Egypt + Emetics, use of + Ennius + Epicureanism + Epicurus + _Epulum Jovis_ + Equester, Ordo. _See_ Ordo equester + Equirria + Equites. _See_ Ordo equester + _Ergastula_ + Esquiline hill + Etruscans, the + Evander + _Exedra_ + + Fabius, arch of + _Fabri ferrarii_ + _Fabulae Atellanae_; palliatae; + _togatae_ + _Familiae urbanae_ + Fate + _Fercula_ + _Feriae_ + _Festa_ + _Figuli_ + Figulus, Nigidius + Flaccus, Verrius + Flamen Dialis; + Quirinalis + Flaminius + _Flammeum_ + Florales, Ludi. _See_ Ludi Florales + _Foeneratores_ + _Foenus_ + Formiae, Cicero's villa at + Forum Boarium + Forum Romanum + Friedländer + Frontinus + _Fullones_ + Funeral games + Furrina, the grove of + + Gabinius + Gellius, Aulus + Genseric + Gilds. _See_ Collegia + Gladiators + Gracchus, Gaius + Gracchus, Tiberius + _Grammaticus_ + _Grassatores_ + Greeks + + Hannibal + Hercules + Hirtius + _Honorum, ius_ + Horace + Hortensius + Horti Caesaris + + _Ientaculum_ + _Impluvium_ + _Institutio Oratoris_ (Quintilian's) + _Insulae_ + _Inventione, De_ (Cicero's) + Isis, worship of + _Iura_ + _Ius civile_ + _Ius divinum_ + _Ius gentium_ + + Janiculum, the + Janus, "temple" of + Julius Obsequens + Juno, temple of + Jupiter + Jupiter Farreus; Julius; + Optimus Maximus, temple of; + Stator, temple of + Juturna, spring of + + "King," game of + + Laberius + Lar + Lares, shrine of + _Latifundium_ + Latina, Via. _See_ Via Latina + Latins, the + Latium + Law-courts, the + _Lectisternia_ + _Lectus_; _consularis_ + _genialis_ + _Legibus, De_ (Cicero's) + Lentulus + Lepidus + Liberalia, the + _Libertinus_ + Libertus + Liternum, Scipio's villa at + Livius Andronicus + Livy + Lucretius + Lucretius Vespillo, Q. + Lueullus + Ludi, Apollinares; Ceriales; + Florales; + Magni, _see_ Romani; Megalenses; + Novemdiales; Plebeii; + Romani; + Victoriae + Ludus Trojae + Lupercal, the + Lupercalia, the + + _Magister_ + Magna Mater + _Mancipes_ + _Manes_ + _Mangones_ + _Manus_ + Marcius Rex, Q. + Marius + Mars; temple of + Martial + _Matrimonium, iustum_ + Megaleuses, Ludi. See Ludi Megalenses + _Mensa_ + _Mensae_; _rationes_ + _Meridiatio_ + _Metae_, the + Metellus Celer + Metellus Macedonicus + Milo + Mimes + Minerva, temple of + _Missio in bona_ + _Missus_ + Molo + Mommsen + Money-lenders + _Moretum_ ("Virgil's") + _Mos majorum_ + _Muliones_ + _Munera_ + + _Nefas_ + _Negotiatores_ + _Negotium_ + Nepos, Cornelius + Neptunalia, the + Nicomedes, king of Bithynia + Novemdiales, Ludi. _See_ Ludi Novemdiales + _Novas homo_ + Numa + _Nummularii_ + + _Obaerati_ + _Oecus_ + _Officiis, De_ (Cicero's) + _Operarii_ + _Opifices_ + Oppia, lex + Oppius Mons + _Oratore, De_ (Cicero's) + Ordo equester; + senatorius + Oseans, the + Ostia + Ovid + + Pacuvius + Palatine hill + _Palliatae, fabulae_. See _Fabulae + palliatae_ + Panaetius + _Pantomimus_ + _Participes_ + _Patronus_ + Paullus, L. Aemilius + _Paupereuli_ + _Peculium_ + Penates, the; + temple of the + Pergamum + _Peristylium_ + _Permutatio_ + _Pero_ + _Perscriptio_ + _Persona_ + Phaedrus the Epicurean + Philippi, battle of + Philippus (tribune) + Philo the Academician + Philodemus + _Pietas_ + Piso, Calpurnius + _Pistores_ + Plaetoria, lex + Plautus + Plebeii, Ludi. _See_ Ludi Plebeii + Pliny, the elder; the younger + Plutarch + Pollio, Asinius + Polybius + Pomerium + Pompeii + Pompeius + house of + theatre of + Pomponia + Pons Aemilius + Ponte Rotto + Pontifex Maximus + Porta Capena + Carmentalis + Esquilina + Portunus + Posidonius + Praecia + _Praedes_ + _Praediola_ + Praetor, the + _Prandium_ + Priesthoods + _Promagister_ + _Pronuba_ + Provinces, the + _Provocations_, _ius_ + Ptolemy Auletes + _Publicani_ + _Publicum_ + Publilius Syrus + Punic wars + Puteoli, Cicero's villa at + _Puticulus_ + Pythagoreanism + + _Quaestiones Conviviales (Plutarch's)_ + Quaestorship, the + Quintilian + Quirinal (hill) + Quirinus + + Rabirius Postumus + _Redemptor_ + Regia, the + _Religio_ + Religion + _Repetundis, quaestio de_ + _Republica, De_ (Cicero's) + _Res_, _mancipi_ + _Rex, the_ + _Rex sacrorum_ + _Rhetorica ad Herennium_ + Romulus + Roscius, the actor + Rostra, the + Rutilius + + Sabines, the + _Saccarii_ + _Sacra_, + _privata_; + _publica_; + via, _see_ Via Sacra + St. Peter, church of + Salaminians, the + Sallust + Samnium + San Gregorio, via di + Sarpedon + Sassia + Saturnalia, the + _Saturninus_ + Saturnus, temple of + Scaevola, Mucius + Scaurus + Scipio Aemilianus, + Asiaticus, + Nasica, + Sempionia + Senate, the + Senatorius, ordo. _See_ Ordo senatorius + Senec, + "Servian wall" + Servilius + Sibylline books, the + Slaves + _Societates publicanorum_ + _Socii_ + _Sodalicia, collegia_. See _Collegia_ + _Soleae_ + _Somnium Scipionis_ (Cicero's) + Spanish silver mines + Spartacus + _Spina_ + _Sponsalia_ + _Sportula_ + Stoics, the + _Stola matronalis_ + Strabo + Subura, the + _Suffragii, ius_ + Sulla + Sulla, P. + Sulpicius (S.), Rufus + Sun-dials + _Supplicationes_ + _Synthesis_ + + _Tabellarii + Tabernae + Tabernae argentariae + Tablinum + Tabulae + Tabulae novae_ + Tabularia, the + _Tepidarium_ + Terence + Terentia + Theatre, the + Theatre, building of a + Thurii + Tiber + Tiber island + _Tibicines_ + Tibur + Time, divisions of, in the day + Tiro (Cicero's slave) + _Tirocinium fori_ + Titus, arch of + _Toga_; _libera_; _praetexta_; _virilis_ + _Togatae, fabulae_. See _Fabulae togatae_ + Tragedy + _Tributum_ + _Triclinia_ + Triumph, a + Trofei di Mario + Tullia (Cicero's daughter) + Tullianum, the + _Tunica_ + Turia, the story of + Tusculum, Cicero's villa at + _Tutela_ + _Tutor_ + Twelve Tables, the + + _Usus_ + + Valerius Maximus + Varro + Varro, Terentius (consul) + Veii + Velabrum, the + Velia, the + _Venationes_ + Venus Victrix, temple of + Verres + Vesta; temple of + Vestal Virgins + Veterans, Roman + Via Aurelia; Appia; Collatina; Latina; Sacra + Victoriae, Ludi. See Ludi Victoriae + Vicus Tuscus + _Vilicus_ + _Villa pseudurbana_ + Vinalia, the + _Vindicta_ + Virgil + Voconia, lex + + Water-clocks, introduction of + + + + +THE END + + + + +APPENDIX + + +Page 1, l. 12. _totam aestimare Romam_: to appreciate Rome in its +entirety. + +Page 3, l. 12. _Hinc ad Tarpeiam_, etc.: he leads him next to the +Tarpeian Rock and to the Capitol, now of gold, once thick with wild +bushes. + +Page 4, l. 24. _Hinc septem_, etc.: from here you may see the seven +hills of the sovereign city, and appreciate Rome as a whole, the Alban +and the Tusculan hills, and all the cool suburban retreats. + +Page 10, l. 1. _rerum_, etc. Rome became a supreme thing of beauty. + +Page 10, l. 13. _nativa praesidia_: natural defences. + +Page 10, l. 21. _regionum_, etc. A site in the middle of Italy, +singularly fitted by nature for the development of the city. + +Page 17, l. 2. _nec ferrea_, etc.: nor has he seen the hardships of +the law, the mad forum, or the archives of the people. + +Page 22, l. 2. _Ille, ille_, etc.: he it was, Jupiter himself, who +withstood the attack, he who willed it that the Capitol, that these +temples, that the whole city and you all should be safe. + +Page 29, footnote 1. _in montibus_, etc.: built between mountains and +valleys, raised and almost suspended on high, through the stones of +its buildings, with its back streets. + +Page 39, l. 6. _ubi semel_, etc.: he who has once strayed from the +right path will come to calamity. + +Page 52, l. 11. _lanificium_: the working of wool. + +Page 55, l. 26. _graffiti_: ancient scribblings, scratched, painted, +or otherwise marked on a wall, column, tablet, or other surface. + +Page 61, l. 4. _quaestio de repetundis_: court for extortion. + +Page 64, l. 15. _familiarem_, etc.: intimate with L. Lucullus, +wealthy, of intractable character. + +Page 73, l. 14. _qui de censoribus_, etc.: whosoever shall have +secured a contract from the censors shall not be accepted as associate +or shareholder. + +Page 73, footnote 2. _Asiatici_, etc.: of the public revenue of Asia, +he had a very small share. + +Page 91, l. 3. _fortissimus_, etc.: a most powerful and important +farmer of the public revenue. + +Page 93, l. 20. _insanum forum_: the forum in its maddening bustle. + +Page 116, l. 12. _doctissimus_, etc.: the most learned of that time. + +Page 121, l. 11. _monumentum_, etc.: a monument more enduring than +bronze. + +Page 123, l. 20. _vere humanus:_ truly refined. + +Page 127, l. 23. _omnia_, etc.: he transforms himself into all +portentous shapes. + +Page 130, l. 20. _ménager ses transitions:_ to pass gradually over to +the other side. + +Page 132, l. 18. _de vi:_ of criminal violence. + +Page 133, l. 9. _Uni se_, etc.: they are addicted to one and the same +practice, that they may cautiously cheat and craftily contend, outdo +each other in blandishments, feign honesty, set snares as if they were +all enemies to each other. + +Page 133, l. 28. _rari nantes_, etc.: few and scattered swimmers in +the vast abyss. + +Page 142 (bottom). _Claudite_, etc.: close the doors, maidens, enough +have we sung. And you, noble couple, live happily and apply your +vigorous youth to the assiduous task of wedlock. + +Page 149, footnote 2. _Si quid_, etc.: if a woman act reprehensibly or +disgracefully, he punishes her; if she has drunk wine, if she has done +something wrong with a stranger, he condemns her. If you surprise your +wife in the act of adultery, you may with impunity kill her without +any form of judgment; but if she caught you in adultery, she would not +dare touch you, for she has no right. + +Page 150, l. 11. _liberorum_, etc.: in order to have children. + +Page 155, l. 22. _Odi_, etc.: I hate and I love. You ask perhaps how +that can be. I do not know, I feel it, and am distressed. + +Page 155 (bottom). _Elle apportait_, etc.: she revealed in her private +behavior, in her affections, the same vehemence and the same passion +which her brother showed in public life. Ready for all excesses, and +not blushing to confess them, loving and hating with fury, incapable +of controlling herself, and opposed to all constraint, she did not +belie the great and haughty family from which she was sprung. + +Page 178,1. 3. _rusticorum_, etc.: + + The farmer-soldier's manly brood + Was trained to delve the Sabine sod, + And at an austere mother's nod + To hew and fetch the fagot wood. + +Page 178, l. 20. _Maxima_, etc.: the greatest concern must be shown +for children. + +Page 185, l. 8. _Avarus_, etc.: + + The covetous is the cause of his own misery. + Bravery is increased by daring and fear by hesitation. + You can more easily discover fortune than cling to it. + The wrath of the just is to be dreaded. + A man dies every time that he is bereft of his kin. + Man is loaned, not given to life. + The best strife is rivalry in benignity. + Nothing is pleasing unless renewed by variety. + Bad is the plan which cannot be altered. + Less often would you err if you knew how much you don't know. + He who shows clemency always comes out victorious. + He who respects his oath succeeds in everything. + Where old age is at fault youth is badly trained. + +Page 187, l. 7. _Grais_, etc.: the muse gave genius to the Greeks and +the pride of language, covetous of nothing but of praise. But the +Roman youths by long reckonings learn to split the coin into a hundred +parts. Let young Albinus say: "If you take one away from five pence, +what results?" "A groat." Good, you'll thrive. + +Page 189, l. 1. In _grammaticis_, etc.: in the study of literature, +the perusal of the poets, the knowledge of history, the interpretation +of words, the peculiar tone of pronunciation. + +Page 191, l. 9. _Orator est_, etc.: an orator, my son, is an upright +man skilled in speaking. + +Page 191, l. 11. _Rem tene_, etc.: master the subject; the words will +follow. + +Page 196, l. 9. _vir bonus_, etc.: see page 191, l. 9. + +Page 196, l. 13. _Non enim_, etc.: eloquence and oratorical aptness +obtain good results if they be swayed by a right understanding and by +the discretion and control of the mind. + +Page 210, footnote 1. _Mancipiis_, etc.: avoid being like the +Cappadocian monarch, rich in slaves and penniless in purse. + +Page 211, footnote 1. _pone aedem_, etc.: behind the temple of Castor +are those to whom you'd be sorry to lend money. + +Page 215, l. 18. _An te ibi_, etc.: would you stay there among those +harlots, prostitutes of bakers, leavings of the breadmakers, smeared +with rank cosmetics, nasty devotees of slaves? + +Page 216, footnote 2. _agrum_, etc.: in cultivating the fields or in +hunting, servile occupations, etc. + +Page 233, l. 5. _Nec turpe_, etc.: what a master commands cannot be +disgraceful. + +Page 233, footnote 3. _Coli rura_, etc.: it is a bad practice to fill +the fields with men from the workhouse, or to have anything done by +men who are forsaken by hope. + +Page 235, footnote 2. _Regum_, etc.: we have taken the tyrant's +temper. + +Page 239, l. 10. _ante focos_, etc.: it was customary once to take +places in the long benches before the fireplace, and to trust that the +gods were present at our table. + +Page 246, l. 5. _nunc vero_, etc.: but now from morning till evening, +on holidays and working days, the whole people, senators and +commoners, busy themselves in the forum and retire nowhere, etc. (See +page 133, l. 9, and translation of that passage.) + +Page 246, footnote 2. _Urbem_, etc.: remain in the city, Rufus; stay +there and live in that light. All foreign travel is humble and lowly +for those that can work for the greatness of Rome. + +Page 247, footnote 1. _Frequens_, etc.: constant change of abode is a +sign of unstable mind. + +Page 248, l. 12. _contentio_, etc.: not a straining of the mind, but a +relaxation. + +Page 259, l. 12. _locus_, etc.: a pleasant site, on the sea itself, +and can be seen from Antium and Circeii. + +Page 265, footnote 3. _Ut illum_, etc.: may the gods confound him who +first invented the hours, and who first placed a sundial in this city. +Pity on me! They have cut up my day in compartments. Once when I was +a boy my stomach was my clock, and it was much more fitting and +reliable; it never failed to warn me except when there was nothing; +now, even when there is something, there is no eating unless it so +please the sun. For the whole city is full of sun-dials, and most of +the people crawl on in need of food and drink. + +Page 269, footnote 1. _Romae_, etc.: in Rome it was for a long time a +joy and a pride to open up the house at early morning and attend to +the legal needs of the clients. + +Page 275, l. 20. _Nesciit vivere_: he did not know how to live. + +Page 277, l. 10. _ad noctem_: late into the night. + +Page 280, l. 17. _Saepe tribus_, etc.: often you would see three +couches with four guests apiece. + +Page 283, l. 21. [Greek: Emetikhaeu], etc.: he was under the +emetic cure, and consequently ate and drank freely and with much +satisfaction; and everything certainly was good and well served; nay +more, I may say that + + "Though the cook was good, + 'Twas Attic salt that flavored best the food." + +Page 283, footnote 1. _qua lege_, etc.: which law did not determine +the expense, but the kind of victuals and the manner of cooking them. + +Page 285, l. 11. _Agricolo_, etc.: the farmer is the first who after +a long day of toil in the fields adapted rustic songs to the laws of +metre; the first in satisfied leisure to modulate a song on his reed, +which he would say before the gods decked with flowers. It was the +farmer, O Bacchus, who with his face colored with reddish minium, +taught his untrained feet the first movements of the dance. + +Page 287, l. 13. _Quippe etiam_, etc.: for even on holy days, divine +and human laws allow us to perform certain works. No religion has +forbidden to clear the channels, to raise a fence before the corn, to +lay snares for birds, to fire the thorns, and plunge in the wholesome +river a flock of bleating sheep. + +Page 303, l. 2. _lex de ambitu_: law concerning the courting of +popular favor in canvassing. + +Page 307, l. 4. _Eandem_, etc.: a time will come when you will bewail +that valor of yours. + +Page 309, l. 7. _Spectatum_, etc.: they come to see, but they come +also to be seen. + +Page 313, l. 27. _summuts artifex_: consummate artist. + +Page 314, l. 3. _gravis_: serious. + +Page 314, l. 4. _gravitas_: seriousness. + +Page 315, l. 14. _Fescennina_, etc.: the rude Fescennine farce grew +from rites like these, where rustic taunts were hurled in alternate +verse; and the pleasing license, tolerated from year to year, +gambolled, etc. + +Page 317, l. 18. _Nihil mihi_, etc.: know well that I lacked nothing +except company with whom to laugh in a friendly way and intelligently +over these things. + +Page 324, l. 28. _mos maiorum_: the customs of our ancestors. + +Page 327, l. 12. _Felix_, etc.: blessed is he who succeeded in knowing +the causes of events. + +Page 327, l. 16. _Fortunatus_, etc.: fortunate he also who knows the +rustic gods. + +Page 333, l. 6. _lectisternia_: a feast of the gods during which their +images on pillars were placed in the streets. + +Page 333, l. 6. _supplicationes_: religious solemnities for +supplication. + +Page 333, l. 6. _ludi_: games. + +Page 339, l. 23. _numen_: godhead, deity. + +Page 340, footnote 3. _idem etiam_, etc.: he says also that Jupiter is +the power of this law, eternal and immutable, which is the guide, so +to speak, of our life and the principle of our duties; a law which he +calls a fatal necessity, an eternal truth of future things. + +Page 341, l. 15. _qua_: as. + +Page 341, l. 26. _O qui res_, etc.: thou who rulest with eternal sway +the doings of men and gods. + +Page 342, l. 1. _Olli_, etc.: the sire of men and gods, smiling to +her with that aspect wherewith he clears the tempestuous sky, gently +kissed his daughter's lips; then thus replies: Cytherea, cease from +fear; immovable to thee remain the fates of thy people. + +Page 351, l. 13. _Iuppiter_, etc.: Jove reserved these shores for the +just, when he alloyed the golden age with brass; with brass, then with +iron he hardened the ages, from which there shall be a happy escape +according to my predictions. + + + + +FOOTNOTES: + + +[Footnote 1: Martial iv. 64. 12.] + +[Footnote 2: _Aen_. viii. 90. foll. The Capitoline hill, which Virgil +means by "arx" a conspicuous object from the river just below the +Aventine, and would have been much more conspicuous in the poet's +time. There is a view of it from this point in Burn's _Rome and the +Campagna_, p. 184.] + +[Footnote 3: Plutarch, _Cato minor_ 39. Cato was expected to land +at the commercial docks _below_ the Aventine (see below), where the +senate and magistrates were awaiting him, but with his usual rudeness +rowed past them to the navalia.] + +[Footnote 4: _Aen._ viii. 363. Possibly Virgil meant to put this +dwelling on the site of the future Regia, just below the Palatine and +between it and the Forum. See Servius _ad loc._] + +[Footnote 5: The modern visitor would cross by the Ponte Rotto, which +is in the same position as the ancient bridge, just below the Tiber +island.] + +[Footnote 6: Livy v. 54.] + +[Footnote 7: The Fratres Arvales.] + +[Footnote 8: For navigation of the river above Rome see Strabo p. +235.] + +[Footnote 9: Horace _Od_. i. 2. After a bad flood in A.D. 15 proposals +were made for diverting a part of the water coming down the Tiber into +the Arnus, but this met with fatal opposition from the superstition +of the country people (Tacitus, _Ann_. i. 79). Nissen, _Italische +Landeskunde_, i. p. 324, has collected the records of these floods.] + +[Footnote 10: See Nissen, i. p. 407. But it seems likely that the +Tiber valley was less malarious then than now (see Nissen's chapter on +malaria in Italy, p. 410 foll.). In an interesting paper on _Malaria +and History_, by Mr. W.H.S. Jones (Liverpool University Press), which +reached me after this chapter was written, the author is inclined to +attribute the ethical and physical degeneracy of the Romans of the +Empire partly to this cause.] + +[Footnote 11: Livy v. 54.] + +[Footnote 12: Horace, _Epode_ 16.] + +[Footnote 13: _Reden und Aufsätze_, p. 173 foll.] + +[Footnote 14: _Ib._ p. 175.] + +[Footnote 15: _De Rep_. ii. 5 and 6.] + +[Footnote 16: Beloch, _Die Bewölkerung der griechisch-römischen Welt_, +cap. 9, approaching the problem by three several methods, puts it in +the first century A.D. at 800,000, including slaves. In Cicero's time +it was, no doubt, considerably less; but we know that in his last +years 320,000 free persons were receiving doles of corn, apart from +slaves and the well-to-do.] + +[Footnote 17: Hülsen-Jordan, _Röm. Topographie_, vol. i. part iii. pp. +627, 638.] + +[Footnote 18: _Ib_. 643; Cic. _ad Att_. xv. 15. Here, after the death +of his daughter Tullia, Cicero wished to buy land on which to erect +a fanum to her (Cic. _ad Att_. xii. 19). Here also were the horti +Caesaris.] + +[Footnote 19: Livy xxxv. 40.] + +[Footnote 20: Hülsen-Jordan, _op. cit_. p. 143 note.] + +[Footnote 21: See below, p. 302. Dionysius of Halicarnassus (iii. 68) +gives an elaborate account of it in the time of Augustus, when it had +been altered and ornamented.--Hülsen-Jordan, p. 120 foll.] + +[Footnote 22: Fowler, _Roman Festivals_, p. 199; Wissowa in +Pauly-Wissowa, _Real-Encyklopädie_, s.v. Diana.] + +[Footnote 23: The two roads converged just before arriving at the +city. The reader may be reminded that it was by the via Appia that St. +Paul entered Rome (Acts xxviii.). Another useful passage for this gate +is Juvenal in. 10 foll.] + +[Footnote 24: It might be useful here to follow the course of the +_pomerium_, which also went round the Palatine, as described in +Tacitus, _Annals_ xii. 24.] + +[Footnote 25: Cic. _de Officiis_ iii. 16. 66, and the story there +related.] + +[Footnote 26: Strictly speaking, the Oppius Mons, or southern part of +the Esquiline.] + +[Footnote 27: See Lanciani's admirable chapter, "A Walk through the +Sacra Via," in his _Ruins and Excavations of Ancient Rome_, p. 190 +foll.] + +[Footnote 28: _Georg_. ii. 502. Virgil, for all his admiration of +Rome, did not love its crowds.] + +[Footnote 29: Cic. _pro Plancio_, ch. 7. Cp. Horace, _Sat_. i. 9; +Lucilius, _Frag._ 9 (ed. Baehrens), which last will be quoted in +another context.] + +[Footnote 30: On the vexed question of the position of the Subura and +its history see Wissowa, _Gesammelte Abhandlungen_, p. 230 foll.] + +[Footnote 31: For excavations here see Lanciani, _op. cit_. p. 221 +foll.] + +[Footnote 32: Cic. _Cat._ iii. 9. 21 foll.] + +[Footnote 33: Formerly we may assume that it faced south or +south-east, like the temple.] + +[Footnote 34: It was completed by Caesar in 46 B.C.] + +[Footnote 35: Beloch, _Bewölkerung_ p. 382.] + +[Footnote 36: C.I.L. i. 206, and Dessau, _Inscr. Lat. Selectae_, ii. +1. p. 493.] + +[Footnote 37: Cic. _ad Q. Fratr_. iii.I. 14 Suet. _de Grammaticis_, +15; Corn. Nepos, _Atticus_, 13.] + +[Footnote 38: Hülsen-Jordan, _Röm. Topographie_, vol. i. part iii. p. +323.] + +[Footnote 39: This is the number receiving corn gratis when Julius +Caesar reformed the corn-distribution.--Suetonius, _Iul_. 41.] + +[Footnote 40: See Zeller, _Stoics_, etc., Eng. trans. p. 255 foll.] + +[Footnote 41: cic. _de Legibus_, i. 15. 43. It was not as yet possible +to be "poor, making many rich"; to have nothing and yet to possess all +things.] + +[Footnote 42: See the definition of insula in Festus. n. Ill. and +for insula generally Middleton's article "Domus" in the _Dict, of +Antiquities_, ed. 2. De Marchi (_La Religione nella vita domestica_, +i. p. 80) compares the big lodging-houses of the poor at Naples.] + +[Footnote 43: Cicero (_Leg. Agr._ ii. 35. 96) describes Rome as being +(in comparison with Capua) "in montibus positam et convallibus, +coenaculis (i.e. upper rooms) sublatum atque suspensam, non optimis +viis," etc. Vitruv. ii. 17 is the _locus classicus_.] + +[Footnote 44: Cic. _pro Caelio_ 17.] + +[Footnote 45: In _C.I.L._ vi. 65-67 we find a Bona Dea erected "in +tutelam insulae," i.e. a common cult for all the lodgers. De Marchi +_l.c._ compares the common shrine of the Neapolitan lodging-house. +Tutela is mentioned as a protecting deity both of insulae and domus by +St. Jerome, _Com. in Isaiam_, 672.] + +[Footnote 46: Cic. _de Domo_ 109.] + +[Footnote 47: Cic. _ad Att._ xv. 17; cp. xiv. 9.] + +[Footnote 48: Plut. _Crassus_ 2: perhaps from Fenestella.] + +[Footnote 49: "Dormientem in taberna," Asconius, ed. Clark, p. 37. Cp. +Tacitus, _Hist_ i. 86, for persons sleeping in tabernae.] + +[Footnote 50: Tucker, _Life in Ancient Athens_, p. 10.] + +[Footnote 51: The _Moretum_ may be a translation from a Greek poet, +perhaps Parthenius, but it is certainly as well adapted to the +experience of Italians.] + +[Footnote 52: e.g. Caesar, _Bell. Civ._ iii. 47. Cp. Tacitus, _Ann_. +xiv. 24.] + +[Footnote 53: On this point see Salvioli, _Le Capitalisme dans le +monde antique_, ch. vi. is a book with many shortcomings, but written +by an Italian who knows his own country.] + +[Footnote 54: See the author's _Roman Festivals_, p. 76 (Cerealia).] + +[Footnote 55: Marquardt, _Staatsverwaltung_, ii. pp. 107, 110 foll. A +modius, which = nearly a peck, contained about 20 lb. of wheat (Pliny, +_N.H._ xviii. 66). Four and a half modii x 20=90 lb.] + +[Footnote 56: Hirschfeld, _Verwaltungsbeamten_, ed. 2, p. 231; Strabo, +p. 652 (Rhodes).] + +[Footnote 57: Caesar, _B.C._ iii. 42. 3.] + +[Footnote 58: Marquardt, _op. cit._ p. 110.] + +[Footnote 59: For Gracchus' motives see a paper by the present writer +in the _English Historical Review_ for 1905, p. 221 foll.] + +[Footnote 60: Cic. _Tusc. Disp._ iii. 20. 48.] + +[Footnote 61: Lex Julia municipalis, 1-20, compared with Suetonius, +_Jul_. 41.] + +[Footnote 62: A good example will be found in Cic. _ad Att._ iv. 1. +6 foll.; the first letter written by Cicero after his return from +exile.] + +[Footnote 63: See my _Roman Festivals_, pp. 85 and 204.] + +[Footnote 64: Pliny, _Nat. Hist_. xviii. 17.] + +[Footnote 65: Suet. _Aug_. 42.] + +[Footnote 66: Frontinus i. 4. The date of his work is towards the end +of the first century A.D.] + +[Footnote 67: See Lanciani, _Ruins and Excavations_, p. 48; Mommsen, +_Hist_. vol. i. Appendix.] + +[Footnote 68: Frontinus i. 7, whose account is confirmed by the +recently discovered Epitomes of Livy's lost books.--Grenfell and Hunt, +_Oxyrhynchus Papyri_, iv. 113.] + +[Footnote 69: See the useful table in Lanciani, _op. cit._ 58.] + +[Footnote 70: This dates from the reign of Domitian. The nature of the +public fountain may be realised at Pompeii. See Mau, _Pompeii, its +Life and Art_, p. 224 foll.] + +[Footnote 71: Cic. _de Officiis_, i. 42. 150.] + +[Footnote 72: Livy xxii. 25 _ad fin_.] + +[Footnote 73: It is very conspicuous, e.g., in the novels of Jane +Austen.] + +[Footnote 74: G. Unwin, _Industrial Organisation_, etc., p. 2.] + +[Footnote 75: Plutarch, _Numa_, 17; Ovid, _Fasti_, iii. 310 foll.] + +[Footnote 76: J.B. Carter, _The Religion of Numa_, p. 48.] + +[Footnote 77: Marq. iii. p. 138. See also Kornemann's article +"Collegium" in Pauly-Wissowa, _Real-Encykl._, and Waltzing, +_Corporations professionelles chez les Romains_, i. p. 78 foll.] + +[Footnote 78: _Le Capitalisme_, etc., p. 144 foll.] + +[Footnote 79: Cairnes, _Slave Power_, pp. 78, 143 foll. See below, p. +235.] + +[Footnote 80: Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ xviii. 107.] + +[Footnote 81: _C.I.L._ i. 1013. The date is possibly pre-Augustan.] + +[Footnote 82: Mau's _Pompeii_, p. 380.] + +[Footnote 83: See my _Roman Festivals_, p. 148. For the mills of +various kinds see also Marquardt, _Privatleben_, p. 405.] + +[Footnote 84: _Privatleben_, p. 409.] + +[Footnote 85: _Pseudolus_, 810 foll.] + +[Footnote 86: Cp. the uncta popina of Horace, _Epist_. i. 14. 21 foll. +Scene in a wineshop at Pompeii, Mau, p. 395.] + +[Footnote 87: See, e.g., the Laudatio Turiae, _C.I.L._ vi. i. 1527, +line 30.] + +[Footnote 88: Only very rich families employed their own +fullers.--Marq. _Privatleben_, p. 512.] + +[Footnote 89: _Menaechmi_, 404: this may, however, be only a +translation from the Greek.] + +[Footnote 90: _C.I.L._ i. p. 389.] + +[Footnote 91: Marquardt, _Privatleben_, p. 693 and reff.] + +[Footnote 92: Cato, _de re rustica_, 135; a very interesting chapter, +which shows that of the farmer's "plant," clothing, rugs, carts as +well as dolia, were best purchased at Rome.] + +[Footnote 93: Marq. _Privatleben_, p. 645.] + +[Footnote 94: Strabo, p. 231.] + +[Footnote 95: Lex Julia Municipalis, line 56 foll.] + +[Footnote 96: Mau, _Pompeii_, p. 377.] + +[Footnote 97: See Greenidge, _Roman Public Life_, p. 225.] + +[Footnote 98: Lex Claudia; Livy xxi. 63.] + +[Footnote 99: Plut. _Crassus_, 2; Pliny, _N.H._ xxxiii. 134: +equivalent to about £160,000.] + +[Footnote 100: Cic. _ad Att_. ii. 1. 2.] + +[Footnote 101: _Ib._ iv. 4.] + +[Footnote 102: Corn. Nepos, _Atticus_, 5.] + +[Footnote 103: Livy ixiii. 49.] + +[Footnote 104: Pliny, _N.H._ xxxiii. 148; Livy xxxvii. 59.] + +[Footnote 105: Polyb. xxxiv. 9, quoted by Strabo, p. 148. Cp. Livy +xlv. 18 for valuable mines in Macedonia.] + +[Footnote 106: Polyb. xviii. 35, For the unwillingness to serve, Livy, +Epit. 48 and 55.] + +[Footnote 107: Cunningham, _Western Civilisation (Modern)_, p. 162 +foll.] + +[Footnote 108: Duruy, _Hist. de Rome_, vol. ii. p. 12.] + +[Footnote 109: Cic. _de Provinciis consularibus_, v. 12.] + +[Footnote 110: Cic. _pro Quinctio_ 3. 12; a good case of partnership +in a res pecuaria et rustica in Gaul.] + +[Footnote 111: Examples in Livy xxiii. 49; xxxii. 7 (portoria); +xxxviii. 35 (corn-supply); xliv. 16 (army); xlii. 9 (revenue of ager +Campanus).] + +[Footnote 112: Festus, ed. Müller, p. 151.] + +[Footnote 113: e.g. Livy xxii. 60 praedibus et praediis cavere +populo.] + +[Footnote 114: Cicero, in his defence of Rabirius Postumus, 2.4, says +that Rabirius' father magnas _partes_ habuit publicorum. One Aufidius +(Val. Max. vi. 9. 7) "Asiatici publici exiguam admodum _particulam_ +habuit." Cp. Cic _in Vat._ 12. 29] + +[Footnote 115: This is the view of Deloume, _Les Manieurs d'argent à +Rome_, p. 119 foll.] + +[Footnote 116: Marq. _Staatsverwaltung_, ii. p.291] + +[Footnote 117: Deloume, _Manieurs d'argent_, p. 317 foll.] + +[Footnote 118: _pro lege Manilia_, 7. 18.] + +[Footnote 119: _Ib._ 7. 19.] + +[Footnote 120: _ad Att._ i. 17. 9. Crassus, no doubt a large +shareholder, urged them on.] + +[Footnote 121: In a letter to his brother, then governor of this +province, Cicero contemplates the possibility of contracts being taken +at a loss (_ad Q.F._ i. 1. 33), "publicis male redemptis." And in a +letter of introduction in 46, he alludes to heavy losses suffered in +this way, _ad Fam._ xiii. 10.] + +[Footnote 122: _ad Att._ v. 16. 2.] + +[Footnote 123: _Ib._ vi. 1. 16.] + +[Footnote 124: _ad Familiares_, xiii. 65.] + +[Footnote 125: _Ib._ xiii. 9. I have not adhered quite closely to his +translation.] + +[Footnote 126: "Qui est in operis ejus societatis," i.e. engaged as a +subordinate agent.--Marquardt, _Staatsverwaltung_, ii. p. 291.] + +[Footnote 127: Marq. ii. p. 35 foll.] + +[Footnote 128: See his article in _Dict. of Antiq._ ed. 2, s.v. +argentarii.] + +[Footnote 129: Augustus' grandfather was an argentarius (Suet. _Aug._ +2), yet his son could marry a Julia, and be elected to the consulship, +which, however, he was prevented by death from filling.] + +[Footnote 130: The word for this cheque is _perscriptio_. Cp. Cic. _ad +Att_. ix. 12. 3 viri boni usuras perscribunt, i.e. draw the interest +on their deposits.] + +[Footnote 131: Cic. _ad Att_. xii. 24 and 27.] + +[Footnote 132: Cic. _ad Fam_. xvi. 4 and 9] + +[Footnote 133: Cic. _ad Att_. xiii. contains many letters of interest +in this connexion.] + +[Footnote 134: Cic. _ad Att._ xiii. 2. 3. Cp. xii. 25. In xii. 12 +Cicero's divorced wife Terentia wishes to pay a debt by transferring +to her creditor a debt of Cicero's to herself. Another way in +which actual payment could be avoided was by paying interest on +purchase-money instead of the lump sum. Cp. xii. 22.] + +[Footnote 135: A good example of this in Velleius ii. 10 +(house-rent).] + +[Footnote 136: Cic. _de Officiis_, ii. 24, 84.] + +[Footnote 137: Caesar, _de Bell. Civ._ iii. 1 and 20 foll.] + +[Footnote 138: Deloume in his _Manieurs d'argent_ has a chapter on +this (p. 58 foll.), but his details are not wholly to be relied +on. Boissier's sketch in _Cicéron et ses amis_, 83 foll., is quite +accurate.] + +[Footnote 139: _ad Fam_. v. 20 fin.] + +[Footnote 140: _Ib_. v. 9.] + +[Footnote 141: Deloume's attempt to prove that Cicero speculated with +enormous profits seems to me to miss the mark.] + +[Footnote 142: _ad Q. Fratr._ ii. 4. 3. Cp. _ad Att._ iv. 2.] + +[Footnote 143: _ad Q. Fratr._ ii. 14. 3.] + +[Footnote 144: _ad Att._ xii. 22. I may add in a footnote a final +startling example of recklessness we have been noting. Decimus Brutus +had, in March 44 B.C., a capital of £320,000, yet next year he writes +to Cicero that so far from any part of his private property being +unencumbered, he had encumbered all his friends with debt also (_ad +Fam._ xi. 10. 5). But this was in order to maintain troops.] + +[Footnote 145: _ad Att._ xiii. 42. Cp. xvi. 5.] + +[Footnote 146: What the king really wanted the money for, was to bribe +the senate to restore him.--Cic. _ad Fam._ i. 1.] + +[Footnote 147: Cic. _pro Bab. Post_. 8. 22.] + +[Footnote 148: Varro, _R.R._ i. 2. Ferrero (_Greatness and Decline of +Rome_) has the merit of having discerned the signs of the regeneration +of Italian agriculture at this time, but he is apt to push his +conclusions further than the evidence warrants. See the translation of +his work by A.E. Zimmern, i. p. 124; ii. p. 131 foll. The statement of +Pliny quoted by him (xv. 1. 3) that oil was first exported from Italy +in the year 52 B.C., is, however, of the utmost importance.] + +[Footnote 149: The Republic was not to last long; but among the +consuls of the last years of its existence were several members of the +old families.] + +[Footnote 150: _ad Fam_. xv. 12. This rather stilted letter is nearly +identical with one to the other consul-designate, another aristocrat, +Claudius Marcellus. Cicero is in each case trying to do his own +business, while writing to a man of higher social rank than his own.] + +[Footnote 151: The letters of the years 58 to 54 are full of bitter +allusions to the _invidia_ of these men, which culminate in the long +and windy one to Lentulus Spinther of October 54, where he actually +accuses them of taking up Clodius in order to spite him. In a +confidential note to Atticus in the spring of 56, he told him that +they hated him for buying the Tusculan villa of the great noble +Catulus.--_ad Fam._ i. 9; _ad Att_. iv. 5.] + +[Footnote 152: Plutarch, _Cato major_ 2 and 12.] + +[Footnote 153: Corn. Nepos, _Cato_ 1. 4, who remarks that Cato's +return from his quaestorship in Sardinia with Ennius in his train was +as good as a splendid triumph.] + +[Footnote 154: Plut. _Aem. Paul. 6 ad fin._] + +[Footnote 155: Polybius, xxxii. 9-16.] + +[Footnote 156: The difference between him and his father, especially +in politics, is sketched in Plutarch's _Life_ of the latter, ch. +xxxviii.] + +[Footnote 157: Leo, in _Die griechische und lateinische Literatur_, p. +337.] + +[Footnote 158: The best specimens, or rather the worst, are to be +found in the speeches _in Pisonem, in Vatinium_, and in the _Second +Philippic_.] + +[Footnote 159: The most instructive passage on vituperatio is Cicero's +defence of Caelius, ch. 3. Cp. Quintilian iii. 7. 1 and 19. On the +custom at triumphs, etc., see Munro's _Elucidations of Catullus_, p. +75 foll. for most valuable remarks.] + +[Footnote 160: We have courteous letters from Cicero both to Piso and +Vatinius, only a few years after he had depicted them in public as +monsters of iniquity.] + +[Footnote 161: Plut. C. Gracchus, ch. 6 _ad fin_. Cp. Livy vii. 33.] + +[Footnote 162: These characteristic figures may be most conveniently +seen in Strong's interesting volume on Roman sculpture, p. 42 foll.] + +[Footnote 163: Plut. _Cato_, ch. 1. _ad fin_. Blanditia was the word +for civility in a candidate: "opus est magnopere blanditia," says +Quintus Cicero, _de pet cons_.§ 41.] + +[Footnote 164: There is a pleasanter picture of Cato, sitting in +Lucullus' library and in his right mind, in Cic. _de Finibus_ iii. 2. +7.] + +[Footnote 165: See Leo, in work already cited, p. 338 foll.] + +[Footnote 166: For this remarkable writer, of whose work only a few +fragments survive, see Leo, _op. cit._ p. 340, and Schanz, _Gesch. der +röm. Literatur_, i. p. 278 foll.] + +[Footnote 167: Cicero, _Brutus_, 75, 262.] + +[Footnote 168: The other Caesarian writers followed him more or less +successfully; Hirtius, who wrote the eighth book of the Gallic War, +and the authors of the Alexandrian, African, and Spanish Wars (the +first possibly by Asinius Pollio).] + +[Footnote 169: Leo, _op. cit._ p. 355.] + +[Footnote 170: See below, ch. vi.] + +[Footnote 171: The passage just cited from the _de Finibus_ (iii. 27) +introduces us to the library of Lucullus at Tusculum, whither Cicero +had gone to consult books, and where he found Cato sitting surrounded +by volumes of Stoic treatises.] + +[Footnote 172: The fragments of Panaetius are collected by H.N. +Fowler, Bonn, 1885. The best account of his teaching known to me is in +Schmekel, _Philosophie der Mittleren Stoa_, p. 18 foll. But all can +read the two first books of the _de Officiis_.] + +[Footnote 173: Leo, _op. cit._ p. 360. Schmekel deals comprehensively +with Posidonius' philosophy, as reflected in Varro and Cicero, p. 85 +foll.] + +[Footnote 174: See Professor Reid's introduction to Cicero's +_Academica_, p. 17. Cicero considered Posidonius the greatest of the +Stoics.--_Ib._ p. 5.] + +[Footnote 175: Cic. _de Legibus_ i. affords many examples of this +view, which was apparently that of Posidonius, e.g. 6. 18 and 8. 25. +Cp. _de Republica_, iii. 22. 33.] + +[Footnote 176: Gaius i. i; Cic. _de Officiis_ iii. 5. 23; Mommsen, +_Staatsrecht_, iii. p. 604, based on the research of H. Nettleship in +_Journal of Philology_, vol. xiii. p. 175. See also Sohm, _Institutes +of Roman Law_, ch. ii.] + +[Footnote 177: _Brutus_ 41. 151, where he plainly ranks him above +Scaevola. The passage is a most interesting one, deserving careful +attention.] + +[Footnote 178: The _Ninth Philippic_: the passage referred to in the +text is 5. 10 foll.] + +[Footnote 179: I omit _pro Murena_, chs. vii. and xxi., for want of +space. Sulpicius was opposing Cicero in this case, and the latter's +allusions to him are useful specimens of the good breeding spoken of +above.] + +[Footnote 180: See Dio Cassius xl. 59; and Cic. _ad Fam_. iv. 1 and 3, +to Sulpicius, with allusions to his consulship.] + +[Footnote 181: _Tusc. Disp_. iv. 3. 6.] + +[Footnote 182: The speech _in Pisonem_; cp. the _de Provinciis +consularibus_, 1-6. This Piso was the father of Caesar's wife +Calpurnia, who survives in Shakespeare.] + +[Footnote 183: The difficult passage in which Cicero describes the +perversion of this character under the influence of Philodemus, has +been skilfully translated by Dr. Mahaffy in his _Greek World under +Roman Sway_, p. 126 foll.; and the reader may do well to refer to his +whole treatment of the practical result of Epicureanism.] + +[Footnote 184: This chapter is also useful as illustrating the +urbanity of manners, for Lucullus and Pompeius were political +enemies.] + +[Footnote 185: _ad Fam_. viii. 5 _fin_.; viii. 9. 2.] + +[Footnote 186: See the introduction of Asconius to Cicero _pro +Cornelio_, ed. Clark, p. 58.] + +[Footnote 187: _ad Att_. v. 21. 11, 13.] + +[Footnote 188: _ad Q. frat._ ii. 1. 1; ii. 10. 1.] + +[Footnote 189: The letters written immediately after Cicero's return +from exile are the best examples of this paralysis of business, e.g. +_ad Fam_. i. 4; _ad Q. F_. ii. 3. See a useful paper by P. Groebe in +_Klio_, vol. v. p. 229.] + +[Footnote 190: This appears from a letter of Oaelius to Cicero in +51.--_ad Fam._ viii. 8. 8.] + +[Footnote 191: Asconius _in Cornelianum_, ed. Clark, p. 59. "Ut +praetores ex edictis suis perpetuis ius dicerent."] + +[Footnote 192: All his letters are in the eighth book of those _ad +Familiares_.] + +[Footnote 193: Tacitus, _Annals_ xiii. 2: "voluptatibus concessis."] + +[Footnote 194: Quintil. iv. 2. 123.] + +[Footnote 195: Brutus 79. 273.] + +[Footnote 196: e.g. _ad Fam._ ii. 13. 3.] + +[Footnote 197: Exactly the same combination of real interest in, and +frivolous treatment of, politics is to be found in the early letters +of Horace Walpole to Sir H. Mann, especially those of the year 1742.] + +[Footnote 198: _ad Fam._ viii. 14. 3.] + +[Footnote 199: Caesar, Bell. Civ. iii. 20 foll.] + +[Footnote 200: See above, p. 86; cp. p. 58.] + +[Footnote 201: So for example Servaeus is disqualified, _ad Fam_. +viii. 4. I.] + +[Footnote 202: _Ib_. viii. 8. 2] + +[Footnote 203: _Ib_. 8. 12] + +[Footnote 204: Lucilius, _Fragm_. 9, ed. Baehrens.] + +[Footnote 205: This probably means that the deity was believed to +reside in the cake, and that the communicants not only entered into +communion with each other in eating of it, but also with him. It is +in fact exactly analogous to the sacramental ceremony of the Latin +festival, in which each city partook of the sacred victim, in that +case a white heifer. See Fowler, Roman _Festivals_, p. 96 and reff.] + +[Footnote 206: This interesting custom is recorded by Servius (ad Aen. +iv. 374). For the whole ceremony of confarreatio see De Marchi, +_La Religione nella vita domestica_, p. 155 foll.; Marquardt, +_Privatleben_, p. 32 foll. Cp. also Gaius i. 112.] + +[Footnote 207: Gaius l.c.] + +[Footnote 208: Cic. _de Off_. i. 17. 54.] + +[Footnote 209: i.e. ius commercii and ius connubii: the former +enabling a man to claim the protection of the courts in all cases +relating to property, the latter to claim the same protection in cases +of disputed inheritance.] + +[Footnote 210: i.e. ius provocationis, ius suffragii, ius honorum.] + +[Footnote 211: This is how I understand Cuq, _Institutions juridiques +des Romains_, p. 223. In the well known Laudatio Turiae we have a +curious case of a re-marriage by coemptio with manus, for a particular +purpose, connected of course with money matters. See Mommsen's +Commentary, reprinted in his _Gesammelte Schriften_, vol. i.] + +[Footnote 212: Westermarck, _History of Human Marriage_, ch. x.] + +[Footnote 213: See, however, the curious passage quoted by Gellius +(iv. 4. 2) from Serv. Sulpicius, the great jurist (above, p. 118 +foll.), on _sponsalia_ in Latium down to 89 B.C.] + +[Footnote 214: For the other details of the dress, see Marq. +_Privatleben_, p. 43.] + +[Footnote 215: Cic. _de Div._ i. 16. 28.] + +[Footnote 216: These lines suggested to Virgil the famous four at the +end of the fourth Eclogue. See _Virgil's "Messianic Eclogue_," p. 72.] + +[Footnote 217: She was addressed as _domina_, by all members of the +family. See Marquardt, _Privatleben_, p. 57 note 3. It should be noted +that she had brought a contribution to the family resources in +the form of a dowry (dos) given her by her father to maintain her +position.] + +[Footnote 218: These details are drawn chiefly from the sixth book of +Valerius Maximus, _de Pudicitia_.] + +[Footnote 219: This is proved by an allusion to Cato's speech in +support of the law, in Gellius, _Noct. Att._ vi. 13.] + +[Footnote 220: Livy xxxiv. 1 foll., where the speech of Cato is +reproduced in Livy's language and with "modern" rhetoric.] + +[Footnote 221: De Marchi, _op. cit._ p. 163; Marq. _Privatleben_, p. +87 foll. Confarreatio was only dissoluble by diffarreatio, but this +was perhaps used only for penal purposes. Other forms of marriage +did not present the same difficulty, not being of a sacramental +character.] + +[Footnote 222: Plutarch, _Aem. Paull._ 5.] + +[Footnote 223: Livy xl. 37.] + +[Footnote 224: Livy, _Epit._ 48.] + +[Footnote 225: Livy xxxix. 8-18.] + +[Footnote 226: Plutarch, _Cato the Elder_ 8.] + +[Footnote 227: Gellius (x. 23) quotes a fragment of Cato's speech de +Dotibus, in which the following sentences occur: "Si quid perverse +taetreque factum est a muliere, multitatur: si vinum bibit, si cum +alieno viro probri quid fecerit, condempnatur. In adulterio uxorem +tuam si prehendisses sine indicio impune necares: illa te, si +adulterares sive tu adulterarere, digito non auderet contingere, neque +ius est." Under such circumstances a bold woman might take her revenge +illegally.] + +[Footnote 228: Gellius i. 6; cp. Livy, Epit. 59.] + +[Footnote 229: e.g. _ad Fam._ xiv. 2.] + +[Footnote 230: The story of the relations of Cicero, Terentia, +Clodius, and Clodia, in Pint. _Cic._ 29 is too full of inaccuracies to +be depended on. In the 41st chapter what he says of the divorce and +its causes must be received with caution; it seems to come from some +record left by Tiro, Cicero's freedman and devoted friend, and as +Cicero obviously loved this man much more than his wife, we can +understand why the two should dislike each other.] + +[Footnote 231: Plutarch, _Ti. Gracch._ 1; _Gaius Gracch._ 19. The +letters of Cornelia which are extant are quite possibly genuine.] + +[Footnote 232: The recent edition of the _Ars amatoria_ by Paul Brandt +has an introduction in which these points are well expressed.] + +[Footnote 233: Catullus 72. 75.] + +[Footnote 234: _Cicéron et ses amis_, p. 175.] + +[Footnote 235: Decimus Brutus, one of the tyrannicides of March 15, +44.] + +[Footnote 236: Sall. _Cat_. 25.] + +[Footnote 237: Plut. _Lucullus_ 6.] + +[Footnote 238: Cic. _ad Fam._ viii. 7: a letter of Caelius, in which +he tells of a lady who divorced her husband without pretext on the +very day he returned from his province.] + +[Footnote 239: Plut. _Cato min._ 25 and 52. Plutarch seems to be +using here the Anti-Cato of Caesar, but the facts must have been well +known.] + +[Footnote 240: e.g. _ad Att._ xv. 29.] + +[Footnote 241: _ad Fam._ ix. 26.] + +[Footnote 242: The so-called Laudatio Turiae is well known to all +students of Roman law, as raising a complicated question of Roman +legal inheritance; but it may also be reckoned as a real fragment of +Roman literature, valuable, too, for some points in the history of +the time it covers. It was first made accessible and intelligible by +Mommsen in 1863, and the paper he then wrote about it has lately been +reprinted in his _Gesammelte Schriften_, vol. i., together with a +new fragment discovered on the same site as the others in 1898. This +fragment, and a discussion of its relation to the whole, will he found +in the _Classical Review_ for June 1905, p. 261; the laudatio without +the new fragment in _C.I.L._ vi. 1527.] + +[Footnote 243: App. _B.C._ iv. 44. The identification has been +impugned of late, but, as I think, without due reason. See my article +in _Classical Rev._, 1905, p. 265.] + +[Footnote 244: This is how I interpret the new fragment. See +_Classical Rev. l.c._ p. 263 foll.] + +[Footnote 245: For the legal question see Mommsen, _Gesammelte +Schriften_, i. p. 407 foll.] + +[Footnote 246: The account that follows is put together from Appian +iv. 44, Valerius Maximus vi. 7. 2, and the Laudatio. Appian preserved +some fifty stories of escapes at this time, and the only one that fits +with the Laudatio is that of Lucretius.] + +[Footnote 247: Newman, _Politics of Aristotle_, i. p. 372.] + +[Footnote 248: A list of the best authorities will be found at the +beginning of Professor Wilkins' book. Of these by far the most useful +for a student is the section in Marquardt's _Privatleben_, p. 79 foll. +The two volumes of Cramer (_Geschichte der Erziehung_, etc.), which +cover all antiquity, are, as he says, most valuable for their breadth +of view. See also H. Nettleship, _Lectures and Essays_, ch. iii. +foll.] + +[Footnote 249: Plut. _Cato the Elder_, ch. xx.] + +[Footnote 250: Plut. _Aem. Paul._ ch. vi.] + +[Footnote 251: Plut. _Cato minor 1 ad fin._ What is told in the +earlier part of this chapter may perhaps be invention, based on the +character of the grown man; but this information at the end may be +derived from a contemporary source.] + +[Footnote 252: Val. Max. iii. 1. 2.] + +[Footnote 253: There is a single story of Cicero's boyhood in +Plutarch's _Life_ of him, ch. ii., that parents used to visit his +school because of his fame as a scholar, etc., but to this I do not +attach much importance.] + +[Footnote 254: So in _ad Q.F._ iii. 1. 7: de Cicerone tuo quod me +semper rogas, etc.] + +[Footnote 255: Ib.] + +[Footnote 256: Ib. iii. 3. 4.] + +[Footnote 257: Ib. iii. 9.] + +[Footnote 258: See the few fragments in the Appendix to Riese's +edition of the remains of Varro's Menippean Satires, p. 248 foll.] + +[Footnote 259: _De Rep._ iv. 3. 3.] + +[Footnote 260: Plut. _Cato_ 20.] + +[Footnote 261: There is probably an allusion to the Stoic view, that +reason is not attained till the fourteenth year, in Virgil's line in +_Ecl._ 4. 27.] + +[Footnote 262: in Nonius, p. 108, s.v. ephippium. Cp. the account of +the education of Cato's young son, Plut. _Cato_, 20. Cp. also Virg. +_Aen._ ix. 602 foll.] + +[Footnote 263: in Nonius, p. 156, s.v. puerae.] + +[Footnote 264: p. 281, ed. Müller.] + +[Footnote 265: Her. _Odes_ iii. 6.] + +[Footnote 266: Dionys. Hal. ii. 26.] + +[Footnote 267: Cic. _pro Cluentio_ 60. 165; Marq. _Privatleben_, p. +87.] + +[Footnote 268: See a paper by the author in _Classical Rev._ vol. x. +p. 317, in which evidence is collected in support of this view. That +the praetexta had a quasi-sacred character seems certain; see e.g. +Hor. _Epod._ 5. 7; Persius, v. 30; pseudo-Quintilian, _Declam._ 340. +See Henzen, _Acta Fratrum Arvalium_ 15, for the pueri patrimi et +matrimi, representing in that ancient cult the children of the old +Roman family.] + +[Footnote 269: Cic. _de Legibus_, ii. 59.] + +[Footnote 270: Polyb. vi. 53. For an account of the practice of +laudatio see Marq. _Privatleben_, p. 346 foll. This, too, degenerated +into falsification.] + +[Footnote 271: A full list of games will be found in Marquardt, +_Privatleben_, p. 814 foll.] + +[Footnote 272: The question is discussed by Quintilian, i. 2.] + +[Footnote 273: Plut. Aem. Fault. 6.] + +[Footnote 274: Full details about elementary schools in Wilkins, ch. +iv., and Marq p. 90 foll.] + +[Footnote 275: Quintil. i. 3. 14.] + +[Footnote 276: Plutarch is careful to tell us that Aem. Paullus +exercised this supervision himself (ch. vi.).] + +[Footnote 277: _Pro Flacco_ 4, 9. Cp. _ad Quint. Fratr._ i. 2. 4.] + +[Footnote 278: That the boy was not always respectful is shown in an +amusing passage in Plautus. _Bacchides_, III. iii. 34 foll.] + +[Footnote 279: Sen. _Controversiae_, vii. 3. 8.] + +[Footnote 280: London, O.J. Clay and Sons, 1895.] + +[Footnote 281: Fortuna occurs many times, as in the so-called +sententiae Varronis printed at the end of Riese's edition of the +fragments of Varro's Menippean satires. This is characteristic of the +period.] + +[Footnote 282: Hor. _Epist._ i. I. 70.] + +[Footnote 283: Marq. _Privatleben_, p. 95 foll.; Wilkins, p. 53.] + +[Footnote 284: There is a good example of this in the well-known case +of Brutus' loan to the Salaminians of Cyprus: see especially Cic. ad +Alt. v. 21. 12.] + +[Footnote 285: Hor. Ars Poet. 323 foll.] + +[Footnote 286: Mommsen, _Hist. of Rome_, iv. p. 563.] + +[Footnote 287: Quintilian was of opinion that Greek authors should +precede Latin: i. I. 12.] + +[Footnote 288: _De Oratore_, i. 187.] + +[Footnote 289: There are many subjects in the book of other kinds, but +all are illustrated in exactly the same way.] + +[Footnote 290: H. Jordan, _M. Catonis praeter librum de re rustica +quae extant_, p. 80.] + +[Footnote 291: Full information on this point will be found in +Marquardt, _Privatleben_, p. 131 foll.] + +[Footnote 292: See my _Roman Festivals_, p. 56. The Liberalia (March +17) was the usual day for the change, and a convenient one for the +enrolment of tirones.] + +[Footnote 293: See the very interesting note (11) in Marq. p. 123, as +to the enrolment in municipal towns.] + +[Footnote 294: Pro Caelio, 4. 9.] + +[Footnote 295: Livy xlv. 37. 3.] + +[Footnote 296: Pro Caelio, 30. 72.] + +[Footnote 297: _Pro Caelio_, 31. 74.] + +[Footnote 298: _Roman Education_, ch. v.] + +[Footnote 299: Rhetorica ad Herenniwm, init. The date of this work was +about 82 B.C. See a paper by the author in Journal of Philology, x. +197.] + +[Footnote 300: H. Nettleship, _Lectures_, etc., p. III; Wilkins, p. +85; Quintil. xii. 2.] + +[Footnote 301: Wilkins, _l.c._] + +[Footnote 302: Quintil. i. 4. 5; xii. 1. 1; xii. 2 and 7.] + +[Footnote 303: _Ib._ xii. 1. 11.] + +[Footnote 304: Plut. _Cic._ 4; _Caes._ 3.] + +[Footnote 305: _ad Fam._ xvi. 21. The translation is based on Mr. +Shuckburgh's.] + +[Footnote 306: See _Der Horn, Gutsbetrieb_, by H. Gummerus, reprinted +from _Klio_, 1906: an excellent specimen of economic research, to +which I am much indebted in this chapter.--E. Meyer, _Die Sclaverei im +Altertum_, p. 46.] + +[Footnote 307: Strabo, p. 668.] + +[Footnote 308: Livy, xlv. 34.] + +[Footnote 309: Livy, _Epit._ 68.] + +[Footnote 310: Caesar, _B.G._ ii. 33.] + +[Footnote 311: _ad Att._ v. 20. 5.] + +[Footnote 312: Wallon (_Hist. de l'Esclavage_, ii. p. 38) has noted +that Virgil alone shows a feeling of tenderness for the lot of the +captive, quoting _Aen_. iii. 320 foll. (the speech of Andromache): but +this was for the fate of a princess, and a mythical princess. No +Latin poet of that age shows any real sympathy with captives or with +slaves.] + +[Footnote 313: Cic. _pro lege Manilia_ 12. 23. Plutarch, in his _Life +of Pompey_ 24, adds that Romans of good standing would join in the +pirates' business in order to make profit in this scandalous way.] + +[Footnote 314: Suet. _Aug._ 32, of the period before Augustus.] + +[Footnote 315: Varro, _R.R._ ii. 10; Diodorus xxxvi. 3. 1.] + +[Footnote 316: Hor. _Epist_. i. 6. 39:-- + + "Mancipiis locuples eget aeris Cappadocum rex: + Ne fueris hic tu." +] + +[Footnote 317: Varro, _R.R._ i. 17.] + +[Footnote 318: _Ib_. 2. 10. 3.] + +[Footnote 319: Hor. _Epode_ 2. 65. Cp. Tibull. ii. 1. 25 "turbaque +vernarum, saturi bona signa coloni."] + +[Footnote 320: See Gummerus, _op. cit._ p. 63, who considers the +_obaeratus_ of Varro as the equivalent of the _addictus_ of the Roman +law of debt.] + +[Footnote 321: See the well-known description of the Forum in Plautus' +_Curculio_, iv. 1: "pone aedem Castoris, ibi sunt subito quibu' credas +male"; Marq. _Privatleven_, p. 168; Wallon, _op. cit_. ch. ii.] + +[Footnote 322: Gellius iv. 2 gives an extract from the edict of +the aediles drawn up with the object of counteracting such sharp +practice.] + +[Footnote 323: Livy xxxix. 44.] + +[Footnote 324: _N.H._. vii. 55. This story affords a good example +of the tricks of the trade: the boys were not twins, and came from +different countries, though exactly alike.] + +[Footnote 325: _Bevölkerung_, p. 403.] + +[Footnote 326: Cic. _Off_. ii. 21. 73.] + +[Footnote 327: Galen v. p. 49, ed. Kuhn; Galen was a native of this +great city.] + +[Footnote 328: Dr. Gummerus promises it.] + +[Footnote 329: Sittengeschichte, i., ed. 5, p. 264.] + +[Footnote 330: Probably by Clodius in 58.] + +[Footnote 331: _Asconius ad Cic. pro Cornel_., ed. Clark, p. 75; +Waltzing, _Corporations professionelles_, i. p. 90 foll.] + +[Footnote 332: Baking as a trade only came in, as we saw, in 174; +Plautus died in 184; some doubt is thus thrown on the Roman character +of the passage, or the allusion may not be to a public bakery.] + +[Footnote 333: See a remarkable passage of Athenaeus (vi. 104) quoted +by Marquardt, _Privatleben_, p. 156, on the use of slaves at Rome for +unproductive labour.] + +[Footnote 334: Sallust, e.g., says of his own life in retirement +that he would not engage in "agrum colendo aut venando, servilibus +officiis."--_Catil._ 4.] + +[Footnote 335: Wallon, _Hist. de l'Esclavage_, vol. ii. ch. iii.] + +[Footnote 336: Sall. _Catil_. 12.] + +[Footnote 337: iv. 3. 11 and 12. Plutarch says that as military +tribune Cato the younger had fifteen slaves with him.--Cato minor 9.] + +[Footnote 338: Cato, R.R. 2. I.] + +[Footnote 339: In ch. 185 he mentions towns where many other objects +may be bought best and cheapest: at Rome, e.g., clothing and rugs, at +Cales and Minturnae farm-instruments of iron, etc. See also Gummerus, +_op. cit._ p. 36.] + +[Footnote 340: _R.R._ 10 and 11.] + +[Footnote 341: Assiduos homines quinquaginta praebeto, i.e. the +contractor: ch. 144.] + +[Footnote 342: See the discussion of this word in Gummerus, p. 62 +foll. Varro defines them as those "qui suas operas in servitutem dant +pro pecunia quam debebant" (_de Ling. Lat._ vii. 105), i.e. they give +their labour as against servitude.] + +[Footnote 343: _R.R._ i. 22.] + +[Footnote 344: Cp. Plut. _Cato the Elder_ 21; a slave must be at work +when he is not asleep.] + +[Footnote 345: This is a point on which I cannot enter, but there can +hardly be a doubt that in the long run free labour is cheaper. +See Cairnes, _Slave Power in America_, ch. iii.; Salvioli, _Le +Capitalisme_, p. 253; Columella, _Praejatio_.] + +[Footnote 346: Gummerus, p. 81. At the same time the small cultivator +is an obvious fact in Columella, cultivating his bit of land without +working for others.] + +[Footnote 347: For Spartacus, Appian, _B.G._ i. 116; for Caelius, +Caesar, _B.C._ iii. 22; and cp. _B.C._ i. 56.] + +[Footnote 348: _R.R._ ii. 10.] + +[Footnote 349: Columella i. 8.] + +[Footnote 350: Gaius ii. 15.] + +[Footnote 351: For examples of slaves' devotion to their masters, +Appian, _B.C._ iv. 29; Seneca, _de Benef_. iii. 25.] + +[Footnote 352: _ad Fam_. xvi. 1; read also the charming letters which +follow. Tiro was manumitted by Cicero at an unknown date.] + +[Footnote 353: _ad Att_. xii. 10.] + +[Footnote 354: See the article "Manumissio" in _Dict. of +Antiquities_.] + +[Footnote 355: Only in exercising the jus suffragii he was limited +with all his fellow libertini to one of the four city tribes.] + +[Footnote 356: Val. Max. viii. 6. 2.] + +[Footnote 357: Sall. _Cat_. 24 and 56; Wallon, ii. p. 318 foll.] + +[Footnote 358: See, e.g., Cic. _ad Att_. ii. 24. 3; Asconius, _in +Milonianam_ (ed. Clark, p. 31); Milo's host of slaves had gladiators +among them, and were organised in military fashion (an antesignanus, +p. 32), when he fell in with Clodius.] + +[Footnote 359: _Pro Sestio_, 15. 34.] + +[Footnote 360: _De Pet. Consulatus_, 5. 17.] + +[Footnote 361: _ad Quint. Fratr._ i. 2 _ad fin_.] + +[Footnote 362: Strabo, p. 381.] + +[Footnote 363: Dion. Hal. iv. 23.] + +[Footnote 364: Wallon, op. cit. ii. p. 436.] + +[Footnote 365: See Otto Seeck, _Geschichte des Untergangs der antiken +Welt_, ch. iv. and v.] + +[Footnote 366: See Marquardt, _Privatleben_, p. 172.] + +[Footnote 367: Wallon (ii. p. 255 foll.) has collected a number of +examples. Plautus' slaves are as much Athenian as Roman, but the +conditions would be much the same in each case. Cp. Varro, _Men. Sat_. +ed. Riese, p. 220: "Crede mihi, plures dominos servi comederunt quam +canes."] + +[Footnote 368: Petronius, _Sat_. 75.] + +[Footnote 369: Diodorus xxxiv. 38.] + +[Footnote 370: "Coli rura ab ergastulis pessimum est et quicquid +agitur a desperantibus," wrote Pliny (_Nat. Hist_. xviii. 36) in the +famous passage about latifundia.] + +[Footnote 371: _R.R._ i. 17.] + +[Footnote 372: See some excellent remarks on this subject in _Ecce +Homo_, towards the end of ch. xii. ("Universality of the Christian +Republic ").] + +[Footnote 373: _The Slave Power_, ch. v., and especially p. 374 foll. +A living picture of the mean white may be found in Mark Twain's +_Huckleberry Finn_, drawn from his own early experience, particularly +in ch. xxi.] + +[Footnote 374: "Regum nobis induimus animos," wrote Seneca in a +well-known letter about the claims of slaves as human beings, _Ep_. +47.] + +[Footnote 375: _Life in Ancient Athens_, p. 55.] + +[Footnote 376: For this view of the Lar see Wissowa, _Religion und +Kultus der Römer_, p. 148 foll.; and a note by the author in _Archiv +fur Religionswissenschaft_, 1906, p. 529.] + +[Footnote 377: _Fasti_, vi. 299.] + +[Footnote 378: Cato, _R.R._, ch. ii. init.; Horace, _Epode_ 2. 65; +_Sat_. ii. 6. 65.] + +[Footnote 379: _Romische Religion_, p. 214.] + +[Footnote 380: Or lectulus adversus, i.e. opposite the door; Ascon. +ed. Clark, p. 43, a good passage for the contents of an atrium.] + +[Footnote 381: See Mau's _Pompeii_, p. 248.] + +[Footnote 382: Mau, _Pompeii_, p. 240.] + +[Footnote 383: The extent to which this could be carried can be +guessed from Sall. _Cat._ 12.] + +[Footnote 384: Quintus Cicero, growing rich with Caesar in Gaul, had a +fancy for a domus suburbana: Cic. _ad Q. Fr._ iii. I. 7. Marcus tells +his brother in this letter that he himself had no great fancy for such +a residence, and that his house on the Palatine had all the charm of +such a suburbana. His villa at Tusculum, as we shall see, served the +purpose of a house close to the city.] + +[Footnote 385: A great number of passages about the noise and crowds +of Rome are collected in Mayor's _Notes to Juvenal_, pp. 173, 203, +207.] + +[Footnote 386: Some interesting remarks on the general aspect of the +city will be found in the concluding chapter of Lanciani's _Ruins and +Excavations_. For the bore elsewhere than in Rome, see below, p. 256.] + +[Footnote 387: _ad Fam_. ii. 12: "Urbem, Urbem, mi Rufe, cole, et in +ista luce viva Omnis peregrinatio (foreign travel) obscura et sordida +est iis, quorum industria Roma potest illustris esse," etc.] + +[Footnote 388: Lucr. ii. 22 foll.; iii. 1060 foll. Cp. Seneca, _Ep._ +69: "Frequens migratio instabilis animi est!"] + +[Footnote 389: _de Oratore_, ii. 22.] + +[Footnote 390: These houses, with the coast on which they stood, +have long sunk into the sea, and we are only now, thanks to the +perseverance of Mr. R.T. Günther of Magdalen College, realising their +position and former magnificence. See his volume on _Earth Movements +in the Bay of Naples_.] + +[Footnote 391: See Cic. _pro Caelio_, §§ 48-50.] + +[Footnote 392: _Cicero's Villen_, Leipzig, 1889.] + +[Footnote 393: Varro, _R.R._ iii. 13.] + +[Footnote 394: The villa had once been Sulla's also: and the +aristocratic connection gave its owner some trouble. See above, p. +102.] + +[Footnote 395: Schmidt, _op. cit._ p. 31.] + +[Footnote 396: _de Finibus_, iii. 2. 7.] + +[Footnote 397: _de Legibus_, ii. 1.] + +[Footnote 398: _op. cit_. p. 15. I am assured by a travelling friend +that the Fibreno is a delicious stream.] + +[Footnote 399: _ad Quint. Fratr_. iii. 1.] + +[Footnote 400: _ad Att._ xiii. 19. 2.] + +[Footnote 401: For further details of the amenities of the villa at +Arpinum see Schmidt, _op. cit._] + +[Footnote 402: _ad Att._ ii. 14 and 15.] + +[Footnote 403: O.E. Schmidt, _Briefwechsel Cicero's_, pp. 66 and 454; +but see his _Cicero's Villen_, p. 46, note.] + +[Footnote 404: _ad Att_. xii. 19 init.] + +[Footnote 405: See Seneca, _Epist_. 69, on the disturbing influence of +constant change of scene.] + +[Footnote 406: There is an exception in the young Cicero's letter to +Tiro, translated above, p. 202.] + +[Footnote 407: Censorinus, _De die natali_, 23. 6.; Pliny, _N.H._ vii. +213. On the whole subject of the division of the day see Marquardt, +_Privatlben_, p. 246 foll.] + +[Footnote 408: In the XII Tables only sunrise and sunset were +mentioned (Pliny, _l.c._ 212). Later on noon was proclaimed by the +Consul's marshal (Varro, _de Ling. Lat_. vi. 5), and also the end of +the civil day. Cp. Varro, _L.L._ vi. 89.] + +[Footnote 409: Cic. _pro Quinctio_, 18. 59.] + +[Footnote 410: See the article "Horologium" in _Dict. of Antiquities_, +vol. i.] + +[Footnote 411: Our modern hours are called equinoctial, because they +are fixed at the length of the natural hour at the equinoxes. This +system does not seem to have come in until late in the Empire period.] + +[Footnote 412: For the water-clock see Marquardt, _op. cit_. p. 773 +foll.] + +[Footnote 413: The lines are so good that I may venture to quote them +in full from Gell. iii 3 (cp. Ribbeck, _Fragm. Gomicorum_, ii. p. 34): +"parasitus esuriens dicit: + + Ut illum di perdant primus qui horas repperit, + Quique adeo primus statuit hic solarium. + Qui mihi comminuit misero articulatim diem, + Nam olim me puero venter erat solarium, + Multo omnium istorum optimum et verissimum: + Ubivis ste monebat esse, nisi quom nihil erat. + Nunc etiam quom est, non estur, nisi soli libet. + Itaque adeo iam oppletum oppidum est solariis, + Maior pars populi iam aridi reptant fame." + +The fourth line contains a truth of human nature, of which +illustrations might easily be found at the present day.] + +[Footnote 414: Pliny, _N.H._ xv. 1 foll, supplies the history of the +oil industry. For the candles see Marquardt, _Privatleben_, p. 690.] + +[Footnote 415: See above, p. 93.] + +[Footnote 416: Marq. _Privatleben_, p. 264.] + +[Footnote 417: Cic. _ad Q.F._ ii. 3. 7. For the lippitudo, _ad Att._ +vii. 14.] + +[Footnote 418: Hor. _Epist_. ii. 1. 112; Pliny, _Ep_. iii. 5, 8, 9.] + +[Footnote 419: Hor. _Epist._ ii. 1. 103: "Romae dulce diu fuit et +solenne reclusa Mane domo vigilare, clienti promere iura" etc. It is +curious that all our information on this early business comes from the +literature of the Empire. The single passage of Cicero which Marquardt +could find to illustrate it unluckily relates to his practice as +governor of Cilicia (_ad Att._ vi. 2. 5).] + +[Footnote 420: e.g. _ad Q.F._ i. 2. 16.; and Q. Cic. _Commentariolum +petitionis_, sec. 17.] + +[Footnote 421: See what he says of M. Manilius in _De Orat_. iii. +133.] + +[Footnote 422: The word seems to be connected with ieiunium (Plant. +_Curculio_ I. i. 73; Festus, p. 346), and thus answers to our +break_fast_. The verb is ientare: Afranius: fragm. "ientare nulla +invitat."] + +[Footnote 423: Galen, vol. vi. p. 332. I take this citation from +Marquardt, _Privatleben_, p. 257; others will be found in the notes +to that page. Marquardt seems to have been the first to bring the +evidence of the medical writers to bear on the subject of Roman +meals.] + +[Footnote 424: See the interesting account of these (salutatores, +deductores, assectatores) in the _Commentariolum petitionis_ of Q. +Cicero, 9. 34 foll.] + +[Footnote 425: See above, p. 109.] + +[Footnote 426: Q. Cicero, _Comment. Pet._9. 37.] + +[Footnote 427: See the author's _Roman Festivals_, pp. 125 foll.] + +[Footnote 428: Plutarch, _C. Gracchus_, 6.] + +[Footnote 429: Cic. _ad Fam._ ii. 12.] + +[Footnote 430: Fragm. 9. Baehrens, _Fragm. Poet. Rom._ p. 141. Cp. +Galen, vol. x. p. 3 (Kuhn).] + +[Footnote 431: Livy xlv. 36; Cic. _ad Fam_. i. 2; for a famous case of +"obstruction" by lengthy speaking, Gell. iv. 10.] + +[Footnote 432: Festus, p. 54.] + +[Footnote 433: _ad Fam._ vii. 30.] + +[Footnote 434: _de Divinatione_, ii. 142, written in 44 B.C.] + +[Footnote 435: Varro, _R.R._ i. 2; the words are put into the mouth +of one of the speakers in the dialogue. See, for examples from later +writers, Marq., _Privatleben_, p. 262.] + +[Footnote 436: _ad Att_. xiii. 52; the habit may have often been +dropped in winter.] + +[Footnote 437: Seneca, _Ep_. 86. The whole passage is most +interesting, as illustrating the difference in habits wrought in the +course of two centuries.] + +[Footnote 438: Mau, _Pompeii_, p. 300. See above, p. 244.] + +[Footnote 439: See the plan in Mau, p. 357; Marquardt, _Privatleben_, +p. 272.] + +[Footnote 440: See Professor Purser's explanation and illustrations in +the _Dict. of Antiquities_, vol. i. p. 278.] + +[Footnote 441: The subject of the public baths at Rome properly +belongs to the period of the Empire, and is too extensive to be +treated in a chapter on the daily life of the Roman of Cicero's time. +Public baths did exist in Rome already, but we hear very little of +them, which shows that they were not as yet an indispensable adjunct +of social life; but the fact that Seneca in the letter already quoted +describes the aediles as testing the heat of the water with their +hands shows (1) that the baths were public, (2) that they were of hot +water and not, as later, of hot air (_thermae_). The latter invention +is said to have come in before the Social war (Val. Max. ix. 1. +1.). Some baths seem to have been run as a speculation by private +individuals, and bore the name of their builder (e.g. balneae Seniae, +Cic. _pro Cael_. 25. 61). In summer the young men still bathed in the +Tiber (_pro Cael_. 15. 36). At Pompeii the oldest public baths (the +Stabian; Mau, p. 183) date from the second century B.C.] + +[Footnote 442: The tradition was that the paterfamilias originally +also sat instead of reclining. See Marq. _Privatleben_, p. 292 note +3.] + +[Footnote 443: Columella, ii. 1. 19, a very interesting chapter; +Plutarch, _Cato min_. 56.] + +[Footnote 444: Plut. _Lucullus_ 40; see above, p. 242.] + +[Footnote 445: Plut. _Quaest. Conv._ 1. 3 foll.; and Marq. p. 295.] + +[Footnote 446: Hor. _Sat_. i. 4. 86; cp. Cic. _in Pisonem_, 27. 67.] + +[Footnote 447: Cic. _de Senect_. 14. 46.] + +[Footnote 448: Lucilius, fragm. 30; 120 foll.; 168, 327 etc. Varro +wrote a Menippean satire on gluttony, of which a fragment is preserved +by Gellius, vi. 16.] + +[Footnote 449: See the interesting passage in _Cic. pro Murena_, 36. +75, about the funeral feast of Scipio Aemilianus.] + +[Footnote 450: Catull. 47. 5: "vos convivia lauta sumptuose De die +facitis?"] + +[Footnote 451: 26. 65 foll; Hor. _Od_. iii. 19, and the commentators.] + +[Footnote 452: _ad Fam_. vii. 26, of the year 57 B.C. The sumptuary +law must have been a certain lex Aemilia of later date than Sulla. +(See Gell. ii. 24: "qua lege non sumptus cenarum, sed ciborum genus et +modus praefinitus est.") This chapter of Gellius, and Macrob. iii. 17, +are the safest passages to consult on the subject of the growth of +gourmandism.] + +[Footnote 453: See Munro, _Elucidations of Catullus_, p. 92 foll.] + +[Footnote 454: Tibull. ii. 1. 51 foll. Cp. ii. 5. 83 foll. Several are +also described by Ovid in his _Fasti_. A charming account of feste in +a Tuscan village of to-day will be found in _A Nook in the Apennines_, +by Leader Scott, chapters xxviii. and xxix.: a book full of value for +Italian rural life, ancient and modern.] + +[Footnote 455: Wissowa, _Religion und Kultus_, p. 366. "Feriae" came +in time to be limited to public festivals, while "festus dies" covered +all holidays.] + +[Footnote 456: de Legibus, ii. 8. 19: cp. 12. 29.] + +[Footnote 457: Georg. i. 268 foll. Cato had already said the same +thing: _R.R._ ii. 4.] + +[Footnote 458: Thus Ovid describes the rites performed by the Flamen +Quirinalis at the old agricultural festival of the Robigalia (Robigus, +deity of the mildew) as if it were a curious bit of old practice which +most people knew nothing about.--_Fasti_, iv. 901 foll.] + +[Footnote 459: Greenidge, _Legal Procedure in Cicero's time_, p. 457.] + +[Footnote 460: It is the same word as our _fair_.] + +[Footnote 461: _Fasti_, iii. 523 foll.; Fowler, _Roman Festivals_, p. +51.] + +[Footnote 462: _Roman Festivals_, p. 185. The custom doubtless had a +religious origin.] + +[Footnote 463: _Ib_. p. 268. Augustus limited the days to three.] + +[Footnote 464: Wissowa, _Religion und Kultus_, p. 170. The cult of +Saturn was largely affected by Greek usage, but this particular custom +was more likely descended from the usage of the Latin farm.] + +[Footnote 465: See above, p. 172. Marquardt, _Privatleben_, p. 586; +Frazer, _Golden Bough_ (ed. 2), vol. iii. p. 188 foll.] + +[Footnote 466: Cic. _Verr_. I. 10. 31; where Cicero complains of the +difficulties he experienced in conducting his case in consequence of +the number of ludi from August to November in that year.] + +[Footnote 467: Fowler, _Roman Festivals_, p. 217 foll.] + +[Footnote 468: See the account in Dion. Hal. vii. 72, taken from +Fabius Pictor.] + +[Footnote 469: See Friedländer in Marquardt, _Staatsverwaltung_, iii. +p. 508, note 3.] + +[Footnote 470: For full accounts of this procession, and the whole +question of the Ludi Romani, see Friedländer, _l.c._; Wissowa, +_Religion und Kultus_, p. 383 foll.; or the article "Triumphus" in +the _Dict. of Antiquities_, ed. 2. All accounts owe much to Mommsen's +essay in _Römische Forschungen_, ii. p. 42 foll.] + +[Footnote 471: On the parallelism between the Ludi Plebeii and Romani +see Mommsen, _Staatsrecht_, ii. p. 508, note 4.] + +[Footnote 472: Fowler, _Roman Festivals_, p. 179 foll.] + +[Footnote 473: _Ib_. p. 69.] + +[Footnote 474: _Ib_. p. 72 foll.] + +[Footnote 475: Fowler, _Roman Festivals_, p. 91 foll.] + +[Footnote 476: Livy xxii. 10.7; Dionys. vii. 71.] + +[Footnote 477: Pliny, N.S. xxxiii. 138. The same thing happened once +or twice under Augustus.] + +[Footnote 478: Livy xl. 44.] + +[Footnote 479: ii. 16, 57 foll.] + +[Footnote 480: We have some details of the ridiculously lavish +expenditure of this aedile in Pliny, N.H. xxxvi. 114. He built a +temporary theatre, which was decorated as though it were to be a +permanent monument of magnificence.] + +[Footnote 481: Verr. v. 14. 36.] + +[Footnote 482: Plut. Caes. 5.] + +[Footnote 483: Cio. _ad Fam_. viii. 9.] + +[Footnote 484: _ad Att_. vi. I. 21.] + +[Footnote 485: There is no evidence that slaves were admitted under +the Republic. Columella, who wrote under Nero, is the first to mention +their presence at the games (_R.R._ i. 8. 2), unless we consider the +vilicus of Horace, _Epist_. i. 14. 15, as a slave. See Friedländer in +Marq. p. 491, note 4.] + +[Footnote 486: See above, p. 13; Fowler, _Roman Festivals_, p. 208.] + +[Footnote 487: _Roman Festivals_, p. 241.] + +[Footnote 488: _Ib_. p. 77 foll.] + +[Footnote 489: Dionys. Hal. in. 68 gives this number for Augustus' +time, and so far as we know Augustus had not enlarged the Circus.] + +[Footnote 490: Gell. iii. 10. 16.] + +[Footnote 491: Pliny, _N.H._ x. 71: he seems to be referring to an +earlier time, and this Caecina may have been the friend of Cicero. In +another passage of Pliny we hear of the red faction about the time of +Sulla (vii. 186; Friedl. p. 517). Cp. Tertullian, _de Spectaculis_, +9.] + +[Footnote 492: For a graphic picture of the scene in the Circus in +Augustus' time see Ovid, _Ars Amatoria_, i. 135 foll.] + +[Footnote 493: ch. 59.] + +[Footnote 494: See Schol. Bob. on the _pro Sestio_, new Teubner ed., +p. 105.] + +[Footnote 495: Val. Max. ii. 3. 2. The conjecture as to the object +of the exhibition by the consuls is that of Bücheler, in _Rhein. +Mus._1883, p. 476 foll.] + +[Footnote 496: The example was set, according to Livy, _Epit_. 16, by +a Junius Brutus at the beginning of the first Punic war.] + +[Footnote 497: _ad Fam_. ii. 3.] + +[Footnote 498: The origin of these bloody shows at funerals needs +further investigation. It may be connected with a primitive and savage +custom of sacrificing captives to the Manes of a chief, of which we +have a reminiscence in the sacrifice of captives by Aeneas, in Virg. +_Aen_. xi. 82.] + +[Footnote 499: See Lucian Müller's _Ennius_, p. 35 foll., where he +maintains against Mommsen the intelligence and taste of the Romans of +the 2nd century B.C.] + +[Footnote 500: Cic. _Brutus_, 28. 107, where he speaks of having known +the poet himself.] + +[Footnote 501: _ad_ Att. ii. 19.] + +[Footnote 502: _Pro Sestio_, 55. 117 foll.] + +[Footnote 503: _ad Q. Fratr_. iii. 5.] + +[Footnote 504: It is only fair to say that this information comes from +a letter of Asinius Pollio to Cicero (_ad Fam_. x. 32. 3), and as +Pollio was one who had a word of mockery for every one, we may +discount the story of the tears.] + +[Footnote 505: Tibicines, usually mistranslated flute-players; this +characteristic Italian instrument was really a primitive oboe played +with a reed, and usually of the double form (two pipes with a +connected mouthpiece), still sometimes seen in Italy.] + +[Footnote 506: See above, p. 70.] + +[Footnote 507: Val. Max. ii. 4. 2; Livy, _Epit_. 48.] + +[Footnote 508: Tacitus, _Ann_. xiv. 20.] + +[Footnote 509: Tertullian, _de Spectaculis_, 10; Pliny, _N.H._ viii. +20.] + +[Footnote 510: See the excellent account in Hülsen, vol. iii. of +Jordan's _Topographie_, p. 524 foll. Some of the arches of the +supporting arcade are still visible.] + +[Footnote 511: _ad Fam_. vii. I. Professor Tyrrell calls this letter a +rhetorical exercise; is it not rather one of those in which Cicero is +taking pains to write, therefore writing less easily and naturally +than usual?] + +[Footnote 512: I have used Mr. Shuckburgh's translation, with one or +two verbal changes.] + +[Footnote 513: Pliny, _Nat. Hist_. viii. 21.] + +[Footnote 514: _de Div_. i. 37. 80. Cp. the story in Plut. _Cic_. 5.] + +[Footnote 515: Hor. _Ep_. ii. 82; Quintil. ii. 3. Ill.] + +[Footnote 516: Val. Max. viii. 10. 2. Cicero was said to have learnt +gesticulation both from Aesopus and Roscius.--Plut. _Cic_. 5.] + +[Footnote 517: Pliny, _N.H._ vii. 128.] + +[Footnote 518: _Pro Archia_, 8.] + +[Footnote 519: _De Oratore_, i. 28. 129.] + +[Footnote 520: _De Oratore_, iii. 27, 59.] + +[Footnote 521: A useful succinct account of the literature of +this difficult subject will be found in Schanz, _Gesch. der rom. +Litteratur_, vol. i. (ed. 3) p. 21 foll.] + +[Footnote 522: This is the view of Mommsen, _Hist_. iii. p. 455, which +is generally accepted. For further information see Teuffel, _Hist. of +Roman Literature_, i. (ed. 2) p. 9. That they were in fashion before +the mimus is gathered from Cic. _ad Fam_. ix. 16.] + +[Footnote 523: Plut. _Sulla_, 2: ep. 36.] + +[Footnote 524: Political allusions in mimes, were, however, not +unknown. Cp. Cic. _ad Alt_. xiv. 3, written in 44 B.C., after Caesar's +death.] + +[Footnote 525: All the passages about Publilius are collected in Mr. +Bickford Smith's edition of his _Sententiae_, p. 10 foll. On mimes +generally the reader may be referred to Professor Purser's excellent +article in Smith's _Diet. of Antiq_. ed. 2.] + +[Footnote 526: Animo aequissimo, _ad Fam_. xii. 19. He means perhaps +rather that flattering allusions to Caesar did not hurt his feelings.] + +[Footnote 527: See Ribbeck, _Fragm. Comic. Lat_. p. 295 foll.] + +[Footnote 528: Seneca, _Epist_. 108. 8.] + +[Footnote 529: See another excellent article of Professor Purser's in +the _Dict. of Antiq_.] + +[Footnote 530: See the _Hibbert Journal_ for July 1907, p. 847. In the +second sense Cicero often uses the plural "religiones," esp. in _de +Legibus_, ii.] + +[Footnote 531: See Middleton, _Rome in 1887_, p. 423; Horace, _Sat_. +i. 8. 8 foll.; Nissen, _Italische Landeskunde_, ii. p. 522.] + +[Footnote 532: Fowler, _Roman Festivals_, p. 336 foll.] + +[Footnote 533: _Monumentum Ancyranum_ (Lat.), 4. 17.] + +[Footnote 534: _de Nat. Deor._ i. 29. 82.] + +[Footnote 535: Valerius Maximus, _Epit._ 3. 4; Wissowa, _Rel. und +Kult._ p. 293.] + +[Footnote 536: See, e.g. Dill, _Roman Society from Nero to Marcus +Aurelius_, ch. v.] + +[Footnote 537: See, e.g., _pro Sestio_, 15. 32; _in Vatinium_, 7. 18.] + +[Footnote 538: Augustine, _Civ. Dei_, iv. 27.] + +[Footnote 539: Cp. i. 63 foll.; iii. 87 and 894; v. 72 and 1218; and +many other passages.] + +[Footnote 540: iii. 995 foll.; v. 1120 foll.] + +[Footnote 541: iii. 70; v. 1126.] + +[Footnote 542: ii. 22 foll.; iii. 1003; v. 1116.] + +[Footnote 543: _Roman Poets of the Republic_, p. 306.] + +[Footnote 544: The secret may be found in the last 250 lines of Bk. +iii., and at the beginning and end of Bk. v.] + +[Footnote 545: v. 1203; ii. 48-54.] + +[Footnote 546: v. 1129.] + +[Footnote 547: "Philosophy has never touched the mass of mankind +except through religion" (_Decadence_, by Rt. Hon. A.J. Balfour, p. +53). This is a truth of which Lucretius was profoundly, though not +surprisingly, ignorant.] + +[Footnote 548: See above, p. 115.] + +[Footnote 549: e.g. xxi. 62.] + +[Footnote 550: Ribbeck, _Fragm. Trag. Rom._ p. 54: Ego deum genus esse +semper dixi et dicam coelitum, Sed eos non curare opinor quid agat +humanum genus.] + +[Footnote 551: See above, p. 114.] + +[Footnote 552: See H.N. Fowler, _Panaetii et Hecatonis librorum +fragmenta_, p. 10; Hirzel, _Untersuchungen zu Cicero's philosophischen +Schriften_, i. p. 194 foll.] + +[Footnote 553: See above, p. 115.] + +[Footnote 554: Schmekel, _Die Mittlere Stoa_, p. 85 foll.; Hirzel, +_Untersuchungen_, etc., i. p. 194 foll.] + +[Footnote 555: The fragments are collected by E. Agahd, Leipzig, 1898. +The great majority are found in St. Augustine, _de Civitate Dei_.] + +[Footnote 556: As Wissowa says (_Religion und Kultus der Römer_, p. +100), Jupiter does not appear in Roman language and literature as a +personality who thunders or rains, but rather as the heaven itself +combining these various manifestations of activity. The most familiar +illustration of the usage alluded to in the text is the line of Horace +in _Odes_ i. 1. 25: "manet sub Iove frigido venator."] + +[Footnote 557: ap. Aug. _Civ. Dei_, iv. 11.] + +[Footnote 558: _Ib._ vii. 9.] + +[Footnote 559: ap. Aug. _Civ. Dei_, vii. 13: animus mundi is here so +called, but evidently identified with Jupiter.] + +[Footnote 560: _Ib._ vii. 9.] + +[Footnote 561: _Ib._ iv. 11, 13.] + +[Footnote 562: Aug. _de consensu evangel._ i. 23, 24. Cp. _Civ. Dei_, +iv. 9.] + +[Footnote 563: _Ib._ i. 22. 30; _Civ. Dei_, xix. 22.] + +[Footnote 564: See Wissowa, _Religion und Kultus_, p. 103.] + +[Footnote 565: _de Rep_. iii. 22. See above, p. 117.] + +[Footnote 566: _de Legilus_, ii. 10.] + +[Footnote 567: _de Nat. Deor._. i. 15. 40: "idem etiam legis perpetuae +et eternae vim, quae quasi dux vitae et magistra officiorum sit, Iovem +dicit esse, eandemque fatalem necessitatem appellat, sempiternam rerum +futurarum veritatem." Chrysippus of course was speaking of the Greek +Zeus.] + +[Footnote 568: e.g. _de Off._ iii. 28; _de Nat. Deor._ i. 116.] + +[Footnote 569: Glover, _Studies in Virgil_, p. 275.] + +[Footnote 570: It is interesting to note that in the religious revival +of Augustus Jupiter by no means has a leading place. See Carter, +_Religion of Numa_, p. 160, where, however, the attitude of Augustus +towards the great god is perhaps over-emphasised. On the relation of +Virgil's Jupiter to Fate, see E. Norden, _Virgils epische Technik_, p. +286 foll. Seneca, it is worth noting, never mentions Jupiter as the +centre of the Stoic Pantheon.--Dill, _Roman Society from Nero to M. +Aurelius_, p. 331.] + +[Footnote 571: See an article by the author in _Hibbert Journal_, July +1907, p. 847.] + +[Footnote 572: Plut. _Sulla_, 6.] + +[Footnote 573: Valerius Maximus ii. 3.] + +[Footnote 574: _de Div_. i. 32. 68.] + +[Footnote 575: Plut. _Brutus_, 36, 37.] + +[Footnote 576: Sall. _Cat._ 51; Cic. _Cat._ iv. 4. 7.] + +[Footnote 577: Cic. _de Rep._ iv. 24.] + +[Footnote 578: Reid, _The Academics of Cicero_, Introduction, p. 18.] + +[Footnote 579: _ad Att._ xii. 36.] + +[Footnote 580: ad Att. xii. 37.] + +[Footnote 581: Suetonius, _Jul_. 88. See E. Kornemann in _Klio_, vol. +i. p. 95.] + +[Footnote 582: We do not know exactly when this preface was written. +Prefaces are now composed, as a rule, when a work is finished: but +this does not seem to have been the practice in antiquity, and +internal evidence is here strongly in favour of an early date.] + +[Footnote 583: _Epode_ 16. 54; cp. 30 foll.] + +[Footnote 584: Sir W.M. Ramsay, quoted in _Virgil's Messianic +Eclogue_, p. 54.] + +[Footnote 585: Dr. J.B. Mayor, in _Virgil's Messianic Eclogue_, p. 118 +foll.] + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Social life at Rome in the Age of +Cicero, by W. 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For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: + https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL + + diff --git a/old/11256-8.zip b/old/11256-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..d695af0 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/11256-8.zip diff --git a/old/11256.txt b/old/11256.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b9a9a4f --- /dev/null +++ b/old/11256.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11090 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero +by W. Warde Fowler + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero + +Author: W. Warde Fowler + +Release Date: February 24, 2004 [EBook #11256] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME *** + + + + +Produced by Ted Garvin, Nicolas Hayes and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + +SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME IN THE AGE OF CICERO + +BY W. WARDE FOWLER, M.A. + + 'Ad illa mihi pro se quisque acriter intendat animum, + quae vita, quae mores fuerint.'--LIVY, _Praefatio_. + + + + +AMICO VETERRIMO + +I.A. STEWART + +ROMAE PRIMUM VISAE + +COMES MEMOR + +D.D.D. + + + + +PREFATORY NOTE + +This book was originally intended to be a companion to Professor +Tucker's _Life in Ancient Athens_, published in Messrs. Macmillan's +series of Handbooks of Archaeology and Art; but the plan was abandoned +for reasons on which I need not dwell, and before the book was quite +finished I was called to other and more specialised work. As it +stands, it is merely an attempt to supply an educational want. At our +schools and universities we read the great writers of the last age of +the Republic, and learn something of its political and constitutional +history; but there is no book in our language which supplies a picture +of life and manners, of education, morals, and religion in that +intensely interesting period. The society of the Augustan age, which +in many ways was very different, is known much better; and of late my +friend Professor Dill's fascinating volumes have familiarised us with +the social life of two several periods of the Roman Empire. But the +age of Cicero is in some ways at least as important as any period of +the Empire; it is a critical moment in the history of Graeco-Roman +civilisation. And in the Ciceronian correspondence, of more than nine +hundred contemporary letters, we have the richest treasure-house of +social life that has survived from any period of classical antiquity. + +Apart from this correspondence and the other literature of the time, +my mainstay throughout has been the _Privatleben der Roemer_ of +Marquardt, which forms the last portion of the great _Handbuch der +Roemischen Altertuemer_ of Mommsen and Marquardt. My debt is great also +to Professors Tyrrell and Purser, whose labours have provided us with +a text of Cicero's letters which we can use with confidence; the +citations from these letters have all been verified in the new Oxford +text edited by Professor Purser. One other name I must mention with +gratitude. I firmly believe that the one great hope for classical +learning and education lies in the interest which the unlearned public +may be brought to feel in ancient life and thought. We have just lost +the veteran French scholar who did more perhaps to create and +maintain such an interest than any man of his time; and I gladly here +acknowledge that it was Boissier's _Ciceron et ses amis_ that in my +younger days made me first feel the reality of life and character +in an age of which I then hardly knew anything but the perplexing +political history. + +I have to thank my old pupils, Mr. H.E. Mann and Mr. Gilbert Watson, +for kind help in revising the proofs. + +W.W.F. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER I + +TOPOGRAPHICAL + +Virgil's hero arrives at Rome by the Tiber: we follow his example; +justification of this; view from Janiculum and its lessons; advantages +of the position of Rome, for defence and advance; disadvantages as to +commerce and salubrity; views of Roman writers; a walk through the +city in 50 B.C.; Forum Boarium and Circus maximus; Porta Capena; via +Sacra; summa sacra via and view of Forum; religious buildings at +eastern end of Forum; Forum and its buildings in Cicero's time; ascent +to the Capitol; temple of Jupiter and the view from it. + + +CHAPTER II + +THE LOWER POPULATION + +Spread of the city outside original centre; the plebs dwelt mainly +in the lower ground; little known about its life: indifference +of literary men; housing: the insulae; no sign of home life; bad +condition of these houses; how the plebs subsisted; vegetarian diet; +the corn supply and its problems; the corn law of Gaius Gracchus; +results, and later laws; the water-supply; history of aqueducts; +employment of the lower grade population; aristocratic contempt for +retail trading; the trade gilds; relation of free to slave labour; +bakers; supply of vegetables; of clothing; of leather; of iron, etc.; +gave employment to large numbers; porterage; precarious condition of +labour; fluctuation of markets; want of a good bankruptcy law. + + +CHAPTER III + +THE MEN OF BUSINESS AND THEIR METHODS + +Meaning of equester ordo; how the capitalist came by his money; +example of Atticus; incoming of wealth after Hannibalic war; +suddenness of this; rise of a capitalist class; the contractors; the +public contracting companies; in the age and writings of Cicero; their +political influence; and power in the provinces; the bankers and +money-lenders; origin of the Roman banker; nature of his business; +risks of the money-lender; general indebtedness of society; Cicero's +debts; story of Rabirius Postumus; mischief done by both contractors +and money-lenders. + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE GOVERNING ARISTOCRACY + +The old noble families; their exclusiveness; Cicero's attitude +towards them; new type of noble; Scipio Aemilianus: his "circle"; its +influence on the Ciceronian age in (1) manners; (2) literary capacity; +(3), philosophical receptivity; Stoicism at Rome; its influence on the +lawyers; Sulpicius Rufus, his life and work; Epicureanism, its general +effect on society; case of Calpurnius Piso; pursuit of pleasure and +neglect of duty; senatorial duties neglected; frivolity of the younger +public men; example of M. Caelius Rufus; sketch of his life and +character; life of the Forum as seen in the letters of Caelius. + + +CHAPTER V + +MARRIAGE AND THE ROMAN LADY + +Meaning of matrimonium: its religious side; shown from the oldest +marriage ceremony; its legal aspect; marriage cum manu abandoned; +betrothal; marriage rites; dignified position of Roman matron; the +ideal materfamilias; change in the character of women; its causes; the +ladies of Cicero's time; Terentia; Pomponia; ladies of society and +culture: Clodia; Sempronia; divorce, its frequency; a wonderful Roman +lady: the Laudatio Turiae; story of her life and character as recorded +by her husband. + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE EDUCATION OF THE UPPER CLASSES + +An education of character needed; Aristotle's idea of education; +little interest taken in education at Rome; biographies silent; +education of Cato the younger; of Cicero's son and nephew; Varro +and Cicero on education; the old Roman education of the body and +character; causes of its breakdown; the new education under Greek +influence; schools, elementary; the sententiae in use in schools; +arithmetic; utilitarian character of teaching; advanced schools; +teaching too entirely linguistic and literary; assumption of toga +virilis; study of rhetoric and law; oratory the main object; results +of this; Cicero's son at the University of Athens: his letter to Tiro. + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE SLAVE POPULATION + +The demand for labour in second century B.C.; how it was supplied; the +slave trade; kidnapping by pirates, etc.; breeding of slaves; prices +of slaves; possible number in Cicero's day; economic aspect of +slavery: did it interfere with free labour?; no apparent rivalry +between them; either in Rome; or on the farm; the slave-shepherds +of South Italy; they exclude free labour; legal aspect of slavery: +absolute power of owner; prospect of manumission; political results of +slave system; of manumission; ethical aspect: destruction of family +life; no moral standard; effects of slavery on the slave-owners. + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE HOUSE OF THE RICH MAN IN TOWN AND COUNTRY + +Out-of-door life at Rome; but the Roman house originally a home; +religious character of it; the atrium and its contents; development of +atrium: the peristylium; desire for country houses: crowding at Rome; +callers, clients, etc.; effects of this city life on the individual; +country house of Scipio Africanus; watering-places in Campania; +meaning of villa in Cicero's time: Hortensius' park; Cicero's villas: +Tusculum; Arpinum; Formiae; Puteoli; Cumae; Pompeii; Astura; constant +change of residence, and its effects. + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE DAILY LIFE OF THE WELL-TO-DO + +Roman division of the day; sun-dials; hours varied according to the +season; early rising of Romans; want of artificial light; Cicero's +early hours; early callers; breakfast, followed by business; morning +in the Forum; lunch (prandium); siesta; the bath; dinner: its hour +becomes later; dinner-parties: the triclinium; drinking after dinner; +Cicero's indifference to the table; his entertainment of Caesar at +Cumae. + + +CHAPTER X + +HOLIDAYS AND PUBLIC AMUSEMENTS + +The Italian festa, ancient and modern; meaning of the word feriae; +change in its meaning; holidays of plebs; festival of Anna Perenua; +The Saturnalia; the ludi and their origin; ludi Romani and plebeii; +other ludi; supported by State; by private individuals; admission +free; Circus maximus and chariot-racing; gladiators at funeral games; +stage-plays at ludi; political feeling expressed at the theatre; +decadence of tragedy in Cicero's time; the first permanent theatre, 55 +B.C.; opening of Pompey's theatre; Cicero's account of it; the great +actors of Cicero's day: Aesopus; Roscius; the farces; Publilius Syrus +and the mime. + + +CHAPTER XI + +RELIGION + +Absence of real religious feeling; neglect of worship, except in the +family; foreign cults, e.g. of Isis; religious attitude of Cicero and +other public men: free thought, combined with maintenance of the ius +divinum; Lucretius condemns all religion as degrading: his failure to +produce a substitute for it; Stoic attitude towards religion: Stoicism +finds room for the gods of the State; Varro's treatment of theology on +Stoic lines; his monotheistic conception of Jupiter Capitolinus; +the Stoic Jupiter a legal rather than a moral deity; Jupiter in the +Aeneid; superstition of the age; belief in portents, visions, etc.; +ideas of immortality; sense of sin, or despair of the future. + + +EPILOGUE + + +INDEX + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + +PLAN OF HOUSE OF THE SILVER WEDDING AT POMPEII + +MAP TO ILLUSTRATE THE POSITION OF CICERO'S VILLAS + +PLAN OF THE VILLA OF DIOMEDES AT POMPEII + +PLAN OF A TRICLINIUM + + + + +MAP + + +ROME IN THE LAST YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC _At end of Volume_ + + + + +Translations of passages in foreign languages in this book will be +found in the Appendix following page 362. + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +TOPOGRAPHICAL + +The modern traveller of to-day arriving at Rome by rail drives to his +hotel through the uninteresting streets of a modern town, and thence +finds his way to the Forum and the Palatine, where his attention +is speedily absorbed by excavations which he finds it difficult to +understand. It is as likely as not that he may leave Rome without once +finding an opportunity of surveying the whole site of the ancient +city, or of asking, and possibly answering the question, how it +ever came to be where it is. While occupied with museums and +picture-galleries, he may well fail "totam aestimare Romam."[1] +Assuming that the reader has never been in Rome, I wish to transport +him thither in imagination, and with the help of the map, by an +entirely different route. But first let him take up the eighth book of +the _Aeneid_, and read afresh the oldest and most picturesque of all +stories of arrival at Rome;[2] let him dismiss all handbooks from his +mind, and concentrate it on Aeneas and his ships on their way from the +sea to the site of the Eternal City. + +Virgil showed himself a true artist in bringing his hero up the Tiber, +which in his day was freely used for navigation up to and even above +the city. He saw that by the river alone he could land him exactly +where he could be shown by his friendly host, almost at a glance, +every essential feature of the site, every spot most hallowed by +antiquity in the minds of his readers. Rowing up the river, which +graciously slackened its swift current, Aeneas presently caught sight +of the walls and citadel, and landed just beyond the point where +the Aventine hill falls steeply almost to the water's edge. Here in +historical times was the dockyard of Rome; and here, when the poet was +a child, Cato had landed with the spoils of Cyprus, as the nearest +point of the river for the conveyance of that ill-gotten gain to the +treasury under the Capitol.[3] Virgil imagines the bank clothed with +wood, and in the wood--where afterwards was the Forum Boarium, a +crowded haunt--Aeneas finds Evander sacrificing at the Ara maxima of +Hercules, of all spots the best starting-point for a walk through the +heart of the ancient city. To the right was the Aventine, rising to +about a hundred and thirty feet above the river, and this was the +first of the hills of Rome to be impressed on the mind of the +stranger, by the tale of Hercules and Cacus which Evander tells his +guest. In front, but close by, was the long western flank of the +Palatine hill, where, when the tale had been told and the rites of +Hercules completed, Aeneas was to be shown the cave of the Lupercal; +and again to the left, approaching the river within two hundred yards, +was the Capitol to be: + + Hinc ad Tarpeiam sedem et Capitolia ducit, + Aurea nunc, olim silvestribus horrida dumis. + +Below it the hero is shown the shrine of the prophetic nymph Carmenta, +with the Porta Carmentalis leading into the Campus Martius; then the +hollow destined one day to be the Forum Romanum, and beyond it, in +the valley of the little stream that here found its way down from the +plain beyond, the grove of the Argiletum. Here, and up the slope of +the Clivus sacer, with which we shall presently make acquaintance, +were the lowing herds of Evander, who then takes his guest to repose +for the night in his own dwelling on the Palatine, the site of the +most ancient Roman settlement.[4] + +What Evander showed to his visitor, as we shall presently see, +comprised the whole site of the heart and life of the city as it was +to be, all that lay under the steep sides of the three almost isolated +hills, the Capitoline, Palatine, and Aventine. The poet knew that he +need not extend their walk to the other so-called hills, which come +down as spurs from the plain of the Campagna,--Quirinal, Esquiline, +Caelian. Densely populated as those were in his own day, they were not +essential organs of social and politics life; the pulse of Rome was to +be felt beating most strongly in the space between them and the river +where too the oldest and most cherished associations of the Roman +people, mythical and historical, were fixed. I propose to take the +reader, with a single deviation, over the same ground, and to ask him +to imagine it as it was in the period with which we are concerned in +this book. But first, in order to take in with eye and mind the whole +city and its position, let us leave Aeneas, and crossing to the right +bank of the Tiber by the Pons Aemilius,[5] let us climb to the fort of +the Janiculum, an ancient outwork against attack from the north, by +way of the via Aurelia, and here enjoy the view which Martial has made +forever famous: + + Hinc septem dominos videre montes + Et totam licet aestimare Romam, + Albanos quoque Tusculosque colles + Et quodcunque iacet sub urbe frigus. + +No one who has ever stood on the Janiculum, and looked down on the +river and the city, and across the Latin plain to the Alban mountain +and the long line of hills--the last spurs of the Apennines--enclosing +the plain to the north, can fail to realise that _Rome was originally +an outpost of the Latins_, her kinsmen and confederates, against the +powerful and uncanny Etruscan race who dwelt in the undulating hill +country to the north. The site was an outpost, because the three +isolated hills make it a natural point of defence, and of attack +towards the north if attack were desirable; no such point of similar +vantage is to be found lower down the river, and if the city had been +placed higher up, Latium would have been left open to attack,--the +three hills would have been left open to the enemy to gain a firm +footing on Latin soil. It was also, as it turned out, an admirable +base of operations for carrying on war in the long and narrow +peninsula, so awkward, as Hannibal found to his cost, for working out +a definite plan of conquest. From Rome, astride of the Tiber, armies +could operate on "interior lines" against any combination--could +strike north, east, and south at the same moment. With Latium faithful +behind her she could not be taken in the rear; the unconquerable +Hannibal did indeed approach her once on that side, but fell away +again like a wave on a rocky shore. From the sea no enemy ever +attempted to reach her till Genseric landed at Ostia in A.D. 455. + +Thus it is not difficult to understand how Rome came to be the leading +city of Latium; how she came to work her conquering way into Etruria +to the north, the land of a strange people who at one time threatened +to dominate the whole of Italy; how she advanced up the Tiber valley +and its affluents into the heart of the Apennines, and southward into +the Oscan country of Samnium and the rich plain of Campania. A glance +at the map of Italy will show us at once how apt is Livy's remark that +Rome was placed in the centre of the peninsula.[6] That peninsula +looks as if it were cleft in twain by the Tiber, or in other words, +the Tiber drains the greater part of central Italy, and carries the +water down a well-marked valley to a central point on the western +coast, with a volume greater than that of any other river south of the +Po. A city therefore that commands the Tiber valley, and especially +the lower part of it, is in a position of strategic advantage with +regard to the whole peninsula. Now Rome, as Strabo remarked, was the +only city actually situated on the bank of the river; and Rome was not +only on the river, but from the earliest times astride of it. She held +the land on both banks from her own site to the Tiber mouth at Ostia, +as we know from the fact that one of her most ancient priesthoods[7] +had its sacred grove five miles down the river on the northern bank. +Thus she had easy access to the sea by the river or by land, and an +open way inland up the one great natural entrance from the sea into +central Italy.[8] Her position on the Tiber is much like that of +Hispalis (Seville) on the Baetis, or of Arles on the Rhone, cities +opening the way of commerce or conquest up the basins of two great +rivers. In spite of some disadvantages, to be noticed directly, there +was no such favourable position in Italy for a virile people apt to +fight and to conquer. Capua, in the rich volcanic plain of Campania, +had far greater advantages in the way of natural wealth; but Capua was +too far south, in a more enervating climate, and virility was never +one of her strong points. Corfinium, in the heart of the Apennines, +once seemed threatening to become a rival, and was for a time the +centre of a rebellious confederation; but this city was too near the +east coast--an impossible position for a pioneer of Italian dominion. +Italy looks west, not east; almost all her natural harbours are on her +western side; and though that at Ostia, owing to the amount of silt +carried down by the Tiber, has never been a good one, it is the only +port which can be said to command an entrance into the centre of the +peninsula. + +No one, however, would contend that the position of Rome is an ideal +one. Taken in and by itself, without reference to Italy and the +Mediterranean, that position has little to recommend it. It is too far +from the sea, nearly twenty miles up the valley of a river with an +inconveniently rapid current, to be a great commercial or industrial +centre; and such a centre Rome has never really been in the whole +course of her history. There are no great natural sources of wealth in +the neighbourhood--no mines like those at Laurium in Attica, no vast +expanse of corn-growing country like that of Carthage. The river too +was liable to flood, as it still is, and a familiar ode of Horace +tells us how in the time of Augustus the water reached even to the +heart of the city.[9] Lastly, the site has never really been a healthy +one, especially during the months of July and August,[10] which are +the most deadly throughout the basin of the Mediterranean. Pestilences +were common at Rome in her early history, and have left their mark in +the calendar of her religious festivals; for example, the Apolline +games were instituted during the Hannibalic war as the result of a +pestilence, and fixed for the unhealthy month of July. Foreigners from +the north of Europe have always been liable to fever at Rome; invaders +from the north have never been able to withstand the climate for long; +in the Middle Ages one German army after another melted away under her +walls, and left her mysteriously victorious. + +There are some signs that the Romans themselves had occasional +misgivings about the excellence of their site. There was a tradition, +that after the burning of the city by the Gauls, it was proposed that +the people should desert the site and migrate to Veii, the conquered +Etruscan city to the north, and that it needed all the eloquence of +Camillus to dissuade them. It has given Livy[11] the opportunity of +putting into the orator's mouth a splendid encomium on the city and +its site; but no such story could well have found a place in Roman +annals if the Capitol had been as deeply set in the hearts of the +people as was the Acropolis in the hearts of the Athenians. At a later +time of deep depression Horace[12] could fancifully suggest that the +Romans should leave their ancient home like the Phocaeans of old, and +seek a new one in the islands of the blest. Some idea was abroad that +Caesar had meant to transfer the seat of government to Ilium, and +after Actium the same intention was ascribed to Augustus, probably +without reason; but the third ode of Horace's third book seems to +express the popular rumour, and in an interesting paper Mommsen[13] +has stated his opinion that the new master of the Roman world may +really have thought of changing the seat of government to Byzantium, +the supreme convenience and beauty of which were already beginning to +be appreciated.[14] + +Virgil, on the other hand, though he came from the foot of the Alps +and did not love Rome as a place to dwell in, is absolutely true to +the great traditions of the site. For him "rerum facta est pulcherrima +Roma" (_Georg_. ii. 534); and in the _Aeneid_ the destiny of Rome is +so foretold and expressed as to make it impossible for a Roman reader +to think of it except in connexion with the city. He who needs to be +convinced of this has but to turn once more to the eighth _Aeneid_, +and to add to the charming story of Aeneas' first visit to the seven +hills, the splendid picture of the origin and growth of Roman dominion +engraved on the shield which Venus gives her son. Cicero again, though +he was no Roman by birth, was passionately fond of Rome, and in his +treatise _de Republica_, praised with genuine affection her "nativa +praesidia."[15] He says of Romulus, "that he chose a spot abounding in +springs, healthy though in a pestilent region; for her hills are open +to the breezes, yet give shade to the hollows below them." And Livy, +in the passage already quoted, in language even more perfect than +Cicero's, wrote of all the advantages of the site, ending by +describing it as "regionum Italiae medium, ad incrementum urbis natum +unice locum." It is curious that all these panegyrics were written by +men who were not natives of Rome; Virgil came from Mantua, Livy from +Padua, Cicero from Arpinum. They are doubtless genuine, though in +some degree rhetorical; those of Cicero and Livy can hardly be called +strictly accurate. But taken together they may help us to understand +that fascination of the site of Rome, to which Virgil gave such +inimitable expression. + +On this site, which once had been crowded only when the Roman farmers +had taken refuge within the walls with their families, flocks, and +herds on the threatening appearance of an enemy, by the time of Cicero +an enormous population had gathered. Many causes had combined to bring +this population together, which can be only glanced at here. As in +Europe and America at the present day, so in all the Mediterranean +lands since the age of Alexander, there had been a constantly +increasing tendency to flock into the towns; and the rise of huge +cities, such as Antioch, Alexandria, Carthage, Corinth, or Rhodes, +with all the inevitably ensuing social problems and complications, is +one of the most marked characteristics of the last three centuries +B.C. In Italy in particular, apart from the love of a pleasant social +life free from manual toil, with various convenient resorts and +amusements, the long series of wars had served to increase the +population, in spite of the constant loss by the sword or pestilence; +for the veteran soldier who had been serving, perhaps for years, +beyond sea, found it hard to return to the monotonous life of +agriculture, or perhaps found his holding appropriated by some +powerful landholder with whom it would be hopeless to contest +possession. The wars too brought a steadily increasing population +of slaves to the city, many of whom in course of time would be +manumitted, would marry, and so increase the free population. These +are only a few of the many causes at work after the Punic wars which +crammed together in the site of Rome a population which, in the latter +part of the last century B.C., probably reached half a million or even +more.[16] + +Let us now descend from the Janiculum, and try to imagine ourselves in +the Rome of Cicero's time, say in the last year of the Republic, 50 +B.C., as we walk through the busy haunts of this crowded population. +We will not delay on the right bank of the Tiber, which had probably +long been the home of tradesmen in their gilds,[17] and where farther +down the rich were buying land for gardens[18] and suburban villas; +but cross by the Pons Aemilius, with the Tiber island on our left, and +the opening of the Cloaca maxima, which drained the water from the +Forum, facing us, as it still does, a little to our right. We find +ourselves close to the Forum Boarium, an open cattle-market, with +shops (tabernae) all around it, as we know from Livy's record of +a fire here, which burnt many of these shops and much valuable +merchandise.[19] Here by the river was in fact the market in the +modern sense of the word; the Forum Romanum, which we are making for, +was now the centre of political and judicial business, and of social +life. + +We might go direct to the great Forum, up the Velabrum, or valley +(once a marsh), right in front of us between the Capitol on the left +and the Palatine on the right. But as we look in the latter direction, +we are attracted by a long low erection almost filling the space +between the Palatine and the Aventine, and turning in that direction +we find ourselves at the lower end of the Circus Maximus, which as +yet is the chief place of amusement of the Roman people. Two famous +shrines, one at each end of it, remind us that we are on historic +ground. At the end where we stand, and where are the _carceres_, the +starting-point for the competing chariots, was the Ara maxima of +Hercules, which prompted Evander to tell the tale of Cacus to his +guest; at the other end was the subterranean altar of Consus the +harvest-god, with which was connected another tale, that of the rape +of the Sabines. All the associations of this quarter point to the +agricultural character of the early Romans; both cattle and harvesting +have their appropriate myth. But nothing is visible here now, except +the pretty little round temple of a later date, which is believed to +have been that of Portunus, the god of the landing-place from the +river.[20] + +The Circus, some six hundred yards long, at the time of Cicero was +still mainly a wooden erection in the form of a long parallelogram, +with shops or booths sheltering under its sides; we shall visit it +again when dealing with the public entertainments.[21] Above it on the +right is the Aventine hill, a densely populated quarter of the lower +classes, crowned with the famous temple of Diana, a deity specially +connected with the plebs.[22] The Clivus Patricius led up to this +temple; down this slope, on the last day of his life, Gaius Gracchus +had hurried, to cross the river and meet his murderers in the grove of +Furrina, of which the site has lately been discovered. If we were to +ascend it we should see, on the river-bank below and beyond it, +the warehouses and granaries for storing the corn for the city's +food-supply, which Gracchus had been the first to extend and organise. + +But to ascend the Aventine would take us out of our course. Pushing +on to the farther end of the Circus, where the chariots turned at the +_metae_, we may pause a moment, for in front of us is a gate in the +city wall, the Porta Capena, by which most travellers from the south, +using the via Appia or the via Latina, would enter the city.[23] +Outside the wall there was then a small temple of Mars, from which the +procession of the Equites started each year on the Ides of Quinctilis +(July) on its way to the Capitol, by the same route that we are about +to take. We shall also be following the steps of Cicero on the happy +day September 4, 57 B.C., when he returned from exile. "On my arrival +at the Porta Capena," he writes to Atticus, "the steps of the temples +were already crowded from top to bottom by the populace; they showed +their congratulations by the loudest applause, and similar crowds and +applause followed me right up to the Capitol, and in the Forum and on +the Capitol itself there was again a wonderful throng" (_ad Att._ iv. +1). + +We are now, as the map will show, at the south-eastern angle of the +Palatine, of which, in fact, we are making the circuit;[24] a and here +we turn sharp to the left, by what is now the via di San Gregorio, +along a narrow valley or dip between the Palatine and Caelian +hills--the latter the first we have met of the "hills" which are not +isolated, but spurs of the plain of the Campagna. The Caelian need not +detain us; it was thickly populated towards the end of the Republican +period, but was not a very fashionable quarter, nor one of the chief +haunts of social life. It held many of those large lodging-houses +(insulae) of which we shall hear more in the next chapter; one of +these stood so high that it interfered with the view of the augur +taking the auspices on the Capitol, and was ordered to be pulled +down.[25] Going straight on reach the north-eastern angle of the +Palatine, where now stands the arch of Constantine, with the Colosseum +beyond it, and turning once more to the left, we begin to ascend a +gentle slope which will take us to a ridge between the Palatine and +the Esquiline[26]--another of the spurs of the plain beyond--known by +the name of the Velia. And now we are approaching the real heart of +the city. + +At this point starts the Sacra via,[27] so called because it is the +way to the most sacred spots of the ancient Roman city,--the temples +of Vesta and the Penates, and the Regia, once the dwelling of the Rex, +now of the Pontifex Maximus; and it will lead us, in a walk of about +eight hundred yards, through the Forum to the Capitol. It varied in +breadth, and took by no means a straight course, and later on was +crowded, cramped, and deflected by numerous temples and other +buildings; but as yet, so far as we can guess, it was fairly free and +open. We follow it and ascend the slope till we come to a point known +as the _summa sacra via_, just where the arch of Titus now stands, and +where then was the temple of Jupiter Stator, and where also a shrine +of the public Penates and another of the Lares (of which no trace is +now left) warn us that we are close on the penetralia of the Roman +State. Here a way to the left leads up to the Palatine the residence +then of many of the leading men of Rome, Cicero being one of them. + +But our attention is not long arrested by these objects; it is soon +riveted on the Forum below and in front of us, to which the Sacred Way +leads by a downward slope, the Clivus sacer. At the north-western end +it is closed in by the Capitoline hill, with its double summit, the +arx to the right, and the great temple of Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva +facing south-east towards the Aventine. It is of this view that +Virgil must have been thinking when he wrote of the happy lot of the +countryman who + + nec ferrea iura + insanumque forum aut populi tabularia vidit.[28] + +For the Forum is crowded with bustling human figures, intent on the +business of politics, or of the law-courts (ferrea iura), or of +money-making, and just beyond it, immediately under the Capitol, are +the record-offices (tabularia) of the Roman Empire. The whole Sacra +via from this point is crowded; here Horace a generation later was to +meet his immortal "bore," from whom he only escaped when the "ferrea +iura" laid a strong hand on that terrible companion. Down below, at +the entrance to the Forum by the arch of Fabius (fornix Fabiana), the +jostling was great. "If I am knocked about in the crowd at the arch," +says Cicero, to illustrate a point in a speech of this time, "I do not +accuse some one at the top of the via Sacra, but the man who jostles +me."[29] + +The Forum--for from this point we can take it all in, geologically and +historically--lies in a deep hollow, to the original level of which +excavation has now at last reached. This hollow was formed by a stream +which came down between the Esquiline and the Quirinal beyond it, +and made its exit towards the river on the other side by way of the +Velabrum. As the city extended itself, amalgamating with another +community on the Quirinal, this hollow became a common meeting-place +and market, and the stream was in due time drained by that Cloaca +which we saw debouching into the Tiber near the bridge we crossed. +The upper course of this stream, between Esquiline and Quirinal, is a +densely populated quarter known as the Argiletum, and higher up as the +Subura,[30] where artisans and shops abounded. The lower part of its +course, where it has become an invisible drain, is also a crowded +street, the vicus Tuscus, leading to the Velabrum, and so to our +starting-point at the Forum Boarium. + +Let us now descend the Clivus sacer, crossing to the right-hand side +of the slope, which the via Sacra now follows, and reach the Forum by +the fornix Fabiana. Close by to our left is the round temple of +Vesta, where the sacred fire of the State is kept ever burning by its +guardians, the Vestal Virgins, and here too is their dwelling, the +Atrium Vestae, and also that of the Pontifex Maximus (Regia), in whose +potestas they were; these three buildings, then insignificant to look +at, constituted the religious focus of the oldest Rome.[31] A little +farther again to the left is the temple of Castor and the spring of +Juturna, lately excavated, where the Twins watered their steeds after +the battle of the lake Regillus. In front of us we can see over the +heads of the crowd the Rostra at the farther end of the Forum, where +an orator is perhaps addressing a crowd (_contio_) on some political +question of the moment, and giving some occupation to the idlers +in the throng; and to the right of the Rostra is the Comitium +or assembling-place of the people, with the Curia, the ancient +meeting-hall of the senate. In Cicero's day the mere shopman had been +got rid of from the Forum, and his place is taken by the banker and +money-lender, who do their business in _tabernae_ stretching in rows +along both sides of the open space. Much public business, judicial and +other, is done in the Basilicae,--roofed halls with colonnades, of +which there are already five, and a new one is arising on the south +side, of which the ground-plan, as it was extended soon afterwards by +Julius Caesar, is now completely laid bare. But it is becoming evident +that the business of the Empire cannot be much longer crowded into +this narrow space of the Forum, which is only about two hundred yards +long by seventy; and the next two generations will see new Fora +laid out larger and more commodious, by Julius and Augustus in the +direction of the Quirinal. + +Now making our way towards the Capitol, we pass the famous temple or +rather gate of the double-headed Janus, standing at the entrance +to the Forum from the Argiletum and the Porta Esquilina; then the +Comitium and Curia (which last was burnt by the mob in 52 B.C., at the +funeral of Clodius), and reach the foot of the Clivus Capitolinus, +just where was (and is) the ancient underground prison, called +Tullianum, from the old word for a spring (_tullus_), the scene of the +deaths of Jugurtha and many noble captives, and of the Catilinarian +conspirators on December 5, 63. Here the via Sacra turns, in front of +the temple of Concordia, to ascend the Capitol. Behind this temple, +extending farther under the slope, is the Tabularium, already +mentioned, which is still much as it was then; and below us to the +south is the temple of Saturnus, the treasury (_aerarium_) of the +Roman people. Thus at this end of the Forum, under the Capitol, +are the whole set of public offices, facing the ancient religious +buildings around the Vesta temple at the other end. + +The way now turns again to the right, and reaches the depression +between the two summits of the Capitoline hill. Leaving the arx on the +left, we reach by a long flight of steps the greatest of all Roman +temples, placed on a long platform with solid substructures of +Etruscan workmanship, part of which is still to be seen in the garden +of the German Embassy. The temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, with +his companions Juno and Minerva, was in a special sense the religious +centre of the State and its dominion. Whatever view he might take of +the gods and their cults, every Roman instinctively believed that this +great Jupiter, above all other deities, watched over the welfare of +Rome, and when a generation later Virgil placed the destiny of Rome's +mythical hero in the hands of Jupiter, every Roman recognised in this +his own inherited conviction. Here, on the first day of their office, +the higher magistrates offered sacrifice in fulfilment of the vows of +their predecessors, and renewed the same vows themselves. The consul +about to leave the city for a foreign war made it his last duty to +sacrifice here, and on his return he deposited here his booty. Here +came the triumphal procession along the Sacred Way, the conquering +general attired and painted like the statue of the god within the +temple; and upon the knees of the statue he placed his wreath of +laurel, rendering up to the deity what he had himself deigned to +bestow. Here too, from a pedestal on the platform, a statue of Jupiter +looked straight over the Forum,[32] the Curia, and the Comitium; and +Cicero could declare from the Rostra, and know that in so declaring he +was touching the hearts of his hearers, that on that same day on which +it had first been so placed, the machinations of Catiline and his +conspirators had been detected.[33] "Ille, ille Iupiter restitit; +ille Capitolium, ille haec templa, ille cunctam urbem, ille vos omnes +salvos esse voluit." + +The temple had been destroyed by fire in the time of Sulla, and its +restoration was not as yet finally completed at the time of our +imaginary walk.[34] It faced towards the river and the Aventine, i.e. +south-east, according to the rules of augural lore, like all Roman +public buildings of the Republican period. From the platform on which +it stands we look down on the Forum Boarium, from which we started, +connected with the Forum by the Velabrum and the vicus Tuscus; and +more to the right below us is the Campus Martius, with access to the +city by that Porta Carmentalis which Evander showed to Aeneas. This +spacious exercise-ground of Roman armies is already beginning to be +built upon; in fact the Circus Flaminius has been there for more than +a century and a half, and now the new theatre of Pompeius, the first +stone theatre in Rome, rises beyond it towards the Vatican hill. But +there is ample space left; for it is nearly a mile from the Capitol +to that curve of the Tiber above which the Church of St. Peter now +stands; and on this large expanse, at the present day, the greater +part of a population of nearly half a million is housed. I do not +propose to take the reader farther. We have been through the heart of the +city, as it was at the close of the Republican period, and from the +platform of the great temple we can see all else that we need to keep +in mind in these chapters. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +THE LOWER POPULATION (PLEBS URBANA) + +The walk we have been taking has led us only through the heart of +the city, in which were the public buildings, temples, basilicas, +porticos, etc., of which we hear so much in Latin literature. It was +on the hills which are spurs of the plain beyond, and which look down +over the Forum and the Campus Martius, the Caelian, Esquiline, and +Quirinal, with the hollows lying between them, and also on the +Aventine by the river, that the mass of the population lived. The most +ancient fortification of completed Rome, the so-called Servian wall +and _agger_, enclosed a singularly large space, larger, we are told, +than the walls of any old city in Italy;[35] it is likely that a +good part of this space was long unoccupied by houses, and served to +shelter the cattle of the farmers living outside, when an enemy was +threatening attack. But in Cicero's time, as to-day, all this space +was covered with dwellings; and as the centre of the city came to be +occupied with public buildings, erected on sites often bought from +private owners, the houses were gradually pushed out along the roads +beyond the walls. Exactly the same process has been going on for +centuries in the University city of Oxford where the erection of +colleges gradually absorbed the best sites within the old walls, so +that many of the dwelling-houses are now quite two miles from the +centre of the city. The fact is attested for Rome by the famous +municipal law of Julius Caesar, which directs that for a mile outside +the gates every resident is to look after the repair of the road in +front of his own house.[36] + +As a general rule, the heights in Rome were occupied by the better +class of residents, and the hollows by the lower stratum of +population. This was not indeed entirely so, for poor people no doubt +lived on the Aventine, the Caelian, and parts of the Esquiline. But +the Palatine was certainly an aristocratic quarter; the Carinae, the +height looking down on the hollow where the Colosseum now stands, had +many good houses, e.g. those of Pompeius and of Quintus Cicero, and +we know of one man of great wealth, Atticus, who lived on the +Quirinal.[37] It was in the narrow hollows leading down from these +heights to the Forum, such as the Subura between Esquiline and +Quirinal, and the Argiletum farther down near the Forum, that we meet +in literature what we may call the working classes; the Argiletum, for +example, was famous both for its booksellers and its shoemakers,[38] +and the Subura is the typical street of tradesmen. And no doubt the +big lodging-houses in which the lower classes dwelt were to be found +in all parts of Rome, except the strictly aristocratic districts like +the Palatine. + +The whole free population may roughly be divided into three classes, +of which the first two, constituting together the social aristocracy, +were a mere handful in number compared with the third. At the top of +the social order was the governing class, or _ordo senatorius_: then +came the _ordo equester_, comprising all the men of business, bankers, +money-lenders, and merchants (_negotiatores_) or contractors for the +raising of taxes and many other purposes (_publicani_). Of these two +upper classes and their social life we shall see something in later +chapters; at present we are concerned with the "masses," at least +320,000 in number,[39] and the social problems which their existence +presented, or ought to have presented, to an intelligent Roman +statesman of Cicero's time. + +Unfortunately, just as we know but little of the populous districts of +Rome, so too we know little of its industrial population. The upper +classes, including all writers of memoirs and history, were not +interested in them. There was no philanthropist, no devoted inquirer +like Mr. Charles Booth, to investigate their condition or try to +ameliorate it. The statesman, if he troubled himself about them at +all, looked on them as a dangerous element of society, only to be +considered as human beings at election time; at all other times merely +as animals that had to be fed, in order to keep them from becoming an +active peril. The philosopher, even the Stoic, whose creed was by far +the most ennobling in that age, seems to have left the dregs of the +people quite out of account; though his philosophy nominally took the +whole of mankind into its cognisance, it believed the masses to be +degraded and vicious, and made no effort to redeem them.[40] The Stoic +might profess the tenderest feeling towards all mankind, as Cicero +did, when moved by some recent reading of Stoic doctrine; he might say +that "men were born for the sake of men, that each should help the +other," or that "Nature has inclined us to love men, for this is the +foundation of all law";[41] but when in actual social or political +contact with the same masses Cicero could only speak of them with +contempt or disgust. It is a melancholy and significant fact that what +little we do know from literature about this class is derived from the +part they occasionally played in riots and revolutionary disorders. +It is fortunately quite impossible that the historian of the future +should take account of the life of the educated and wealthy only; but +in the history of the past and especially of the last three centuries +B.C., we have to contend with this difficulty, and can only now and +then find side-lights thrown upon the great mass of mankind. The +crime, the crowding, the occasional suffering from starvation and +pestilence, in the unfashionable quarters of such a city as Rome, +these things are hidden from us, and rarely even suggested by the +histories we commonly read. + +The three questions to which I wish to make some answer in this +chapter are: (1) how was this population housed? (2) how was it +supplied with food and clothing? and (3) how was it employed? + +1. It was of course impossible in a city like Rome that each man, +married or unmarried, should have his own house; this is not so even +in the great majority of modern industrial towns, though we in England +are accustomed to see our comparatively well-to-do artisans dwelling +in cottages spreading out into the country. At Rome only the wealthy +families lived in separate houses (_domus_), about which we shall have +something to say in another chapter. The mass of the population lived, +or rather ate and slept (for southern climates favour an out-of-door +life), in huge lodging-houses called islands (_insulae_), because they +were detached from other buildings, and had streets on all sides of +them, as islands have water.[42] These _insulae_ were often three or +four stories high;[43] the ground-floor was often occupied by shops, +kept perhaps by some of the lodgers, and the upper floors by single +rooms, with small windows looking out on the street or into an +interior court. The common name for such a room was _coenaculum_, or +dining-room, a word which seems to be taken over from the _coenaculum_ +of private houses, i.e. an eating-room on the first floor, where there +was one. Once indeed we hear of an _aedicula_, in an insula, which was +perhaps the equivalent of a modern "flat"; it was inhabited by a young +bachelor of good birth, M. Caelius Rufus, the friend of Cicero, and +in this case the insula was probably one of a superior kind.[44] +The common lodging-house must have been simply a rabbit-warren, the +crowded inhabitants using their rooms only for eating and sleeping, +while for the most part they prowled about, either idling or getting +such employment as they could, legitimate or otherwise. + +In such a life there could of course have been no idea of home, or of +that simple and sacred family life which had once been the ethical +basis of Roman society.[45] When we read Cicero's thrilling language +about the loss of his own house, after his return from exile, and then +turn to think of the homeless crowds in the rabbit-warrens of Rome, we +can begin to feel the contrast between the wealth and poverty of that +day. "What is more strictly protected," he says, "by all religious +feeling, than the house of each individual citizen? Here is his altar, +his hearth, here are his Di Penates: here he keeps all the objects +of his worship and performs all his religious rites: his house is +a refuge so solemnly protected, that no one can be torn from it by +force."[46] The warm-hearted Cicero is here, as so often, dreaming +dreams: the "each individual citizen" of whom he speaks is the citizen +of his own acquaintance, not the vast majority, with whom his mind +does not trouble itself. + +These insulae were usually built or owned by men of capital, and were +often called by the names of their owners. Cicero, in one of his +letters,[47] incidentally mentions that he had money thus invested; +and we are disposed to wonder whether his insulae were kept in good +repair, for in another letter he happens to tell his man of business +that shops (tabernae) belonging to him were tumbling down and +unoccupied. It is more than likely that many of the insulae were badly +built by speculators, and liable to collapse. The following passage +from Plutarch's _Life of Crassus_ suggests this, though, if Plutarch +is right, Crassus did not build himself, but let or sold his sites and +builders to others: "Observing (in Sulla's time) the accidents that +were familiar at Rome, conflagrations and tumbling down of houses +owing to their weight and crowded state, he bought slaves who were +architects and builders. Having collected these to the number of more +than five hundred, it was his practice to buy up houses on fire, and +houses next to those on fire: for the owners, frightened and anxious, +would sell them cheap. And thus the greater part of Rome fell into +the hands of Crassus: but though he had so many artisans, he built no +house except his own, for he used to say that those who were fond of +building ruined themselves without the help of an enemy."[48] The +fall of houses, and their destruction in the frequent fires, became +familiar features of life at Rome about this time, and are alluded to +by Catullus in his twenty-third poem, and later on by Strabo in his +description of Rome (p. 235). It must indeed have often happened that +whole families were utterly homeless;[49] and in those days there +were no insurance offices, no benefit societies, no philanthropic +institutions to rescue the suffering from undeserved misery. As we +shall see later on, they were constantly in debt, and in the hands of +the money-lender; and against his extortions their judicial remedies +were most precarious. But all this is hidden from our eyes: only now +and again we can hear a faint echo of their inarticulate cry for help. + +2. The needs of these poorer classes in respect of food and drink were +very small; it was only the vast number of them that made the supply +difficult. The Italians, like the Greeks,[50] were then as now almost +entirely vegetarians; cattle and sheep were used for the production +of cheese, leather, and wool or for sacrifices to the gods; the only +animal commonly eaten, until luxury came in with increasing wealth, +was the pig, and grain and vegetables were the staple food of the poor +man, both in town and country. Among the lesser poems ascribed to +Virgil there is one, the _Moretum_, which gives a charming picture of +the food-supply of the small cultivator in the country. He rises very +early, gropes his way to the hearth, and stirs the embers into flame: +then takes from his meal-bin a supply of grain for three days and +proceeds to grind it in a hand-mill, knead it with water, shape it +into round cakes divided into four parts like a "hot-cross bun," and, +with the help of his one female slave, to bake these in the embers. He +has no sides of smoked bacon, says the poet, hanging from his roof, +but only a cheese, so to add to his meal he goes into his garden and +gathers thence a number of various herbs and vegetables, which he then +makes into the hotch-potch, or _pot-au-feu_ which gives the name to +the poem. This bit of delicate genre-painting, which is as good in its +way as anything in Crabbe's homely poems, has indeed nothing to tell +us of life in an insula at Rome; but it may serve to show what was the +ordinary food of the Italian of that day.[51] The absence of the sides +of bacon ("durati sale terga suis," line 57) is interesting. No doubt +the Roman took meat when he could get it; but to have to subsist on +it, even for a short time, was painful to him, and more than once +Caesar remarks on the endurance of his soldiers in submitting to eat +meat when corn was not to be had.[52] + +The corn which was at this time the staple food of the Romans of the +city was wheat, and wheat of a good kind; in primitive times it had +been an inferior species called _far_, which survived in Cicero's day +only in the form of cakes offered to the gods in religious ceremonies. +The wheat was not brought from Italy or even from Latium; what each +Italian community then grew was not more than supplied its own +inhabitants,[53] and the same was the case with the country villas +of the rich, and the huge sheep-farms worked by slaves. By far the +greater part of Italy is mountainous, and not well suited to the +production of corn on a large scale; and for long past other causes +had combined to limit what production there was. Transport too, +whether by road or river, was full of difficulty, while on the other +hand a glance at the map will show that the voyage for corn-ships +between Rome and Sicily, Sardinia, or the province of Africa (the +former dominion of Carthage), was both short and easy--far shorter and +easier than the voyage from Cisalpine Gaul or even from Apulia, where +the peninsula was richest in good corn-land. So we are not surprised +to find that, according to tradition, which is fully borne out by more +certain evidence,[54] corn had been brought to Rome from Sicily as +early as 492 B.C. to relieve a famine, or that since Sicily, Sardinia, +and Africa had become Roman provinces, their vast productive capacity +was utilised to feed the great city. + +Nor indeed need we be surprised to find that the State has taken over +the task of feeding the Roman population, and of feeding it cheaply, +if only we are accustomed to think, not merely to read, about life in +the city at this period. Nothing is more difficult for the ordinary +reader of ancient history than to realise the difficulty of feeding +large masses of human beings, whether crowded in towns or soldiers in +the field. Our means of transport are now so easily and rapidly set +in action and maintained, that it would need a war with some great +sea-power to convince us that London or Glasgow might, under certain +untoward circumstances, be starved; and as our attention has never +been drawn to the details of food-supply, we do not readily see why +there should have been any such difficulty at Rome as to call for the +intervention of the State. Perhaps the best way to realise the problem +is to reflect that every adult inhabitant needed about four and a half +pecks of corn per month, or some three pounds a day; so that if the +population of Rome be taken at half a million in Cicero's time, a +million and a half pounds would be demanded as the daily consumption +of the people.[55] I have already said that in the last three +centuries B.C. there was a universal tendency to leave the country for +the towns; and we now know that many other cities besides Rome +not only felt the same difficulty, but actually used the same +remedy--State importation of cheap corn.[56] Even comparatively small +cities like Dyrrhachium and Apollonia in Epirus, as Caesar tells us +while narrating his own difficulty in feeding his army there, used for +the most part imported corn.[57] And we must remember that while some +of the greatest cities on the Mediterranean, such as Alexandria and +Antioch, were within easy reach of vast corn-fields, this was not the +case with Rome. Either she must organise her corn-supply on a secure +basis, or get rid of her swarms of poor inhabitants; the latter +alternative might have been possible if she had been willing to let +them starve, but probably in no other way. To attempt to put them out +upon the land again was hopeless; they knew nothing of agriculture, +and were unused to manual labour, which they despised. + +Thus ever since Rome had been a city of any size it had been the duty +of the plebeian aediles to see that it was adequately supplied with +corn, and in times of dearth or other difficulty these magistrates had +to take special measures to procure it. With a population steadily +rising since the war with Hannibal, and after the acquisition of two +corn-growing provinces, to which Africa was added in 146 B.C., it was +natural that they should turn their attention more closely to the +resources of these; and now the provincial governors had to see that +the necessary amount of corn was furnished from these provinces at a +fixed price, and that a low one.[58] In 123 B.C. Gaius Gracchus took +the matter in hand, and made it a part of his whole far-reaching +political scheme. The plebs urbana had become a very awkward element +in the calculations of a statesman, and to have it in a state of +starvation, or even fearing such a state, was dangerous in the +extreme, as every Roman statesman had to learn in the course of the +two following centuries. The aediles, we may guess, were quite unequal +to the work demanded of them; and at times victorious provincial +governors would bring home great quantities of corn and give it away +gratis for their private purposes, with bad results both economic +and moral. Gracchus saw that the work of supply needed thorough +organisation in regard to production, transport, warehousing, and +finance, and set about it with a delight in hard work such as no Roman +statesman had shown before, believing that if the people could be +fed cheaply and regularly, they would cease to be "a troublesome +neighbour."[59] We do not know the details of his scheme of +organisation except in one particular, the price at which the corn +was to be sold per _modius_ (peck): this was to be six and one-third +_asses_, or rather less than half the normal market-price of the day, +so far as it can be made out. Whether he believed that the cost of +production could be brought down to this level by regularity of demand +and transport we cannot tell; it seems at any rate probable that he +had gone carefully into the financial aspect of the business.[60] But +there can hardly be a doubt that he miscalculated, and that the result +of the law by which he sought to effect his object was a yearly +loss to the treasury, so that after his time, and until his law was +repealed by Sulla, the people were really being fed largely at the +expense of the State, and thus lapsing into a state of semipauperism, +with bad ethical consequences. + +One of these consequences was that inconsiderate statesmen would only +too readily seize the chance of reducing the price of the corn still +lower, as was done by Saturninus in 100 B.C., for political purposes. +To prevent this Sulla abolished the Gracchan system _in toto_; but it +was renewed in 73 B.C., and in 58 the demagogue P. Clodius made the +distribution of corn gratuitous. In 46 Caesar found that no less than +320,000 persons were receiving corn from the State for nothing; by a +bill, of which we still possess a part,[61] he reduced the number to +150,000, and by a rigid system of rules, of which we know something, +contrived to ensure that it should be kept at that point. With the +policy of Augustus and his successors in regard to the corn-supply +(_annona_) I am not here concerned; but it is necessary to observe +that with the establishment of the Empire the plebs urbana ceased to +be of any importance in politics, and could be treated as a petted +population, from whom no harm was to be expected if they were kept +comfortable and amused. Augustus seems to have found himself compelled +to take up this attitude towards them, and he was able to do so +because he had thoroughly reorganised the public finance and knew what +he could afford for the purpose. But in time of Cicero the people were +still powerful legislation and elections, and the public finance was +disorganised and in confusion; and the result was that the corn-supply +was mixed up with politics,[62] and handled by reckless politicians +in a way that was as ruinous to the treasury as it was to the moral +welfare of the city. The whole story, from Gracchus onwards, is a +wholesome lesson on the mischief of granting "outdoor relief" in any +form whatever, without instituting the means of inquiry into each +individual case. Gracchus' intentions were doubtless honest and good; +but "ubi semel recto deerratum est, in praeceps pervenitur." + +The drink of the Roman was water, but he mixed it with wine whenever +he had the chance. Fortunately for him he had no other intoxicating +drink; we hear neither of beer nor spirits in Roman literature. Italy +was well suited to the cultivation of the vine; and though down to the +last century of the Republic the choice kinds of wine came chiefly +from Greece, yet we have unquestionable proof that wine was made in +the neighbourhood of Rome at the very outset of Roman history. In the +oldest religious calendar[63] we find two festivals called Vinalia, +one in April and the other in August; what exactly was the relation of +each of them to the operations of viticulture is by no means clear, +but we know that these operations were under the protection of +Jupiter, and that his priest, the Flamen Dialis, offered to him the +first-fruits of the vintage. The production of rough wine must indeed +have been large, for we happen to know that it was at times remarkably +cheap. In 250 B.C., in many ways a wonderfully productive year, wine +was sold at an _as_ the _congius_, which is nearly three quarts;[64] +under the early Empire Columella (iii. 3. 10) reckoned the amphora +(nearly 6 gallons) at 15 sesterces, i.e. about eightpence That the +common citizen did expect to be able to qualify his water with wine +seems proved by a story told by Suetonius, that when the people +complained to Augustus that the price of wine was too high, he +curtly and wisely answered that Agrippa had but lately given them an +excellent water-supply.[65] It looks as though they were claiming to +have wine as well as grain supplied them by the government at a low +price or gratuitously; but this was too much even for Augustus. For +his water the Roman, it need hardly be said, paid nothing. On the +whole, at the time of which we are speaking he was fairly well +supplied with it; but in this, as in so many other matters of urban +administration, it was under Augustus that an abundant supply was +first procured and maintained by an excellent system of management. +Frontinus, to whose work _de Aqueductibus_ we owe almost all that we +know about the Roman water-supply, tells us that for four hundred and +forty-one years after the foundation of the city the Romans contented +themselves with such water as they could get from the Tiber, from +wells, and from natural springs, and adds that some of the springs +were in his day still held in honour on account of their health-giving +qualities.[66] Cicero describes Rome, in his idealising way, as "locum +fontibus abundantem," and twenty-three springs are known to have +existed; but as early 312 B.C. it was found necessary to seek +elsewhere for a purer and more regular supply. More than six miles +from Rome, on the via Collatina, springs were found and utilised for +this purpose, which have lately been re-discovered at the bottom of +some stone quarries; and hence the water was brought by underground +pipes along the line of the same road to the city, and through it to +the foot of the Aventine, the plebeian quarter. This was the Aqua +Appia, named after the famous censor Appius Claudius Caecus, whom +Mommsen has shown to have been a friend of the people.[67] Forty years +later another censor, Manius Curius Dentatus, brought a second supply, +also by an underground channel, from the river Anio near Tibur +(Tivoli), the water of which, never of the first quality, was used for +the irrigation of gardens and the flushing of drains. In 144 B.C. +it was found that these two old aqueducts were out of repair and +insufficient, and this time a praetor, Q. Marcius Rex (probably +through the influence of a family clique), was commissioned to set +them in order and to procure a fresh supply. He went much farther than +his predecessors had gone for springs, and drew a volume of excellent +and clear cold water from the Sabine hills beyond Tibur, thirty-six +miles from the city, which had the highest reputation at all times; +and for the last six miles of its course it was carried above ground +upon a series of arches.[68] One other aqueduct was added in 125 B.C. +the Aqua Tepula, so called because its water was unusually warm; and +the whole amount of water entering Rome in the last century of the +Republic is estimated at more than 700,000 cubic metres per diem, +which would amply suffice for a population of half a million. At the +present day Rome, with a population of 450,000, receives from all +sources only 379,000.[69] Baths, both public and private, were already +beginning to come into fashion; of these more will be said later +on. The water for drinking was collected in large _castella_, or +reservoirs, and thence distributed into public fountains, of which +one still survives--the "Trofei di Mario," in the Piazza Vittorio +Emmanuele on the Esquiline.[70] When the supply came to be large +enough, the owners of insulae and domus were allowed to have water +laid on by private pipes, as we have it in modern towns; but it is not +certain when this permission was first given. + +3. But we must return to the individual Roman of the masses, whom we +have now seen well supplied with the necessaries of life, and try +to form some idea of the way in which he was employed, or earned a +living. This is by no means an easy task, for these small people, as +we have already seen, did not interest their educated fellow-citizens, +and for this reason we hear hardly anything of them in the literature +of the time. Not only a want of philanthropic feeling in their +betters, but an inherited contempt for all small industry and retail +dealing, has helped to hide them away from us: an _inherited_ +contempt, because it is in fact a survival from an older social +system, when the citizen did not need the work of the artisan and +small retailer, but supplied all his own wants within the circle of +his household, i.e. his own family and slaves, and produced on his +farm the material of his food and clothing. And the survival was all +the stronger, because even in the late Republic the abundant supply of +slaves enabled the man of capital still to dispense largely with the +services of the tradesman and artisan. + +Cicero expresses this contempt for the artisan and trading classes in +more than one striking passage. One, in his treatise on Duties, is +probably paraphrased from the Greek of Panaetius, the philosopher who +first introduced Stoicism to the Romans, and modified it to suit +their temperament, but it is quite clear that Cicero himself entirely +endorses the Stoic view. "All gains made by hired labourers," he says, +"are dishonourable and base, for what we buy of them is their labour, +not their artistic skill: with them the very gain itself does but +increase the slavishness of the work. All retail dealing too may be +put in the same category, for the dealer will gain nothing except +by profuse lying, and nothing is more disgraceful than untruthful +huckstering. Again, the work of all artisans (_opifices_) is sordid; +there can be nothing honourable in a workshop."[71] + +If this view of the low character of the work of the artisan and +retailer should be thought too obviously a Greek one, let the reader +turn to the description by Livy[72]--a true gentleman--of the low +origin of Terentius Varro, the consul who was in command at Cannae; he +uses the same language as Cicero. "He sprang from an origin not merely +humble but sordid: his father was a butcher, who sold his own meat, +and employed his son in this slavish business." The story may not be +true, and indeed it is not a very probable one, but it well represents +the inherited feeling towards retail trade of the Roman of the higher +classes of society,--a feeling so tenacious of life, that even in +modern England, where it arose from much the same causes as in the +ancient world, it has only within the last century begun to die +out.[73] + +Yet in Rome these humble workers existed and made a living for +themselves from the very beginning, as far as we can guess, of real +city life. They are the necessary and inevitable product of the growth +of a town population, and of the resulting division of labour. The +following passage from a work on industrial organisation in England +may be taken as closely representing the same process in early +Rome:[74] "The town arose as a centre in which the surplus produce of +many villages could be profitably disposed of by exchange. Trade +thus became a settled occupation, and trade prepared the way for +the establishment of the handicrafts, by furnishing capital for the +support of the craftsmen, and by creating a regular market for their +products. It was possible for a great many bodies of craftsmen,--the +weavers, tailors, butchers, bakers, etc., to find a livelihood, each +craft devoting itself to the supply of a single branch of those wants +which the village household had attempted very imperfectly to satisfy +by its own labours." + +As in mediaeval Europe, so in early Rome, the same conditions produced +the same results: we find the craftsmen of the town forming themselves +into _gilds_, not only for the protection of their trade, but from a +natural instinct of association, and providing these gilds, on the +model of the older groups of family and gens, with a religious centre +and a patron deity. The gilds (_collegia_) of Roman craftsmen were +attributed to Numa, like so many other religious institutions; they +included associations of weavers, fullers, dyers, shoemakers, doctors, +teachers, painters, etc.,[75] and were mainly devoted to Minerva as +the deity of handiwork. "The society that witnessed the coming of +Minerva from Etruria ... little knew that in her temple on the +Aventine was being brought to expression the trade-union idea."[76] +These _collegia opificum_, most unfortunately, pass entirely out +of our sight, until they reappear in the age of Cicero in a very +different form, as clubs used for political purposes, but composed +still of the lowest strata of the free population (_collegia +sodalicia_).[77] The history and causes of their disappearance and +metamorphosis are lost to us; but it is not hard to guess that the +main cause is to be found in the great economic changes that followed +the Hannibalic war,--the vast number of slaves imported, and +the consequent resuscitation of the old system of the economic +independence of the great households; the decay of religious practice, +which affected both public and private life in a hundred different +ways; and that steady growth of individualism which is characteristic +of eras of town life, and especially of the last three centuries B.C. +It is curious to notice that by the time these old gilds emerge into +light again as clubs that could be used for political purposes, a new +source of gain, and one that was really sordid, had been placed within +the reach of the Roman plebs urbana: it was possible to make money by +your vote in the election of magistrates. In that degenerate when the +vast accumulation of capital made it possible for a man to purchase +his way to power, in spite of repeated attempts to check the evil by +legislation, the old principle of honourable association was used to +help the small man to make a living by choosing the unprincipled and +often the incompetent to undertake the government of the Empire. + +Apart, however, from such illegal means of making money, there was +beyond doubt in the Rome of the last century B.C. a large amount of +honest and useful labour done by free citizens. We must not run away +with the idea that the whole labour of the city was performed by +slaves, who ousted the freeman from his chance of a living. There was +indeed a certain number of public slaves who did public work for the +State; but on the whole the great mass of the servile population +worked entirely within the households and on the estates of the rich, +and did not interfere to any sensible degree with the labour of the +small freeman. As has been justly observed by Salvioli,[78] never at +any period did the Roman proletariat complain of the competition of +slave labour as detrimental to its own interests. Had there been no +slave labour there, the small freeman might indeed have had a wider +field of enterprise, and have been better able to accumulate a small +capital by undertaking work for the great families, which was done, +as it was, by their slaves. But he was not aware of this, and the two +kinds of labour, the paid and the unpaid, went on side by side without +active rivalry. No doubt slavery helped to foster idleness, as it did +in the Southern States of America before the Civil War;[79] no doubt +there were plenty of idle ruffians in the city, ready to steal, +to murder, or to hire themselves out as the armed followers of a +political desperado like Clodius; but the simple necessities of the +life of those who had no slaves of their own gave employment, we may +be certain, to a great number of free tradesmen and artisans and +labourers of a more unskilled kind. + +To begin with, we may ask the pertinent question, how the corn sold +cheap by the State was made into bread for the small consumer. Pliny +gives us very valuable information, which we may accept as roughly +correct, that until the year 171 B.C. there were no bakers in +Rome.[80] "The Quirites," he says, "made their own bread, which was +the business of the women, as it is still among most peoples." The +demand which was thus supplied by a new trade was no doubt caused by +the increase of the lower population of the city, by the return of old +soldiers, often perhaps unmarried, and by the manumission of slaves, +many of whom would also be inexperienced in domestic life and its +needs; and we may probably connect it with the growth of the system of +insulae, the great lodging-houses in which it would not be convenient +either to grind your corn or to bake your bread. So the bakers, called +_pistores_ from the old practice of pounding the grain in a mortar +(_pingere_), soon became a very important and flourishing section of +the plebs, though never held in high repute; and in connexion with the +distributions of corn some of them probably rose above the level of +the small tradesman, like the _pistor redemptor_, Marcus Vergilius +Eurysaces, whose monument has come down to us.[81] It should be noted +that the trade of the baker included the grinding of the corn; there +were no millers at Rome. This can be well illustrated from the +numerous bakers' shops which have been excavated at Pompeii.[82] In +one of these, for example, we find the four mills in a large apartment +at the rear of the building, and close by is the stall for the donkeys +that turned them, and also the kneading-room, oven, and store-room. +Small bakeries may have had only hand-mills, like the one with which +we saw the peasant in the _Moretum_ grinding his corn; but the donkey +was from quite early times associated with the business, as we know +from the fact that at the festival of Vesta, the patron deity of all +bakers, they were decorated with wreaths and cakes.[83] + +The baking trade must have given employment to a large number of +persons. So beyond doubt did the supply of vegetables, which were +brought into the city from gardens outside, and formed, after the +corn, the staple food of the lower classes. We have already seen +in the _Moretum_ the countryman adding to his store of bread by a +hotch-potch made of vegetables, and the reader of the poem will have +been astonished at the number mentioned, including garden herbs for +flavouring purposes. The ancients were fully alive to the value of +vegetable food and of fruit as a healthy diet in warm climates, and +the wonderfully full information we have on this subject comes from +medical writers like Galen, as well as from Pliny's _Natural History_, +and from the writers on agriculture. The very names of some Roman +families, e.g. the Fabii and Caepiones, carry us back to a time when +beans and onions, which later on were not so much in favour, were a +regular part of the diet of the Roman people. The list of vegetables +and herbs which we know of as consumed fills a whole page in +Marquardt's interesting account of this subject, and includes most +of those which we use at the present day.[84] It was only when the +consumption of meat and game came in with the growth of capital +and its attendant luxury, that a vegetarian diet came to be at all +despised. This is another result of the economic changes caused by the +Hannibalic war, and is curiously illustrated by the speech of the cook +of a great household in the _Pseudolus_ of Plautus, who prides himself +on not being as other cooks are, who make the guests into beasts of +the field, stuffing them with all kinds of food which cattle eat, and +even with things which cattle would refuse![85] we may take it that at +all times the Roman of the lower class consumed fruit and vegetables +largely, and thus gave employment to a number of market-gardeners and +small purveyors. Fish he did not eat; like meat, it was too expensive; +in fact fish-eating only came in towards the end of the republican +period, and then only as a luxury for those who could afford to keep +fish-ponds on their estates. How far the supply of other luxuries, +such as butchers' meat, gave employment to freemen, is not very clear; +and perhaps we need here only take account of such few other products, +e.g. oil and wine, as were in universal demand, though not always +procurable by the needy. There were plenty of small shops in Rome +where these things were sold; we have a picture of such a shop +(_caupona_) in another of the minor Virgilian poems, the _Copa_, i.e. +hostess, or perhaps in this case the woman who danced and sang for the +entertainment of the guests. She plied her trade in a smoky tavern +(fumosa taberna), all the contents of which are charmingly described +in the poem.[86] + +Let us now see how the other chief necessity of human life, the supply +of clothing, gave employment to the free Roman shopkeeper. + +The clothing of the whole Roman population was originally woollen; +both the outer garment, the _toga_, the inner (_tunica_) were of this +material, and the sheep which supplied it were pastured well and +conveniently in all the higher hilly regions of Italy. Other +materials, linen, cotton, and silk, came in later with the growth +of commerce, but the manufacture of these into clothing was chiefly +carried on by slaves in the great households, and we need not take +any account of them here. The preparation of wool too was in well +regulated households undertaken even under the Empire by the women +of the family, including the materfamilias herself, and in many an +inscription we find the _lanificium_ recorded as the honourable +practice of matrons.[87] But as in the case of food, so with the +simple material of clothing, it was soon found impossible in a city +for the poorer citizens to do all that was necessary within their +own houses; this is proved conclusively by the mention of gilds of +fullers[88] (_fullones_) among those traditionally ascribed to Numa. +Fulling is the preparation of cloth by cleansing in water after it +has come from the loom; but the fuller's trade of the later republic +probably often comprised the actual manufacture of the wool for +those who could not do it themselves. He also acted as the washer of +garments already in use, and this was no doubt a very important part +of his business, for in a warm climate heavy woollen material is +naturally apt to get frequently impure and unwholesome. Soap was +not known till the first century of the Empire, and the process of +cleansing was all the more lengthy and elaborate; the details of the +process are known to us from paintings at Pompeii, where they adorn +the walls of fulleries which have been excavated. A plan of one of +them will be found in Mau's _Pompeii_, p. 388. The ordinary woollen +garments were simply bleached white, not dyed; and though dyers are +mentioned among the ancient gilds by Plutarch, it is probable that he +means chiefly fullers by the Greek word [_Greek: Bapheis_]. + +Of the manufacture of leather we do not know so much. This, like that +of wool, must have originally been carried on in the household, but +it is mentioned as a trade as early as the time of Plautus.[89] The +shoemakers' business was, however, a common one from the earliest +times, probably because it needs some technical skill and experience; +the most natural division of labour in early societies is sure to +produce this trade. The shoemakers' gild was among the earliest, +and had its centre in the _atrium sutorium_;[90] and the individual +shoemakers carried on their trade in booths or shops. The Roman shoe, +it may be mentioned here, was of several different kinds, according +to the sex, rank, and occupation of the wearer; but the two most +important sorts were the _calceus_, the shoe worn with the toga in the +city, and the mark of the Roman citizen; and the _pero_ or high boot, +which was more serviceable in the country. + +Among the old gilds were also those of the smiths (_fabri ferrarii_) +and the potters (_figuli_), but of these little need be said here, +for they were naturally fewer in number than the vendors of food and +clothing, and the raw material for their work had, in later times at +least, to be brought from a distance. The later Romans seem to have +procured their iron-ore from the island of Elba and Spain, Gaul, +and other provinces,[91] and to have imported ware of all kinds, +especially the finer sorts, from various parts of the Empire; the +commoner kinds, such as the _dolia_ or large vessels for storing wine +and oil, were certainly made in Rome in the second century B.C., for +Cato in his book on agriculture[92] remarks that they could be best +procured there. But both these manufactures require a certain amount +of capital, and we may doubt whether the free population was largely +employed in them; we know for certain that in the early Empire +the manufacture of ware, tiles, bricks, etc., was carried on by +capitalists, some of them of noble birth, including even Emperors +themselves, and beyond doubt the "hands" they employed were chiefly +slaves.[93] + +But industries of this kind may serve to remind us of another kind of +employment in which the lower classes of Rome and Ostia may have found +the means of making a living. The importation of raw materials, and +that of goods of all kinds, which was constantly on the increase +throughout Roman history, called for the employment of vast numbers of +porters, carriers, and what we should call dock hands, working both +at Ostia, where the heavier ships were unladed or relieved of part of +their cargoes in order to enable them to come up the Tiber,[94] and +also at the wharves at Rome under the Aventine. We must also remember +that almost all porterage in the city had to be done by men, with the +aid of mules or donkeys; the streets were so narrow that in trying to +picture what they looked like we must banish from our minds the +crowds of vehicles familiar in a modern city. Julius Caesar, in his +regulations for the government of the city of Rome, forbade waggons to +be driven in the streets in the day-time.[95] Even supposing that a +large amount of porterage was done by slaves for their masters, we may +reasonably guess that free labour was also employed in this way at +Rome, as was certainly the case at Ostia, and also at Pompeii, where +the pack-carriers (_saccarii_) and mule-drivers (_muliones_) are among +the corporations of free men who have left in the form of _graffiti_ +appeals to voters to support a particular candidate for election to a +magistracy.[96] + +Thus we may safely conclude that there was a very considerable amount +of employment in Rome available for the poorer citizens, quite apart +from the labour performed by slaves. But before closing this chapter +it is necessary to point out the precarious conditions under which +that employment was carried on, as compared with the industrial +conditions of a modern city. It is true enough that the factory system +of modern times, with the sweating, the long hours of work, and the +unwholesome surroundings of our industrial towns, has produced much +misery, much physical degeneracy; and we have also the problem of the +unemployed always with us. But there were two points in which the +condition of the free artisan and tradesman at Rome was far worse +than it is with us, and rendered him liable to an even more hopeless +submersion than that which is too often the fate of the modern +wage-earner. + +First, let us consider that markets, then as now, were liable to +fluctuation,--probably more liable then than now, because the +supply both of food and of the raw material of manufacture was more +precarious owing to the greater difficulties of conveyance. Trade +would be bad at times, and many things might happen which would compel +the man with little or no capital to borrow money, which he could only +do on the security of his stock, or indeed, as the law of Rome still +recognised, of his person. Money-lenders were abundant, as we shall +find in the next chapter, interest was high, and to fall into +the hands of a money-lender was only another step on the way to +destruction. At the present day, if a tradesman fails in business, he +can appeal to a merciful bankruptcy law, which gives him every chance +to satisfy his creditors and to start afresh; or in the case of a +single debt, he can be put into a county court where every chance is +given him to pay it within a reasonable time. All this machinery, most +of which (to the disgrace of modern civilisation) is quite recent in +date was absent at Rome. The only magistrates administering the civil +law were the praetors, and though since the reforms of Sulla there +were usually eight of these in the city, we can well imagine how hard +it would be for the poor debtor in a huge city to get his affairs +attended to. Probably in most cases the creditor worked his will with +him, took possession of his property without the interference of the +law, and so submerged him, or even reduced him to slavery. If he chose +to be merciful he could go to the praetor, and get what was called a +_missio in bona_, i.e. a legal right to take the whole of his debtor's +property, waiving the right to his person. And it must be noted that +no more humane law of bankruptcy was introduced until the time of +Augustus. No wonder that at least three times in the last century +of the Republic there arose a cry for the total abolition of debts +(_tabulae novae_): in 88 B.C., after the Social War; in 63, during +Cicero's consulship, when political and social revolutionary projects +were combined in the conspiracy of Catiline; and in 48, when the +economic condition of Italy had been disturbed by the Civil War, and +Caesar had much difficulty in keeping unprincipled agitators from +applying violent and foolish remedies. But to this we shall return in +the next chapter. + +Secondly, let us consider that in a large city of to-day the person +and property of all, rich or poor are adequately protected by a sound +system of police and by courts of first instance which are sitting +every day. Assault and murder, theft and burglary, are exceptional. It +might be going too far to say that at Rome they were the rule; but it +is the fact that in what we may call the slums of Rome there was no +machinery for checking them. No such machinery had been invented, +because according to the old rules of law, still in force, a father +might punish his children, a master his slaves, and a murderer or +thief might be killed by his intended victim if caught red-handed. +This rude justice would suffice in a small city and a simple social +system; but it would be totally inadequate to protect life and +property in a huge population, such as that of the Rome of the last +century B.C. Since the time of Sulla there had indeed been courts for +the trial of crimes of violence, and at all times the consuls with +their staff of assistants had been charged with the peace of the city; +but we may well ask whether the poor Roman of Cicero's day could +really benefit either by the consular imperium or the action of the +Sullan courts. A slave was the object of his master's care, and +theft from a slave was theft from his owner,--if injured or murdered +satisfaction could be had for him. But in that age of slack and sordid +government it is at least extremely doubtful whether either the person +or the property of the lower class of citizen could be said to have +been properly protected in the city. And the same anarchy prevailed +all over Italy,--from the suburbs of Rome, infested by robbers, to +the sheep-farm of the great capitalist, where the traveller might be +kidnapped by runaway slaves, to vanish from the sight of men without +leaving a trace of his fate. + +It is the great merit of Augustus that he made Rome not only a city of +marble, but one in which the person and property of all citizens +were fairly secure. By a new and rational bankruptcy law, and by a +well-organised system of police, he made life endurable even for the +poorest. If he initiated a policy which eventually spoilt and degraded +the Roman population, if he failed to encourage free industry as +persistently as it seems to us that he might have done, he may perhaps +be in some degree excused, as knowing the conditions and difficulties +of the problem before him better than we can know them. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +THE MEN OF BUSINESS AND THEIR METHODS + +The highest class in the social scale at Rome was divided, roughly +rather than exactly, into two sections, according as they did or did +not aim at being elected to magistracies and so entering the senate. +To the senatorius ordo, which will be dealt with in the next chapter, +belonged all senators, and all sons of senators whether or no they had +as yet been elected to the quaestorship, which after Sulla was the +magistracy qualifying for the senate. But outside the senatorial ranks +there were numbers of wealthy and well educated men, most of whom +were engaged in one way or another in business; by which term is here +meant, not so much trading and mercantile operations, as banking, +money-lending, the undertaking of State contracts, and the raising of +taxes. The general name for this class was, strange to say, equites, +or knights, as they are often but unfortunately called in modern +histories of Rome. They were in fact at this time the most unmilitary +part of the population, and they inherited the title only because the +property qualification for the equites equo privato, i.e. the cavalry +who served with their horses, had been taken as the qualification also +for equestrian judices, to whom Gaius Gracchus had given the decision +of cases in the quaestio de repetundis.[97] This law of Gracchus had +had the result of constituting an ordo equester alongside of the ordo +senatorius, with a property qualification of 400,000 sesterces, or +about L3200, not of income but of capital. Any one who had this sum +could call himself an eques, provided he were not a senator, even if +he had never served in the cavalry or mounted a horse. + +We are concerned here with the business which these men carried on, +not with their history as a body in the State; this latter difficult +subject has been handled by Dr. Greenidge in his _Roman Public +Life_, and by many other writers. We have to take them here as the +representatives of capital and the chief uses to which it was put in +the age of Cicero; for, as a matter of fact, they were then doing by +far the greatest part of the money-making of the Empire. They were not +indeed always doing it for themselves; they often represented men of +senatorial rank, and acted as their agents in the investment of money +and in securing the returns due. For the senator was not allowed, by +the strict letter of the law, to engage in business which would take +him out of Italy;[98] his services were needed at home, and if indeed +he had performed his proper work with industry and energy he never +could have found time to travel on his own business. At the time of +which we are speaking there were ways in which he could escape +from his duties,--ways only too often used; but many senators did +undoubtedly employ members of the equestrian order to transact their +business abroad, so that it is not untrue to say that the equites +had in their hands almost the whole of the monetary business of the +Empire. + +The property qualification may seem to us small enough, but it is of +course no real index to the amount of capital which a wealthy eques +might possess. Nothing is more astonishing in the history of the last +century of the republic than the vast sums of money in the hands of +individuals, and the enormous sums lent and borrowed in private by the +men whose names are familiar to us as statesmen. It is told of Caesar +that as a very young man he owed a sum equivalent to about L280,000; +of Crassus that he had 200 million sesterces invested in land +alone.[99] Cicero, though from time to time in difficulties, always +found it possible to borrow the large sums which he spent on houses, +libraries, etc. These are men of the ordo senatorius; of the equites +proper, the men who dealt rather in lending than borrowing, we have +not such explicit accounts, because they were not in the same degree +before the public. But of Atticus, the type of the best and highest +section of the ordo equester, and of the amount and the sources of his +wealth, we happen to know a good deal from the little biography of him +written by his contemporary and friend Cornelius Nepos, taken together +with Cicero's numerous letters to him. His father had left him the +moderate fortune of L16,000. With this he bought land, not in Italy +but in Epirus, where it was probably to be had cheap. The profits +arising from this land, with which he took no doubt much trouble and +pains, he invested again in other ways. He lent money to Greek cities: +to Athens indeed without claiming any interest; to Sicyon without much +hope of repayment; but no doubt to many others at a large profit. He +also undertook the publishing of books, buying slaves who were skilled +copyists; and in this, as in so many other ways, his friendship was of +infinite value to Cicero. When we reflect that every highly educated +man at this time owned a library and wished to have the last new +book, we can understand how even this business might be extensive and +profitable, and are not astonished to find Cicero asking Atticus to +see that copies of his Greek book on his own consulship were to be had +in Athens and other Greek towns.[100] This shrewd man also invested in +gladiators, whom he could let out at a profit, as no doubt he would +let out his library slaves.[101] Lastly, he owned houses in Rome; in +fact he must have been making money in many different ways, spending +little himself, and attending personally and indefatigably to all his +business, as indeed with true and disinterested friendship he +attended to that of Cicero In him we see the best type of the Roman +businessman: not the bloated millionaire living in coarse luxury, but +the man who loved to be always busy for himself or his friends, and +whose knowledge of men and things was so thorough that he could make +a fortune without anxiety to himself or discomfort to others. What +amount of capital he realised in these various ways we do not know, +but the mass of his fortune came to him after he had been pursuing +them for many years, in the form of a legacy from an uncle. This uncle +was a typical capitalist and money-lender of a much lower and coarser +type than his nephew; Nepos aptly describes him as "familiarem L. +Luculli, divitem, _difficillima natura_." The nephew was the only man +who could get on with this Peter Featherstone of Roman life, and this +simple fact tells us as much about the character and disposition of +Atticus as anything in Cicero's correspondence with him. The happy +result was that his uncle left him a sum which we may reckon at about +L80,000 (_centies sestertium_),[102] and henceforward he may be +reckoned, if not as a millionaire, at any rate as a man of large +capital, soundly invested and continually on the increase. + +There is no doubt then as to the fact of the presence of capital on a +large scale in the Rome of the last century B.C., or of the business +talents of many of its holders, or again of the many profitable ways +in which it might be invested. But in order to learn a little more of +the history of capital at Rome, which is of the utmost importance for +a proper understanding not only of the economic, but of the social and +ethical characteristics of the age, it is necessary to go as far back +as the war with Hannibal at least. + +That there had been surplus capital in the hands of individuals long +before the war with Hannibal is a well known fact, proved by the old +Roman law of debt, and by the traditions of the unhappy relations +of debtor and creditor. But in order not to go back too far, we may +notice a striking fact which meets us at the very outset of that +momentous war. In 215 B.C., and again the next year, the treasury was +almost empty; then for the first time, so far as we know, private +individuals came to the rescue, and lent large sums to the State;[103] +these were partners in certain associations to be described later on +in this chapter, which had made money by undertaking State contracts +in the previous wars. The presence of Hannibal in Italy strained the +resources of the State to the utmost in every way; it cut the Romans +off from their supply of the precious metals, forced them to reduce +the weight of the _as_ to one ounce, and, curiously enough, also to +issue gold coins for the first time,--a measure probably taken on +account of the dearth of silver,--and to make use of the uncoined gold +in the treasury or in private hands. At the end of the war the supply +of silver was recovered; henceforward all reckonings were made in +silver, and the gold coinage was not long continued. + +At this happy time, when Rome felt that she could breathe again after +the final defeat of her deadly enemy, began the great inpouring of +wealth of which the capitalism of Cicero's time is the direct result. +The chief sources of this wealth, so far as the State was concerned, +were the indemnities paid by conquered peoples, especially Carthage +and Antiochus of Syria, and the booty brought home by victorious +generals. Of these Livy has preserved explicit accounts, and the best +example is perhaps that of the booty brought by Scipio Asiaticus +from Asia Minor in 189 B.C., of which Pliny remarks that it first +introduced luxury into Italy.[104] It has been roughly computed that +the total amount from indemnities may be taken at six million of our +pounds, in the period of the great wars of the second century B.C., +and from booty very much the same sum. Besides this we have to take +account of the produce of the Spanish silver mines, of which the +Romans came into possession with the Carthaginian dominions in Spain; +the richest of these were near Carthago Nova, and Polybius tells us +that in his day they employed 40,000 miners, and produced an immense +revenue.[105] + +All this went into the aerarium, except what was distributed out of +the booty to the soldiers, both Romans and socii, the former naturally +taking as a rule double the amount paid to the latter. But the influx +of treasure into the State coffers soon began to tell upon the +financial welfare of the whole citizen community; the most striking +proof of this is the fact that, in 167 B.C., after the second +Macedonian war, the _tribulum_ or property-tax was no longer imposed +upon all citizens. Henceforward the Roman citizen had hardly any +burdens to bear except the necessity of military service, and there +are very distinct signs that he was beginning to be unwilling to +bear even that one. He saw the prominent men of his time enriching +themselves abroad and leading luxurious lives, and the spirit of ease +and idleness began inevitably to affect him too. Polybius indeed, +writing about 140-130 B.C., declines to state positively that the +great Romans were corrupt or extortionate,[106] and those who were his +intimate friends, Aemilius Paullus and his sons, were distinguished +for their "abstinentia": but the mere occurrence of this word +"abstinentia" in the epitomes of Livy's lost books which dealt with +this time, betrays the fact too obviously. In 149 was passed the +first of the long series of laws intended, but in vain, to check the +tendency of provincial governors to extort money from their subjects; +and as this law established for the first time a standing court to try +offences of this kind, the inference is inevitable that such offences +were common and on the increase. + +The remarkable fact about this inpouring of wealth is its +extraordinary suddenness. Within the lifetime of a single individual, +Cato the Censor, who died an old man in 149 B.C., the financial +condition of the State and of individuals had undergone a complete +change. Cato loved to make money and knew very well how to do it, as +his own treatise on agriculture plainly shows; but he wished to do it +in a legitimate way, and to spend profitably the money he made, and +he spared no pains to prevent others from making it illegally and +spending it unprofitably. He saw clearly that the sudden influx of +wealth was disturbing the balance of the Roman mind, and that the +desire to make money was taking the place of the idea of duty to the +State. He knew that no Roman could serve two masters, Mammon and the +State, and that Mammon was getting the upper hand in his views of +life. If the accumulation of wealth had been gradual instead of +sudden, natural instead of artificial, this could hardly have +happened; as in England from the fourteenth century onwards, the +steady growth of capital would have produced no ethical mischief, no +false economic ideas, because it would have been an _organic_ growth, +resting upon a sound and natural economic basis.[107] As the French +historian has said with singular felicity,[108] "Money is like water +of a river: if it suddenly floods, it devastates; divide it into a +thousand channels where it circulates quietly, and it brings life and +fertility to every spot." + +It was in this period of the great wars, so unwholesome and perilous +economically, that the men of business, as defined at the beginning of +this chapter--the men of capital outside the ordo senatorius--first +rose to real importance. In the century that followed, and as we see +them more especially in Cicero's correspondence, they became a great +power in the State, and not only in Rome, but in every corner of the +Empire. We have now to see how they gained this importance and +this power, and what use they made of their capital and their +opportunities. This is not usually explained or illustrated in the +ordinary histories of Rome, yet it is impossible without explaining it +to understand either the social or the public life of the Rome of this +period. + +The men of business may be divided into two classes, according as they +undertook work for the State or on their own account entirely. It does +not follow that these two classes were mutually exclusive; a man might +very well invest his money in both kinds of undertaking, but these two +kinds were totally distinct, and called by different names. A public +undertaking was called _publicum_,[109] and the men who undertook it +_publicani_; a private undertaking was _negotium_, and all private +business men were known as _negotiatores_. The publicani were always +organised in joint-stock companies (_societates publicanorum_); +the negotiatores might be in private partnership with one or more +partners,[110] but as a rule seem to have been single individuals. We +will deal first with the publicani. + +In a passage of Livy quoted just now it is stated that at the +beginning of the Hannibalic war money was advanced to the State by +societates publicanorum; Livy also happens to mention that three of +these competed for the privilege. Thus it is clear that the system of +getting public work done by contract was in full operation before that +date, together with the practice on the part of the contractors of +uniting in partnerships to lessen the risk. System and practice are +equally natural, and it needs but a little historical imagination to +realise their development. As the Roman State became involved in wars +leading to the conquest of Italy, and in due time to the acquisition +of dominions beyond sea, armies and fleets had to be equipped and +provisioned, roads had to be made, public rents to be got in, new +buildings to be erected for public convenience or worship, corn had to +be procured for the growing population, and, above all, taxes had +to be collected both in Italy and in the provinces as these were +severally acquired.[111] The government had no apparatus for carrying +out these undertakings itself; it had not, as we have, separate +departments or bureaux with a permanent staff of officials attached to +each, and even if it had been so provided, it would still have +found it most convenient, as modern governments also do, to get the +necessary work carried out in most cases by private contractors. Every +five years the censors let the various works by auction to contracting +companies, who engaged to carry them out for fixed sums, and make what +profit they could out of the business (_censoria locatio_). This saved +an immense amount of trouble to the senate and magistrates, who were +usually busily engaged in other matters; nor was there at first any +harm in the system, so long as the Romans were morally sound, and +incapable of jobbing or scamping their work. The very fact that they +united into companies for the purpose of undertaking these contracts +shows that they were aware of the risk involved, and wished as far as +possible to neutralise it; it did not mean greed for money, but rather +anxiety not to lose the capital invested. + +But as Rome advanced her dominion in the second century B.C., and +had to see to an ever-increasing amount of public business, it was +discovered that the business of contracting was one which might indeed +be risky, but with skill and experience, and especially with a trifle +of unscrupulousness, might be made a perfectly safe and paying +investment. This was especially the case with the undertakings for +raising the taxes in the newly acquired provinces as well as in Italy, +more particularly in those provinces, viz. Sicily and Asia, which paid +their taxes in the form of tithe and not in a lump sum. The collection +of these revenues could be made a very paying concern seeing that it +was not necessary to be too squeamish about the rights and claims of +the provincials. And, indeed, by the time of the Gracchi all these +joint-stock companies had become the one favourite investment in +which every one who had any capital, however small, placed it without +hesitation. Polybius, who was in Rome at this time for several years, +and was thoroughly acquainted with Roman life, has left a valuable +record in his sixth book (ch. xvii.) of the universal demand for +shares in these companies; a fact which proves that they were believed +to be both safe and profitable. + +These societates were managed by the great men of business, as our +joint-stock companies are directed by men of capital and consequence. +Polybius tells us that among those who were concerned, some took the +contracts from the censors: these were called _mancipes_, because +the sign of accepting the contract at the auction was to hold up the +hand.[112] Others, Polybius goes on, were in association with these +mancipes, and, as we may assume, equally responsible with them; these +were the _socii_. It was of course necessary that security should be +given for the fulfilment of the contract, and Polybius does not omit +to mention the _praedes_ or guarantors[113]. Lastly, he says that +others again gave their property on behalf of these official members +of the companies, or in their name, for the public purpose in hand. +These last words admit of more than one interpretation, but as in the +same passage Polybius tells us that all who had any money put it into +these concerns, we may reasonably suppose that he means to indicate +the _participes_, or small holders of shares, which were called +_partes_, or if very small, _particulae_[114]. The socii and +participes seem to be distinguished by Cicero in his Verrine orations +(ii. 1. 55), where he quotes an addition made by Verres illegally as +praetor to a lex censoria: "qui de censoribus redemerit, eum socium ne +admittito neve partem dato." If this be so, we may regard the socius +as having a share both in the management and the liability, while the +particeps merely put his money into the undertaking[115]. The actual +management, on which Polybius is silent, was in Rome in the hands of a +_magister_, changing yearly, like the magistrates of the State, and +in the provinces of a _pro-magister_ answering to the pro-magistrate, +with a large staff of assistants[116]. Communications between +the management at home and that in the provinces were kept up by +messengers (_tabellarii_), who were chiefly slaves; and it is +interesting incidentally to notice that these, who are constantly +mentioned in Cicero's letters, also acted as letter-carriers for +private persons to whom their employers were known. + +Such a business as this, involving the interests of so many citizens, +must have necessitated something very like the Stock Exchange or +Bourse of modern times; and in fact the basilicas and porticoes which +we met with in the Forum during our walk through Rome did actually +serve this purpose.[117] The reader of Cicero's letters will have +noticed how often the Forum is spoken of as the centre of life at +Rome--going down to the Forum was indeed the equivalent of "going into +the City," as well as of "going down to Westminster." All who had +investments in the societates would wish to know the latest news +brought by _tabellarii_ from the provinces, e.g. of the state of the +crop in Sicily or Asia, or of the disposition of some provincial +governor towards the publicani of his province, or again of the +approach of some enemy, such as Mithridates or Ariovistus, who by +defeating a Roman army might break into Roman territory and destroy +the prospects of a successful contractual enterprise. Assuredly +Cicero's love for the Forum was not a political one only; he loved it +indeed as the scene of his great triumphs as an advocate, but also +no doubt because he was concerned in some of the companies which had +their headquarters there. When urging the people to give Pompeius +extraordinary powers to drive Mithridates out of reach of Roman Asia, +where he had done incalculable damage, he dwells both with knowledge +and feeling on the value of the province, not only to the State, but +to innumerable private citizens who had their money invested in its +revenues[118]. "If some," he pleads, "lose their whole fortunes, +they will drag many more down with them. Save the State from such a +calamity: and believe me (though you see it well enough) that the +whole system of credit and finance which is carried on here at Rome in +the Forum, is inextricably bound up with the revenues of the Asiatic +province. If those revenues are destroyed, our whole system of credit +will come down with a crash. See that you do not hesitate for a moment +to prosecute with all your energies a war by which the glory of the +Roman name, the safety of our allies, our most valuable revenues, +and the fortunes of innumerable citizens, will be effectually +preserved.[119]" + +This is a good example of the way in which political questions might +be decided in the interests of capital, and it is all the more +striking, because a few years earlier Sulla had done all he could to +weaken the capitalists as a distinct class. Pompeius went out with +abnormal powers, and might be considered for the time as their +representative; the result in this case was on the whole good, for the +work he did in the East was of permanent value to the Empire. But the +constitution was shaken and never wholly recovered, and nothing that +he was able to do could restore the unfortunate province of Asia +to its former prosperity. Four years later the company which had +contracted for raising the taxes in the province sought to repudiate +their bargain. This was disgraceful, as Cicero himself expressly +says;[120] but it is quite possible that they had great difficulty +in getting the money in, and feared a dead loss,[121] owing to +the impoverishment of the provincials. This matter again led to a +political crisis; for the senate, urged by Cato, was disposed to +refuse the concession, and the alliance between the senatorial class +and the business men (_ordinum concordia_), which it had been Cicero's +particular policy to confirm, in order to mass together all men of +property against the dangers of socialism and anarchy, was thereby +threatened so seriously that it ceased to be a factor in politics. + +These companies and their agents were indeed destined to be a thorn in +Cicero's side as a provincial governor himself. When called upon to +rule Cilicia in 51 B.C. he found the people quite unable to pay their +taxes and driven into the hands of the middleman in order to do +so;[122] his sympathies were thus divided between the unfortunate +provincials, for whom he felt a genuine pity, and the interests of +the company for collecting the Cilician taxes, and of those who had +invested their money in its funds. In his edict, issued before his +entrance into the province, he had tried to balance the conflicting +interests; writing of it to Atticus, who had naturally as a capitalist +been anxious to know what he was doing, he says that he is doing all +he can for the publicani, coaxing them, praising them, yielding to +them--but taking care that they do no mischief;[123] words which +perhaps did not altogether satisfy his friend. All honest provincial +governors, especially in the Eastern provinces, which had been the +scene of continual wars for nearly three centuries, found themselves +in the same difficulty. They were continually beset by urgent appeals +on behalf of the tax-companies and their agents--appeals made +without a thought of the condition of a province or its tax-paying +capacity--so completely had the idea of making money taken possession +of the Roman mind. Among the letters of Cicero are many such appeals, +sent by himself to other provincial governors, some of them while he +was himself in Cilicia. We may take two as examples, before bringing +this part of our subject to a close. + +The first of these letters is to P. Silius Nerva, propraetor of +Bithynia, a province recently added to the Empire by Pompeius. Cicero +here says that he is himself closely connected with the partners +in the company for collecting the pasture-dues (scriptura) of the +province, "not only because that company as a body is my client, but +also because I am very intimate with most of the individual partners." +Can we doubt that he was himself a shareholder? He urges Nerva to do +all he can for Terentius Hispo, the pro-magister of the company, +and to try to secure for him the means of making all the necessary +arrangements with the taxed communities--relying, we are glad to find, +on the tact and kindness of the governor.[124] The second letter, to +his own son-in-law, Furius Crassipes, quaestor of Bithynia, shall be +quoted here in full from Mr. Shuckburgh's translation:[125] + +"Though in a personal interview I recommended as earnestly as I could +the publicani of Bithynia, and though I gathered that by your own +inclination no less than from my recommendation, you were anxious to +promote the advantage of that company in every way in your power, I +have not hesitated to write you this, since those interested thought +it of great importance that I should inform you what my feeling +towards them was. I wish you to believe that, while I have ever had +the greatest pleasure in doing all I can for the order of publicani +generally, yet this particular company of Bithynia has my special +good wishes. Owing to the rank and birth of its members, this company +constitutes a very important part of the state: for it is made up of +members of the other companies: and it so happens that a very large +number of its members are extremely intimate with me, and especially +the man who is at present at the head of the business, P. Rupilius, +its pro-magister. Such being the case, I beg you with more than common +earnestness to protect Cn. Pupius, an employe of the company,[126] by +every sort of kindness and liberality in your power, and to secure, as +you easily may, that his services shall be as satisfactory as possible +to the company, while at the same time securing and promoting the +property and interests of the partners--as to which I am well aware +how much power a quaestor possesses. You will be doing me in this +matter a very great favour, and I can myself from personal experience +pledge you my word that you will find the partners of the Bithynia +company gratefully mindful of any services you can do them." + +If Cicero, the most tender-hearted of Roman public men, could urge +the claims of the companies so strongly, and, as in this last letter, +without any allusion to the interests of the province and its people, +we may well imagine how others, less scrupulous, must have combined +with the capitalists to work havoc in regions that only needed peace +and mild government to recover from centuries of misery. Such a letter +is the best comment we can have on the pernicious system of raising +taxes by contract--a system which was to be modified, regulated, and +eventually reduced to harmless dimensions under the benevolent and +scientific government of the early Empire. + +We must now turn to the other department of the activity of the men of +business, that of banking and money-lending (_negotiatores_). + +On the north or sunny side of the Forum we noticed in our walk round +the city the shops of the bankers (_tabernae argentariae_). +The _argentarii_ were originally, as their name suggests, only +money-changers, a class of small business men that arose in response +to a need felt as soon as increasing commerce and extended empire +brought foreign coin in large quantities to Rome. The Italian +communities outside the Roman State issued their own coinage until +they were admitted to the civitas after the Social War,--a fact which +alone is sufficient to show the need of men who made it their business +to know the current value of various coins in Roman money; and as +Rome became involved in the affairs of the East, there were always +circulating in the city the tetradrachms of Antioch and Alexandria, +the Rhodian drachmas, and the cistophori of the kings of Pergamus, +afterwards coined in the province of Asia.[127] No doubt the +money-changing business was a profitable one, and itself led to the +formation of capital which could be used in taking deposits and making +advances; and, as Professor Purser puts it,[128] the mere possession +of a quantity of coin for purposes of change would be likely to +develop spontaneously the profession of banking. In the same way the +_nummularii_, or assayers of the coin, having a mass of it in their +hands, would tend to develop a private business as well as their +official public one. All these, argentarii or nummularii, might be +called _foeneratores_, from the interest (_foenus_) which they charged +in their transactions. The profession was a respectable one, for +honesty and exactness in accounts were absolutely necessary to success +in it.[129] If the reader will turn to Cicero's speech in defence +of Caecina (6. 16), he will find these accounts appealed to, though +apparently not actually produced in court; but in the _Noctes Atticae_ +of Aulus Gellius (xiv. 2) a judge who is describing a civil case which +came before him, mentions, among the documents produced, _mensae +rationes_, i.e. the accounts kept by the banker. + +Your argentarius seems to have been ready to undertake for you almost +all that a modern banker will do for his customer. He would take +deposits of money, either for the depositor's use or to bear interest, +and would make payments on his behalf on receipt of a written order, +answering to our cheque;[130] this was a practice probably introduced +from Greece, for in the Eastern Mediterranean the whole business of +credit and exchange had long been reduced to a system. Again, if you +wished to be supplied with money during a journey, or to pay a sum to +any one at a distance, e.g. in Greece or Asia, your argentarius +would arrange it for you by giving you letters of credit or bills of +exchange on a banker at such towns as you might mention, and so save +you the trouble of carrying a heavy weight of coin with you. When, +Cicero sent his son to the University of Athens, he wished to give +him a generous allowance,--too generous, as we should think, for it +amounted to about L640 a year,--and he asked Atticus whether it could +be managed for him by _permutatio_, i.e. exchange, and received an +affirmative answer[131]. So too when his beloved freedman secretary +Tiro fell ill of fever at Patrae, Cicero finds it easy to get a local +banker there to advance him all the money he needed, and to pay the +doctor, engaging himself to repay the money to any agent whom the +banker might name[132]. + +Your argentarius would also attend for you, or appoint an agent to +attend, at any public auction in which you were interested as seller +or purchaser, and would pay or receive the money for you,--a practice +which must have greatly helped him in getting to know the current +value of all kinds of property, and indeed in learning to understand +human nature on its business side. In the passage from the _pro +Caecina_ quoted just now, a lady, Caesennia, wished to buy an estate; +she employs an agent, Aebutius, no doubt recommended by her banker, +and to him the estate is knocked down. He undertakes that the +argentarius of the vendor, who is present at the auction, shall be +paid the value, and this is ultimately done by Caesennia, and the sum +entered in the banker's books (tabulae). + +But perhaps the most important part of the business was the finding +money for those who were in want of it, i.e. making advances on +interest. The poor man who was in need of ready money could get it +from the argentarius in coin if he had any security to offer, and, +as we saw in the last chapter, might get entangled more and more +hopelessly in the nets of the money-lender. Whether the same +argentarius did this small business and also the work of supplying the +rich man with credit, we do not know; it may have been the case that +the great money-lenders like Atticus themselves employed argentarii, +and so kept them going. That Atticus would undertake, anyhow, for a +friend like Cicero, any amount of money-finding, we know well from +many letters of Cicero, written when he was anxious to buy a piece +of land at any cost on which to erect a shrine to his beloved +daughter[133]; and we may be pretty sure that Atticus could not have +done all that Cicero importunately pressed upon him if he had not had +a number of useful professional agents at command. From these same +letters we also learn that finding money by no means necessarily meant +finding coin; in a society where every one was lending or borrowing, +and probably doing both at the same time, what actually passed was +chiefly securities, mortgages, debts, and so on. If you wanted to hand +over a hundred thousand or so to a creditor, what your agent had as +often as not to do was to persuade that creditor to accept as payment +the debts owing to yourself from others, i.e. you would hand over to +him, if he would accept them, the bonds or other securities given you +by your own debtors.[134] + +It is plain then that the money-lenders had an enormous business, even +in Rome alone, and risky as it undoubtedly was, it must often have +been a profitable one. And it was not only at Rome that men were +borrowing and lending, but over the whole Empire. For reasons which it +would need an economic treatise to explain, private men, cities, and +even kings were in want of money; it was needed to meet the increased +cost of living and the constantly increasing standard of living among +the educated;[135] it was needed by the cities of Greece and the East +to repair the damages done in the wars of the last three hundred +years; it was needed by the poorer provincials to pay the taxes for +which neither the publicani nor the Roman government could afford to +wait; and it was needed by the kings who had come within the dismal +shadow of the Roman Empire, in order to carry on their own government, +or to satisfy the demands of the neighbouring provincial governor, or +to bribe the ruling men at Rome to get some decree passed in their +favour. Cicero, at the end of his life, looking back to his own +consulship in 63, says that at no time in his recollection was the +whole world in such a condition of indebtedness,[136] and in a famous +passage in his second Catilinarian oration he has drawn a picture of +the various classes of debtors in Rome and Italy at that time (_Cat._ +ii. Sec. 18 foll.). He tells us of those who have wealth and yet will not +pay their debts; of those who are in debt and look to a revolution to +absolve them; of the veterans of the Sullan army, settled in colonies +such as Faesulae, who had rushed into debt in order to live luxurious +lives; of old debtors of the city, getting deeper and deeper into the +quagmire, who joined the conspiracy as a last desperate venture. There +was in fact in that famous year a real social fermentation going on, +caused by economic disturbance of the most serious kind; the germs of +the disease can be traced back to the Hannibalic war and its effects +on Italy, but all the symptoms had been continually exacerbated by the +negligence and ignorance of the government, and brought to a head by +the Social and Civil Wars in 90-82 B.C. In 63 the State escaped an +economic catastrophe through the vigilance of Cicero and the alliance +of the respectable classes under his leadership. In 49, and again in +48, it escaped a similar disaster through the good sense of Caesar and +his agents, who succeeded in steering between Scylla and Charybdis by +saving the debtors without ruining the lenders.[137] + +Wonderful figures are given by later writers, such as Plutarch, of the +debts and loans of the great men of this time, and they may stand as +giving us a general impression of private financial recklessness. But +the only authentic information that has come down to us is what +Cicero drops from time to time in his correspondence about his own +affairs,[138] and even this needs much explanation which we are unable +to apply to it. What is certain is that Cicero never had more than a +very moderate income on which he could depend, and that at times he +was hard up for money, especially of course after his exile and the +confiscation of his property; and that on the other hand he never had +any difficulty in getting the sums he needed, and never shows the +smallest real anxiety about his finances. His profession as a +barrister only brought him a return indirectly in the form of an +occasional legacy or gift, since fees were forbidden by a lex Cincia; +his books could hardly have paid him, at least in the form of money; +his inherited property was small, and his Italian villas were not +profitable farms, nor was it the practice to let such country houses, +as we do now, when not occupying them; he declined a provincial +government, the usual source of wealth, and when at last compelled +to undertake one, only realised what was then a paltry sum,--some +L17,500, all of which, while in deposit at Ephesus, was seized by +the Pompeians in the Civil War.[139] Yet even early in life he could +afford the necessary expenses for election to successive magistracies, +and could live in the style demanded of an important public man. +Immediately after his consulship he paid L28,000 for Crassus' house +on the Palatine, and it is here that we first discover how he managed +such financial operations. Here are his own words in a letter to a +friend of December 62 B.C.:[140] "I have bought the house for 3,500 +sestertia ... so you may now look on me as so deeply in debt as to be +eager to join a conspiracy if any one would admit me! ... Money is +plentiful at 6 per cent, and the success of my measures (in the +consulship) has caused me to be regarded as a good security." + +The simple fact was that Cicero was always regarded as a safe man to +lend money to, by the business men and the great capitalists; partly +because he was an honest man,--a _vir bonus_ who would never dream of +repudiation or bankruptcy; partly because he knew every one, and had +a hundred wealthy friends besides the lender of the moment and among +them, most faithful of all, the prudent and indefatigable Atticus. +Undoubtedly then it was by borrowing, and regularly paying interest +on the loans, that he raised money whenever he wanted it. He may have +occasionally made money in the companies of tax-collectors; we have +seen that he probably had shares in some of their ventures. But there +is no clear evidence in his letters of this source of wealth,[141] and +there is abundant evidence of the borrowing. After his return from +exile, though the senate had given him somewhat meagre compensation +for the loss of his property, he began at once to borrow and to build: +"I am building in three places," he writes to his brother,[142] "and +am patching up my other houses. I live somewhat more lavishly than I +used to do; I am obliged to do so." Here again we know from whom he +borrowed,--it was this same brother, who of course had no more certain +income than his own, probably less. But he had been governor of Asia +for three years (61-58 B.C.), and must have realised large sums even +in that exhausted province; and at this moment he was legatus to +Pompeius as special commissioner for organising the supply of +corn, and thus was in immediate contact with one of the greatest +millionaires of the day. In order to repay his brother all Marcus +had to do was to borrow from other friends. "In regard to money I am +crippled. But the liberality of my brother I have repaid, in spite of +his protests, by the aid of my friends, that I might not be drained +quite dry myself" (_ad Att._ iv. 3). Two years later an unwary reader +might feel some astonishment at finding that Quintus himself was now +deep in debt;[143] but as he continues to read the correspondence his +astonishment will vanish. With the prospect before him of a prolonged +stay in Gaul with Caesar, Quintus might doubtless have borrowed to any +extent; and in fact with Caesar's help--the proceeds of the Gallic +wars--both brothers found themselves in opulence. The Civil War, and +the repayment of his debts to Caesar, nearly ruined Marcus towards the +end of his life, but nothing prevented his contriving to find money +for any object on which he had set his heart; when in his grief for +the loss of his daughter he wishes to buy suburban gardens where a +shrine to her memory may (strange to say) attract public notice, he +tells Atticus to buy what is necessary _at any cost_. "Manage the +business your own way; do not consider what my purse demands--about +that I care nothing--but what I _want_."[144] + +Such being the financial method of Cicero and his brother, we cannot +be surprised to find that the younger generation of the family +followed faithfully in the footsteps of their elders. We have seen +that the young Marcus had a large allowance at Athens and on the whole +he seems to have kept fairly well within it, in spite of some trouble; +but his cousin the younger Quintus, coming to see his uncle in +December 45, showed him a gloomy countenance, and on being asked the +meaning of it, said that he was going with Caesar to the Parthian war +in order to avoid his creditors, and presumably to make money to pay +them with.[145] He had not even enough money for the journey out. His +uncle did not offer to give him any, but he does not seem to have +thought very seriously of the young man's embarrassments. + +One more example of the financial dealings of the business men of this +extraordinary age, and we will bring this chapter to an end. It is a +story which has luckily been preserved in Cicero's speech in defence +of a certain Rabirius Postumus in the year 54, who was accused under +Caesar's law de pecuniis repetundis (extortion in the provinces). It +is a remarkable revelation of all the most striking methods of making +and using money in the last years of the Republic. + +The father of this Rabirius, says Cicero, had been a distinguished +member of the equestrian order, and "fortissimus et maximus +publicanus"; not greedy of money, but most liberal to his friends--in +other words, he was not a miser, for that character was rare in this +age, but lent his money freely in order to acquire influence and +consideration. The son took up the same line of business, and engaged +in a wide sphere of financial operations. He dealt largely in the +stock of the tax-companies; he lent money to cities in several +provinces; he lent money to Ptolemy Auletes, King of Egypt, both +before he was expelled from his kingdom by sedition, and afterwards +when he was in Rome in 59 and 58, intriguing to induce the senate +to have him restored. Rabirius never doubted that he would be so +restored, and seems to have failed to see the probability of such a +policy being contested or quarrelled about, as actually happened in +the winter of 57-56. He lent, and persuaded his friends to lend:[146] +he represented the king's cause as a good investment; and then, like +the investing agent of to-day who slips so easily from carelessness +into crime, he had to go on lending more and more, because he feared +that if he stopped the king might turn against him. + +He had staked the mass of his substance on a desperate venture. But +time went on and Ptolemy was not restored, and without the revenues of +his kingdom he of course could not pay his creditors. At last, at the +end of the year 56, Gabinius, then governor of Syria, had pressure +put on him by the creditors--among them perhaps both Caesar and +Pompeius--to march into Egypt without the authority of the senate. He +took Rabirius with him, and, in order to secure the repayment, +the latter was made superintendent (dioikaetaes) of the Egyptian +revenues[147]. Unluckily for him, his wily debtor did after all turn +against him, and he escaped from Egypt with difficulty and with the +loss of all his wealth. When Gabinius was accused de repetundis and +found guilty of accepting enormous sums from Ptolemy, Rabirius was +involved in the same prosecution as having received part of the money; +Cicero defended him, and as it seems with success, on the plea that +equites were not liable to prosecution under the lex Julia. Towards +the end of his speech he drew a clever picture of his unlucky client's +misfortunes, and declared that he would have had to quit the Forum, +i.e. to leave the Stock Exchange in disgrace, if Caesar had not come +to his rescue by placing large sums at his disposal. + +What Rabirius did was simply to gamble on a gigantic scale, and get +others to gamble with him. The luck turned against him, and he came +utterly to grief. There seems indeed to have been a perfect passion +for dealing with money in this wild way among the men of wealth and +influence; it was the fancy of the hour, and no disgrace attached to +it if a man could escape ruin. Thus the vast capital accumulated--the +sources of which were almost entirely in the provinces and the +kingdoms on the frontiers--was hardly ever used productively. It never +returned to the region whence it came, to be used in developing +its resources; the idea of using it even in Italy for industrial +undertakings was absent from the mind of the gambler. Those numberless +villas, of which we shall speak in another chapter, were homes of +luxury and magnificence, not centres of agricultural industry. There +are indeed some signs that in this very generation the revival of +Italian agriculture was beginning, and more especially the cultivation +of the olive and the vine; Varro, some twenty years later, could claim +that Italy was the best cultivated country in the world.[148] It may +be that the din of the "insanum forum" and its wild speculation has +prevented our hearing of the quiet efforts in the country to put +capital to a legitimate productive use. But of the social life of the +city the Forum was the heart, and of any prudent or scientific use of +capital the Forum knew hardly anything. + +Of the two classes of business men we have been describing, the +tax-farmers and the money-lenders, it is hard to say which wrought the +most mischief in the Empire; they played into each other's hands in +wringing money out of the helpless provincials. Together too they did +incalculable harm, morally and socially, among the upper strata of +Roman society at home. Economic maladies react upon the mental, and +moral condition of a State. Where the idea of making money for its +own sake, or merely for the sake of the pleasure derivable from +excitement, is paramount in the minds of so large a section of +society, moral perception quickly becomes warped. The sense of justice +disappears, because when the fever is on a man he does not stop to ask +whether his gains are ill-gotten; and in this age the only restriction +on the plundering of the subjects of the Empire was a legal one, and +that of no great efficacy. There are many repulsive things in the +exquisite poetry of Catullus, but none of them jar on the modern mind +quite so sharply as his virulent attacks on a provincial governor in +whose suite he had gone to Bithynia in the hope of enriching himself, +and under whose just administration he had failed to do so. There +is lost also the sense of a duty arising out of the possession of +wealth--the feeling that it should do some good in the world, or at +least be in part applied to some useful purpose. Lastly, the exciting +pursuit of wealth helps to produce a curious restlessness and +instability of character, of which we have many examples in the age +we are studying. "Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel," are words +that might be applied to many a young man among Cicero's acquaintance, +and to many women also. + +No sudden operation could cure these evils--they needed the careful +and gradual treatment of a wise physician. As in so many other ways, +so here Augustus showed his wonderful instinct as a social reformer. +The first requisite of all was an age of comparative peace--a healthy +atmosphere in which the patient could recover his natural tone. Next +in importance was the removal of the incitement to enrich yourself and +to spend illegally or unprofitably, and the revival of a sense of duty +towards the State and its rulers. Provincial governors were made +more really responsible, and a scientific census revealed the actual +tax-paying capacity of the provincials; tax-farming was more closely +superintended and gradually disappeared. It is true enough that even +under the Empire great fortunes were made and lost, but the gambling +spirit, the wild recklessness in monetary dealings, are not met with +again. The Roman Forum ceased to be insane, and Italy became once more +the home of much happy and useful country life. The passionate and +reckless self-consciousness of Catullus is succeeded in the next +generation by the calm sweet hopefulness of Virgil; in passing from +the one poet to the other, we feel that we are leaving behind us an +age of over-sensitive self-seeking and entering on one in which duty +and honour, labour on the land and hard work for the State, may be +reckoned as things more likely to make life worth living than all the +accumulated capital of a Crassus. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +THE GOVERNING ARISTOCRACY + +Above the men of business of equestrian rank, in social standing +though not necessarily in wealth, there was in Cicero's time an +aristocracy which a Roman of that day would perhaps have found it a +little difficult to explain or define to a foreigner. Fortunately all +foreigners coming to Rome would know what was meant by the senate, +the great council which received envoys from all nations outside the +Empire; and the stranger might be told in the first place that all +members of that august assembly, with their families, were considered +as elevated above the equestrian order, and as forming the main body +of the aristocracy proper. But if the informant were by chance a +conservative Roman of old family, he might proceed to qualify this +definition. "There are now in the senate," he might say, "plenty of +men who are only there because they have held the quaestorship, which +Sulla made the qualification for a seat, and there are many equites +whom Sulla made into senators by the form of a vote of the people; +such men, even the great orator Cicero himself, I do not reckon as +really members of the nobility, because they do not belong to old +families who have done the State good service in past time. They have +no images of their ancestors in their houses; they come from municipal +towns, or spring from some low family in the city; they may have +raised themselves by their talents, perhaps only by their money, +but they have no guarantee of antiquity, their names are not in our +annals. All we true conservative Romans (and a, Roman is hardly a +Roman if not conservative) profoundly believe that a man whose family +has once attained to high public honour and done good public service, +will be a safer person to elect as a magistrate than one whose family +is unknown and untried--a belief which is surely based on a truth of +human nature. I should count a man who happens not to be in the senate +himself, for want of wealth or inclination, but whose family has its +images and its traditions of great ancestors, as far more truly an +"optimate" than most of these new men. Fortunately our most famous +families, whose names are known all over the Empire, are still to be +found in the senate, and indeed form a powerful body there, capable of +resisting to the last the revolutionary dangers that threaten us. The +people still elect to magistracies the Aemilii, Lutatii, Claudii, +Cornelii, Julii, and many more families that have been famous in our +history, and will, I trust, continue to elect them so long as our +Republic lasts."[149] + +There was indeed a glamour about these splendid names, as there is +about the titles of our ancient noble families; their holders may +almost be said to have claimed high office as a right, like the Whig +families Of the Revolution for a century after their triumph. Though +we may use the word in a wider sense in this chapter, these grand old +families were the true aristocracy, and inspired just that respect in +the minds of men outside their circle which is still so familiar to us +in England. Cicero was to such men an "outsider," a _novus homo_; and +the close reader of Cicero's letters, if he is looking out (as he +should be) for Cicero's constantly changing attitude of mind as he +addresses himself to various correspondents, cannot fail to see how +comparatively awkward and stilted he often is when writing to one of +these great nobles, with whom he has never been really intimate; and +how easily his pen glides along when he is letting himself talk to +Atticus, or Poetus, or M. Marius, men who were outside the pale of +nobility. It is true that he is sometimes embarrassed in other ways +when writing to great personages, as, for example, Lentulus Spinther, +consul in 57, or to Appius Claudius, consul in 53; but had they been +men of his own kind he never would have felt that embarrassment in the +same degree. When writing to such men he rarely or never indulges +in those little sportive jokes or allusions which enliven his more +intimate correspondence, nor does he tell the truth so strictly, for +they might not always care to hear it. + +Here is a specimen which will give some idea of his manner in writing +to an aristocrat: he is congratulating L. Aemilius Paullus, who +secured his election to the consulship in the summer of 51 B.C.: + +"Though I never doubted that the Roman people, considering your +eminent services to the Republic and _the splendid position of your +family_, would enthusiastically elect you consul by a unanimous vote, +yet I felt extreme delight when the news reached me; and I pray +the gods to render your official career fortunate, and to make the +administration of your office worthy of your own position and _that +of your ancestors_.... And would that it had been in my power to have +been at home to see that wished-for day, and to have given you the +support which your noble services and kindness to me deserved! But +since the unexpected and unlooked-for accident of my having to take +a province has deprived me of that opportunity, yet, that I may be +enabled to see you as consul actually administering the state in a +manner worthy of your position, I earnestly beg you to take care to +prevent my being treated unfairly, or having additional time added +to my year of office. If you do that, you will abundantly crown your +former acts of kindness to me."[150] + +This Aemilius Paullus, like Spinther and many others, belonged to +a respectable but somewhat characterless type of aristocrat; these +formed a considerable and a powerful section of the senate, where they +were an obstacle to reform and administrative efficiency. They were +really a survival from the old type of Roman noble, which had done +excellent work in its day; men in whom the individual had been kept in +strict subordination to the State, and whose personal idiosyncrasies +and ambitions only excited suspicion. But towards the end of the +Republican period the individual had free play; at no time in ancient +history do we meet with so many various and interesting kinds of +individuality, even among the nobilitas itself. This is not merely the +result of the abundant literature in which their traits have come down +to us; it was a fact of the age, in which the idea of the State had +fallen into the background, and the individual found no restraint +on his thoughts and little on his actions, no hindrance to the +development of his capacity either for good or evil. Sulla, +Catiline, Pompeius, Cato, Clodius, Caesar, all have their marked +characteristics, familiar to all who read the history of the Roman +revolution. Caesar is the most remarkable example of strong character +among the men of high aristocratic descent, and it is interesting to +notice how entirely he was without the exclusive tendency which we +associate with aristocrats. He was intimate with men of all ranks; his +closest friends seem to have been men who were noble. While the high +aristocrats looked down as a rule on Cicero the novus homo, and for +some years positively hated him[151], Caesar, though differing from +him _toto coelo_ in politics, was always on pleasant terms of personal +intercourse with him; he had a charm of manner, a literary taste, and +a genuine admiration for genius, which was invariably irresistible +to the sensitive "novus homo." With Pompey, though he trusted him +politically as he never trusted Caesar, Cicero was never so intimate. +They had not the same common interests; Cicero could laugh at Pompey +behind his back, but hardly once in his correspondence does he attempt +to raise a jest about Caesar. + +Thus in the governing or senatorial aristocracy we find men of a great +variety of character, from the old-fashioned nobilis, exclusive in +society and obstructive in politics, to the man of individual genius +and literary ability, whether of blue blood like Caesar, or like +Cicero the scion of a municipal family which has never gained or +sought political distinction. But for the purposes of this chapter +we may discern and discuss two main types of character in this +aristocracy: first, that on which the new Greek culture had worked to +advantage, not destroying the best Roman qualities, but drawing them +into usefulness in new ways; secondly, that on which the same culture +had worked to its harm by taking advantage of weak points in the Roman +armour, sapping the true Roman quality without substituting any other +excellence. We will briefly trace the growth of these two types, and +take an example of each among Cicero's intimate friends, not from +the famous personages familiar to every one, but from eminent and +interesting men of whom the ordinary student knows comparatively +little. + +Ever since the Hannibalic war, and probably even before it, Roman +nobles had felt the power of Greek culture; they had begun to think, +to learn about peoples who were different from themselves in habits +and manners, and to advance, the best of them at least, in wisdom and +knowledge; and this is true in spite of the unquestioned fact that it +was in this same era that the seeds were sown of moral and political +degeneracy. We shall have abundant opportunity of noting the effects +of this degeneracy in the last age of the Republic, but it is pleasant +to dwell for a moment on that more wholesome Greek influence which +enticed the finer minds among the Roman nobility into a new region of +culture, stimulating thought and strengthening the springs of conduct. + +Even the old Cato himself, most rigid of Roman conservatives, was not +unmoved by this influence,[152] and it was to him that Rome owed the +introduction of Ennius, the greatest literary figure of that age, into +Roman society[153]. But the first genuine example of the new culture, +of the Hellenic enthusiasm of the age, is to be found in Aemilius +Paullus, the conqueror of Macedonia, a true Roman aristocrat who was +delighted to learn from Greeks. Plutarch's _Life_ of this man is a +valuable record of the tendencies of the time. After his failure to +obtain a second consulship, Plutarch tells us[154] that he retired +into private life, devoting himself to religious duties and to the +education of his children, training these in the old Roman habits in +which he had himself been trained, but also in Greek culture, and that +with even greater enthusiasm. He had about them Greek teachers, not +only of grammar, rhetoric, and philosophy, but of the fine arts, and +even of out-door pursuits, such as hunting (to which the Romans were +not greatly addicted), and of the care of horses and dogs; and he made +a point of being present himself at all their exercises, bodily and +mental. The result of this wholesome Xenophontic education is seen in +his son, the great Scipio Aemilianus, who was adopted into the family +of the Scipios in the lifetime of his father. Whatever view we may +take of this great man's conduct in war and politics, there can hardly +be a doubt that the Romans themselves were right in treasuring his +memory as one of the best of their race. When we put all the facts of +his life together, from his early youth, of which his friend Polybius +has left us a most beautiful picture,[155] to his sudden and probably +violent death in the maturity of his powers, we are compelled to +believe that he was really a man of wide sympathies, a strong sense of +justice which guided him steadily through good report and ill, perfect +purity of life, and hatred of all that was low and bad, whether +in rich or poor. He was not, like his father, a Roman aristocrat +patronising Greek culture;[156] in him we see a perfectly natural +and mature combination of the noblest qualities of the Roman and the +wholesomest qualities of the Greek. "It was an awakening truth," +says a great authority, "in the minds of Romans like Scipio, that +intellectual culture must be built upon a foundation of moral +rectitude: and such a foundation they could find in the storehouse of +their own domestic traditions."[157] When Cicero, who held him to +be the greatest of Romans, wrote his dialogue on the State (_de +Republica_), with the new idea pervading it of the moral and political +ascendancy of a single man, he made Scipio the hero and the one +ascendant figure in his work, and ended it with an imitation of the +Platonic "myth," in the form of a "dream of Scipio." + +Scipio gathered round him a circle of able and cultured men, both +Roman and Greek, including almost every living Roman of ability, and +among the Greeks the historian Polybius and the philosopher Panaetius, +of whom we shall have more to learn in the course of this volume. Of +this circle the best and ablest men of Cicero's earlier days were +mentally the children, and his own views both of literature and +politics were largely formed upon the Scipionic tradition. Indeed to +understand the mental and moral furniture of the Roman mind in the +Ciceronian age, it is absolutely necessary to study that of the +generation which made that mind what it was; but here space can only +be found to point out how the enlightenment of the Scipionic circle +opened out new ways in manners, in literature, in philosophical +receptivity, and lastly in the study of the law, which was destined to +be Rome's greatest contribution to civilisation. + +Manners, the demeanour of the individual in social intercourse, are a +valuable index, if not an entirely conclusive one, of the mental and +moral tone of society in any age. Ease and courteousness of bearing +mean, as a rule, that the sense of another's claims as a human being +are always present to the mind. Whatever be the shortcomings of the +last age of the Republic, we must give due credit to the fact that in +their outward demeanour towards each other the educated men of that +age almost invariably show good breeding. It is true enough that +public vituperation, in senate or law-courts, was a fact of every day, +and the wealth of violent personal abuse which a gentleman like Cicero +could expend on one whom for the time he hated, or who had done +him some wrong, passes all belief.[158] But the history of this +vituperation is a curious one; it was a traditional method of hostile +oratory, and sprang from an old Roman root, the tendency to defamation +and satire, which may itself be attributed in part to the Italian +custom of levelling abuse at a public man (e.g. at his triumph) in +order to avert evil from him.[159] To single out a man's personal +ugliness, to calumniate his ancestry in the vilest terms,--these were +little more than traditional practices, oratorical devices, which the +rhetorical education of the day encouraged, and which no one took +very seriously.[160] But we are concerned in this chapter mainly with +private life; and there we find almost universal consideration and +courtesy. In the whole of the Ciceronian correspondence there is +hardly a letter that does not show good breeding, and there are many +that are the natural result of real kindly feeling and true sympathy. + +A good example of the best type of Roman manners is to be found in +Plutarch's _Life_ of Gaius Gracchus, the younger contemporary of +Scipio, who had married his sister. Plutarch draws a picture of him so +vivid that by common consent it is ascribed to the memoirs of some one +who knew him. "In all his dealings with men," says the biographer, "he +was always dignified yet always courteous"; that is, while he inspired +respect, men felt also that he would do anything in his power for +them. That this was said of him by a Roman, and not invented for him +by Plutarch, seems probable because the combination is one peculiarly +Roman; so Livy, when he wishes to describe the finest type of Roman +character, says that a certain man was "haud minus libertatis alienae +quam suae dignitatis memor."[161] This same combination meets us also +in the little pictures of the social life of cultivated men which +Cicero has left us in some of his dialogues. There the speakers are +usually of the nobility, often distinguished members of senatorial +families, as in the _de Oratore_, where the chief _personae_ are +Crassus, Antonius, and Scaevola, the conservative triumvirate of the +day. They all seem grave, or but seldom gently jocular, respectful to +each other, and perhaps a trifle tedious; they never quarrel, however +deeply they may differ, and we may guess that they did not hold their +opinions strongly enough to urge them to open rupture. We seem to see +the same grave faces, with rather noses and large mouths, which meet +us in the sculptures of Augustus' Ara Pacis,[162]--full of dignity, +but a little wanting in animation. + +There is one singular exception to the good manners of the period; but +as the result rather of affectation than of nature, it may help to +prove our rule. Again and again in Plutarch's _Life_ of Cato the +younger the mention of his rudeness proves the strength of the +tradition about him. It was said that this lost him the consulship, +as he declined to make himself agreeable in the style expected from +candidates[163]. Even in a letter to Cicero, an old friend, though not +actually rude, he is absurdly patronising and impertinent to a man +many years his senior, and writes in very bad taste. Probably the +enmity between him and Caesar arose or was confirmed in this way, +as Cato always made a point of being rudest to those whom he most +disliked. He fancied that he was imitating his great ancestor, and +asserting the virtue of good old Roman bluntness against modern Greek +affectation; he did not in the least see that he was himself a curious +example of Roman affectation, shown up by the real amenities of +intercourse, for which Romans had largely to thank Greece[164]. + +In literature too the average capacity of this aristocracy was high, +though the greatest literary figures of the age, if we except Caesar, +do not, strictly speaking, belong to it; Cicero was a novus homo, and +Lucretius and Catullus were not of the senatorial order. But the new +education, as we shall see later on, was admirably calculated to +train men in the art of speaking and writing, if not in the habit of +independent thinking; and among the nobles who reaped the full fruits +of this education every one could write in Latin and probably also +in Greek, and if he aimed at public distinction, could speak without +disgracing himself in the senate and the courts. Oratory was, in fact, +the staple product of the age, and the chief _raison d'etre_ of its +literary activity. Long ago the practice had begun of writing out +successful speeches delivered in the senate, in the courts, or at +funerals; the means of publication were easy, as a consequence of the +number of Greek slaves who could act as copyists, and thus oratory +formed the basis of a prose literature which is essentially +Roman,[165] rooted in the practical necessities of the life of the +Roman noble, though deeply tinged with the Greek ideas and forms of +expression acquired in the process of education in vogue. Treatises on +rhetoric, the art of effective expression in prose, form an important +part of it; two of them still survive from the time of Sulla,--the +_Rhetorica ad Herennium_ of an unknown author, and Cicero's early +treatise _de Inventione_. Later on Cicero wrote his admirable dialogue +_de Oratore_ and other works on the same subject, ending with his +_Brutus_, a catalogue raisonnee, invaluable to us, of all the great +Roman orators down to his own time. + +In history writing the standard was not so high. The rhetorical +education made men good professional orators, but indifferent and +dilettante historians, and the example of more accurate historical +investigation and reflection set by Polybius was not followed, except +perhaps by Caelius Antipater in the Gracchan age.[166] History was +affected for the worse by the rhetorical art, as indeed poetry was +destined also to be; Sallust, though we owe much to him, was in fact +an amateur, who thought more of style and expression than of truth +and fact. Caesar, who did not profess to be a historian, but only to +provide the materials for history,[167] stands alone in making facts +more important than words, and rarely troubles his reader with +speeches or other rhetorical superfluities.[168] Biographies and +autobiographies were fashionable; of the former only those of +Cornelius Nepos, one of Cicero's many friends, have come down to us, +and none of the latter, but we know a long list of eminent men who +wrote their own memoirs, including Catulus the elder, Rutilius the +famous victim of equestrian judges, Sulla, and Lucullus. But far above +all other prose writers of the age stand two men, neither of them +Roman by birth, but yet members of the senatorial order; the one a man +of encyclopaedic learning, with what we may almost call a scientific +interest in the subjects which he treated in awkward and homely Latin, +the other a man of comparatively little learning, but gifted with so +exquisite a sense of the beautiful in expression, and at the same +time with a humanity so real and in that day so rare, that it is not +without good cause that he has recently been called the most highly +cultured man of all antiquity.[169] Of Varro's numerous works we have +unluckily but few survivals; of Cicero's we have still such a mass +as will for ever provide ample material for studying the life, the +manners, the thought of his day. + +A large part of this mass consists of the correspondence of which we +are making such frequent use in these chapters. Letter-writing is +perhaps the most pleasing and genuine of all the literary activities +of the time; men took pains to write well, yet not with any definite +prospect of publication, such as was the motive a century later in +the days of Seneca and Pliny. The nine hundred and odd letters of the +Ciceronian collection are most of them neither mere communications +nor yet rhetorical exercises, but real letters, the intercourse of +intimate friends at a distance, in which their inmost thoughts can +often be seen. Cicero is indeed apt to become rhetorical even in his +letters, when writing under excitement about politics; but the most +delightful letters in the collection are those in which he writes +to his friends in happy and natural language of his daily life and +occupations, his books, his villas, his children, his joys and +sorrows. It is strange that the great historian of Rome in our time +entirely failed to see the charm and the value of these letters, as of +all Cicero's writings; his countrymen have now agreed to differ from +him, and to restore a great writer to his true position. + +In philosophical receptivity too the brightest and finest minds among +this aristocracy show an ability which is almost astonishing, when we +consider that there had been no education in Rome worth the name until +the second century B.C.[170] I use the word receptivity, because the +Romans of our period never really learnt to think for themselves; they +never grappled with a problem, or struck out a new line of thought. +But so far as we can judge by Cicero's philosophical works, the only +ones of his age which have come down to us, the power to read with +understanding and to reproduce with skill was unquestionably of a high +order. The opportunities for study were not wanting; private libraries +were numerous, and all Cicero's friends who had collected books were +glad to let him have the use of them.[171] Greek philosophers were +often domesticated in wealthy families, and could discourse with the +statesman when he had leisure from public business. Much of this was +no more than fashion, and real endeavour and earnestness were rare; +but the fact remains that one philosophical system, more especially on +its ethical side, took real possession of the best type of Roman mind, +and had permanent and saving influence on it. + +Stoicism was brought to Rome by Panaetius of Rhodes, the intimate +friend of Scipio, a mild and tactful Greek whose Rhodian birth gave +him perhaps some advantage in associating with the old allies of his +state. He came to Rome at a critical moment, when even the best men +were drifting into pure material self-seeking; and the results of his +teaching were during two centuries so wholesome and inspiring that we +may almost think of him as a missionary. The ground had been prepared +for him in some sense by Polybius, who introduced him to Scipio and +his circle, and who was then engaged in writing his history. From +Polybius the Romans, the best of them at least, first learnt to +realise their own empire and the great change it had wrought in the +world; to think about what they had done and the qualities that +enabled them to do it. From Panaetius they were to learn a +philosophical creed which might direct and save them in the future, +which might serve as ballast in public and private life, just when the +ship was beginning to drift in moral helplessness. He was the founder +of a school of practical wisdom, singularly well adapted to the Roman +character and intellect, which were always practical rather than +speculative; and far better suited to ordinary human life than the old +rigid and austere Stoic ethics, of which the younger Cato was the +only eminent Roman disciple. From what we know of Panaetius' ethical +teaching,--and in the first two books of Cicero's work, _de Officiis_, +we have a fairly complete view of it,--we do not find the old doctrine +that absolute wisdom and justice are the only ends to pursue, and +everything else indifferent; a doctrine which put the old-fashioned +Stoic out of court in public life. The relative element, the useful, +played a great part in the teaching of Panaetius. Though his system +is based on the highest principles to which moral teaching could then +appeal, it did not exclude the give and take, the compromise without +which no practical man of affairs can make way, nor yet the wealth and +bodily comforts that secure leisure for thought.[172] + +Panaetius' mission was carried on by another Rhodian philosopher, the +famous Posidonius, who lived long enough to know Cicero himself +and many of his contemporaries; a man less inspiring perhaps than +Panaetius, but of greater knowledge and attainment; a traveller, +geographer, and a man of the world, whose writings on many subjects, +though lost to us, really lie at the back of a great part of the Roman +literary output of his time.[173] He was the disciple of Panaetius; +envoy from Rhodes to Rome in the terrible year 86; and later on the +inmate of Roman families, and the admired friend of Cicero Pompeius, +and Varro. Philosophy was only one of the many pursuits of this +extraordinary man, whose literary and historical influence can be +traced in almost every leading Roman author for a century at least; +but his philosophical importance was during his lifetime perhaps +predominant. The generation that knew him was rich in Stoics; for +example, Aelius Stilo, the master of Varro, "doctissimus eorum +temporum," as Gellius calls him;[2] Rutilius, who was mentioned just +now as having written memoirs; and among others probably the great +lawyer Mucius Scaevola. Cato, as we have seen, was not a follower of +the Roman school of Stoicism, but of the older and uncompromising +doctrine; but Cicero, though never a professed Stoic, was really +deeply influenced, and towards the end of his life almost fascinated, +by a creed which suited his humanity while it stimulated his instinct +for righteousness.[174] And, like Cicero, many other men of serious +character felt the power of Stoicism almost unconsciously, without +openly professing it. + +Stoicism then was in several ways congenial to the Roman spirit, but +in one direction it had an inspiring influence which has been of +lasting moment to the world. Up to the time of Panaetius and the +Scipionic circle the Roman idea and study of law had been of a crabbed +practical character, wanting in breadth of treatment, destitute of any +philosophical conception of the moral principles which lie behind all +law and government. The Stoic doctrine of universal law ruling the +world--a divine law, emanating from the universal Reason--seems to +have called up life in these dry bones. It might be held by a Roman +Stoic that human law comes into existence when man becomes aware of +the divine law, and recognises its claim upon him. Morality is thus +identical with law in the widest sense of the word, for both are +equally called into being by the Right Reason, which is the universal +primary force.[175] It is not possible here to show how this grand and +elevating idea of law may have affected Roman jurisprudence, but we +will just notice that the first quasi-philosophical treatment of law +is found following the age of Panaetius and the Scipionic circle; that +the phrase _ius gentium_ then begins to take the meaning of general +principles or rules common to all peoples, and founded on "natural +reason";[176] and that this led by degrees to the later idea of the +Law of Nature, and to the cosmopolitanism of the Roman legal system, +which came to embrace all peoples and degrees in its rational and +beneficent influence. If the Greek had a genius for beauty, and the +Jew for righteousness, the Roman had a genius for law; and the power +of Stoicism in ennobling and enriching his native conception of it is +probably not to be easily over-estimated. + +Thus behind the stormy scenes of public life in this period there is a +process going on which will be of value not only to the Roman Empire +but to modern civilisation. It was carried on more especially by two +men of the highest character, Q. Mucius Scaevola, Cicero's adviser +in his early days, and often his model in later life; and Servius +Sulpicius Rufus, his exact contemporary and lifelong friend. Neither +Scaevola nor Sulpicius were, so far as we know, professed disciples +of Stoicism; but that they applied perhaps half unconsciously the +principles of Stoicism to their own legal studies is almost certain. +The combination of legal training and Stoic influence (whether direct +or unconscious) seems to have been capable of bringing the Roman +aristocratic character to a high pitch of perfection; and it will be +pleasant to take this friend of Cicero, whose public career we can +clearly trace, and one or two of whose letters we still possess, as +our example of a really well spent life in an age when time and talent +were constantly abused and wasted. + +Sulpicius and Cicero were born in the same year, 106; they went hand +in hand in early life, and remained friends till their deaths in 43, +Sulpicius dying a few months before Cicero. They were both attached +in early youth to the Scaevola just mentioned, the first of the great +series of scientific Roman lawyers. But the consulship of Cicero +made a wide divergence in their lives. In that year Sulpicius was a +candidate for the consulship and failed; and then, resigning further +attempts to obtain the highest honour, he retired for the next twelve +years into private life, devoting himself to the work which has made +his name immortal. His writings are lost; nothing remains of them but +a few chance fragments and allusions; but he was reckoned the second +of the great writers on legal subjects, and it is probable that he +contributed as much as any of them to the work of making Roman +law what it has been as a power in the world, a factor in modern +civilisation. For he treated it, as his friend said of him,[177] with +the hand and mind of an artist, laying out his whole subject and +distributing it into its constituent parts, by definition and +interpretation making clear what seemed obscure, and distinguishing +the false from the true in legal principle. In the splendid panegyric +pronounced on him in the senate after his death,[178] Cicero again +emphatically declared him to be unrivalled in jurisprudence. In +beautiful but untranslatable language he claims that he was "non magis +iuris consultus, quam iustitiae,"--an encomium which all great +lawyers might well envy; he aimed rather at enabling men to be rid of +litigation than at encouraging them to engage in it. + +From such passages we might conjecture, even if we knew nothing +more about him, that Sulpicius was a man of very fine clay, of real +_humanitas_ in the widest sense of that expressive word; and this +is entirely borne out in other ways.[179] Emerging at last from +retirement, he stood again for the consulship in 52 B.C., and was +elected. The year of his office, 51, was the first in which the +enemies of Caesar, with Cato at their head, began to attack his +position and clamour for his recall from his command; this violent +hostility Sulpicius tried, not without temporary success, to restrain, +and the fact that a man of so just a mind should have taken this +line is one of the best arguments for the reasonableness of Caesar's +cause.[180] When war broke out he was greatly perplexed how to act; +his breadth of view made decision difficult, and he seems to have +been at all times more a student than a man of action. With some +heart-burnings he joined Caesar in the struggle, and accepted from him +the government of Achaia; it was at this time that he wrote the famous +letter of consolation to Cicero on the death of his beloved daughter +Tullia, which is full of true feeling and kindliness, though evidently +composed with effort, if not with difficulty. After Caesar's death he +of course acted with Cicero against Antony, and in the spring of +43, making always for peace and good-will, he gave his life for his +country in a way that claims our admiration more really than the +suicide of Cato the professional Stoic; he headed an embassy to +Antony, though dangerously ill at the time, and died in this last +effort to obtain a hearing for the voice of justice. He has a +_monumentum aere perennius_ in the speech of his old friend urging the +senate to vote him a public funeral and a statue, as one who had laid +down his life for his country. + +We must now turn to consider how the mischievous side of the new Greek +culture, in combination with other tendencies of the time, found its +way into weak points in the armour of the Roman aristocracy. + +The pursuit of ease and pleasure, to which the attainment of wealth +and political power were too often merely subordinated, is a leading +characteristic of the time. It is seen in many different forms, in +many different types of character; but at the root of the whole +corruption is the spirit of the coarser side of Epicureanism. As with +Roman Stoicism, so too with Roman Epicureanism, it is not so much the +professed holding of philosophical tenets that affected life; in the +case of the latter system, it was the coincidence of its popularity +with the decay of the old Roman faith and morality, and with the +abnormal opportunities of self-indulgence. Cato as a professed Stoic, +Lucretius as an enthusiastic Epicurean, stand quite apart from +the mass of men who were actuated one way or the other by these +philosophical creeds. The majority simply played with the philosophy, +while following the natural bent of their individual character; but +such dilettanteism was often quite enough to affect that character +permanently for good or evil. + +"Epicureanism popularised inevitably turns to vice." Was it really +popular at Rome? Cicero tells us in a valuable passage[181] that one +Amafinius had written on it, and that a great number of copies of his +book were sold, partly because the arguments were easy to follow, +partly because the doctrine was pleasant, and partly too because men +failed to get hold of anything better. The date of this Amafinius is +uncertain, but it is probable that Cicero is here speaking of the +latter part of the second century B.C.; and he goes on to say that +other writers took up the same line of teaching, and established it +over the whole of Italy (Italiam totam occupaverunt). If this was +in the time of the Social and Civil Wars, of the proscriptions, of +increasing crime and self-seeking, we can well understand that the +doctrine was popular. We have a remarkable example of it in the life +of a public man of Cicero's own time, the object of the most envenomed +invective that he ever uttered.[182] We cannot believe a tithe of what +he says about this man, Calpurnius Piso, consul in 58; but in this +particular matter of the damage done him by Epicurean teaching we have +independent evidence which confirms it. Piso, then a young man, made +acquaintance with a Greek of this school of thought, learnt from him +that pleasure was the sole end of life, and failing to appreciate the +true meaning and bearing of the doctrine, fell into the trap. It was +a dangerous doctrine, Cicero says, for a youth of no remarkable +intelligence; and the tutor, instead of being the young man's guide to +virtue, was used by him as an authority for vice.[183] This Greek was +a certain Philodemus, a few of whose poems are preserved in the _Greek +Anthology_; and a glance at them will show at once how dangerous such +a man would be as the companion of a Roman youth. He may not himself +have been a bad man--Cicero indeed rather suggests the contrary, +calling him _vere humanus_--but the air about him was poisonous. In +his pupil, if we can trust in the smallest degree the picture drawn of +him by Cicero, we may see a specimen of the young men of the age whose +talents might have made them useful in the world, but for the strength +of the current that drew them into self-indulgence. + +Not only the pursuit of pleasure, but its correlative, the avoidance +of work and duty, can be abundantly illustrated in this age; and this +too may have had a subtle connexion with Epicurean teaching, which had +always discouraged the individual from distraction in the service of +the State, as disturbing to the free development of his own virtue. +Sulla did much hard work, but made the serious blunder of retiring to +enjoy himself just when his new constitutional machinery needed the +most careful watching and tending. Lucullus, after showing a wonderful +capacity for work and a greater genius for war than perhaps any man of +his time, retired from public life as a millionaire and a quietist, +to enjoy the wealth that has become proverbial, and a luxury that is +astonishing, even if we make due allowance for the exaggeration of our +accounts of it. To his library we have already been introduced; those +who would see him in his banqueting-hall, or rather one of the many +in his palace, may turn to the fortieth chapter of Plutarch's most +interesting _Life_ of him, and read the story there told of the dinner +he gave to Cicero and Pompeius in the "Apollo" dining-room.[184] + +The same cynical carelessness about public affairs and neglect of +duty, as compared with private ease or advantage, seems to have been +characteristic of the ordinary senator. Active and busy in his own +interest, he was indifferent to that of the State. There are distinct +signs that the attendance in the senate was not good. When Cicero was +away in Cilicia his correspondent writes of difficulties in getting +together a sufficient number even for such important business as the +settlement of provincial governments.[185] On the other hand, much +private business was done, and many jobs perpetrated, in a thin +senate; in 66 a tribune proposed that no senator should be dispensed +from the action of a law unless two hundred were present.[186] It was +in such a thin senate, we may be sure, that the virtuous Brutus was +dispensed from the law which forbade lending to foreign borrowers in +Rome, and thus was enabled to lend to the miserable Salaminians of +Cyprus at 48 per cent, and to recover his money under the bond.[187] +Writing to his brother in December 57, Cicero speaks of business done +in a senate full for the time of year, which was midwinter, just +before the Saturnalia, when only two hundred were present out of about +six hundred. In February 54, a month when the senate had always much +business to get through, it was so cold one day that the few members +present clamoured for dismissal and obtained it.[188] And when the +senate did meet there was a constant tendency to let things go. No +reform of procedure is mentioned as even thought of, at a time when +it was far more necessary than in our Parliament; business was talked +about, postponed obstructed, and personal animosities and private +interests seem, so far as we can judge from the correspondence of the +time, to have been predominant. With wearisome iteration the letters +speak of nothing done, of business postponed, or of the passing of +some senatus consultum, the utter futility of which is obvious even +now.[189] Even the magistrates seem to have been growing careless; we +hear of a praetor presiding in the court de repetundis who had not +taken the trouble to acquaint himself with the text of the law which +governed its procedure;[190] and that praetors were worse than +careless about their action in civil cases is proved by another law of +the same tribune Cornelius mentioned just now, "that praetors should +abide by the rules laid down in their edicts."[191] + +But all these futilities, and much of the same kind outside of the +senate, together with the quarrels of individuals, the chances and +incidents of elections, and all such gossip as forms the staple +commodity of the society papers of to-day, were a source of infinite +delight to another type of pleasure-loving public man, the last to be +illustrated here. + +If the older noble families were apathetic and idle, there were plenty +of young men, rising most often from the class below, whose minds were +intensely active--active in the pursuit of pleasure, but pleasure in +the comparatively harmless form of amusement and excitement. One of +these, the son of a banker at Puteoli, Marcus Caelius Rufus, stands +out as a living portrait in his own letters to Cicero, of which no +fewer than seventeen are preserved.[192] Of his early years too we +know a good deal, told us in the speech in defence of him spoken by +Cicero in the year 56; and these combined sources of information make +him the most interesting figure in the life of his age. M. Boissier +has written a delightful essay on him in his _Ciceron et ses amis_, +and Professor Tyrrell has done the like in the introduction to the +fourth volume of his edition of Cicero's letters; but they have +treated him less as a type of the youth of his day than as the friend +and pupil of Cicero. Caelius will always repay fresh study; he was +amusing and interesting to his contemporaries, and so he will be for +ever to us. He is a veritable Proteus--you never know what shape he +will take next; + + Omnia transformat sese in miracula rerum---- + +we can trace no less than six such transformations in the story of +his life. And this instability, let us note at once, was not the +restlessness of a jaded _roue_, but the coruscation of a clever mind +wholly without principle, intensely interested in his _monde_, in the +life in which he moved, with all its enjoyment and excitement. + +Caelius' father brought his son to Cicero, as soon as he had taken +his toga virilis, to study law and oratory, and Cicero was evidently +attracted by the bright and lively boy; he never deserted him, and +the last letter of Caelius to his old preceptor was written only just +before his own sad end. But Cicero was not the man to keep an unstable +character out of mischief; he loved young men, especially clever ones, +and was apt to take an optimistic view of them, as he did of his own +son and nephew. Caelius, always attracted by novelty, left Cicero and +attached himself to Catiline; and for this vagary, as well as for his +own want of success in controlling his pupil, Cicero rather awkwardly +and amusingly apologises in the early chapters of his speech in his +defence. Wild oats must be sown, he says; when a youth has given full +fling to his propensities to vice, they will leave him, and he may +become a useful citizen,--a dangerous view of a preceptor's duty, +which reminds us of the treatment, of the boy Nero by his philosopher +guardian long afterwards.[193] + +Caelius escaped the fate of Catiline and his crew only to fall into +the hands of another clique not less dangerous for his moral welfare. +He became one of a group of brilliant young men, among whom were +probably Catullus and Calvus the poets, who were lovers, and +passionate lovers, of the infamous Clodia; they were needy, she found +them money, and they hovered about her like moths about a candle. In +such a life of passion and pleasure quarrels were inevitable. If the +Lesbia of Catullus be Clodia, as we may believe, she had thrown the +poet over with a light heart. It was apparently of his own free will +that Caelius deserted her: in revenge she turned upon him with an +accusation of theft and attempt to poison. What truth there was in the +charges we do not really know, but Cicero defended him successfully, +and in this way we come to know the details of this unsteady life. + +In gratitude, and possibly in shame, Caelius now returned to his old +friend, and abandoned the whole ring of his vicious companions for +diligent practice in the courts, where he obtained considerable fame +as an orator. A fragment of a speech of his preserved by Quintilian +shows, as Professor Tyrrell observes, wonderful power of graphic +and picturesque utterance.[194] Cicero, writing of him after his +death,[195] says that he was at this time on the right side in +politics, and that as tribune of the plebs in 56 he successfully +supported the good cause, and checked revolutionary and seditious +movements. All was going well with him until Cicero went as governor +to Cilicia in 51. Cicero seems to have felt complete confidence +in him, and invited him to become his confidential political +correspondent; fifteen out of his seventeen letters were written in +this capacity. These letters show us the man as clearly as if we had +his diary before us. Caelius is no idle scamp or lazy Epicurean; his +mind is constantly active: nothing escapes his notice: the minutest +and most sordid things delight him. He is bright, happy, witty, +frivolous, and doubtless lovable. It is amusing to see how Cicero +himself now and again catches the infection, and tries (in vain) to +write in the same frivolous manner.[196] Caelius has some political +insight; he sees civil war approaching, but he takes it all as a game, +and on the eve of events which were to shake the world he trifles +with the symptoms as though they were the silliest gossip of the +capital.[197] In none of these letters is there the smallest vestige +of principle to be found. On the very eve of civil war he tells +Cicero[198] that as soon as war breaks out the right thing to do is to +join the stronger side. Judging Caesar's side to be the stronger, he +joined it accordingly, and did his best to induce Cicero to do the +same. As M. Boissier happily says, he never cared to "menager ses +transitions." + +He had, however, to discover that if to change over to Caesar was the +safer course, to turn a political somersault once more, to try and +undermine the work of the master, meant simply ruin. We have the story +of his sixth and last transformation from Caesar himself, who was not, +however, in Italy at the time.[199] Credit in Italy had been seriously +upset by the outbreak of Civil War, and Caesar had been at much pains +to steady it by an ordinance which has been alluded to in the last +chapter.[200] In 48 Caelius was praetor; in the master's absence he +suddenly took up the cause of the debtors, and tried to evoke appeals +against the decisions of his colleague Trebonius,--a great lawyer and +a just man. Failing in this, he started as a downright revolutionary, +proposing first the abolition of house-rent, and finally the abolition +of all debts; and Milo, in exile at Massilia, was summoned to help +him to raise Italy against Caesar. This was too much, and both were +quickly caught and killed as they were stirring up gladiators and +other slave-bands among the latifundia of South Italy. + +Caelius' letters give us a chance of seeing what that life of the +Forum really was which so fascinated the young men of the day, and +some of the old, such as Cicero himself. We can see these children +playing on the very edge of the crater, like the French noblesse +before the Revolution. In both cases there was a semi-consciousness +that the eruption was not far off,--but they went on playing. What was +it that so greatly amused and pleased them? + +What Caelius is always writing of is mainly elections and canvassing, +accusations and trials, games and shows. Elections he treats as pure +sport, as a kind of enjoyable gambling, or as a means of spiting some +one whom you want to annoy. With elections accusations were often +connected: if a man were accused before his election he could not +continue to stand; if condemned after it he was disqualified; here +were ways in which personal spite might deprive him of success at the +last moment.[201] Accusations, too were of course the best means by +which an ambitious young man could come to the front. The whole number +of trials mentioned by Caelius is astonishing; sometimes there is such +a complication of them as is difficult to follow. Every one is ready +to lay an accusation, without the smallest regard for truth. Young +Appius Claudius accuses Servilius, and makes a mess of the attack, +while the praetor mismanages the conduct of the trial, so that nothing +comes of it; but finally Appius is himself accused by the Servilii +_de vi_, in order to keep him from further attacks on Servilius![202] +Appius the father quarrelled with Caelius and egged on others to +accuse him, though he was curule aedile at the time. "Their impudence +was so boundless that they secured that an information should be +laid against me for a very serious crime (under the Scantinian law). +Scarcely had Pola got the words out of his mouth, when I laid an +information under the same law against the censor, Appius. I never saw +a more successful stroke!"[203] + +Of the games, and the panthers to be exhibited at them, about which +Caelius is for ever worrying his friend in Cilicia, we shall see +something in another chapter. There is plenty of other gossip in these +letters, and gossip often about unsavoury matters which need not be +noticed here. It lets in a flood of light upon the causes of the +general incompetence and inefficiency; the life of the Forum was a +demoralising one: + + Uni se atque eidem studio omnes dedere et arti + uerba dare ut caute possint, pugnare dolose: + blanditia certare, bonum simulare uirum se: + insidias facere, ut si hostes sint omnibus omnes.[204] + +From what has been said in this sketch it should be clear that we have +in the aristocracy of this period a complicated society, the various +aspects of which can hardly be united in a single picture. It is +partly a hereditary aristocracy, with all the pride and exclusiveness +of a group of old families accustomed to power and consequence. It is +in the main a society of gentlemen, dignified in manner, and kindly +towards each other, and it is also a society of high culture and +literary ability, though poor in creative genius, and unimaginative. +On the other hand, it is a class which has lost its interest in +the State, and is energetic only when pursuing its own interests: +pleasure-loving, luxurious, gossiping, trifling with serious matters, +short-sighted in politics because anxious only for personal advance. +"Rari nantes in gurgite vasto" are the men who are really in earnest, +but they are there; we must not forget that in Lucretius and Cicero +this society produced one of the greatest poets and one of the most +perfect prose writers that the world treasures; in Sulpicius a lawyer +of permanent value to humanity, and in Caesar not only an author and a +scholar but a man of action unrivalled in capacity and industry. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +MARRIAGE: AND THE ROMAN LADY + +In order to appreciate the position of women of various types in the +society we are examining, it is necessary to make it clear what Roman +marriage originally and ideally meant. In any society, it will be +found that the position and influence of woman can be fairly well +discerned from the nature of the marriage ceremony and the conditions +under which it is carried out. At Rome, in all periods of her history, +a _iustum matrimonium_, i.e. a marriage sanctioned by law and +religion, and therefore entirely legal in all its results, was a +matter of great moment, not to be achieved without many forms and +ceremonies. The reason for this elaboration is obvious, at any rate +to any one who has some acquaintance with ancient life in Greece or +Italy. As we shall see later on, the house was a residence for the +divine members of the family, as well as the human; the entrance, +therefore, of a bride into the household,--of one, that is, who had no +part nor lot in that family life--meant some straining of the relation +between the divine and human members. The human part of the family +brings in a new member, but it has to be assured that the divine part +is willing to accept her before the step taken can be regarded as +complete. She has to enter the family in such a way as to be able to +share in its sacra, i.e. in the worship of the household spirits, +the ancestors in their tombs, or in any special cult attached to the +family. In order to secure this eligibility, she was in the earliest +times subjected to a ceremony which was clearly of a sacramental +character, and which had as its effect the transference of the bride +from the hand (manus) of her father, i.e. from absolute subjection to +him as the head of her own family, to the hand of her husband, i.e. to +absolute subjection to him as the head of her new family. + +This sacramental ceremony was called _confarreatio_, because a sacred +cake, made of the old Italian grain called _far_, and offered to +Jupiter Farreus,[205] was partaken of by bride and bridegroom, in the +presence of the Pontifex Maximus, the Flamen Dialis, and ten other +witnesses. At such a ceremony the auspices had of course been taken, +and apparently a victim was also slain, and offered probably to Ceres, +the skin of which was stretched over two seats (sellae), on which the +bride and bridegroom had to sit.[206] These details of the early form +of patrician marriage are only mentioned here to make the religious +character of the Roman idea of the rite quite plain; in other words, +to prove that the entrance of a bride into a family from outside was +a matter of very great difficulty and seriousness, not to be achieved +without special aid and the intervention of the gods. We may even +go so far as to say that the new materfamilias was in some sort +a priestess of the household, and that she must undergo a solemn +initiation before assuming that position. And we may still further +illustrate the mystical religious nature of the whole rite, if +we remember that throughout Roman history no one could hold the +priesthood of Jupiter (flaminium diale), or that of Mars or Quirinus, +or of the Rex sacrorum, who had not been born of parents wedded by +confarreatio, and that in each case the priest himself must be married +by the same ceremony.[207] This last mentioned fact may also serve to +remind us that it was not only the family and its sacra, its life and +its maintenance, that called for the ceremonies making up a iustum +matrimonium, but also the State and its sacra, its life and its +maintenance.[208] As confarreatio had as its immediate object the +providing of a materfamilias fully qualified in all her various +functions, and as its further object the providing of persons legally +qualified to perform the most important sacra of the state; so +marriage, in whatever form, had as its object at once the maintenance +of the family and its sacra and the production of men able to serve +the State in peace and war. To be a Roman citizen you must be the +product of a iustum matrimonium. From this initial fact flow all the +_iura_ or rights which together make up citizenship; whether the +private rights, which enable you to hold and transfer and to inherit +property under the shelter of the Roman law,[209] or the public +rights, which protect your person against violence and murder, and +enable you to give your vote in the public assembly and to seek +election to magistracies.[210] + +Marriage then was a matter of the utmost importance in Roman life, and +in all the forms of it we find this importance marked by due solemnity +of ritual. In two other forms, besides confarreatio, the bride could +be brought under the hand of her husband, viz., _coemptio_ and _usus_, +with which we are not here specially concerned; for long before the +last century of the Republic all three methods had become practically +obsolete, or were only occasionally used for particular purposes. In +the course of time it had been found more convenient for a woman to +remain after her marriage in the hand of her father, or if he were +dead, in the "tutela" of a guardian (tutor), than to pass into that +of her husband; for in the latter case her property became absolutely +his. The natural tendency to escape from the restrictions of marital +_manus_ may be illustrated by a case such as the following: a woman +under the _tutela_ of a guardian wishes to marry; if she does so, and +passes under the _manus_ of her husband, her _tutor_ loses all control +over her property, which may probably be of great importance for +the family she is leaving; he therefore naturally objects to such a +marriage, and urges that she should be married without _manus_.[211] +In fact the interests of her own family would often clash with those +of the one she was about to enter, and a compromise could be effected +by the abandonment of marriage _cum manu_. + +Now this, the abandonment of marriage _cum manu_, means simply that +certain legal consequences of the marriage ceremony were dropped, +and with them just those parts of the ceremony which produced these +consequences. Otherwise the marriage was absolutely as valid for all +purposes private and public as it could be made even by confarreatio +itself. The sacramental part was absent, and the survival of the +features of marriage by purchase, which we may see in the form of +coemptio, was also absent; but in all other respects the marriage +ceremony was the same as in marriage _cum manu_. It retained all +essential religious features, losing only a part of its legal +character. It will be as well briefly to describe a Roman wedding of +the type common in the last two centuries of the Republic. + +To begin with, the boy and girl--for such they were, as we should look +on them, even at the time of marriage--have been betrothed, in all +probability, long before. Cicero tells us that he betrothed his +daughter Tullia to Calpurnius Piso Frugi early in 66 B.C.; the +marriage took place in 63. Tullia seems to have been born in 76, so +that she was ten years old at the time of betrothal and thirteen at +that of marriage. This is probably typical of what usually happened; +and it shows that the matter was really entirely in the hands of the +parents. It was a family arrangement, a _mariage de convenance_, +as has been and is the practice among many peoples, ancient and +modern.[212] The betrothal was indeed a promise rather than a definite +contract, and might be broken off without illegality; and thus if +there were a strong dislike on the part of either girl or boy a way of +escape could be found.[213] However this may be, we may be sure that +the idea of the marriage was not that of a union for love, though it +was distinguished from concubinage by an "affectio maritalis" as well +as by legal forms, and though a true attachment might, and often did, +as in modern times in like circumstances, arise out of it. It was the +idea of the service of the family and the State that lay at the root +of the union. This is well illustrated, like so many other Roman +ideas, in the _Aeneid_ of Virgil. Those who persist in looking on +Aeneas with modern eyes, and convict him of perfidy towards Dido, +forget that his passion for Dido was a sudden one, not sanctioned by +the gods or by favourable auspices, and that the ultimate union with +Lavinia, for whom he forms no such attachment, was one which would +recommend itself to every Roman as justified by the advantage to the +State. The poet, it is true, betrays his own intense humanity in +his treatment of the fate of Dido, but he does so in spite of his +theme,--the duty of every Roman to his family and the State. A Roman +would no doubt fall in love, like a youth of any other nation, but his +passion had nothing to do with his life of duty as a Roman. This idea +of marriage had serious consequences, to which we shall return later +on. + +When the day for the wedding arrives, our bride assumes her bridal +dress, laying aside the toga praetexta of her childhood and dedicating +her dolls to the Lar of her family; and wearing the reddish veil +(_flammeum_) and the woollen girdle fastened with a knot called the +knot of Hercules,[214] she awaits the arrival of the bridegroom in +her father's house. Meanwhile the auspices are being taken;[215] in +earlier times this was done by observing the flight of birds, but now +by examination of the entrails of a victim, apparently a sheep. If +this is satisfactory the youthful pair declare their consent to the +union and join their right hands as directed by a pronuba, i.e. a +married woman, who acts as a kind of priestess. Then after another +sacrifice and a wedding feast, the bride is conducted from her old +home to that of her husband, accompanied by three boys, sons of living +parents, one carrying a torch while the other two lead her by either +hand; flute-players go before, and nuts are thrown to the boys. This +_deductio_, charmingly described in the beautiful sixty-fifth poem of +Catullus, is full of interesting detail which must be omitted here. +When the bridegroom's house is reached, the bride smears the doorposts +with fat and oil and ties a woollen fillet round each: she is +then lifted over the threshold, is taken by her husband into the +partnership of fire and water--the essentials of domestic life--and +passes into the atrium. The morrow will find her a materfamilias, +sitting among her maids in that atrium, or in the more private +apartments behind it: + + Claudite ostia, virgines + Lusimus satis. At boni + Coniuges, bene vivite, et + Munere assiduo valentem + Exercete iuventam. + +Even the dissipated Catullus could not but treat the subject of +marriage with dignity and tenderness, and in this last stanza of his +poem he alludes to the duties of a married pair in language which +would have satisfied the strictest Roman. He has also touched another +chord which would echo in the heart of every good citizen, in the +delicious lines which just precede those quoted, and anticipate the +child--a son of course--that is to be born, and that will lie in +his mother's arms holding out his little hands, and smiling on his +father.[216] Nothing can better illustrate the contrast in the mind +of the Roman between passionate love and serious marriage than a +comparison of this lovely poem with those which tell the sordid +tale of the poet's intrigues with Lesbia (Clodia). The beauty and +_gravitas_ of married life as it used to be are still felt and still +found, but the depths of human feeling are not stirred by them. Love +lies beyond, is a fact outside the pale of the ordered life of the +family or the State. + +No one who studies this ceremonial of Roman marriage, in the light of +the ideas which it indicates and reflects, can avoid the conclusion +that the position of the married woman must have been one of +substantial dignity, calling for and calling out a corresponding type +of character. Beyond doubt the position of the Roman materfamilias was +a much more dignified one than that of the Greek wife. She was far +indeed from being a mere drudge or squaw; she shared with her husband +in all the duties of the household, including those of religion, and +within the house itself she was practically supreme.[217] She lived in +the atrium, and was not shut away in a women's chamber; she nursed her +own children and brought them up; she had entire control of the female +slaves who were her maids; she took her meals with her husband, but +sitting, not reclining, and abstaining from wine; in all practical +matters she was consulted, and only on questions political or +intellectual was she expected to be silent. When she went out arrayed +in the graceful _stola matronalis_, she was treated with respect, +and the passers-by made way for her; but it is characteristic of +her position that she did not as a rule leave the house without the +knowledge of her husband, or without an escort.[218] + +In keeping with this dignified position was the ideal character of the +materfamilias. Ideal we must call it, for it does not in all respects +coincide with the tradition of Roman women even in early times; but +we must remember that at all periods of Roman history the woman whose +memory survives is apt to be the woman who is not the ideal matron, +but one who forces herself into notice by violating the traditions of +womanhood. The typical matron would assuredly never dream of playing +a part in history; her influence was behind the scenes, and therefore +proportionally powerful. The legendary mother of Coriolanus (the +Volumnia of Shakespeare), Cornelia the mother of the Gracchi, Aurelia, +Caesar's mother, and Julia his daughter, did indirectly play a far +greater part in public life than the loud and vicious ladies who have +left behind them names famous or infamous; but they never claimed the +recognition of their power. + +This peculiar character of the Roman matron, a combination of dignity, +industry, and practical wisdom, was exactly suited to attract the +attention of a gentle philosopher like Plutarch, who loved, with +genuine moral fervour, all that was noble and honest in human nature. +Not only does he constantly refer to the Roman ladies and their +character in his _Lives_ and his _Morals_, but in his series of more +than a hundred "Roman questions" the first nine, as well as many +others, are concerned with marriage and the household life; and in +his treatise called _Coniugalia praecepta_ he reflects many of +the features of the Roman matron. From him, in Sir Thomas North's +translation, Shakespeare drew the inspiration which enabled him to +produce on the Elizabethan stage at least one such typical matron. In +Coriolanus he has followed Plutarch so closely that the reader may +almost be referred to him as an authority; and in the contrast between +the austere and dignified Volumnia and the passionate and voluptuous +Cleopatra of the later play, the poet's imagination seems to have been +guided by a true historical instinct. + +We need not doubt that the austere matron of the old type survived +into the age we are specially concerned with; but we hardly come +across her in the literature of the time, just because she was living +her own useful life, and did not seek publicity. Chance has indeed +preserved for us on stone the story of a wonderful lady, whose early +years of married life were spent in the trying time of the civil wars +of 49-43 B.C., and who, if a devoted husband's praises are to be +trusted, as indeed they may be, was a woman of the finest Roman cast, +and endowed with such a combination of practical virtues as we should +hardly have expected even in a Roman matron. But we shall return to +this inscription later on. + +The ladies whom we meet with in Cicero's letters and in the other +literature of the last age of the Republic are not of this type. Since +the second Punic war the Roman lady has changed, like everything else +Roman. It is not possible here to trace the history of the change +in detail, but we may note that it seems to have begun within the +household, in matters of dress and expense, and later on affected the +life and bearing of women in society and politics. Marriages cum manu +became unusual: the wife remained in the potestas of her father, who +in most cases, doubtless, ceased to trouble himself about her, and as +her property did not pass to her husband, she could not but obtain a +new position of independence. Women began to be rich, and in the +year 169 B.C. a law was passed (lex Voconia) forbidding women of the +highest census[219] (who alone would probably be concerned) to inherit +legacies. Even before the end of the great war, and when private +luxury would seem out of place, it had been proposed to abolish the +Oppian law, which placed restrictions on the ornaments and apparel of +women; and in spite of the vehement opposition of Cato, then a young +man, the proposal was successful.[220] At the same time divorce, which +had probably never been impossible though it must have been rare,[221] +began to be a common practice. We find to our surprise that the +virtuous Aemilius Paullus, in other respects a model paterfamilias, +put away his wife, and when asked why he did so, replied that a woman +might be excellent in the eyes of her neighbours, but that only a +husband could tell where the shoe pinched.[222] And in estimating the +changed position of women within the family we must not forget the +fact that in the course of the long and unceasing wars of the second +century B.C., husbands were away from home for years together, and in +innumerable cases must have perished by the sword or pestilence, or +fallen into the hands of an enemy and been enslaved. It was inevitable +that as the male population diminished, as it undoubtedly did in +that century, the importance of woman should proportionately have +increased. Unfortunately too, even when the husbands were at home, +their wives sometimes seem to have wished to be rid of them. In 180 +B.C. the consul Piso was believed to have been murdered by his wife, +and whether the story be true or not, the suspicion is at least +significant.[223] In 154 two noble ladies, wives of consulares, were +accused of poisoning their husbands and put to death by a council of +their own relations.[224] Though the evidence in these cases is not +by any means satisfactory, yet we can hardly doubt that there was a +tendency among women of the highest rank to give way to passion and +excitement; the evidence for the Bacchanalian conspiracy of 186 B.C., +in which women played a very prominent part, is explicit, and shows +that there was a "new woman" even then, who had ceased to be satisfied +with the austere life of the family and with the mental comfort +supplied by the old religion, and was ready to break out into +recklessness even in matters which were the concern of the State.[225] +That they had already begun to exercise an undue influence over their +husbands in public affairs seems suggested by old Cato's famous dictum +that "all men rule over women, we Romans rule over all men, and our +wives rule over us."[226] + +But it would be a great mistake to suppose that the men themselves +were not equally to blame. Wives do not poison their husbands without +some reason for hating them, and the reason is not difficult to guess. +It is a fact beyond doubt that in spite of the charm of family life as +it has been described above, neither law nor custom exacted conjugal +faithfulness from a husband.[227] Old Cato represents fairly well the +old idea of Roman virtue, yet it is clear enough, both from Plutarch's +_Life_ of him (e.g. ch. xxiv.) and from fragments of his own writings, +that his view of the conjugal relation was a coarse one,--that he +looked on the wife rather as a necessary agent for providing the State +with children than as a helpmeet to be tended and revered. And this +being so, we are not surprised to find that men are already beginning +to dislike and avoid marriage; a most dangerous symptom, with which a +century later Augustus found it impossible to cope. In the year 131, +just after Tiberius Gracchus had been trying to revive the population +of Italy by his agrarian law, Metellus Macedonicus the censor did what +he could to induce men to marry "liberorum creandorum causa"; and a +fragment of a speech of his on this subject became famous afterwards, +as quoted by Augustus with the same object. It is equally +characteristic of Roman humour and Roman hardness. "If we could do +without wives," he said to the people, "we should be rid of that +nuisance: but since nature has decreed that we can neither live +comfortably with them nor live at all without them, we must e'en look +rather to our permanent interests than to a passing pleasure."[228] + +Now if we take into account these tendencies, on the part both of men +and women in the married state, and further consider the stormy +and revolutionary character of the half century that succeeded the +Gracchi,--the Social and Civil Wars, the proscriptions of Marius and +Sulla,--we shall be prepared to find the ladies of Cicero's time by no +means simply feminine in charm or homely in disposition. Most of them +are indeed mere names to us, and we have to be careful in weighing +what is said of them by later writers. But of two or three of them we +do in fact know a good deal. + +The one of whom we really know most is the wife of Cicero, Terentia: +an ordinary lady, of no particular ability or interest, who may stand +as representative of the quieter type of married woman. She lived with +her husband about thirty years, and until towards the end of that +period, a long one for the age, we find nothing substantial against +her. If we had nothing but Cicero's letters to her, more than twenty +in number, and his allusions to her in other letters, we should +conclude that she was a faithful and on the whole a sensible wife. But +more than once he writes of her delicate health,[229] and as the poor +lady had at various times a great deal of trouble to go through, it is +quite possible that as she grew older she became short in her temper, +or trying in other ways to a husband so excitable and vacillating. We +find stories of her in Plutarch and elsewhere which represent her as +shrewish, too careful of her own money, and so on;[230] but facts are +of more account than the gossip of the day, and there is not a sign in +the letters that Cicero disliked or mistrusted her until the year 47. +Had there really been cause for mistrust it would have slipped out in +some letter to Atticus. Then, after his absence during the war, +he seems to have believed that she had neglected himself and his +interests: his letters to her grow colder and colder, and the last is +one which, as has been truly said, a gentleman would not write to +his housekeeper. The pity of it is that Cicero, after divorcing her, +married a young and rich wife, and does not seem to have behaved very +well to her. In a letter to Atticus (xii. 32) he writes that Publilia +wanted to come to him with her mother, when he was at Astura devoting +himself to grief for his daughter, and that he had answered that he +wished to be let alone. The letter shows Cicero at his worst, for once +heartless and discourteous; and if he could be so to a young lady who +wished to do her duty by him, what may he not have been to Terentia? I +suspect that Terentia was quite as much sinned against as sinning; +and may we not believe that of the innumerable married women who +were divorced at this time some at least were the victims of their +husbands' callousness rather than of their own shortcomings? + +The wife of Cicero's brother Quintus does, however, seem to have been +a difficult person to get on with. She was a sister of Atticus, but +she did not share her brother's tact and universal good-will. Marcus +Cicero has recorded (_ad Att._ v. I) a scene in which her ill-temper +was so ludicrous that the divorce which took place afterwards needs no +explanation. The two brothers were travelling together, and Pomponia +was with them; something had irritated her. When they stopped to lunch +at a place belonging to Quintus at Arcanum, he asked his wife to +invite the ladies of the party in. "Nothing, as I thought, could be +more courteous, and that too not only in the actual words, but in his +intention and the expression of his face. But she, in the hearing of +us all, exclaimed, 'I am only a stranger here!'" Apparently she had +not been asked by her husband to see after the luncheon; this had been +done by a freedman, and she was annoyed. "There," said Quintus, "that +is what I have to put up with every day!" When he sent her dishes from +the triclinium, where the gentlemen were having their meal, she would +not taste them. This little domestic contretemps is too good to be +neglected, but we must turn to women of greater note and character. + +Terentia and Pomponia and their kind seem to have had nothing in the +way of "higher education," nor do their husbands seem to have expected +from them any desire to share in their own intellectual interests. Not +once does Cicero allude to any pleasant social intercourse in which +his wife took part; and, to say the truth, he would probably have +avoided marriage with a woman of taste and knowledge. There were such +women, as we shall see, probably many of them; ever since the incoming +of wealth and of Greek education, of theatres and amusements and all +the pleasant out-of-door life of the city, what was now coming to be +called _cultus_ had occupied the minds and affected the habits of +Roman ladies as well as men. Unfortunately it was seldom that it was +found compatible with the old Roman ideal of the materfamilias and +her duties. The invasion of new manners was too sudden, as was the +corresponding invasion of wealth; such a lady as Cornelia, the famous +mother of the Gracchi, "who knew what education really meant, who had +learned men about her and could write well herself, and yet could +combine with these qualities the careful discharge of the duties +of wife and mother,"[231]--such ladies must have been rare, and in +Cicero's time hardly to be found. More and more the notion gained +ground that a clever woman who wished to make a figure in society, to +be the centre of her own _monde_, could not well realise her ambition +simply as a married woman. She would probably marry, play fast and +loose with the married state, neglect her children if she had any, and +after one or two divorces, die or disappear. So powerfully did this +idea of the incompatibility of culture and wifehood gain possession +of the Roman mind in the last century B.C., that Augustus found his +struggle with it the most difficult task he had to face; in vain he +exiled Ovid for publishing a work in which married women are most +frankly and explicitly left out of account, while all that is +attractive in the other sex to a man of taste and education is assumed +to be found only among those who have, so far at least, eschewed the +duties and burdens of married life. The culta puella and the cultus +puer of Ovid's fascinating yet repulsive poem[232] are the products of +a society which looks on pleasure, not reason or duty, as the main +end of life,--not indeed pleasure simply of the grosser type, but the +gratification of one's own wish for enjoyment and excitement, without +a thought of the misery all around, or any sense of the self-respect +that comes of active well-doing. + +The most notable example of a woman of _cultus_ in Cicero's day was +the famous Clodia, the Lesbia (as we may now almost assume) who +fascinated Catullus and then threw him over. She had been married to a +man of family and high station, Metellus Celer, who had died, strange +to say, without divorcing her. She must have been a woman of great +beauty and charm, for she seems to have attracted round her a little +coterie of clever young men and poets, to whom she could lend money or +accord praise as suited the moment. Whether Cicero himself had once +come within reach of her attractions, and perhaps suffered by them, is +an open question, and depends chiefly on statements of Plutarch which +may (as has been said above) have no better foundation than the gossip +of society. But we know how two typical young men of the time, Caelius +and Catullus, flew into the candle and were singed; we know how +fiercely she turned on Caelius, exposing herself and him without a +moment's hesitation in a public court; and we know how cruelly she +treated the poet, who hated her for it even while he still loved +her:[233] + + Odi et amo. Quare id faciam, fortasse requiris; + Nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior. + +CATULL. 85. + +She was, as M. Boissier has well said,[234] the exact counterpart +of her still more famous brother: "Elle apportait dans sa conduite +privee, dans ses engagements d'affection, les memes emportements et +les memes ardeurs que son frere dans la vie publique. Prompte a tous +les exces et ne rougissant pas de les avouer, aimant et haissant avec +fureur, incapable de se gouverner et detestant toute contrainte, elle +ne dementait pas cette grande et fiere famille dont elle descendait." +All this is true; we need not go beyond it and believe the worst that +has been said of her. + +We have just a glimpse of another lady of _cultus_, but only a +glimpse. This was Sempronia, the wife of an honest man and the mother +of another;[235] but according to Sallust, who introduces her to us as +a principal in the conspiracy of Catiline, she was one of those who +found steady married life incompatible with literary and artistic +tastes. "She could play and dance more elegantly than an honest woman +should ... she played fast and loose with her money, and equally so +with her good fame."[236] She had no scruples, he says, in denying a +debt, or in helping in a murder: yet she had plenty of _esprit_, could +write verses and talk brilliantly, and she knew too how to assume an +air of modesty on occasion. Sallust loved to colour his portraits +highly, and in painting this woman he saw no doubt a chance of +literary effect; but that she was really in the conspiracy we cannot +doubt, and that she had private ends to gain by it is also probable. +She seems to be the first of a series of ladies who during the next +century and later were to be a power in politics, and most of whom +were at least capable of crime, public and private. There is indeed +one instance a few years earlier of a woman exercising an almost +supreme influence in the State, and a woman too of the worst kind. +Plutarch tells us in the most explicit way that when Lucullus in 75 +B.C. was trying to secure for himself the command against Mithridates, +he found himself compelled to apply to a woman named Praecia, whose +social gifts and good nature gave her immense influence, which she +used with the pertinacity peculiar to such ladies. Her reputation, +however, was very bad, and among other lovers she had enslaved +Cethegus (afterwards the conspirator), whose power at the time was +immense at Rome. Thus, says Plutarch, the whole power of the State +fell into the hands of Praecia, for no public measure was passed if +Cethegus was not for it, in other words, if Praecia did not recommend +it to him. If the story be true, as it seems to be, Lucullus gained +her over by gifts and flattery, and thus Cethegus took up his cause +and got him the command.[237] + +Even if we put aside as untrustworthy a great deal of what is told us +of the relations of men and women in this period, it must be confessed +that there is quite sufficient evidence to show that they were loose +in the extreme, and show an altogether unhealthy condition of family +and social life. The famous tigress of the story of Cluentius, Sassia, +as she appears in Cicero's defence of him, was beyond doubt a criminal +of the worst kind, however much we may discount the orator's rhetoric; +and her case proves that the evil did not exist only at Rome, but was +to be found even in a provincial town of no great importance. Divorce +was so common as to be almost inevitable. Husbands divorced +their wives on the smallest pretexts, and wives divorced their +husbands.[238] Even the virtuous Cato seems to have divorced his wife +Marcia in order that Hortensius should marry her, and after some years +to have married her again as the widow of Hortensius, with a large +fortune.[239] Cicero himself writes sometimes in the lightest-hearted +way of conjugal relations which we should think most serious;[240] +and we find him telling Atticus how he had met at dinner the actress +Cytheris, a woman of notoriously bad character. "I did not know she +was going to be there," he says, "but even the Socratic Aristippus +himself did not blush when he was taunted about Lais."[241] Caesar's +reputation in such matters was at all times bad, and though many of +the stories about him are manifestly false, his conquest by Cleopatra +was a fact, and we learn with regret that the Egyptian queen was +living in a villa of his in gardens beyond the Tiber during the year +46, when he was himself in Rome. + +It will be a relief to the reader, after spending so much time in this +unwholesome atmosphere, to turn for a moment in the last place to a +record, unique and entirely credible, of a truly good and wholesome +woman, and of a long period of uninterrupted conjugal devotion. About +the year 8 B.C., not long before Ovid wrote those poems in which +married life was assumed to be hardly worth living, a husband in +high life at Rome lost the wife who had for forty-one years been his +faithful companion in prosperity, his wise and courageous counsellor +in adversity. He recorded her praises and the story of her devotion to +him in a long inscription, placed, as we may suppose, on the wall of +the tomb in which he laid her to rest, and a most fortunate chance has +preserved for us a great part of the marble on which this inscription +was engraved. It is in the form of a laudatio, or funeral encomium; +yet we cannot feel sure that he actually delivered it as a speech, +for throughout it he addresses, not an audience, but the lost wife +herself, in a manner unique among such documents of the kind as have +come down to us. He speaks to her as though she were still living, +though passed from his sight; and it is just this that makes it more +real and more touching than any memorial of the dead that has come +down to us from either Italy or Greece.[242] + +In such a record names are of no great importance; it is no great +misfortune that we do not know quite for certain who this man and his +wife were. But there is a very strong probability that her name was +Turia, and that he was a certain Q. Lucretius Vespillo, who served +under Pompeius in Epirus in 48 B.C., whose romantic adventures in the +proscriptions of 43 are recorded by Appian,[243] and who eventually +became consul under Augustus in 19 B.C. We may venture to use these +names in telling the remarkable story. For telling it here no apology +is needed, for it has never been told in English as a whole, so far as +I am aware. + +It begins when the pair were about to be married, probably in 49 B.C., +and with a horrible family calamity, not unnatural at the moment of +the outbreak of a dangerous civil war. Both Turia's parents were +murdered suddenly and together at their country residence--perhaps, +as Mommsen suggested, by their own slaves. Immediately afterwards +Lucretius had to leave with Pompeius' army for Epirus, and Turia was +left alone, bereft of both her parents, to do what she could to secure +the punishment of the murderers. Alone as she was, or aided only by a +married sister, she at once showed the courage and energy which are +obvious in all we hear of her. She seems to have succeeded in tracking +the assassins and bringing them to justice: "even if I had been there +myself," says her husband, "I could have done no more." + +But this was by no means the only dangerous task she had to undertake +in those years of civil war and insecurity. When Lucretius left her +they seem to have been staying at the villa where her parents had been +murdered; she had given him all her gold and pearls, and kept him +supplied in his absence with money, provisions, and even slaves, which +she contrived to smuggle over sea to Epirus.[244] And during the march +of Caesar's army through Italy she seems to have been threatened, +either in that villa or another, by some detachment of his troops, and +to have escaped only through her own courage and the clemency of one +whose name is not mentioned, but who can hardly be other than the +great Julius himself, a true gentleman, whose instinct and policy +alike it was throughout this civil war to be merciful to opponents. + +A year later, while Lucretius was still away, yet another peril came +upon her. While Caesar was operating round Dyrrhachium, there was a +dangerous rising in Campania and Southern Italy, for which our giddy +friend Caelius Rufus was chiefly responsible; gladiators and ruffianly +shepherd slaves were enlisted, and by some of these the villa where +she was staying was attacked, and successfully defended by her--so +much at least it seems possible to infer from the fragment recently +discovered. + +One might think that Turia had already had her full share of trouble +and danger, but there is much more to come. About this time she had to +defend herself against another attack, not indeed on her person, but +on her rights as an heiress. An attempt was made by her relations to +upset her father's will, under which she and Lucretius were appointed +equal inheritors of his property. The result of this would have been +to make her the sole heiress, leaving out her husband and her +married sister; but she would have been under the legal _tutela_ or +guardianship of persons whose motive in attacking the will was to +obtain administration of the property.[245] No doubt they meant to +administer it for their own advantage; and it was absolutely necessary +that she should resist them. How she did it her husband does not tell +us, but he says that the enemy retreated from his position, yielding +to her firmness and perseverance (constantia). The patrimonium came, +as her father had intended, to herself and her husband; and he dwells +on the care with which they dealt with it, he exercising a _tutela_ +over her share, while she exercised a _custodia_ over his. Very +touchingly he adds, "but of this I leave much unsaid, lest I should +seem to be claiming a share in the praise that is due to you alone." + +When Lucretius returned to Italy, apparently pardoned by Caesar +for the part he had taken against him, the marriage must have been +consummated. Then came the murder of the Dictator, which plunged Italy +once more into civil war, until in 43 Antony Octavian and Lepidus made +their famous compact, and at once proceeded to that abominable work of +proscription which made a reign of terror at Rome, and spilt much +of the best Roman blood. The happiness of the pair was suddenly +destroyed, for Lucretius found himself named in the fatal lists.[246] +He seems to have been in the country, not far from Rome, when he +received a message from his wife, telling him of impending peril that +he might have to face at any moment, and warning him strongly against +a certain rash course--perhaps an attempt to escape to Sextus Pompeius +in Sicily, a course which cost the lives of many deluded victims. +She implored him to return to their own house in Rome, where she had +devised a secure hiding-place for him. She meant no doubt to die with +him there if he were discovered. + +He obeyed his good genius and made for Rome, by night it would seem, +with only two faithful slaves. One of these fell lame and had to +be left behind; and Lucretius, leaning on the arm of the other, +approached the city gate. Suddenly they became aware of a troop of +soldiers issuing from it, and Lucretius took refuge in one of the many +tombs that lined the great roads outside the walls. They had not been +long in this dismal hiding when they were surprised by a party of +tomb-wreckers--ghouls who haunted these roads by night and lived by +robbing tombs or travellers. Luckily they wanted rather to rob than to +murder, and the slave gave himself up to them to be stripped, while +his master, who was no doubt disguised, perhaps as a slave, contrived +to slip out of their hands and reached the city gate safely. Here he +waited, as we might expect him to do, for his brave companion, and +then succeeded in making his way into the city and to his house, where +his wife concealed him between the roof and the ceiling of one of +their bedrooms, until the storm should blow over. + +But neither life nor property was safe until some pardon and +restitution were obtained from one at least of the triumvirs. When at +last these were conceded by Octavian, he was himself absent in the +campaign that ended with Philippi, and Lepidus was consul in charge +of Rome. To Lepidus Turia had to go, to beg the confirmation of +Octavian's grace, and this brutal man received her with insult and +injury. She fell at his feet, as her husband describes with bitter +indignation, but instead of being raised and congratulated, she was +hustled, beaten like a slave, and driven from his presence. But +her perseverance had its ultimate reward. The clemency of Octavian +prevailed on his return to Italy, and this treatment of a lad; was +among the many crimes that called for the eventual degradation of +Lepidus. + +This was the last of their perilous escapes. A long period of happy +married life awaited them, more particularly after the battle of +Actium, when "peace and the republic were restored." One thing only +was wanting to complete their perfect felicity--they had no children. +It was this that caused Turia to make a proposal to her husband which, +coming from a truly unselfish woman, and seen in the light of Roman +ideas of married life, is far from unnatural; but to us it must seem +astonishing, and it filled Lucretius with horror. She urged that he +should divorce her, and take another wife in the hope of a son and +heir. If there is nothing very surprising in this from a Roman point +of view, it is indeed to us both surprising and touching that she +should have supported her request by a promise that she would be as +much a mother to the expected children as their own mother, and would +still be to Lucretius a sister, having nothing apart from him, nothing +secret, and taking away with her no part of their inheritance. + +To us, reading this proposal in cold blood just nineteen hundred years +after it was made, it may seem foolishly impracticable; to her, whose +whole life was spent in unselfish devotion to her husband's interests, +whose warm love for him was always mingled with discretion, it was +simply an act of pietas--of wifely duty. Yet he could not for a moment +think so himself: his indignation at the bare idea of it lives for +ever on the marble in glowing words. "I must confess," he says, "that +the anger so burnt within me that my senses almost deserted me: that +you should ever have thought it possible that we could be separated +but by death, was most horrible to me. What was the need of children +compared with my loyalty to you: why should I exchange certain +happiness for an uncertain future? But I say no more of this: you +remained with me, for I could not yield without disgrace to myself and +unhappiness to both of us. The one sorrow that was in store for me was +that I was destined to survive you." + +These two, we may feel sure, were wholly worthy of each other. What +she would have said of him, if he had been the first to go, we can +only guess; but he has left a portrait of her, as she lived and worked +in his household, which, mutilated though it is, may be inadequately +paraphrased as follows: + +"You were a faithful wife to me," he says, "and an obedient one: you +were kind and gracious, sociable and friendly: you were assiduous at +your spinning (lanificia): you followed the religious rites of your +family and your state, and admitted no foreign cults or degraded magic +(superstitio): you did not dress conspicuously, nor seek to make +a display in your household arrangements. Your duty to our whole +household was exemplary: you tended my mother as carefully as if she +had been your own. You had innumerable other excellences, in common +with all other worthy matrons, but these I have mentioned were +peculiarly yours." + +No one can study this inscription without becoming convinced that it +tells an unvarnished tale of truth--that here was really a rare and +precious woman; a Roman matron of the very best type, practical, +judicious, courageous, simple in her habits and courteous to all her +guests. And we feel that there is one human being, and one only, +of whom she is always thinking, to whom she has given her whole +heart--the husband whose words and deeds show that he was wholly +worthy of her. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +THE EDUCATION OF THE UPPER CLASSES + +From what has been said in preceding chapters of the duties and the +habits of the two sections of the upper stratum of society, it will +readily be inferred that the kind of education called for was one +mainly of character. In these men, whether for the work of business or +of government, what was wanted was the will to do well and justly, +and the instinctive hatred of all evil and unjust dealing. Such an +education of the will and character is supplied (whatever be its +shortcomings in other ways) by our English public school education, +for men whose work in life is in many ways singularly like that of the +Roman upper classes. Such an education, too, was outlined by Aristotle +for the men of his ideal state; and Mr. Newman's picture of the +probable results of it is so suggestive of what was really needed at +Rome that I may quote it here.[247] + +"As its outcome at the age of twenty-one we may imagine a bronzed and +hardy youth, healthy in body and mind, able to bear hunger and hard +physical labour ... not untouched by studies which awake in men the +interest of civilised beings, and prepare them for the right use of +leisure in future years, and though burdened with little knowledge, +possessed of an educated sense of beauty, and an ingrained love of +what is noble and hatred of all that is the reverse. He would be +more cultivated and human than the best type of young Spartan, more +physically vigorous and reverential, though less intellectually +developed, than the best type of young Athenian--a nascent soldier and +servant of the state, not, like most young Athenians of ability, a +nascent orator. And as he would be only half way through his education +at an age when many Greeks had finished theirs, he would be more +conscious of his own immaturity. We feel at once how different he +would be from the clever lads who swarmed at Athens, youths with an +infinite capacity for picking holes, and capable of saying something +plausible on every subject under the sun." + +If we note, with Mr. Newman, that Aristotle here makes if anything too +little of intellectual training (as indeed may also be said of our +own public schools), and add to his picture something more of that +knowledge which, when united with an honest will and healthy body, +will almost infallibly produce a sound judgment, we shall have a type +of character eminently fitted to share in the duties and the trials of +the government of such empires as the Roman and the British. But at +Rome, in the age of Cicero, such a type of character was rare indeed; +and though this was due to various causes, some of which have been +already noticed,--the building up of a Roman empire before the Romans +were ripe to appreciate the duties of an imperial state, and the +sudden incoming of wealth in an age when the idea of its productive +use was almost unknown,--yet it will occur to every reader that there +must have been also something wrong in the upbringing of the youth of +the upper classes to account for the rarity of really sound character, +for the frequent absence of what we should call the sense of duty, +public and private. I propose in this chapter to deal with the +question of Roman education just so far as to show where in Cicero's +time it was chiefly defective. It is a subject that has been very +completely worked out, and an excellent summary of the results will +be found in the little volume on Roman education written by the late +Professor A.S. Wilkins, just before his lamented death: but he was +describing its methods without special reference to its defects, and +it is these defects on which I wish more particularly to dwell.[248] + +Let us notice, in the first place, how little is said in the +literature of the time, including biographies, of that period of life +which is now so full of interest to readers of memoirs, so full of +interest to ourselves as we look back to it in advancing years. It +may be that we now exaggerate the importance of childhood, but it is +equally certain that the Romans undervalued the importance of it. It +may be that we over-estimate the value of our public-school life, but +it is certain that the Romans had no such school life to be proud of. +Biography was at this time a favourite form of literature, and some of +the memoirs then written were available for use by later writers, such +as Valerius Maximus, Suetonius, and Plutarch; yet it is curious how +little has come down to us of the childhood or boyhood of the great +men of the time. Plutarch indeed was deeply interested in education, +including that of childhood, and we can hardly doubt that he would +have used in his Roman Lives any information that came in his way. He +does tell us something, for which we are eternally indebted to him, of +old Cato's method of educating his son,[249] and something too, in his +_Life of Aemilius Paullus_,[250] of the education of the eldest son of +that family, the great Scipio Aemilianus. But in each of these Lives +we shall find that this information is used rather to bring out the +character of the father than to illustrate the upbringing of the son; +and as a rule the Lives begin with the parentage of the hero, and then +pass on at once to his early manhood. + +The Life of the younger Cato, however, is an exception to the rule, +which we must ascribe to the attraction which all historians and +philosophers felt to this singular character. Plutarch knew the naiue +and character of Cato's paedagogus, Sarpedon,[251] and tells us that +he was an obedient child, but would ask for the reason of everything, +in those questions beginning with "why" which are often embarrassing +to the teacher. Two stories in the second and third chapters of this +Life are also found in that insipid medley of fact and fable drawn +up in the reign of Tiberius, by Valerius Maximus, for educational +purposes;[252] a third, which is peculiarly significant, and seems to +bear the stamp of truth, is only to be found in Plutarch. I give it +here in full: + +"On another occasion, when a kinsman on his birthday invited some boys +to supper and Cato with them, in order to pass the time they played in +a part of the house by themselves, younger and older together: and the +game consisted of accusations and trials, and the arresting of those +who were convicted. Now one of the boys convicted, who was of a +handsome presence, being dragged off by an older boy to a chamber and +shut up, called on Cato for aid. Cato seeing what was going on came to +the door, and pushing through those who were posted in front of it +to prevent him, took the boy out; and went off home with him in a +passion, accompanied by other boys." + +This is a unique picture of the ways and games of boys in the last +century of the Republic. Like the children of all times, they play at +that in which they see their fathers most active and interested; and +this particular game must have been played in the miserable years of +the civil wars and the proscriptions, as Cato was born in 95 B.C. +Whether the part played by Cato in the story be true or not, the +lesson for us is the same, and we shall find it entirely confirmed +in the course of this chapter. The main object of education was the +mastery of the art of oratory, and the chief practical use of that +art was to enable a man to gain a reputation as an advocate in the +criminal courts.[253] + +Cicero had one boy, and for several years two, to look after, one his +own son Marcus, born in 65 B.C., and the other Quintus, the son of +his brother, a year older. Of these boys, until they took the toga +virilis, he says hardly anything in his letters to Atticus, though +Atticus was the uncle of the elder boy. Only when his brother Quintus +was with Caesar in Gaul do we really begin to hear anything about +them, and even then more than once, after a brief mention of the young +Quintus, he goes off at once to tell his brother about the progress +of the villas that are being built for him. But it is clear that the +father wished to know about the boy as well as about the villas;[254] +and in one letter we find Cicero telling Quintus that he wishes to +teach his boy himself, as he has been teaching his own son. "I'll do +wonders with him if I can get him to myself when I am at leisure, for +at Rome there is not time to breathe (nam Romae respirandi non est +locus)."[255] It is clear that the boys, who were only eleven and +twelve in this year 54, were being educated at home, and as clear too +that Cicero, who was just then very much occupied in the courts, had +no time to attend to them himself. Young Quintus, we hear, gets on +well with his rhetoric master; Cicero does not wholly approve the +style in which he is being taught, and thinks he may be able to teach +him his own more learned style, though the boy himself seems to prefer +the declamatory method of the teacher.[256] The last entry in these +letters to the absent father is curious:[257] "I love your Cicero as +he deserves and as I ought. But I am letting him leave me, because I +don't want to keep him from his masters, and because his mother is +going away,--and without her I am nervous about his greediness!" Up to +this point he has written in the warmest terms of the boy, but here, +as so often in Cicero's letters about other people, disapprobation is +barely hinted in order not to hurt the feelings of his correspondent. + +The one thing that is really pleasing in these allusions is the +genuine desire of both parents that their boys shall be of good +disposition and well educated. But of real training or of home +discipline we unluckily get no hint. We must go elsewhere for what +little we know about the training of children. Let us now turn to +this for a while, remembering that it means parental example and +the discipline of the body as well as the acquisition of elementary +knowledge. Unfortunately, no book has survived from that age in which +the education of children was treated of. Varro wrote such a book, +but we know of it little more than its name, _Catus, sive de liberis +educandis_.[258] In the fourth book of his _de Republica_ Cicero seems +to have dealt with "disciplina puerilis," but from the few fragments +that survive there is little to be learnt, and we may be pretty sure +that Cicero could not write of this with much knowledge or experience. +The most famous passage is that in which he quotes Polybius as blaming +the Romans for neglecting it;[259] certainly, he adds, they never +wished that the State should regulate the education of children, or +that it should be all on one model; the Greeks took much unnecessary +trouble about it. The Greeks of his own time whom Cicero knew did not +inspire him with any exalted idea of the results of Greek education; +but we should like to know whether in this book of his work on the +State he did not express some feeling that on the children themselves, +and therefore on their training, the fortunes of the State depend. +Such had been the feeling of the old Romans, though their State laid +down no laws for education, but trusted to the force of tradition and +custom. Old Cato believed himself to be acting like an old Roman when +he looked after the washing and dressing of his baby, and guided the +child with personal care as he grew up, writing books for his use in +large letters with his own hand.[260] But since Cato's day the idea +of the State had lost strength; and this had an unfortunate effect +on education, as on married life. The one hope of the age, the Stoic +philosophy, was concerned with those who had attained to reason, i.e. +to those who had reached their fourteenth year; in the Stoic view +the child was indeed potentially reasonable, and thus a subject of +interest, but in the Stoic ethics education does not take a very +prominent place.[261] We are driven to the conclusion that a real +interest in education as distinct from the acquisition of knowledge +was as much wanting at Rome in Cicero's day as it has been till lately +in England; and that it was not again awakened until Christianity had +made the children sacred, not only because the Master so spoke of +them, but because they were inheritors of eternal life. + +Yet there had once been a Roman home education admirably suited +to bring up a race of hardy and dutiful men and women. It was an +education in the family virtues, thereafter to be turned to account +in the service of the State. The mother nursed her own children and +tended them in their earliest years. Then followed an education which +we may call one in bodily activity, in demeanour, in religion, and in +duty to the State. It is true that we have hardly any evidence of this +but tradition; but when Varro, in one of the precious fragments of his +book on education, describes his own bringing up in his Sabine home at +Reate, we may be fairly sure that it adequately represents that of +the old Roman farmer.[262] He tells us that he had a single tunic +and toga, was seldom allowed a bath, and was made to learn to ride +bareback--which reminds us of the life of the young Boer of the +Transvaal before the late war. In another fragment he also tells us +that both boys and girls used to wait on their parents at table.[263] +Cato the elder, in a fragment preserved by Festus,[264] says that +he was brought up from his earliest years to be frugal, hardy, and +industrious, and worked steadily on the farm (in the Sabine country), +in a stony region where he had to dig and plant the flinty soil. The +tradition of such a healthy rearing remained in the memory of the +Romans, and associated itself with the Sabines of central Italy, the +type of men who could be called _frugi_: + + rusticorum mascula militum + proles, Sabellis docta ligonibus + versare glebas et severae + matris ad arbitrium recisos + portare fustis.[265] + +It was an education also in demeanour, and especially in +obedience[266] and modesty. In that chapter of Plutarch's _Life of +Cato_ which has been already quoted, after describing how the father +taught his boy to ride, to box, to swim, and so on, he goes on, "And +he was as careful not to utter an indecent word before his son, as he +would have been in the presence of the Vestal Virgins." The _pudor_ of +childhood was always esteemed at Rome: "adolescens pudentissimus" is +the highest praise that can be given even to a grown youth;[267] and +there are signs that a feeling survived of a certain sacredness of +childhood, which Juvenal reflects in his famous words, "Maxima debetur +puero reverentia." The origin of this feeling is probably to be found +in the fact that both boys and girls were in ancient times brought +up to help in performing the religious duties of the household, as +camilli and camillae (acolytes); and this is perhaps the reason why +they wore, throughout Roman history, the toga praetexta with the +purple stripe, like magistrates and sacrificing priests.[268] It is +hardly necessary to say that this religious side of education was an +education in the practice of cult, and not in any kind of creed or +ideas about the gods; but so far as it went its influence was good, as +instilling the habit of reverence and the sense of duty from a very +early age. Though the Romans of Cicero's time had lost their old +conviction of the necessity of propitiating the gods of the State, it +is probable that the tradition of family worship still survived in the +majority of households. + +Again, we may be sure that the idea of duty to the State was not +omitted in this old-fashioned education. Cato wrote histories for his +son in large letters, "so that without stirring out of the house, +he might gain a knowledge of the illustrious actions of the ancient +Romans, and of the customs of his country": but it is significant that +in the next two or three generations the writers of annals took to +glorifying--and falsifying--the achievements of members of their own +families, rather than those of the State as a whole. Boys learnt the +XII Tables by heart, and Cicero tells us that he did this in his own +boyhood, though the practice had since then been dropped.[269] That +ancient code of law would have acted, we may imagine, as a kind of +catechism of the rules laid down by the State for the conduct of its +citizens, and as a reminder that though the State had outgrown the +rough legal clothing of its infancy, it had from the very beginning +undertaken the duty of regulating the conduct of its citizens in their +relations with each other. Again, when a great Roman died, it is said +to have been the practice for parents to take their boys to hear the +funeral oration in praise of one who had done great service to the +State.[270] + +All this was admirable, and if Rome had not become a great imperial +state, and if some super-structure of the humanities could have been +added in a natural process of development, it might have continued +for ages as an invaluable educational basis. But the conditions under +which alone it could flourish had long ceased to be. It is obvious +that it depended entirely on the presence of the parents and their +interest in the children; as regards the boys it depended chiefly on +the father. Now ever since the Roman dominion was extended beyond sea, +i.e. ever since the first two Punic wars, the father of a family must +often have been away from home for long periods; he might have to +serve in foreign wars for years together, and in numberless cases +never saw Italy again. Even if he remained in Rome, the ever +increasing business of the State would occupy him far more than +was compatible with a constant personal care for his children. The +conscientious Roman father of the last two centuries B.C. must have +felt even more keenly than English parents in India the sorrow of +parting from their children at an age when they are most in need of +parental care. We have to remember that in Cicero's day letter-writing +had only recently become possible on an extended scale through the +increasing business of the publicani in the provinces (see above, p. +74); the Roman father in Spain or Asia seldom heard of what his wife +and children were doing, and the inevitable result was that he began +to cease to care. In fact more and more came to depend on the mothers, +as with our own hard-working professional classes; and we have seen +reason to believe that in the last age of the Republic the average +mother was not too often a conscientious or dutiful woman. The +constant liability to divorce would naturally diminish her interest in +her children, for after separation she had no part or lot in them. And +this no doubt is one reason why at this particular period we hear so +little of the life of children. There is indeed no reason to suppose +that they themselves were unhappy; they had plenty of games, which +were so familiar that the poets often allude to them--hoops, tops, +dolls, blind man's buff, and the favourite games of "nuts" and +"king."[271] But the real question is not whether they could enjoy +their young life, but whether they were learning to use their bodies +and minds to good purpose. + +When a boy was about seven years old, the question would arise in +most families whether he should remain at home or go to an elementary +school.[272] No doubt it was usually decided by the means at the +command of the parents. A wealthy father might see his son through his +whole education at home by providing a tutor (paedagogus), and more +advanced teachers as they were needed. Cato indeed, as we have seen, +found time to do much of the work himself, but he also had a slave +who taught his own and other children. Aemilius Paullus had +several teachers in his house for this purpose, under his own +superintendence.[273] Cicero too, as we have seen, seems to have +educated his son at home, though he himself is said to have attended a +school. But we may suppose that the ordinary boy of the upper classes +went to school, under the care of a paedagogus, after the Greek +fashion, rising before daylight, and submitting to severe discipline, +which, together with the absolute necessity for a free Roman of +attaining a certain level of acquirement, effectually compelled him to +learn to read, write, and cipher.[274] This elementary work must +have been done well; we hear little or nothing of gross ignorance or +neglected education. + +There were, however, very serious defects in this system of elementary +education. Not only the schoolmaster himself, but the paedagogus who +was responsible for the boy's conduct, was almost always either a +slave or a freedman; and neither slave nor freedman could be an object +of profound respect for a Roman boy. Hence no doubt the necessity of +maintaining discipline rather by means of corporal punishment (to +which the Romans never seem to have objected, though Quintilian +criticises it)[275] than by moral force; a fact which is attested both +in literature and art. The responsibility again which attached to the +paedagogus for the boy's morals must have been another inducement to +the parents to renounce their proper work of supervision.[276] And +once more, the great majority of teachers were Greeks. As the boy was +born into a bilingual Graeco-Roman world, of which the Greeks were the +only cultured people, this might seem natural and inevitable; but we +know that in his heart the Roman despised the Greek. Of witnesses in +their favour we might expect Cicero to be the strongest, but Cicero +occasionally lets us know what he really thinks of their moral +character. In a remarkable passage in his speech for Flaccus, which +is fully borne out by remarks in his private letters, he says that he +grants them all manner of literary and rhetorical skill, but that +the race never understood or cared for the sacred binding force of +testimony given in a court of law.[277] Thus the Roman boy was in the +anomalous position of having to submit to chastisement from men whom +as men he despised. Assuredly we should not like our public schoolboys +to be taught or punished by men of low station or of an inferior +standard of morals It is men, not methods, that really tell in +education; the Roman schoolboy needed some one to believe in some one +to whom to be wholly loyal; the very same overpowering need which +was so obvious in the political world of Rome in the last century +B.C.[278] + +Of this elementary teaching little need be said here, as it did not +bear directly on life and conduct. There is, however, one feature of +it which may claim our attention for a moment. Both in reading and +writing, and also for learning by heart, _sententiae_ [Greek: gnomai] +were used, which remind us of our copy-book maxims. Of these we have a +large collection, more than 700, selected from the mimes of Publilius +Syrus, who came to Rome from Syria as a slave in the age of which we +are writing, and after obtaining his freedom gained great reputation +as the author of many popular plays of this kind, in which he +contrived to insert these wise saws and maxims. It is not likely that +they found their way into the schools all at once, but in the early +Empire we find them already alluded to as educational material by +Seneca the elder,[279] and we may take them as a fair example of the +maxims already in use in Cicero's time, making some allowance for +their superior neatness and wisdom. Here are a few specimens, taken +almost at random; it will be seen that they convey much shrewd good +sense, and occasionally have the true ring of humanity as well as the +flavour of Stoic _sapientia_. I quote from the excellent edition by +Mr. Bickford-Smith.[280] + + Avarus ipse miseriae causa est suae. + Audendo virtus crescit, tardando timor. + Cicatrix conscientiae pro vulnere est. + Fortunam[281] citius reperias quam retineas. + Cravissima est probi hominis iracundia. + Homo totiens moritur, quotiens amittit suos. + Homo vitae commodatus, non donatus est. + Humanitatis optima est certatio. + Iucundum nil est, nisi quod reficit varietas. + Malum est consilium quod mutari non potest. + Minus saepe pecces, si scias quod nescias. + Perpetuo vincit qui utitur clementia. + Qui ius iurandum servat, quovis pervenit. + Ubi peccat aetas maior, male discit minor. + +I have quoted these to show that Roman children were not without +opportunity even in early schooldays of laying to heart much that +might lead them to good and generous conduct in later life, as well as +to practical wisdom. But we know the fate of our own copy-book maxims; +we know that it is not through them that our children become good men +and women, but by the example and the un-systematised precepts of +parents and teachers. No such neat [Greek gnomai] can do much good +without a sanction of greater force than any that is inherent in +them and such a sanction was not to be found in the ferula of the +grammaticus or the paedagogus. Once more it is men and not methods +that supply the real educational force. + +Probably the greatest difficulty which the Roman boy had to face in +his school life was the learning of arithmetic; it was this, we may +imagine, that made him think of his master, as Horace did of the +worthy Orbilius,[282] as a man of blows (plagosus). This is not the +place to give an account of the methods of reckoning then used; they +will be found fully explained in Marquardt's _Privatleben_, +and compressed into a page by Professor Wilkins in his _Roman +Education_[283]. It is enough to say that they were as indispensable +as they were difficult to learn. "An orator was expected, according to +Quintilian (i. 10. 35), not only to be able to make his calculations +in court, but also to show clearly to his audience how he arrived at +his results." From the small inn-keeper to the great capitalist, every +man of business needed to be perfectly at home in reckoning sums of +money. The magistrates, especially quaestors and aediles, had staffs +of clerks who must have been skilled accountants; the provincial +governors and all who were engaged in collecting the tributes of the +provinces, as well as in lending the money to enable the tax-payers to +pay (see above, 71 foll.), were constantly busy with their ledgers. +The humbler inhabitants of the Empire had long been growing familiar +with the Roman aptitude for arithmetic.[284] + + Grais ingenium, Grais dedit ore rotundo + Musa loqui, praeter laudem nullius avaris. + Romani pueri longis rationibus assem + discunt in partes centum diducere. "Dicat + films Albini: si de quincunce remota est + uncia, quid superat? poteras dixisse." "triens." "eu! + rem poteris servare tuam."[285] + +This familiar passage may be quoted once more to illustrate the +practical nature of the Roman school teaching and the ends which it +was to serve. Utilitarian to the backbone, the ordinary Roman, like +the ordinary British, parent, wanted his son to get on in life; it +was only the parent of a higher class who sacrificed anything to the +Muses, and then chiefly because in a public career it was _de rigueur_ +that the boy should not be ignorant or boorish. + +When the son of well-to-do parents had mastered the necessary +elements, he was advanced to the higher type of school kept by a +_grammaticus_, and there made his first real acquaintance with +literature; and this was henceforward, until he began to study +rhetoric and philosophy, the staple of his work. We may note, by the +way, that science, i.e. the higher mathematics and astronomy, +was reckoned under the head of philosophy, while medicine and +jurisprudence had become professional studies,[286] to learn which it +was necessary to attach yourself to an experienced practitioner, as +with the art of war In the grammar schools, as we may call them, the +course was purely literary and humanistic, and it was conducted both +in Greek and Latin, but chiefly in Greek, as a natural result of the +comparative scantiness of Latin literature.[287] Homer, Hesiod, and +Menander were the favourite authors studied; only later on, after the +full bloom of the Augustan literature, did Latin poets, especially +Virgil and Horace, take a place of almost equal importance. The study +of the Greek poets was apparently a thorough one. It included the +teaching of language, grammar, metre, style, and subject matter, and +was aided by reading aloud, which was reckoned of great importance, +and learning by heart, on the part of the pupils. In the discussion +of the subject matter any amount of comment was freely allowed to +the master, who indeed was expected to have at his fingers' ends +explanations of all sorts of allusions, and thus to enable the boys to +pick up a great deal of odd knowledge and a certain amount of history, +mixed up of course with a large percentage of valueless mythology. +"In grammaticis," says Cicero, "poetarum pertractatio, historiarum +cognitio, verborum interpretatio, pronuntiandi quidam sonus."[288] The +method, if such it can be called, was not at all unlike that pursued +in our own public schools, Eton, for example, before new methods and +subjects came in. Its great defect in each case was that it gave but +little opportunity for learning to distinguish fact from fancy, +or acquiring that scientific habit of mind which is now becoming +essential for success in all departments of life, and which at Rome +was so rare that it seems audacious to claim it even for such a man of +action as Caesar, or for such a man of letters as Varro. In England +this defect was compensated to some extent by the manly tone of school +life, but at Rome that side of school education was wanting, and the +result was a want of solidity both intellectual and moral. + +The one saving feature, given a really good and high-minded teacher, +might be the appeal to the example of the great and good men of the +past, both Greek and Roman, and the study of their motives in action, +in good fortune and ill. This is the kind of teaching which we find +illustrated in the book of Valerius Maximus, which has already been +alluded to, who takes some special virtue or fine quality as the +subject of most of his chapters,[289]--fortitudo, patientia, +abstinentia, moderatio, pietas erga parentes, amicitia, and so on, +and illustrates them by examples and stories drawn mainly from Roman +history, partly also from Greek. This kind of appeal to the young mind +was undoubtedly good, and the finest product of the method is the +immortal work of Plutarch, the Lives of the great men of Greece and +Rome, drawn up for ethical rather than historical purposes. But here +again we must note a serious drawback. Any one who turns over the +pages of Valerius will see that these stories of the great men of the +past are so detached from their historical surroundings that they +could not possibly serve as helps in the practical conduct of life; +they might indeed do positive mischief, by leading a shallow reasoner +to suppose that what may have been justifiable at one time and under +certain circumstances, regicide, for example, or exposure of oneself +in battle, is justifiable at all times and in all circumstances. Such +an appeal failed also by discouraging the habit of thinking about the +facts and problems of the day; and right-minded men like Cicero and +Cato the younger both suffered from this weakness of a purely literary +early training. Another drawback is that this teaching inevitably +exaggerated the personal element in history, at the very time too when +personalities were claiming more than their due share of the world's +attention; and thus the great lessons which Polybius had tried to +teach the Graeco-Roman world, of seeking for causes in historical +investigation, and of meditating on the phenomena of the world you +live in, were passed over or forgotten. + +But so far as the study of language, of artistic diction, of +elocution, and intelligent reading could help a boy to prepare himself +for life, this education was good; more especially good as laying a +foundation for the acquirement of that art of oratory which, from old +Cato's time onwards, had been the chief end to be aimed at by all +intending to take part in public life. Cato indeed had well said to +his son, "Orator est, Marce fili, vir bonus dicendi peritus,"[290] +thus putting the ethical stamp of the man in the first place; and +his "rem tene, verba sequentur" is a valuable bit of advice for all +learners and teachers of literature. But more and more the end of all +education had come to be the art of oratory, and particularly the art +as exercised in the courts of law, where in Cicero's time neither +truth nor fact was supreme, and where the first thing required was +to be a clever speaker,--a vir bonus by all means if you were so +disposed. But to this we shall return directly. + +In such schools, if he were not educated at home, the boy remained +till he was invested with the toga virilis, or pura. In the late +Republic this usually took place between the fourteenth and +seventeenth years;[291] thus the two young Ciceros seem both to have +been sixteen when they received the toga virilis, while Octavian and +Virgil were just fifteen, and the son of Antony only fourteen. In +former times it seems probable that the boy remained "praetextatus" +till he was seventeen, the age at which he was legally capable of +military service, and that he went straight from the home to the +levy;[292] in case of severe military pressure, or if he wished it +himself, he might begin his first military exercises and even his +active service, in the praetexta. But as in so many other ways, so +here the life of the city brought about a change; in a city boys are +apt to develop more rapidly in intelligence if not in body, and as the +toga virilis was the mark of legal qualification as a man, they might +be of more use to the family in the absence of the father if invested +with it somewhat earlier than had been the primitive custom. But there +was no hard and fast rule; boys develop with much variation both +mentally and physically, and, like the Eton collar of our own +schoolboys, the toga of childhood might be retained or dropped +entirely at the discretion of the parents. + +There is, however, a great difference in the two cases in regard +to the assumption of the manly dress. With us it does not mean +independence; as a rule the boy remains at school for a year or two at +least under strict discipline. At Rome it meant, on the contrary, that +he was "of age," and in the eye of the law a man, capable of looking +after his own education and of holding property. This was a survival +from the time when at the age of puberty the boy, as among all +primitive peoples, was solemnly received into the body of citizens and +warriors; and the solemnity of the Roman ceremony fully attests this. +After a sacrifice in the house, and the dedication of his boyish toga +and bulla to the Lar familiaris, he was invested with the plain toga +of manhood (libera, pura), and conducted by his father or guardian, +accompanied (in characteristic Roman fashion, see below, p. 271) +by friends and relations, to the Forum, and probably also to the +tabularium under the Capitol, where his name was entered in the list +of full citizens.[293] + +With the new arrangement, under which boys might become legally men +at an earlier age than in the old days, it is obvious that there must +often have been an interval before they were physically or mentally +qualified for a profession. As the sole civil profession to which boys +of high family would aspire was that of the bar, a father would send +his son during that interval to a distinguished advocate to be taken +as a pupil. Cicero himself was thus apprenticed to Mucius Scaevola the +augur: and in the same way the young Caelius, as soon as he had taken +his toga virilis, was brought by his father to Cicero. The relation +between the youth and his preceptor was not unlike that of the +_contubernium_ in military life, in which the general to whom a lad +was committed was supposed to be responsible for his welfare and +conduct as well as for his education in the art of war: thus Cicero +says of Caelius[294] that at that period of his life no one ever saw +him "except with his father or with me, or in the very well-conducted +house of M. Crassus" (who shared with Cicero in the guardianship). +"Fuit assiduus mecum," he says a little farther on. This kind of +pupilage was called the _tirocinium fori_, in which a lad should be +pursuing his studies for the legal profession, and also his bodily +exercises in the Campus Martius, so that he might be ready to serve +in the army for the single campaign which was still desirable if not +absolutely necessary. When he had made his first speech in a court of +law, he was said _tirocinium ponere_,[295] and if it were a success, +he might devote himself more particularly henceforward to the art and +practice of oratory. No doubt all really ambitious young men, who +aimed at high office and an eventual provincial government, would, +like Caesar, endeavour to qualify themselves for the army as well as +the Forum. Cicero, however, whose instincts were not military, served +only in one campaign, at the age of seventeen, and apparently he +advised Caelius to do no more than this. Caelius served under +Q. Pompeius proconsul of Africa, to whom he was attached as +_contubernalis_, choosing this province because his father had estates +there.[296] It was only on his return with a good character from +Pompeius that he proceeded to exhibit his skill as an orator by +accusing some distinguished person--in this case the Antonius who was +afterwards consul with Cicero.[297] + +To attain the skill in oratory which would enable the pupil to make +a successful appearance in the Forum, he must have gone through an +elaborate training in the art of rhetoric. Cicero does not tell us +whether he himself gave Caelius lessons in rhetoric, or whether he +sent him to a professional teacher; he had himself written a treatise +on a part of the subject--the _de Inventione_ of 80 B.C., the earliest +of all his prose works--and was therefore quite able to give the +necessary instruction if he found time to do so. It is not the object +of this chapter to explain the meaning of rhetoric as the Graeco-Roman +world then understood it, or the theory of a rhetorical education; +for this the reader must be referred to Professor Wilkins' little +book,[298] or, better still, to the main source of our knowledge, the +_Institutio Oratoris_ of Quintilian. Something may, however, be said +here of the view taken of a rhetorical training by Cicero himself, +very clearly expressed in the exordium of the treatise just mentioned, +and often more or less directly reiterated in his later and more +mature works on oratory. + +"After much meditation," he says, "I have been led to the conclusion +that wisdom without eloquence is of little use to a state, while +eloquence without wisdom is often positively harmful, and never of any +value. Thus if a man, abandoning the study of reason and duty, which +is always perfectly straight and honourable, spends his whole time in +the practice of speaking, he is being brought up to be a hindrance +to his own development, and a dangerous citizen." This reminds us of +Cato's saying that an orator is "vir bonus dicendi peritus." Less +strongly expressed, the same view is also found in the exordium of +another and more mature treatise on rhetoric, by an author whose name +is unknown, written a year or two before that of Cicero: "Non enim +parum in se fructus habet copia dicendi et commoditas orationis, si +recta intelligentia et definita animi moderatione gubernetur."[299] +We may assume that in Cicero's early years the best men felt that the +rhetorical art, if it were to be of real value to the individual and +the state, must be used with discretion, and accompanied by high aims +and upright conduct. + +Yet within a generation of the date when these wise words were +written, the letters of Caelius show us that the art was used utterly +without discretion, and to the detriment both of state and individual. +The high ideal of culture and conduct had been lost in the actual +practice of oratory, in a degenerate age, full of petty ambitions +and animosities. We ourselves know only too well how a thing good in +itself as a means is apt to lose its value if raised into the place of +an end;--how the young mind is apt to elevate cricket, football, golf, +into the main object of all human activity. So it was with rhetoric; +it was the indispensable acquirement to enable a man to enjoy +thoroughly the game in the Forum, and thus in education it became the +staple commodity. The actual process of acquiring it was no doubt an +excellent intellectual exercise,--the learning rules of composition, +the exercises in applying these rules, i.e. the writing of themes or +essays (proposita, communes loci), in which the pupil had "to find and +arrange his own facts,"[300] and then the declamatio, or exercise in +actual speaking on a given subject, which in Cicero's day was called +causa, and was later known as controversia.[301] Such practice must +have brought out much talent and ingenuity, like that of our own +debating societies at school and college. But there were two great +defects in it. First, as Professor Wilkins points out, the subjects +of declamation were too often out of all relation to real life, e.g. +taken from the Greek mythology; or if less barren than usual, were far +more commonplace and flat than those of our debating societies. To +harangue on the question whether the life of a lawyer or a soldier is +the best, is hardly so inspiring as to debate a question of the day +about Ireland or India, which educates in living fact as well as in +the rules of the orator's art. Secondly, the whole aim and object of +this "finishing" portion of a boy's education was a false one. Even +the excellent Quintilian, the best of all Roman teachers, believed +that the statesman (civilis vir) and the orator are identical: that +the statesman must be vir bonus because the vir bonus makes the best +orator; that he should be sapiens for the same reason.[302] And the +object of oratory is "id agere, ut iudici quae proposita fuerint, +vera et honesta _videantur_":[303] i.e. the object is not truth, but +persuasion. We might get an idea of how such a training would fail +in forming character, if we could imagine all our liberal education +subordinated to the practice of journalism. But fortunately for us, in +this scientific age, words and the use of words no longer serve as the +basis of education or as the chief nurture of young life. We need to +see facts, to understand causes, to distinguish objective truth from +truth reflected in books. But the perfect education must be a skilful +mingling of the two methods; and it may be as well to take care that +we do not lose contact with the best thoughts of the best men, because +they are contained in the literature we show some signs of neglecting. +We may say of science what Cicero said of rhetoric, that it cannot do +without sapientia. + +Of schools of philosophy I have already said something in the last +chapter, and as the study of philosophy was hardly a part of the +regular curriculum of education properly so called, I shall pass it +over here. The philosopher was usually to be found in wealthy houses, +and if he were a wholesome person, and not a Philodemus, he might +assuredly exercise a good influence on a young man. Or a youth might +go to Athens or Rhodes or to some other Greek city, to attend the +lectures of some famous professor. Cicero heard Phaedrus the Epicurean +at Rome and then Philo the Academician, who had a lasting influence on +his pupil, and then, at the age of twenty-seven, went to Greece for +two years, studying at Athens, Rhodes, and elsewhere. Caesar also went +to Rhodes, and he and Cicero both attended the lectures of Molo in +rhetoric, in which study, as well as in philosophy, lectures were to +be heard in all the great Greek cities.[304] Cicero sent his own son +to "the University in Athens" at the age of twenty, giving him an +ample allowance and doubtless much good advice. The young man soon +outran his allowance and got into debt; the good advice he seems to +have failed to utilise, and in fact gave his father considerable +anxiety. + +The following letter, which seems to show that a youth who had +excellent opportunities might still be lacking in principle and +self-control, is the only one which survives of the letters of +undergraduates of that day. It was written by the young Cicero, after +he had repented and undertaken to reform, not to his father himself, +but to the faithful friend and freedman of his father, Tiro, who +afterwards edited the collection of letters in which he inserted +it.[305] It is on the whole a pleasing letter, and seems to show real +affection for Tiro, who had known the writer from his infancy. It is +a little odd in the choice of words, perhaps a trifle rhetorical. The +reader shall be left to decide for himself whether it is perfectly +straight and genuine. In any case it may aptly conclude this chapter. + +"I had been anxiously expecting letter-carriers day after day, when at +last they arrived forty-six days after they left you. Their arrival +was most welcome to me. I took the greatest possible pleasure in +the letter of the kindest and best beloved of fathers, but your own +delightful letter put the finishing touch to my joy. So I no longer +repent of dropping letter-writing for a time, but am rather glad I did +so, for my silence has brought me a great reward in your kindness. I +am very glad indeed that you accepted my excuse without hesitation. + +"I am sure, my dearest Tiro, that the reports about me which reach you +answer your best wishes and hopes. I will make them good, and I will +do my best that this beginning of a good report about me may daily be +repeated. So you may with perfect confidence fulfil your promise of +being the trumpeter (buccinator) of my reputation. For the errors of +my youth have caused me so much remorse and suffering, that it is not +only my heart that shrinks from what I did--my very ears abhor the +mention of it. I know for a fact that you have shared my trouble and +sorrow, and I don't wonder; you always wished me to do well not only +for my sake but for your own. So as I have been the means of giving +you pain, I will now take care that you shall feel double joy on my +account. + +"Let me tell you that my attachment to Cratippus is that of a son +rather than a pupil: I enjoy his lectures, but I am especially charmed +by his delightful manners. I spend whole days with him, and often part +of the night, for I get him to dine with me as often as I can. We have +grown so intimate that he often drops in upon us unexpectedly while we +are at dinner, lays aside the stiff air of a philosopher, and joins +in our jests with the greatest good will. He is such a man, so +delightful, so distinguished, that you ought to make his acquaintance +as soon as ever you can. As for Bruttius, I never let him leave me. +He is a man of strict and moral life, as well as being the most +delightful company. Surely it is not necessary that in our daily +literary studies there should never be any fun at all. I have taken a +lodging close to him, and as far as I can with my pittance I subsidise +his narrow means. I have also begun practising declamation in Greek +with Cassius; in Latin I like having my practice with Bruttius. My +intimate friends and daily company are those whom Cratippus brought +with him from Mitylene,--good scholars, of whom he has the highest +opinion. I also see a great deal of Epicrates the leading man at +Athens, and Leonides, and people of that sort. So now you know how I +am going on. + +"You say something in your letter about Gorgias. The fact is that I +found him very useful in my daily practice of declamation, but I put +my father's injunctions before everything else, and he had written +telling me to give up Gorgias at once. I wouldn't shilly-shally about +it, for fear my making a fuss might put some suspicion in my father's +head. Moreover it occurred to me that it would be offensive for me +to express an opinion on a decision of my father's. However, your +interest and advice are welcome and acceptable. + +"Your apology for want of time I readily accept, for I know how busy +you always are. I am very glad you have bought an estate, and you have +my best wishes for the success of your purchase. Don't be surprised at +my congratulations coming at this point in my letter, for it was at +the corresponding point in yours that you told me of this. You must +drop your city manners (urbanitates); you are a 'rusticus Romanus!' +How clearly I see your dearest face before me at this moment! I seem +to see you buying things for the farm, talking to your bailiff, saving +the seeds at dessert in your cloak. But as to the matter of money, I +am sorry I was not there to help you. Don't doubt, my dear Tiro, +about my helping you in the future, if fortune will but stand by me, +especially as I know that this estate has been bought for our mutual +advantage. As to my commissions about which you are taking trouble, +many thanks! I beg you to send me a secretary at the first +opportunity, if possible a Greek: for he will save me much trouble in +copying out notes. Above all, take care of your health, that we may +have some literary talk together some day. I commend Anteros to you. +Adieu." + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +THE SLAVE POPULATION + +In the last age of the Republic the employment of slave labour reached +its high-water mark in ancient history.[306] We have already met with +evidence of this in examining the life of the upper classes; in the +present chapter we must try to sketch, first, the conditions under +which it was possible for such a vast slave system to arise and +flourish, and secondly, the economical and ethical results of it +both in city and country. The subject is indeed far too large and +complicated to be treated in a single short chapter, but our object +throughout this book is only to give such a picture of society in +general as may tempt a student to further and more exact inquiry. + +We have seen that the two upper classes of society were engaged in +business of various kinds, and especially in banking and carrying +out public contracts, or in the work of government, and in Italian +agriculture. All this business, public and private, called for a +vast amount of labor, and in part, of skilled labour; the great men +provided the capital, but the details of the work, as it had gradually +developed since the war with Hannibal, created a demand for workmen +of every kind such as had never before been known in the Graeco-Roman +world. Clerks, accountants, messengers, as well as operatives, were +wanted both by the Government and by private capitalists. In the +households of the rich the great increase of wealth and luxury had +led to a constant demand for helps of all kinds, each with a certain +amount of skill in his own particular department; and on the estates +in the country, which were steadily growing bigger, and were tending +to be worked more and more on capitalistic lines, labour, both skilled +and unskilled, was increasingly required. Thus the demand for labour +was abnormally great, and had been created with abnormal rapidity, +and the supply could not possibly be provided by the free population +alone. The lower classes of city and country were not suited to the +work wanted, either by capacity or inclination. It was not for a free +Roman to be at the beck and call of an employer, like the clerks and +underlings of to-day, or to act as servant in a great household; and +for a great part of the necessary work he was not sufficiently well +educated. Far less was it possible for him to work on the great +cattle-runs. And the State wanted the best years of his life for +service in the army, which, as has been well remarked, was the real +industry of the Roman freeman. But luckily in one sense, and in +another unluckily, for Rome, there was an endless supply of labour +to be had, of every quality and capacity, for the very same abnormal +circumstances which had created the demand also provided the supply. +The great wars and the wealth accruing from them in various ways had +produced a capitalist class in need of labour, and also created a +slave-market on a scale such as the world has never known before or +since. + +Ever since the time of Alexander and the wars of his successors with +each other and their neighbours, it is probable that the supply of +captives sold as slaves had been increasing; and in the second century +B.C. the little island of Delos had come to be used as a convenient +centre for the slave trade. Strabo tells us in a well-known passage +that 10,000 slaves might be sold there in a single day.[307] But Rome +herself was in the time of Cicero the great emporium for slaves; the +wars which were most productive of prisoners had been for long in the +centre and the west of the Mediterranean basin. All armies sent out +from Rome were accompanied by speculators in this trade, who bought +the captives as they were put up to auction after a battle, and then +undertook the transport to Rome of all who were suited for employment +in Italy or were not bought up in the province which was the seat of +war. The enormous number of slaves thus made available, even if we +make allowance for the uncertainty of the numbers as they have +come down to us, surpasses all belief; we may take a few examples, +sufficient to give some idea of a practice which had lasting and +lamentable results on Roman society. + +After the campaign of Pydna and the overthrow of the Macedonian +kingdom, Aemilius Paullus, one of the most humane of Romans, sold into +slavery, under orders from the senate, 150,000 free inhabitants of +communities in Epirus which had sided with Perseus in the war.[308] +After the war with the Cimbri and Teutones, 90,000 of the latter and +60,000 of the former are said to have been sold;[309] and though the +numbers may be open to suspicion, as they amount again to 150,000, the +fact of an enormous capture is beyond question. Caesar, like Aemilius +Paullus one of the most humane of Romans, tells us himself that on a +single occasion, the capture of the Aduatuci, he sold 53,000 prisoners +on the spot.[310] And of course every war, whether great or small, +while it diminished the free population by slaughter, pestilence, or +capture, added to the number of slaves. Cicero himself, after +his campaign in Cilicia and the capture of the hill stronghold +Pindonissus, did of course as all other commanders did; we catch a +glimpse of the process in a letter to Atticus: "mancipia venibant +Saturnalibus tertiis."[311] It is hardly necessary to point out that +we should be getting our historical perspective quite wrong if we +allowed ourselves to expect in these cultured Roman generals any +sign of compassion for their victims; it was a part of their mental +inheritance to look on men who had surrendered as simply booty, the +property of the victors; Roman captives would meet with the same fate, +and even for them little pity was ever felt. When Caesar in 49 within +a few months dismissed two surrendered armies of Roman soldiers, once +at Corfinium and again in Spain, he was doubtless acting from motives +of policy, but the enslavement of Roman citizens by their fellows +would, we may hope, have been repugnant to him, if not to his own +soldiers.[312] + +War then was the principal source of the supply of slaves, but it was +not the only one. When a slave-trade is in full swing, it will be +fostered in all possible ways. Brigandage and kidnapping were rife +all over the Empire and in the countries beyond its borders in the +disturbed times with which we are dealing. The pirates of Cilicia, +until they were suppressed by Pompeius in 66, swarmed all over the +Mediterranean, and snapped up victims by raids even on the coasts of +Italy, selling them in the market at Delos without hindrance. Cicero, +in his speech in support of the appointment of Pompey, mentions that +well-born children had been carried off from Misenum under the very +eyes of a Roman praetor.[313] Caesar himself was taken by them when a +young man, and only escaped with difficulty. In Italy itself, where +there was no police protection until Augustus took the matter in hand, +kidnapping was by no means unknown; the _grassatores_, as they were +called, often slaves escaped from the prisons of the great estates, +haunted the public roads, and many a traveller disappeared in this +way and passed the rest of his life in a slave-prison.[314] Varro, +in describing the sort of slaves best suited for work on the great +sheep-runs, says that they should be such as are strong enough to +defend the flocks from wild beasts and brigands--the latter doubtless +quite as ready to seize human beings as sheep and cattle. And +slave-merchants seem to have been constantly carrying on their trade +in regions where no war was going on, and where desirable slaves could +be procured; the kingdoms of Asia Minor were ransacked by them, and +when Marius asked Nicomedes king of Bithynia for soldiers during the +struggle with the Cimbri, the answer he got was that there were none +to send--the slave-dealers had been at work there.[315] Every one will +remember the line of Horace in which he calls one of these wretches a +"king of Cappadocia."[316] + +There were two other sources of the slave supply of which however +little need be said here, as the contribution they made was +comparatively small. First, slaves were bred from slaves, and on rural +estates this was frequently done as a matter of business.[317] Varro +recommends the practice in the large sheep-farms,[318] under certain +conditions; and some well-known lines of Horace suggest that on +smaller farms, where a better class of slaves would be required, these +home-bred ones were looked on as the mark of a rich house, "ditis +examen domus."[319] Secondly, a certain number of slaves had become +such under the law of debt. This was a common source of slavery in the +early periods of Roman history, but in Cicero's day we cannot speak of +it with confidence. We have noticed the cry of the distressed freemen +of the city in the conspiracy of Catiline, which looks as though the +old law were still put in force; and in the country there are signs +that small owners who had borrowed from large ones were in Varro's +time in some modified condition of slavery,[320] surrendering their +labour in lieu of payment. But all these internal sources of slavery +are as nothing compared with the supply created by war and the +slave-trade. + +This supply being thus practically unlimited, prices ran comparatively +low, and no Roman of any considerable means at all need be, or was, +entirely without slaves. He had only to go, or to send his agent, to +one of the city slave-markets, such as the temple of Castor,[321] +where the slave-agents (mangones) exhibited their "goods" under the +supervision of the aediles; there he could pick out exactly the kind +of slave he wanted at any price from the equivalent of L10 upwards. +The unfortunate human being was exhibited exactly as horses are now, +and could be stripped, handled, trotted about, and treated with every +kind of indignity, and of course the same sort of trickery went on in +these human sales as is familiar to all horse-dealers of the present +day.[322] The buyer, if he wanted a valuable article, a Greek, for +example, who could act as secretary or librarian, like Cicero's +beloved Tiro, or even a household slave with a special character for +skill in cooking or other specialised work of a luxurious family, +would have to give a high price; even as long ago as the time of the +elder Cato a very large sum might be given for a single choice slave, +and Cato as censor in 184 attempted to check such high prices by +increasing the duties payable on the sales.[323] Towards the close +of the Republican period we have little explicit evidence of prices; +Cicero constantly mentions his slaves, but not their values. Doubtless +for fancy articles huge prices might be demanded; Pliny tells us that +Antony when triumvir bought two boys as twins for more than L800 +apiece, who were no doubt intended for handsome pages, perhaps to +please Cleopatra.[324] But there can be no doubt that ordinary slaves +capable of performing only menial offices in town or country were to +be had at this time quite cheap, and the number in the city alone must +have been very great. + +It is unfortunately quite impossible to make even a probable estimate +of the total number in Rome; the data are not forthcoming. Beloch[325] +remarks aptly that though some families owned hundreds of slaves, the +number of such families was not large, quoting the words of Philippus, +tribune in 104 B.C., to the effect that there were not more than +two thousand persons of any substance in the State.[326] The great +majority of citizens living in Rome had, he thinks, no slaves. He is +forced to take as a basis of calculation the proportion of bond to +free in the only city of the Empire about which we have certain +information on this point; at Pergamum there was one slave to two free +persons.[327] Assuming the whole free population to have been about +half a million in the time of Augustus, or rather more, including +peregrini, he thus arrives at a slave population of something like +280,000; this may not be far off the mark, but it must be remembered +that it is little more than a guess. + +What has been said above will have given the reader some idea of the +conditions of life which created a great demand for labour in the +last two centuries B.C., and of the circumstances which produced an +abundant supply of unfree labour to satisfy that demand. I propose +now to treat the whole question of Roman slavery from three points of +view,--the economic, the legal, and the ethical. In other words, we +have to ask: (1) how the abundance of slave labour affected the social +economy of the free population; (2) what was the position of the slave +in the eye of the law, as regards treatment and chance of manumission; +(3) what were the ethical results of this great slave system, both on +the slaves themselves and on their masters. + +1. From an economical point of view the most interesting question is +whether slave labour seriously interfered with the development of free +industry; and unfortunately this question is an extremely difficult +one to answer. We can all guess easily that the opportunities of free +labour must have been limited by the presence of enormous numbers of +slaves; but to get at the facts is another matter. In regard to rural +slavery we have some evidence to go upon, as we shall see directly, +and this has of late been collected and utilised; but as regards +labour in the city no such research has as yet been made,[328] and the +material is at once less fruitful and more difficult to handle. A few +words on this last point must suffice here. + +We have seen in Chapter II. that there was plenty of employment at +Rome for freemen. Friedlaender, than whom no higher authority can be +quoted for the social life of the city, goes so far as to assert that +even under the early Empire a freeman could always obtain work if he +wished for it;[329] and even if we take this as a somewhat exaggerated +statement, it may serve to keep us from rushing to the other extreme +and picturing a population of idle free paupers. In fact we are bound +on general evidence to assume for our own period that he is in the +main right; the poor freeman of Rome had to live somehow, and the +cheap corn which he enjoyed was not given him gratis until a few years +before the Republic came to an end.[330] How did he get the money to +pay even the sum of six asses and a third for a modius of corn, or to +pay for shelter and clothing, which were assuredly not to be had for +nothing? We know again, that the gilds of trades (see above, p. 45) +continued to exist in the last century of the Republic,[331] though +the majority had to be suppressed owing to their misuse as political +clubs. Supposing that the members of these collegia were small +employers of labour, it is reasonable to assume that the labour they +employed was at least largely free; for the capital needed to invest, +at some risk, in a sufficient number of slaves, who would have to be +housed and fed, and whose lives would be uncertain in a crowded and +unhealthy city, could not, we must suppose, be easily found by such +men. Here and there, no doubt, we find traces of slave labour in +factories, e.g. as far back as the time of Plautus, if we can take him +as writing of Rome rather than translating from the Greek: + + An te ibi vis inter istas versarier + Prosedas, pistorum amicas, reginas alicarias, + Miseras schoeno delibutas servilicolas sordidas?[332] + + _Poenulus_, 265 foll. + +But on the whole, we may with all due caution, in default of complete +investigation of the question, assume that the Roman slaves were +confined for the most part to the great and rich families, and were +not used by them to any great extent in productive industry, but +in supplying the luxurious needs of the household[333]. In all +probability research will show that free labour was far more available +than we are apt to think. We hear of no outbreak of feeling against +slave labour, which might suggest a rivalry between the two. +Slave labour, we may think, had filled a gap, created by abnormal +circumstances, and did not oust free labour entirely; but it tended +constantly to cramp it, and doubtless started notions of work in +general which helped to degrade it[334]. Those immense _familiae +urbanae_, of which the historian of slavery has given a detailed +account in his second volume[335], belong rather to the early Empire +than to the last years of the Republic--the evidence for them is +drawn chiefly from Seneca, Juvenal, Tacitus, Martial, etc.; but such +evidence as we have for the age of Cicero seems to suggest that the +vast palaces of the capitalists, which Sallust describes as being +almost like cities[336], were already beginning to be served by a +familia urbana which rendered them almost independent of any aid from +without by labour or purchase. Not only the ordinary domestic helpers +of all kinds, but copyists, librarians, paedagogi as tutors for the +children, and even doctors might all be found in such households in +a servile condition, without reckoning the great numbers who seem +to have been always available as escorts when the great man was +travelling in Italy or in the provinces. Valerius Maximus tells +us[337] that Cato the censor as proconsul of Spain took only three +slaves with him, and that his descendant Cato of Utica during the +Civil Wars had twelve; as both these men were extremely frugal, we can +form an idea from this passage both of the increasing supply of slaves +and of the far larger escorts which accompanied the ordinary wealthy +traveller. + +As regards the familia rustica, the working population of the farm, +the evidence is much more definite. The old Roman farm, in which the +paterfamilias lived with his wife, children, and slaves, was, no +doubt, like the old English holding in a manor, for the most part +self-sufficing, doing little in the way of sale or purchase, and +worked by all the members of the familia, bond and free. In the middle +of the second century B.C., when Cato wrote his treatise on husbandry, +we find that a change has taken place; the master can only pay the +farm an occasional visit, to see that it is being properly managed by +the slave steward[338] (vilicus), and the business is being run upon +capitalistic lines, i.e. with a view to realising the utmost possible +profit from it by the sale of its products. Thus Cato is most +particular in urging that a farm should be so placed as to have easy +communication with market towns, where the wine and oil could be sold, +which were the chief products, and where various necessaries could be +bought cheap, such as pottery and metal-work of all kinds.[339] Thus +the farm does not entirely depend on the labour of its own familia; +nevertheless it rests still upon an economic basis of slave labour. +For an olivetum of 240 jugera Cato puts the necessary hands as +thirteen in number, all non-free; for a vineyard of 100 jugera at +sixteen; and these figures are no doubt low, if we remember his +character for parsimony and profit-making.[340] Free labour was to be +had, and was occasionally needed; at the very outset of his work +Cato (ch. 4) insists that the owner should be a good and friendly +neighbour, in order that he may easily obtain, not only voluntary +help, but hired labourers (operarii). These were needed especially at +harvest time, when extra hands were wanted, as in our hop-gardens, for +the gathering of olives and for the vintage. Sometimes the work was +let out to a contractor, and he gives explicit directions (in chs. 144 +and 145) for the choice of these and the contracts to be made with +them; whether in this case the contractor (redemptor) used entirely +free or slave labour does not appear distinctly, but it seems clear +that a proportion at least was free.[341] What the free labourers did +at other times of the year, whether or no they were small cultivators +themselves, Cato does not tell us. + +For the age with which we are more specially concerned, we have the +evidence of Varro's three books on husbandry, written in his old age, +after the fall of the Republic. Here we find the economic condition of +the farm little changed since the time of Cato. The permanent labour +is non-free, but in spite of the vast increase in the servile labour +available in Italy, there is still a considerable employment of +freemen at certain times, on all farms where the olive and vine were +the chief objects of culture. In the 17th chapter of his first book, +in which he gives interesting advice for the purchase of suitable +slaves, he begins by telling us that all land is cultivated either +by slaves or freemen, or both together, and the free are of three +kinds,--either small holders (pauperculi) with their children; or +labourers who live by wage (conducticii), and are especially needed in +hay harvest or vintage; or debtors who give their labour as payment +for what they owe (obaerati).[342] Varro too, like Cato, recognises +the necessity of purchasing many things which cannot well be +manufactured on a farm of moderate size, and thus the landowner may in +this way also have been indirectly an employer of free labour; but so +far as possible the farm should supply itself with the materials +for its own working,[343] for this gives employment to the slaves +throughout the year,--and they should never be allowed to be +idle.[344] + +Thus it is abundantly clear that even in the time of Cicero there was +a certain demand for free labour in the ordinary Italian oliveyard and +vineyard, and that the necessary supply was forthcoming, though the +permanent industrial basis was non-free, and the tendency was to use +slave-labour more exclusively. The rule that the slave cannot be +allowed to be unemployed was a most important factor in the economical +development, and drove the landowner, who never seems to have had any +doubt about the comparative cheapness of slave-labour,[345] gradually +to make his farm more and more independent of all aid from outside. In +the work of Columella, written towards the end of the first century +A.D., it is plain that the work of the farm is carried on more +exclusively by slave-labour than was the case in the last two +centuries B.C.[346] + +To this not unpleasant picture of the conditions of Italian +agricultural slavery a few words must be added about the great +pastoral farms of Southern Italy. If a man invested his capital in a +comparatively small estate of olives and vineyards, such as that which +Cato treats of, and which seems to have been his own; or even in a +latifundium of the kind which Varro more vaguely pictures, containing +also parks and game and a moderate amount of pasture, he would need +slaves mainly of a certain degree of skill. But on the largest areas +of pasture, chiefly in the hill districts of Southern Italy, where +there was little cultivation except what was necessary for the +consumption of the slaves themselves, these were the roughest and +wildest type of bondsmen. The work was that of the American ranche, +the life harsh, and the workmen dangerous. It was in these districts +and from these men that Spartacus drew the material with which he made +his last stand against Roman armies in 72-71 B.C.; and it was in +this direction that Caelius and Milo turned in 48 B.C. in quest of +revolutionary and warlike bands. These roughs could even be used as +galley-slaves; more than once in the Commentaries on the Civil War +Caesar tells us that his opponents drafted them into the vessels which +were sent to relieve the siege of Massilia[347]. It was here too, in +the neighbourhood of Thurii, that a bloody fight took place between +the slaves of two adjoining estates, strong men of courage, as Cicero +describes them, of which we learn from the fragments of his lost +speech _pro Tullio_. They were of course armed, and as we may +guess from Varro's remarks on the kind of slaves suitable for +shepherding,[348] this was usually the practice, in order to defend +the flocks from wild beasts and robbers, particularly when they were +driven up to summer pasture (as they still are) in the saltus of +the Apennines. The needs of these shepherds would be small, and the +latifundia of this kind were probably almost self-sufficing, no free +labour being required. After their day's work the slaves were fed and +locked up for the night, and kept in fetters if necessary;[349] they +were in fact simply living tools, to use the expression of Aristotle, +and the economy of such estates was as simple as that of a workshop. +The exclusion of free labour is here complete: on the agricultural +estates it was approaching a completion which it fortunately never +reached. Had it reached that completion, the economic influence of +slavery would have been altogether bad; as it was, the introduction +of slave-labour on a large scale did valuable service to Italian +agriculture in the last century B.C. by contributing the material for +its revival at a time when the necessary free labour could not have +been found. However lamentable its results may have been in other +ways, especially on the great pastures, the economic history of Italy, +when it comes to be written, will have to give it credit for an +appreciable amount of benefit. + +2. The legal and political aspect of slavery. A slave was in the eye +of the law not a _persona_, but a _res_, i.e. he had no rights as a +human being, could not marry or hold property, but was himself simply +a piece of property which could be conveyed (res mancipi)[350]. During +the Republican period the law left him absolutely at the disposal of +his master, who had the power of life and death (jus vitae necisque) +over him, and could punish him with chastisement and bonds, and use +him for any purpose he pleased, without reference to any higher +authority than his own. This was the legal position of all slaves; but +it naturally often happened that those who were men of knowledge or +skill, as secretaries, for example, librarians, doctors, or even +as body-servants, were in intimate and happy relations with their +owners[351], and in the household of a humane man no well-conducted +slave need fear bodily degradation. Cicero and his friend Atticus both +had slaves whom they valued, not only for their useful service, but +as friends. Tiro, who edited Cicero's letters after his death, and to +whom we therefore owe an eternal debt of gratitude, was the object +of the tenderest affection on the part of his owner, and the letters +addressed to him by the latter when he was taken ill at Patrae in 50 +B.C. are among the most touching writings that have come down to us +from antiquity. "I miss you," he writes in one of them[352], "yes, but +I also love you. Love prompts the wish to see you in good health: the +other motive would make me wish to see you as soon as possible,--and +the former one is the best." Atticus, too, had his Tiro, Alexis, +"imago Tironis," as Cicero calls him in a letter to his friend,[353] +and many others who were engaged in the work of copying and +transcribing books, which was one of Atticus' many pursuits. All such +slaves would sooner or later be manumitted, i.e. transmuted from a +_res_ to a _persona_; and in the ease with which this process of +transmutation could be effected we have the one redeeming point of the +whole system of bondage. According to the oldest and most efficient +form (vindicta), a legal ceremony had to be gone through in the +presence of a praetor; but the praetor could easily be found, and +there was no other difficulty. This was the form usually adopted by an +owner wishing to free a slave in his own lifetime; but great numbers +were constantly manumitted more irregularly, or by the will of the +master after his death.[354] + +Thus the leading facts in the legal position of the Roman slave were +two: (1) he was absolutely at the disposal of his owner, the law never +interfering to protect him; (2) he had a fair prospect of manumission +if valuable and well-behaved, and if manumitted he of course became a +Roman citizen (libertus or libertinus) with full civil rights,[355] +remaining, however, according to ancient custom, in a certain position +of moral subordination to his late master, owing him respect, and aid +if necessary. Let us apply these two leading facts to the conditions +of Roman life as we have already sketched them. We shall find that +they have political results of no small importance. + +First, we must try to realise that the city of Rome contained at +least 200,000 human beings over whom the State had no direct control +whatever. All such crimes, serious or petty, as are now tried and +disposed of in our criminal courts, were then, if committed by a +slave, punishable only by the master; and in the majority of cases, if +the familia were a large one, they probably never reached his ears. +The jurisdiction to which the slave was responsible was a private one, +like that of the great feudal lord of the Middle Ages, who had his own +prison and his own gallows. The political result was much the same in +each case. Just as the feudal lord, with his private jurisdiction and +his hosts of retainers, became a peril to good government and national +unity until he was brought to order by a strong king like our Henry +II. or Henry VII., so the owner of a large familia of many hundreds +of slaves may almost be said to have been outside of the State; +undoubtedly he became a serious peril to the good order of the +capital. The part played by the slaves in the political disturbances +of Cicero's time was no mean one. One or two instances will show this. +Saturninus, in the year 100, when attacked by Marius under orders +from the senate, had hoisted a pilleus, or cap of liberty which the +emancipated slave wore, as a signal to the slaves of the city that +they might expect their liberty if they supported him;[356] and Marius +a few years later took the same step when himself attacked by Sulla. +Catiline, in 63, Sallust assures us, believed it possible to raise the +slaves of the city in aid of his revolutionary plans, and they flocked +to him in great numbers; but he afterwards abandoned his intention, +thinking that to mix up the cause of citizens with that of slaves +would not be judicious.[357] It is here too that the gladiator slaves +first meet us as a political arm; Cicero had the next spring to defend +P. Sulla on the charge, among others, of having bought gladiators +during the conspiracy with seditious views, and the senate had to +direct that the bands of these dangerous men should be dispersed to +Capua and other municipal towns at a distance. Later on we frequently +hear of their being used as private soldiery, and the government in +the last years of the Republic ceased to be able to control them.[358] +Again, in defending Sestius, Cicero asserts that Clodius in his +tribunate had organised a levy of slaves under the name of collegia, +for purposes of violence, slaughter, and rapine; and even if this +is an exaggeration, it shows that such proceedings were not deemed +impossible.[359] And apart from the actual use of slaves for +revolutionary objects, or as private body-guards, it is clear from +Cicero's correspondence that as an important part of a great man's +retinue they might indirectly have influence in elections and on +other political occasions. Quintus Cicero, in his little treatise on +electioneering,[360] urges his brother to make himself agreeable to +his tribesmen, neighbours, clients, freedmen, and even slaves, "for +nearly all the talk which affects one's public reputation emanates +from domestic sources." And Marcus himself, in the last letter he +wrote before he fled into exile in 58, declares that all his friends +are promising him not only their own aid, but that of their clients, +freedmen, and slaves,--promises which doubtless might have been kept +had he stayed to take advantage of them.[361] + +The mention of the freedmen in this letter may serve to remind us of +the political results of manumission, the second fact in the legal +aspect of Roman slavery. The most important of these is the rapid +importation of foreign blood into the Roman citizen body, which long +before the time of Cicero largely consisted of enfranchised slaves or +their descendants; it was to this that Scipio Aemilianus alluded in +his famous words to the contio he was addressing after his return from +Numantia, "Silence, ye to whom Italy is but a stepmother" (Val. +Max. 6. 2. 3). Had manumission been held in check or in some way +superintended by the State, there would have been more good than harm +in it. Many men of note, who had an influence on Roman culture, were +libertini, such as Livius Andronicus and Caecilius the poets; Terence, +Publilius Syrus, whose acquaintance we made in the last chapter; Tiro +and Alexis, and rather later Verrius Flaccus, one of the most learned +men who ever wrote in Latin. But the great increase in the number of +slaves, and the absence of any real difficulty in effecting their +manumission, led to the enfranchisement of crowds of rascals as +compared with the few valuable men. The most striking example is the +enfranchisement of 10,000 by Sulla, who according to custom took +his name Cornelius, and, though destined to be a kind of military +guarantee for the permanence of the Sullan institutions, only became +a source of serious peril to the State at the time of Catiline's +conspiracy. Caesar, who was probably more alive to this kind of +social danger than his contemporaries, sent out a great number of +libertini,--the majority, says Strabo, of his colonists,--to his new +foundation at Corinth[362]. But Dionysius of Halicarnassus, writing +in the time of Augustus, when he stayed some time in Rome, draws a +terrible picture of the evil effects of indiscriminate manumission, +unchecked by the law[363]. + +"Many," he says, "are indignant when they see unworthy men manumitted, +and condemn a usage which gives such men the citizenship of a +sovereign state whose destiny is to govern the world. As for me, I +doubt if the practice should be stopped altogether, lest greater evil +should be the result; I would rather that it should be checked as far +as possible, so that the state may no longer be invaded by men of such +villainous character. The censors, or at least the consuls, should +examine all whom it is proposed to manumit, inquiring into their +origin and the reasons and mode of their enfranchisement, as in their +examination of the equites. Those whom they find worthy of citizenship +should have their names inscribed on tables, distributed among the +tribes, with leave to reside in the city. As to the crowd of villains +and criminals, they should be sent far away, under pretext of founding +some colony." + +These judicious remarks of a foreigner only expressed what was +probably a common feeling among the best men of that time. Augustus +made some attempt to limit the enfranchising power of the owner; but +the Leges Aelia Sentia and Furia Caninia do not lie within the compass +of this book. No great success could attend these efforts; the +abnormal circumstances which had brought to Rome the great familiae +of slaves reacted inevitably upon the citizen body itself through the +process of manumission. Rome had to pay heavily in this, as in so many +other ways, for her advancement to the sovereignty of the civilised +world. I may be allowed to translate the eloquent words in which +the French historian of slavery, in whose great work the history of +ancient slavery is treated as only a scholar-statesman can treat it, +sums up this aspect of the subject: + +"Emancipation, prevalent as it might appear to be towards the +beginning of the Empire, was not a step towards the suppression of +slavery, but a natural and inevitable sequence of the institution +itself,--an outlet for excess in an epoch overabundant in slaves: a +means of renewing the mass, corrupted by the deleterious influence +of its own condition, before it should be totally ruined. As water, +diverted from its free course, becomes impure in the basin which +imprisons it, and when released, will still retain its impurity; so +it is not to be thought that instincts perverted by slavery, habits +depraved from childhood, could be reformed and redressed in the slave +by a tardy liberation. Thrust into the midst of a society itself +vitiated by the admixture of slavery, he only became more +unrestrainedly, more dangerously bad. Manumission was thus no remedy +for the deterioration of the citizens: it was powerless even to better +the condition of the slave."[364] + +3. The ethical aspect of Roman slavery. What were the moral effects of +the system (1) on the slaves themselves; (2) on the freemen who owned +them? + +First, as regards the slaves themselves, there are two facts to be +fully realised; when this is done, the inferences will be sufficiently +obvious. Let us remember that by far the greater number of the +slaves, both in the city and on the land, were brought from countries +bordering on the Mediterranean, where they had been living in some +kind of elementary civilisation, in which the germs of further +development were present in the form of the natural ties of race and +kinship and locality, of tribe or family or village community, and +with their own religion, customs, and government. Permanent captivity +in a foreign land and in a servile condition snapped these ties once +and for all. To take a single appalling instance, the 150,000 human +beings who were sold into slavery in Epirus by the conqueror of Pydna, +or as many of them as were transported out of their own country--and +these were probably the vast majority,--were thereby deprived for the +rest of their lives of all social and family life, of their ancestral +worship, in fact of everything that could act as a moral tie, as a +restraining influence upon vicious instincts. With the lamentable +effect of this on the regions thus depopulated we are not here +concerned, but it was beyond doubt most serious, and must be taken +into account in reckoning up the various causes which later on brought +about the enfeeblement of the whole Roman Empire.[365] The point for +us is that a large proportion of the population of Rome and of Italy +was now composed of human beings destitute of all natural means of +moral and social development. The ties that had been once broken +could never be replaced. There is no need to dwell on the inevitable +result,--the introduction into the Roman State of a poisonous element +of terrible volume and power. + +The second fact that we have to grasp is this. In the old days, when +such slaves as there then were came from Italy itself, and worked +under the master's own eye upon the farm, they might and did share +to some extent in the social life of the family, and even in its +religious rites, and so might under favourable circumstances come +within the range of its moral influences[366]. But towards the close +of the Republican period those moral influences, as we have seen, +were fast vanishing in the majority of families which possessed large +numbers of slaves. The common kind of slave in the city, who was not +attached to his owner as was a man of culture like Tiro, had no moral +standard except implicit obedience; the highest virtue was to obey +orders diligently, and fear of punishment was the only sanction of his +conduct. The typical city slave, as he appears in Plautus, though by +no means a miserable being without any enjoyment of life, is a liar +and a thief, bent on overreaching, and destitute of a conscience[367]. +We need but reflect that the slave must often have had to do vile +things in the name of his one virtue, obedience, to realise that +the poison was present, and ready to become active, in every Roman +household. "Nec turpe est quod dominus iubet."[368] + +On the latifundia in the country the master was himself seldom +resident, and the slaves were under the control of one or more of +their own kind, promoted for good conduct and capacity. The slaves of +the great sheep and cattle farms were, as we saw, of the wildest +sort, and we may judge of their morality by the story of the +Sicilian slave-owner who, when his slaves complained that they were +insufficiently clothed, told them that the remedy was to rob the +travellers they fell in with.[369] The _ergastula_, where slaves were +habitually chained and treated like beasts, were sowing the seeds +of permanent moral contamination in Italy.[370] But on the smaller +estates of olive-yard and vineyard their condition was better, and +a humane owner who chose his overseers carefully might possibly +reproduce something of the old feeling of participation in the life as +well as the industry of the economic unit. In an interesting chapter +Varro advises that the vilicus should be carefully selected, and +should be conciliated by being allowed a wife and the means of +accumulating a property (_peculium_); he even urges that he should +enforce obedience rather by words than blows.[371] But of the +condition of the ordinary slave on the farm this is the only hint he +gives us, and it never seems to have occurred to him, or to any other +Roman of his day, that the work to be done would be better performed +by men not deprived by their condition of a moral sense; that slave +labour is unwillingly and unintelligently rendered, because the +labourer has no hope, no sense of dutiful conduct leading him to +rejoice in the work of his hands. Nor did any writer recognise the +fact that slaves were potentially moral beings, until Christianity +gave its sanction to dutiful submission as an act of morality that +might be consecrated by a Divine authority.[372] + +Lastly, it is not difficult to realise the mischievous effects of such +a slave system as the Roman upon the slave-owning class itself. Even +those who themselves had no slaves would be affected by it; for +though, as we have seen, free labour was by no means ousted by it, +it must have helped to create an idle class of freemen, with all its +moral worthlessness. Long ago, in his remarkable book on _The Slave +Power_ in America before the Civil War, Professor Cairnes drew a +striking comparison between the "mean whites" of the Southern States, +the result of slave labour on the plantations, and the idle population +of the Roman capital, fed on cheap corn and ready for any kind of +rowdyism.[373] But in the case of the great slave-owners the mischief +was much more serious, though perhaps more difficult to detect. The +master of a horde of slaves had half his moral sense paralysed, +because he had no feeling of responsibility for so many of those with +whom he came in contact every day and hour. When most members of a +man's household or estate are absolutely at his mercy, when he has no +feeling of any contractual relation with them, his sense of duty and +obligation is inevitably deadened, even towards others who are not +thus in his power. Can we doubt that the lack of a sense of justice +and right dealing, more especially towards provincials, but also +towards a man's fellow-citizens, which we have noticed in the two +upper sections of society, was due in great part to the constant +exercise of arbitrary power at home, to the habit of looking upon the +men who ministered to his luxurious ease as absolutely without claim +upon his respect or his benevolence? or that the recklessness of human +life which was shown in the growing popularity of bloody gladiatorial +shows, and in the incredible cruelty of the victors in the Civil +Wars, was the result of this unconscious cultivation, from childhood +onwards, of the despotic temper?[374] Even the best men of the age, +such as Cicero, Caesar, Lucretius, show hardly a sign of any sympathy +with, or interest in, that vast mass of suffering humanity, both bond +and free with which the Roman dominion was populated; to disregard +misery, except when they found it among the privileged classes, had +become second nature to them. We can better realise this if we reflect +that even at the present day, in spite of the absence of slavery and +the presence of philanthropical societies, the average man of wealth +gives hardly more than a passing thought to the discomfort and +distress of the crowded population of our great cities. The ordinary +callousness of human nature had, under the baleful influence of +slavery, become absolute blindness, nor were men's eyes to be opened +until Christianity began to leaven the world with the doctrine of +universal love. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +THE HOUSE OF THE RICH MAN, IN TOWN AND COUNTRY + +We saw that the poorer classes in Rome were lodged in huge _insulae_, +and enjoyed nothing that can be called home life. The wealthy +families, on the other hand, lived in _domus_, i.e. separate +dwellings, accommodating only one family, often, even in the +Ciceronian period, of great magnificence. But even these great houses +hardly suggest a life such as that which we associate with the word +home. As Mr. Tucker has pointed out in the case of Athens,[375] the +warmer climates of Greece and Italy encouraged all classes to spend +much more of their time out of doors and in public places than we +do; and the rapid growth of convenient public buildings, porticoes, +basilicas, baths, and so on, is one of the most striking features in +the history of the city during the last two centuries B.C. Augustus, +part of whose policy it was to make the city population comfortable +and contented, carried this tendency still further, and under the +Empire the town house played quite a subordinate part in Roman +social life. The best way to realise this out-of-door life, lazy and +sociable, of the Augustan age, is to read the first book of Ovid's +_Ars Amatoria_,--a fascinating picture of a beautiful city and its +pleasure-loving inhabitants. But with the Augustan age we are not here +concerned. + +Yet the Roman house, like the Italian house in general, was in origin +and essence really a home. The family was the basis of society, and by +the family we must understand not only the head of the house with +his wife, children, and slaves, but also the divine beings who dwelt +there. As the State comprised both human and divine inhabitants, so +also did the house, which was indeed the germ and type of the State. +Thus the house was in those early times not less but even more than a +house is for us, for in it was concentrated all that was dear to +the family, all that was essential to its life, both natural and +supernatural. And the two--the natural and supernatural--were not +distinct from each other, but associated, in fact almost identical; +the hearth-fire was the dwelling of Vesta, the spirit of the flame; +the Penates were the spirits of the stores on which the family +subsisted, and dwelt in the store-cupboard or larder; the +paterfamilias had himself a supernatural side, in the shape of his +Genius; and the Lar familiaris was the protecting spirit of the +farmland, who had found his way into the house in course of time, +perhaps with the slave labourers, who always had a share in his +worship.[376] + +It would probably be unjust to the Roman of the late Republic to +assume that this beautiful idea of the common life of the human and +divine beings in a house was entirely ignored or forgotten by him. No +doubt the reality of the belief had vanished; it could not be said of +the city family, as Ovid, said of the farm-folk:[377] + + ante focos olim scamnis considere longis + mos erat _et mensae credere adesse deos_. + +The great noble or banker of Cicero's day could no longer honestly +say that he believed in the real presence of his family deities; the +kernel of the old feeling had shrunk away under the influence of Greek +philosophy and of new interests in life, new objects and ambitions. +But the shell remained, and in some families, or in moments of anxiety +and emotion, even the old feeling of _religio_ may have returned. +Cicero is appealing to a common sentiment, in a passage already +once quoted (_de Domo_, 109), when he insists on the real religious +character of a house: "his arae sunt, his foci, his di penates: his +sacra, religiones, caerimoniae continentur." And this was in the heart +of the city; in the country-house there was doubtless more leisure and +opportunity for such feeling. In the second century B.C. old Cato had +described the paterfamilias, on his arrival at his farm from the +city, saluting the Lar familiaris before he goes about his round of +inspection; and even Horace hardly shows a trace of the agnostic when +he pictures the slaves of the farm, and the master with them, sitting +at their meal in front of the image of the Lar[378]. We may perhaps +guess that with the renewal of the love of country life, and with +that revival of the cultivation of the vine and olive, and indeed of +husbandry in general, which is recognisable as a feature of the last +years of the Republic, and which is known to us from Varro's work +on farming, and from Virgil's _Georgics_, the old religion of the +household gained a new life. + +It is not necessary here to give any detailed account of the shape +and divisions of a Roman house of the city; full and excellent +descriptions may be found in Middleton's article "Domus" in the +_Dictionary of Antiquities_, and in Lanciani's _Ruins and Excavations +of Ancient Rome_; and to these should be added Mau's work on Pompeii, +where the houses were of a Roman rather than a Greek type. What we are +concerned with is the house as a home or a centre of life, and it is +only in this aspect of it that we shall discuss it here. + +The oldest Italian dwelling was a mere wigwam with a hearth in the +middle of the floor, and a hole at the top to let the smoke out. But +the house of historical times was rectangular, with one central room +or hall, in which was concentrated the whole indoor life of the +family, the whole meaning and purpose of the dwelling. Here the human +and divine inhabitants originally lived together. Here was the hearth, +"the natural altar of the dwelling-room of man," as Aust beautifully +expresses it;[379] this was the seat of Vesta, and behind it was the +_penus_ or store-closet, the seat of the Penates; thus Vesta and the +Penates are in the most genuine sense the protecting and nourishing +deities of the household. Here, too, was the Lar of the familia with +his little altar, behind the entrance, and here was the _lectus +genialis_,[380] and the Genius of the paterfamilias. As you looked +into the atrium, after passing the _vestibulum_ or space between +street and doorway, and the _ostium_ or doorway with its _janua_, you +saw in front of you the impluvium, into which the rainwater fell from +the _compluvium_, i.e. the square opening in the roof with sloping +sides; on either side were recesses (_alae_), which, if the family +were noble, contained the images of the ancestors. Opposite you was +another recess, the _tablinum_, opening probably into a little garden; +here in the warm weather the family might take their meals. + +This is the atrium of the old Roman house, and to understand that +house nothing more is needed. And indeed architecturally, the atrium +never lost its significance as the centre of the house; it is to the +house as the choir is to a cathedral.[381] And it is easy to see how +naturally it could develop into a much more complicated but convenient +dwelling; for example, the alae could be extended to form separate +chambers or sleeping-rooms, the tablinum could be made into a +permanent dining-room, or such rooms could be opened out on either +side of it. A second story could be added, and in the city, where +space was valuable, this was usually the case. The garden could be +converted, after the Greek fashion, and under a Greek name, into a +_peristylium_, i.e. an open court with a pretty colonnade round it, +and if there were space enough, you might add at the rear of this +again an _exedra_, or an _oecus_, i.e. open saloons convenient for +many purposes. Thus the house came to be practically divided into two +parts, the atrium with its belongings, i.e. the Roman part, and the +peristylium with its developments, forming the Greek part; and the +house reflects the composite character of Roman life in its later +period, just as do Roman literature and Roman art. The Roman part was +retained for reception rooms, and the Lar, the Penates, and Vesta, +with their respective seats, retired into the new apartments for +privacy. When the usual crowd of morning callers came to wait upon a +great man, they would not as a rule penetrate farther than the atrium, +and there he might keep them waiting as long as he pleased. The Greek +part of the house, the peristylium and its belongings, was reserved +for his family and his most intimate friends. In Pompeii, which was an +old Greek town with Roman life and habits superadded, we find atrium +and peristylium both together as early as the second century B.C.[382] +At what period exactly the house of the noble in Rome began thus to +develop is not so certain. But by the time of Cicero every good domus +had without doubt its private apartments at the rear, varying in shape +and size according to the ground on which the house stood.[383] + +The accompanying plan will give a sufficiently clear idea of the +development of the domus from the atrium, and its consequent division +into two parts; it is that of "the house of the silver wedding" at +Pompeii. + +[Illustration: PLAN OF THE HOUSE OF THE SILVER WEDDING. From Mau's +_Pompeii_.] + +But in spite of all the convenience and comfort of the fully developed +dwelling of the rich man at Rome, there was much to make him sigh for +a quieter life than he could enjoy in the noisy city. He might +indeed, if he could afford it, remove outside the walls to a "domus +suburbana," on one of the roads leading out of Rome, or on the hill +looking down on the Campus Martius, like the house of Sallust the +historian, with its splendid gardens, which still in part exists in +the dip between the Quirinal and the Pincian hills.[384] But nowhere +within three miles or more of Rome could a man lose his sense of being +in a town, or escape from the smoke, the noise, the excitement of the +streets. After what has been said in previous chapters, the +crowd in the Forum and its adjuncts can be left to the reader's +imagination; but if he wishes to stimulate it, let him look +at the seventh chapter of Cicero's speech for Plancius, where +the orator makes use of the jostling in the Forum as an +illustration so familiar that none can fail to understand it.[385] A +relief, of which a figure is given in Burn's _Roman Literature and +Roman Art_, p. 79, gives a good idea of the close crowding, though no +doubt it was habitual with Roman artists to overcrowd their scenes +with human figures. Even as early as the first Punic war a lady could +complain of the crowded state of the Forum, and, with the grim humour +peculiar to Romans, could declare that her brother, who had just lost +a great number of Roman lives in a defeat by the Carthaginians, ought +to be in command of another fleet in order to relieve the city of more +of its surplus population. What then must the Forum have been two +centuries later, when half the business of the Empire was daily +transacted there! And even outside the walls the trouble did not +cease; all night long the wagons were rolling into the city, which +were not allowed in the day-time, at any rate after Caesar's municipal +law of 46 B.C. Like the motors of to-day, one might imagine that their +noise would depreciate the value of houses on the great roads. The +callers and clients would be here of a morning, as in the house within +the walls; the bore might be met not only in the Via Sacra, like +Horace's immortal friend, but wherever the stream of life hurried with +its busy eddies[386]. Lucilius drew a graphic picture of this feverish +life, which is fortunately preserved; it refers of course to a time +before Cicero's birth (Fragm. 9, Baehrens): + + nunc vero a mani ad noctem, festo atque profesto, + totus item pariter populus, plebesque patresque, + iactare indu foro se omnes, decedere nusquam: + uni se atque eidem studio omnes dedere et arti, + verba dare ut oaute possint, pugnare dolose: + blanditia certare, bonum simulare virum se: + insidias facere, ut si hostes sint omnibus omnes. + +That this exciting social atmosphere, with its jostling and +over-reaching in the Forum, and its callers and dinner-parties in the +house, had some sinister influence on men's tempers and nerves, there +can be no doubt. Cicero dearly loved the life of the city, but he paid +for it by a sensibility which is constantly apparent in his letters, +and diminished his value as a statesman. When he wrote from Cilicia to +his more youthful friend Caelius, urging him to stick to the city, in +words that are almost pathetic, it never occurred to him that he was +prescribing exactly that course of treatment which had done himself +much damage[387]. The clear sight and strong nerve of Caesar, as +compared with so many of his contemporaries, was doubtless largely due +to the fact that between 70 and 50 B.C., i.e. in the prime of life, he +spent some twelve of the twenty years in the fresher air of Spain and +Gaul. Some men were fairly worn out with dissipation and the resulting +ennui, and could get no relief even in a country villa. Lucretius has +drawn a wonderful picture of such an unfortunate, who hurries from +Rome into the country, and finding himself bored there almost as soon +as he arrives, orders out his carriage to return to the city. To fill +oneself with good things, yet never to be satisfied (explere bonis +rebus, satiareque nunquam), was even for the true Epicurean a most +dismal fate.[388] + +But there was at this time, and had been for many generations, a +genuine desire to escape at times from town to country; and Cicero, in +spite of his pathetic exhortation to Caelius, was himself a keen +lover of the ease and leisure which he could find only in his +country-houses. The first great Roman of whom we know that he had a +rural villa, not only or chiefly for farming purposes, but as a refuge +from the city and its tumult, was Scipio Africanus the elder. His +villa at Liternum on the Campanian coast is described by Seneca in his +86th epistle; it was small, and without the comforts and conveniences +of the later country-house; but its real significance lies not so much +in the increasing wealth that could make a residence possible without +a farm attached to it, but in the growing sense of individuality that +made men wish for such a retreat. There are other signs that Scipio +was a man of strong personality, unlike the typical Roman of his day; +he put a value upon his own thoughts and habits, apart from his duty +to the State, and retired to Liternum to indulge them. The younger +Scipio too (Aemilianus), though no blood-relation of his, had the same +instinct, but in his case it was rather the desire for leisure and +relaxation,--the same love of a real holiday that we all know so well +in our modern life. "Leisure," says Cicero, is not "contentio animi +sed relaxatio"; and in a charming passage he goes on to describe +Scipio and Laelius gathering shells on the sea-shore, and becoming +boys again (repuerascere).[389] This desire for ease and relaxation, +for the chance of being for a while your true self,--a self worth +something apart from its existence as a citizen, is apparent in the +Roman of Cicero's day, and still more in the hard-working functionary +of the Empire. Twice in his life the morbid emperor Tiberius shrank +from the eyes of men, once at Rhodes and afterwards at Capreae,--a +melancholy recluse worn out by hard work. + +Everyman had to provide his own "health resort" in those days: there +was nothing to correspond to the modern hotel. Even at the great +luxurious watering-places on the Campanian coast, Baiae and Bauli, the +houses, so far as we know, were all private residences.[390] I do not +propose to include in this chapter any account of these centres of +luxury and vice, which were far indeed from giving any rest or relief +to the weary Roman; the society of Baiae was the centre of scandal and +gossip, where a woman like Clodia, the Lesbia of Catullus, could live +in wickedness before the eyes of all men.[391] Let us turn to a more +agreeable subject, and illustrate the country-house and the country +life of the last age of the Republic by a rapid visit to Cicero's +own villas. This has fortunately been made easy for us by the very +delightful work of Professor O.E. Schmidt, whose genuine enthusiasm +for Cicero took him in person to all these sites, and inspired him to +write of them most felicitously.[392] + +There being no hotels, among which the change-loving Roman of Cicero's +day could pick and choose a retreat for a holiday, he would buy a site +for a villa first in one place, then in another, or purchase one ready +built, or transform an old farm-house of his own into a residence with +"modern requirements." In choosing his sites he would naturally look +southwards, and find what he sought for either in the choicer parts of +Latium, among the hills and woods of the Mons Albanus and Tusculum, +or in the rich Campanian land, the paradise of the lazy Roman; in the +latter case, he would like to be close to the sea on that delicious +coast, and even in Latium there were spots where, like Scipio and +Laelius, he might wander on the sea-shore. All this country to the +south was beginning to be covered with luxurious and convenient +houses; in the colder and mountainous parts of central Italy the villa +was still the farm-house of the older useful type, of which the object +was the cultivation of olive and vine, now coming into fashion, as +we have already seen. For Cicero and his friends the word _villa_ no +longer suggested farming, as it invariably did for the old Roman, and +as we find it in Cato's treatise on agriculture; it meant gardens, +libraries, baths, and collections of works of art, with plenty of +convenient rooms for study or entertainment. Sometimes the garden +might be extended into a park, with fishponds and great abundance of +game; Hortensius had such a park near Laurentum, fifty jugera enclosed +in a ring-fence, and full of wild beasts of all sorts and kinds. Varro +tells us that the great orator would take his guests to a seat on an +eminence in this park, and summon his "Orpheus" thither to sing and +play: at the sound of the music a multitude of stags, boars, and other +animals would make their appearance--having doubtless been trained +to do so by expectation of food prepared for them.[393] Such was the +taste of the great master of "Asiatic" eloquence. We are reminded of +the fairy tale of the Emperor of China and the mechanical nightingale. + +His great rival in oratory had simpler tastes, in his country life as +in his rhetoric. Cicero had no villa of the vulgar kind of luxury; he +preferred to own several of moderate comfort rather than one or two of +such magnificence. He had in all six, besides one or two properties +which were bought for some special temporary object; and it is +interesting to see what relation these houses had to his life and +habits. At no point could he afford to be very far from Rome, or from +a main road which would take him there easily. The accompanying little +map will show that all his villas lay on or near to one or other of +the two great roads that led southwards from the capital. The via +Latina would take him in an hour or two to Tusculum, where, since +the death of Catulus in 68, he owned the villa of that excellent +aristocrat.[394] The site of the villa cannot be determined with +certainty, but Schmidt gives good reasons for believing that it was +where we used formerly to place it, on the slope of the hill above +Frascati. That it really stood there, and not in the hollow by +Grottaferrata,[395] we would willingly believe, for no one who +has ever been there can possibly forget the glorious view or the +refreshing air of those flowery slopes. No wonder the owner was fond +of it. He tells Atticus, when he first came into possession of it, +that he found rest there from all troubles and toils (_ad Att._ i. 5. +7.), and again that he is so delighted with it that when he gets +there he is delighted with himself too (_ad Att._ i. 6). Much of his +literary work was done here, and he had the great advantage of +being close to the splendid library of Lucullus' neighbouring +villa, which was always open to him.[396] At Tusculum he spent +many a happy day, until his beloved daughter died there in 45, +after which he would not go there for some time; but he got the better +of this sorrow, and loved the place to the end of his life. + +[Illustration: MAP TO ILLUSTRATE THE POSITION OF CICERO'S VILLAS.] + +If this villa was where we hope it was, the great road passed at no +great distance from it, in the valley between Tusculum and the Mons +Albanus; and by following this for some fifty miles to the south-east +through Latium, Cicero would strike the river Liris not far from +Fregellae, and leaving the road there, would soon arrive at his native +place Arpinum, and his ancestral property. For this old home he always +had the warmest affection; of no other does he write in language +showing so clearly that his heart could be moved by natural beauty, +especially when combined with the tender associations of his +boyhood[397]. In the charming introduction to the second book of +his work _de Legibus_ (on the Constitution), he dwells with genuine +delight on this feeling and these associations; and there too we get +a hint of what Dr. Schmidt tells us is the peculiar charm of the +spot,--the presence and the sound of water; for if he is right, the +villa was placed between two arms of the limpid little river Fibrenus, +which here makes a delta as it joins the larger Liris[398]. + +But of this house we know for certain neither the site nor the +plan,--not so much indeed as we know about a villa of the brother +Quintus, not far away, the building of which is described with such +exactness in a letter written to the absent owner[399], that Schmidt +thinks himself justified in applying it by analogy to the villa of +the elder brother. But such reasoning is hardly safe. What we do know +about the old house is that it was originally a true villa rustica,--a +house with land cultivated by the owner that Cicero's father, who had +weak health and literary tastes, had added to it considerably, and +that Cicero himself had made it into a comfortable country residence, +with all necessary conveniences. He did not farm the ancestral land +attached to it, either himself or by a bailiff, but let it in small +holdings[400] (praediola), and we could wish that he had told us +something of his tenants and what they did with the land. It was not, +therefore, a real farm-house, but a farm-house made into a pleasant +residence, like so many manor-houses still to be seen in England. +Its atrium had no doubt retired (so to speak) into the rear of the +building, and had become a kitchen, and you entered, as in most +country-houses of this period, through a vestibule directly into a +peristyle: some idea of such an arrangement may be gained from the +accompanying ground-plan of the villa of Diomedes just outside +Pompeii, which was a city house adapted to rural conditions (villa +pseudurbana).[401] + +If Cicero wished to leave Arpinum for one of his villas on the +Campanian coast, he would simply have to follow the valley of the +Liris until it reached the sea between Minturnae and Formiae, and at +the latter place, a lively little town with charming views over the +sea, close to the modern Gaeta, he would find another house of his +own,--the next he added to his possessions after he inherited Arpinum. +Formiae was a very convenient spot; it lay on the via Appia, and was +thus in direct communication both with Rome and the bay of Naples, +either by land or sea. When Cicero is not resting, but on the move or +expecting to be disturbed, he is often to be found at Formiae, as in +the critical mid-winter of 50-49 B.C.; and here at the end of March +49 he had his famous interview with Caesar, who urged him in vain to +accompany him to Rome. Here he spent the last weary days of his life, +and here he was murdered by Antony's ruffians on December 7, 43. + +[Illustration: PLAN OF THE VILLA OF DIOMEDES. From Man's _Pompeii_.] + +This villa was in or close to the little town, and therefore did not +give him the quiet he liked to have for literary work. It would seem +that the _bore_ existed elsewhere than at Rome; for in a short letter +written from Formiae in April 59, he tells Atticus of his troubles +of this kind: "As to literary work, it is impossible! My house is a +basilica rather than a villa, owing to the crowds of visitors from +Formiae ... C. Arrius is my next door neighbour, or rather he almost +lives in my house, and even declares that his reason for not going to +Rome is that he may spend whole days with me here philosophising. And +then, if you please, on the other flank is Sebosus, that friend of +Catulus! Which way am I to turn? I declare that I would go at once to +Arpinum, if this were not the most, convenient place to await your +visit: but I will only wait till May 6: you see what bores are +pestering my poor ears."[402] + +But his Campanian villas would be almost as easy to reach as Arpinum, +if he wished to escape from Formiae and its bores. To the nearest of +these, the one at or near Cumae, it was only about forty miles' drive +along the coast road, past Minturnae, Sinuessa, and Volturnum, all +familiar halting-places. Of this "Cumanum," however, we know very +little: that volcanic region has undergone such changes that we +cannot recover the site, and its owner never seems to have felt any +particular attachment to it. It was in fact too near Baiae and Bauli +to suit a quiet literary man; the great nobles in their vast luxurious +palaces were too close at hand for a _novus homo_ to be perfectly +at his ease there. Yet near the end of his life Cicero added to +his possessions another property in this neighbourhood, at or near +Puteoli, which was now fast becoming a city of great importance; but +this can be explained by the fact that a banker of Puteoli named +Cluvius, an old friend of his, had just died and divided his property +by will between Caesar and Cicero,--truly a tremendous will! Cicero +seems to have purchased Caesar's share, and to have looked on the +property as a good investment. He began to build a villa here, but had +little chance of using it. It may have been here that he entertained +Caesar and his retinue at the end of the year 45,[403] as described by +him in the famous letter of December 21 (_ad Att_. xiii. 52); when two +thousand men had somehow to be provided for, and in spite of literary +conversation, Cicero could write that his guest was not exactly one +whom you would be in a hurry to see again. + +Across the bay, and just within view from the higher ground between +Baiae and Cumae, lay the little town of Pompeii, under the sleeping +Vesuvius. Here, probably just outside the town, Cicero had a villa of +which he seems to have been really fond, and the society of a quiet +and gentle friend, M. Marius. Whether we can find the remains of this +villa among the excavations of Pompeii is very doubtful: but our +excellent guide Schmidt assures us that he has good reason for +believing that one particular house, just outside the city on the left +side of the road in front of the Porta Herculanea, which has for no +very convincing reason ever since its excavation in 1763 been called +the Villa di Cicerone, really is the house we wish it to be. But alas! +an honest man must confess that the identification wants certainty, +and the chance of finding any object or inscription which may confirm +it is now very small. + +If Cicero were summoned suddenly back to Rome for business, forensic +or political, he would hasten first to Formiae and sleep there, and +thence hurry, by the via Appia and the route so well known to us +from Horace's journey to Brundisium, to another house in the little +sea-coast town of Antium. This was his nearest seaside residence, and +he often used it when unable to go far from Rome. After the death of +his daughter in 45 he seems to have sold this house to Lepidus, and, +unable to stay at Tusculum, where she died, he bought a small villa +on a little islet called Astura, on the very edge of the Pomptine +marshes, and in that melancholy and unwholesome neighbourhood he +passed whole days in the woods giving way to his grief. Yet it was +a "locus amoenus, et in mari ipso, qui et Antio et Circeiis aspici +possit.[404]" It suited his mood, and here he stayed long, writing +letter after letter to Atticus about the erection of a shrine to the +lost one in some gardens to be purchased near Rome. + +This sketch of the country-houses of a man like Cicero may help us +to form some idea of the changeful life of a great personage of the +period. He did not look for the formation of steady permanent habits +in any one place or house; from an early age he was accustomed to +travel, going to Greece or Asia Minor for his "higher education," +acting perhaps as quaestor, and again as praetor or consul, in some +province, then returning to Rome only to leave it for one or other of +his villas, and rarely settling down in one of these for any length of +time. It was not altogether a wholesome life, so far as the mind +was concerned; real thought, the working out of great problems of +philosophy or politics, is impossible under constant change of scene, +and without the opportunity of forming regular habits.[405] And the +fact is that no man at this time seriously set himself to think out +such problems. Cicero would arrive at Tusculum or Arpinum with some +necessary books, and borrowing others as best he could, would sit down +to write a treatise on ethics or rhetoric with amazing speed, having +an original Greek author constantly before him. At places like Baiae +serious work was of course impossible, and would have been ridiculed. +There was no original thinker in this age. Caesar himself was probably +more suited by nature to reason on facts immediately before him than +to speculate on abstract principles. Varro, the rough sensible scholar +of Sabine descent, was a diligent collector of facts and traditions, +but no more able to grapple hard with problems of philosophy or +theology than any other Roman of his time. The life of the average +wealthy man was too comfortable, too changeable, to suggest the +desirability of real mental exertion. + +Nor has this life any direct relation to material usefulness and the +productive investment of capital. Cicero and his correspondents never +mention farming, never betray any interest in the new movement, +if such there was, for the scientific cultivation of the vine and +olive.[406] For such things we must go to Varro's treatise, written, +some years after Cicero's death, in his extreme old age. In the third +book of that invaluable work we shall find all we want to know about +the real _villa rustica_ of the time,--the working farm-house with its +wine-vats and olive-mills, like that recently excavated at Boscoreale +near Pompeii. Yet it would be unfair to such men as Cicero and his +friends, the wiser and quieter section of the aristocracy, to call +their work altogether unproductive. True, it left little permanent +impress on human modes of thought; it wrought no material change for +the better in Italy or the Empire. We may go so far as to allow +that it initiated that habit of dilettantism which we find already +exaggerated in the age lately illuminated for us by Professor Dill in +his book on _Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius_, and far more +exaggerated in the last age of Roman society, which the same author +has depicted in his earlier work. But it may be doubted whether under +any circumstances the Romans could have produced a great prophet or a +great philosopher; and the most valuable work they did was of +another kind. It lay in the humanisation of society by the rational +development of law, and by the communication of Greek thought and +literature to the western world. This was what occupied the best days +of Cicero and Sulpicius Rufus and many others; and they succeeded at +the same time in creating for its expression one of the most perfect +prose languages that the world has ever known or will know. They did +it too, helping each other by kindly and cheering intercourse,--the +_humanitas_ of daily life. It is exactly this humanitas that the +northern mind of Mommsen, in spite of its vein of passionate romance, +could not understand; all the softer side of that pleasant existence +among the villas and statues and libraries was to him simply +contemptible. Let us hope that he has done no permanent damage to +the credit of Cicero, and of the many lesser men who lived the same +honourable and elegant life. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +THE DAILY LIFE OF THE WELL-TO-DO + +Before giving some account of the way in which a Roman of +consideration spent his day in the time of Cicero, it seems necessary +to explain briefly how he reckoned the divisions of the day. + +The old Latin farmer knew nothing of hours or clocks. He simply went +about his daily work with the sun and the light as guides, rising at +or before sunrise, working till noon, and, after a meal and a rest, +resuming his work till sunset. This simple method of reckoning would +suffice in a sunny climate, even when life and business became more +complicated; and it is a fact that the division of the day into hours +was not known at Rome until the introduction of the sun-dial in 263 +B.C.[407] We may well find it hard to understand how such business as +the meeting of the senate, of the comitia, or the exercitus, could +have been fixed to particular times under such circumstances; perhaps +the best way of explaining it is by noting that the Romans were very +early in their habits, and that sunrise is a point of time about +which there can be no mistake[408]. But in any case the date of the +introduction of the sun-dial, which almost exactly corresponds with +the beginning of the Punic wars and the vast increase of civil +business arising out of them, may suggest at once the primitive +condition of the old Roman mind and habit, and the way in which the +Romans had to learn from other peoples how to save and arrange the +time that was beginning to be so precious. + +This first sun-dial came from Catina in Sicily, and was therefore +quite unsuited to indicate the hours at Rome. Nevertheless Rome +contrived to do with it until nearly a century had elapsed; at last, +in 159 B.C., a dial calculated on the latitude of Rome was placed by +the side of it by the censor Q. Marcius Philippus. These two dials +were fixed on pillars behind the Rostra in the Forum, the most +convenient place for regulating public business, and there they +remained even in the time of Cicero[409]. But in the censorship next +following that of Philippus the first water-clock was introduced; this +indicated the hours both of day and night, and enabled every one to +mark the exact time even on cloudy days[410]. + +Thus from the time of the Punic wars the city population reckoned time +by hours, i.e. twelve divisions of the day; but as they continued to +reckon the day from sunrise to sunset on the principle of the old +agricultural practice, these twelve hours varied in length at +different times of the year. In mid-winter the hours were only about +forty-four minutes in length, while at mid-summer they were about +seventy-five, and they corresponded with ours only at the two +equinoxes.[411] This, of course, made the construction of accurate +dials and water-clocks a matter of considerable difficulty. It is not +necessary here to explain how the difficulties were overcome; the +reader may be referred to the article "Horologium" in the _Dictionary +of Antiquities_, and especially to the cuts there given of the dial +found at Tusculum in 1761.[412] + +Sun-dials, once introduced with the proper reckoning for latitude, +soon came into general use, and a considerable number still survive +which have been found in Rome. In a fragment of a comedy by an unknown +author, ascribed to the last century B.C., Rome is described as "full +of sun-dials,"[413] and many have been discovered in other Roman +towns, including several at Pompeii. But for the ordinary Roman, who +possessed no sun-dial or was not within reach of one, the day +fell into four convenient divisions, as with us it falls into +three,--morning, afternoon, and evening. As they rose much earlier +than we do, the hours up to noon were divided into two parts: (1) +_mane_, or morning, which lasted from sunrise to the beginning of the +third hour, and (2) _ad meridiem_, or forenoon; then followed _de +meridie_, i.e. afternoon, and _suprema_, from about the ninth or +tenth hour till sunset. The authority for these handy divisions is +Censorinus, _De die natali_ (23. 9, 24. 3). There seems to be no +doubt that they originated in the management of civil business, and +especially in that of the praetor's court, which normally began at the +third hour, i.e. the beginning of ad meridiem, and went on till the +suprema (tempestas diei), which originally meant sunset, but by a lex +Plaetoria was extended to include the hour or two before dark. + +The first thing to note in studying the daily life at Rome is that the +Romans, like the Greeks, were busy much earlier in the morning than +we are. In part this was the result of their comfortable southern +climate, where the nights are never so long as with us, and where the +early mornings are not so chilly and damp in summer or so cold +in winter. But it was probably still more the effect of the very +imperfect lighting of houses, which made it difficult to carry on +work, especially reading and writing, after dark, and suggested early +retirement to bed and early rising in the morning. The streets, we +must remember, were not lighted except on great occasions, and it was +not till late in Roman history that public places and entertainments +could be frequented after dark. In early times the oil-lamp with a +wick was unknown, and private houses were lighted by torches and rude +candles of wax or tallow.[414] The introduction of the use of olive +oil, which was first imported from Greece and the East and then +produced in Italy, brought with it the manufacture of lamps of various +kinds, great and small; and as the cultivation of the valuable tree, +so easily grown in Italy, increased in the last century B.C.,[415] the +oil-lamp became universal in houses, baths, etc. Even in the small old +baths of Pompeii there were found about a thousand lamps, obviously +used for illumination after dark.[416] But in spite of this and of the +invention of candelabra for extending the use of candles, it was never +possible for the Roman to turn night into day as we do in our modern +town-life. We must look on the lighting of the streets as quite an +exceptional event. This happened, for example, on the night of the +famous fifth of December 63 B.C., when Cicero returned to his house +after the execution of the conspirators; people placed lamps and +torches at their doors, and women showed lights from the roofs of the +houses. + +An industrious man, especially in winter, when this want of artificial +light made time most valuable, would often begin his work before +daylight; he might have a speech to prepare for the senate, or a brief +for a trial, or letters to write, and, as we shall see, as soon as the +sun had well risen it was not likely that he would be altogether his +own master. Thus we find Cicero on a February morning writing to his +brother before sunrise,[417] and it is not unlikely that the soreness +of the eyes of which he sometimes complains may have been the result +of reading and writing before the light was good. In his country +villas he could do as he liked, but at Rome he knew that he would have +the "turba salutantium" upon him as soon as the sun had risen. Cicero +is the only man of his own time of whose habits we know much, but in +the next generation Horace describes himself as calling for pen and +paper before daylight, and later on that insatiable student the elder +Pliny would work for hours before daylight, and then go to the Emperor +Vespasian, who was also a very early riser.[418] After sunrise the +whole population was astir; boys were on their way to school, and +artisans to their labour. + +If Horace is not exaggerating when he says (_Sat._ i. 1. 10) that +the barrister might be disturbed by a client at cock-crow, Cicero's +studies may have been interrupted even before the crowds came; but +this could hardly happen often. As a rule it was during the first two +hours (_mane_) that callers collected. In the old times it had been +the custom to open your house and begin your business at daybreak, and +after saluting your familia and asking a blessing of the household +gods, to attend to your own affairs and those of your clients.[419] +Although we are not told so explicitly, we must suppose that the same +practice held good in Cicero's time; under the Empire it is familiar +to all readers of Seneca or Martial, but in a form which was open to +much criticism and satire. The client of the Empire was a degraded +being; of the client in the last age of the Republic we only know that +he existed, and could be useful to his _patronus_ in many ways,--in +elections and trials especially;[420] but we do not hear of his +pressing himself on the attention of his patron every morning, or +receiving any "sportula." All the same, the number of persons, whether +clients in this sense or in the legal sense, or messengers, men of +business, and ordinary callers, who would want to see a man like +Cicero before he left his house in the morning, would beyond doubt be +considerable. Otherwise they would have to catch him in the street or +Forum; and though occasionally a man of note might purposely walk in +public in order to give his clients their chance, Cicero makes it +plain that this was not his way.[421] + +Within these two first hours of daylight the busy man had to find time +for a morning meal; the idle man, who slept later, might postpone +it. This early breakfast, called _ientaculum_[422], answered to the +"coffee and roll" which is usual at the present day in all European +countries except our own, and which is fully capable of supporting +even a hard-working man for several hours. It is, indeed, quite +possible to do work before this breakfast; Antiochus, the great +doctor, is said by Galen to have visited such of his patients as lived +near him before his breakfast and on foot[423]. But as a rule the meal +was taken before a busy man went out to his work, and consisted of +bread, either dipped in wine or eaten with honey, olives, or cheese. +The breakfast of Antiochus consisted, for example, of bread and Attic +honey. + +The meal over, the man of politics or business would leave his house, +outside which his clients and friends or other hangers-on would be +waiting for him, and proceed to the Forum,--the centre, as we have +seen, of all his activity--accompanied by these people in a kind of +procession. Some would go before to make room for him, while others +followed him; if bent on election business, he would have experienced +helpers,[424] either volunteers or in his pay, to save him from making +blunders as to names and personalities, and in fact to serve him +in conducting himself towards the populace with the indispensable +_blanditia_.[425] Every Roman of importance liked to have, and usually +had, a train of followers or friends in descending to the Forum of a +morning from his house, or in going about other public business; what +Q. Cicero urges on his brother in canvassing for the consulship may +hold good in principle for all the public appearances of a +public man,--"I press this strongly on you, always to be with a +multitude."[426] It may perhaps be paralleled with the love of the +Roman for processions, e.g. the lustrations of farm, city, and +army,[427] and with his instinctive desire for aid and counsel in +all important matters both of public and private life, shown in the +consilium of the paterfamilias and of the magistrate. Examples are +easy to find in the literature of this period; an excellent one is the +graphic picture of Gaius Gracchus and his train of followers, which +Plutarch has preserved from a contemporary writer. "The people +looked with admiration on him, seeing him attended by crowds of +building-contractors, artificers, ambassadors, magistrates, soldiers, +and learned men, to all of whom he was easy of access; while he +maintained his dignity, he was gracious to all, and suited his +behaviour to the condition of every individual; thus he proved the +falsehood of those who called him tyrannical or arrogant."[428] + +Arrived at the Forum, if not engaged in a trial, or summoned to a +meeting of the senate, or busy in canvassing, he would mingle with the +crowd, and spend a social morning in meeting and talking with friends, +or in hearing the latest news from the provinces, or in occupying +himself with his investments with the aid of his bankers and agents. +This is the way in which such a sociable and agreeable man as Cicero +was loved to spend his mornings when not deep in the composition of +some speech or book,--and at Rome it was indeed hardly possible for +him to find the time for steady literary work. It was this social life +that he longed for when in Cilicia; "one little walk and talk with +you," he could write to Caelius at Rome, "is worth all the profits of +a province."[429] But it was also this crowded and talkative Forum +that Lucilius could describe in a passage already quoted, as teeming +with men who, with the aid of hypocrisy and blanditia, spent the +day from morning till night in trying to get the better of their +fellows.[430] + +After a morning spent in the Forum, our Roman might return home in +time for his lunch (_prandium_), which had taken the place of the +early dinner (_cena_) of the olden time. Exactly the same thing +affected the hours of these meals as has affected those of our own +within the last century or so; the great increase of public business +of all kinds has with us pushed the time of the chief meal later and +later, and so it was at Rome. The senate had an immense amount of +business to transact in the two last centuries B.C., and the increase +in oratorical skill, as well as the growing desire to talk in public, +extended its sittings sometimes till nightfall.[431] So too with the +law-courts, which had become the scenes of oratorical display, and +often of that indulgence in personal abuse which has great attractions +for idle people fond of excitement. Thus the dinner hour had come to +be postponed from about noon to the ninth or even the tenth hour,[432] +and some kind of a lunch was necessary. We do not hear much of this +meal, which was in fact for most men little more than the "snack" +which London men of business will take standing at a bar; nor do we +know whether senators and barristers took it as they sat in the curia +or in court, or whether there was an adjournment for purposes +of refreshment. Such an adjournment seems to have taken place +occasionally at least, during the games under the Empire, for +Suetonius (_Claud._ 34) tells us that Claudius would dismiss the +people to take their prandium and yet remain himself in his seat. A +joke of Cicero's about Caninius Rebilus, who was appointed consul by +Caesar on the last day of the year 45 at one o'clock, shows that the +usual hour for the prandium was about noon or earlier; "under the +consulship of Caninius," he wrote to Curius, "no one ever took +luncheon."[433] + +After the prandium, if a man were at home and at leisure, followed the +siesta (_meridiatio_). This is the universal habit in all southern +climates, especially in summer, and indeed, if the mind and body +are active from an early hour, a little repose is useful, if not +necessary, after mid-day. Busy men however like Cicero could not +always afford it in the city, and we find him noting near the end of +his life, when Caesar's absolutism had diminished the amount of his +work both in senate and law-courts, that he had taken to the siesta +which he formerly dispensed with.[434] Even the sturdy Varro in his +old age declared that in summer he could not possibly do without his +nap in the middle of the day.[435] On the other hand, in the famous +letter in which Cicero describes his entertainment of Caesar in +mid-winter 45 B.C., nothing is said of a siesta; the Dictator worked +till after mid-day, then walked on the shore, and returned, not for a +nap but for a bath.[436] + +Caesar, as he was Cicero's guest, must have taken his bath in the +villa, probably that at Cumae (see above, p. 257). Most well-appointed +private houses had by this time a bath-room or set of bath-rooms, +providing every accommodation, according to the season and the taste +of the bather. This was indeed a modern improvement; in the old days +the Romans only washed their arms and legs daily, and took a bath +every market-day, i.e. every ninth day. This is told us in an amusing +letter of Seneca's, who also gives a description of the bath in the +villa of the elder Scipio at Liternum, which consisted of a single +room without a window, and was supplied with water which was often +thick after rain.[437] "Nesciit vivere," says Seneca, in ironical +allusion to the luxury of his own day. In Cicero's time every villa +doubtless had its set of baths, with at least three rooms,--the +_apodyterium_, _caldarium_, and _tepidarium_, sometimes also an open +swimming-bath, as in the House of the Silver Wedding at Pompeii.[438] +In Cicero's letter to his brother about the villa at Arcanum, he +mentions the dressing-room (apodyterium) and the caldarium or hot-air +chamber, and doubtless there were others. Even in the villa rustica of +Boscoreale near Pompeii, which was a working farm-house, we find the +bath-rooms complete, provided, that is, with the three essentials of +dressing-room, tepid-room, and hot-air room.[439] Caesar probably, as +it was winter, used the last of these, took in fact a Turkish bath, as +we should call it, and then went into a tepidarium, where, as Cicero +tells us, he received some messenger. Here he was anointed (unctus), +i.e. rubbed dry from perspiration, with a strigil on which oil was +dropped to soften its action.[440] When this operation was over, about +the ninth hour, which in mid-winter would begin about half-past one, +he was ready for the dinner which followed immediately.[441] This we +may take as the ordinary winter dinner-hour in the country; in summer +it would be an hour or so later. In an amusing story given as a +rhetorical illustration in the work known as _Rhetorica ad Herennium_, +iv. 63, the guests (doomed never to get their dinner that day except +in an inn) are invited for the tenth hour. But in the city it must +have often happened that the hour was later, owing to the press of +business. For example, on one occasion when the senate had been +sitting _ad noctem_, Cicero dines with Pompeius after its dismissal +(_ad Fam_. i. 2.3). Another day we find him going to bed after his +dinner, and clearly not for a siesta, which, as we saw, he never had +time to take in his busy days; this, however, was not actually in Rome +but in his villa at Formiae, where he was at that time liable to much +interruption from callers (_ad Att_. ii. 16). Probably, like most +Romans of his day, he had spent a long time over his dinner, talking +if he had guests, or reading and thinking if he were alone or with his +family only. + +The dinner, _cena_, was in fact the principal private event of the +day; it came when all business was over, and you could enjoy the +privacy of family life or see your friends and unbend with them. At no +other meal do we hear of entertainment, unless the guests were on +a journey, as was the case at the lunch at Arcanum when Pomponia's +temper got the better of her (see above, p. 52). Even dinner-parties +seem to have come into fashion only since the Punic wars, with later +hours and a larger staff of slaves to cook and wait at table. In the +old days of household simplicity the meals were taken in the atrium, +the husband reclining on a _lectus_,[442] the wife sitting by his +side, and the children sitting on stools in front of them. The slaves +too in the olden time took their meal sitting on benches in the +atrium, so that the whole familia was present. This means that the +dinner was in those days only a necessary break in the intervals of +work, and the sitting posture was always retained for slaves, i.e. +those who would go about their work as soon as the meal was over. +Columella, writing under the early Empire, urges that the vilicus or +overseer should sit at his dinner except on festivals; and Cato the +younger would not recline after the battle of Pharsalia for the +rest of his life, apparently as a sign that life was no longer +enjoyable.[443] + +But after the Second Punic war, which changed the habits of the Roman +in so many ways, the atrium ceased to be the common dining-place, and +special chambers were built, either off the atrium or in the interior +part of the house about the peristylium, or even upstairs, for the +accommodation of guests, who might be received in different rooms, +according to the season and the weather.[444] These _triclinia_ were +so arranged as to afford the greatest personal comfort and the best +opportunities for conversation; they indicate clearly that dinner is +no longer an interval in the day's work, but a time of repose and ease +at the end of it. The plan here given of a triclinium, as described by +Plutarch, in his _Quaestiones conviviales_, + + Lectus medius. + +--------------------------------+----------------+ + Chief | | | + Guest | | | Lectus + | | | Summus + +-----------------+--------------+ | + H | | | | + | | | | + Lectus | | Mensa | | + Imus | | | | + | +--------------+ | + | | +----------------+ + | | + | | + | | + | | + +-----------------+ + + PLAN OF A TRICLINIUM. + +will show this sufficiently without elaborate description; but it is +necessary to notice that the host always or almost always occupied the +couch marked H on the plan, while the one immediately above him, i.e. +No. 3 of the _lectus medius_, was reserved for the most important +guest, and called _lectus consularis_. Plutarch's account, and a +little consideration, will show that the host was thus well placed for +the superintendence of the meal, as well as for conversation with his +distinguished guest; and that the latter occupied what Plutarch calls +a free corner, so that any messengers or other persons needing to see +him could get access to him without disturbing the party.[445] The +number that could be accommodated, nine, was not only a sacred and +lucky one, but exactly suited for convenience of conversation and +attendance. Larger parties were not unheard of, even under the +Republic, and Vitruvius tells us that some dining-rooms were fitted +with three or more triclinia; but to put more than three guests on a +single couch, and so increase the number, was not thought courteous or +well-bred. Among the points of bad breeding which Cicero attributes to +his enemy Calpurnius Piso, the consul of 58, one was that he put five +guests to recline on a single couch, while himself occupying one +alone; so Horace: + + Saepe tribus lectis videas cenare quaternos.[446] + +As the guests were made so comfortable, it may be supposed that they +were not in a hurry to depart; the mere fact that they were reclining +instead of sitting would naturally dispose them to stay. The triclinia +were open at one end, i.e. not shut up as our dining-rooms are, and +the air would not get close and "dinnery." Cicero describes old +Cato[447] (no doubt from some passage in Cato's writings) as remaining +in conversation at dinner until late at night. The guests would arrive +with their slaves, who took off their walking shoes, if they had come +on foot, and put on their sandals (_soleae_): each wore a festive +dress (_synthesis_), of Greek origin like the other features of the +entertainment, and there was no question of changing these again in a +hurry. Nothing can better show the difference between the old Roman +manners and the new than the character of these parties; they are +the leisurely and comfortable rendezvous of an opulent and educated +society, in which politics, literature or philosophy could be +discussed with much self-satisfaction. That such discussion did not go +too deeply into hard questions was perhaps the result of the comfort. + +There was of course another side to this picture of the evening of a +Roman gentleman. There was a coarse side to the Roman character, and +in the age when wealth, the slave trade, and idle habits encouraged +self-indulgence, meals were apt to become ends in themselves instead +of necessary aids to a wholesome life. The ordinary three parts or +courses (_mensae_) of a dinner,--the gustatio or light preliminary +course, the cena proper, with substantial dishes, and the dessert of +pastry and fruit, could be amplified and extended to an unlimited +extent by the skill of the slave-cooks brought from Greece and the +East (see above, p. 209); the gourmand had appeared long before +the age of Cicero and had been already satirised by Lucilius and +Varro.[448] Splendid dinner-services might take the place of the +old simple ware, and luxurious drapery and rugs covered the couches +instead of the skins of animals, as in the old time.[449] Vulgarity +and ostentation, such as Horace satirised, were doubtless too often to +be met with. Those who lived for feasting and enjoyment would invite +their company quite early in the day (tempestativum convivium) and +carry on the revelry till midnight.[450] And lastly, the practice of +drinking wine after dinner (_comissatio_), simply for the sake of +drinking, under fixed rules according to the Greek fashion, familiar +to us all in the _Odes_ of Horace, had undoubtedly begun some time +before the end of the Public. In the Actio prima of his Verrine +orations Cicero gives a graphic picture of a convivium beginning +early, where the proposal was made and agreed to that the drinking +should be "more graeco."[451] + +But it would be a great mistake to suppose that this kind of +self-indulgence was characteristic of the average Roman life of this +age. The ordinary student is liable to fall into this error because +he reads his Horace and his Juvenal, but dips a very little way +into Cicero's correspondence; and he needs to be reminded that the +satirists are not deriding the average life of the citizen, any more +than the artists who make fun of the foibles of our own day in the +pages of _Punch_. Cicero hardly ever mentions his meals, his cookery, +or his wine, even in his most chatty letters; such matters did not +interest him, and do not seem to have interested his friends, so far +as we can judge by their letters. In one amusing letter to Poetus, he +does indeed tell him what he had for dinner at a friend's house, but +only by way of explaining that he had been very unwell from eating +mushrooms and such dishes, which his host had had cooked in order not +to contravene a recent sumptuary law.[452] The Letters are worth far +more as negative evidence of the usual character of dinners than +either the invectives (vituperationes) against a Piso or an Antony, +or the lively wit of the satirists. Let us return for an instant, in +conclusion, to that famous letter, already quoted, in which Cicero +describes the entertainment of Caesar at Cumae in December, 45. +It contains an expression which has given rise to very mistaken +conclusions both about Caesar's own habits and those of his day. After +telling Atticus that his guest sat down to dinner when the bath was +over he goes on: "[Greek: Emetikaen] agebat; itaque et edit et bibit +[Greek: adeos] et iucunde, opipare sane et apparate, nec id solum, sed + + bene cocto + condito, sermone bono, et si quaeri, libenter." + +Even good scholars used formerly to make the mistake of supposing that +Caesar, a man habitually abstemious, or at least temperate, had made +up his mind to over-eat himself on this occasion, as he was intending +to take an emetic afterwards. And even now it may be as well to point +out that medical treatment by a course of emetics was a perfectly well +known and valued method at this time;[453] that Caesar, whose health +was always delicate, and at this time severely tried, was then under +this treatment, and could therefore eat his dinner comfortably, +without troubling himself about what he ate and drank: and that the +apt quotation from Lucilius, and the literary conversation which (so +Cicero adds) followed the dinner, prove beyond all question that this +was no glutton's meal, but one of that ordinary and rational type, in +which repose and pleasant intercourse counted for more than the mere +eating and drinking. + +No more work seems to have been done after the cena was over and the +guests had retired. We found Cicero on one occasion going to bed soon +after the meal; and, as he was up and active so early in the morning, +we may suppose that he retired at a much earlier hour than we do. But +of this last act of the day he tells us nothing. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +HOLIDAYS AND AMUSEMENTS + +The Italian peoples, of all races, have always had a wonderful +capacity for enjoying themselves out of doors. The Italian _festa_ +of to-day, usually, as in ancient times, linked to some religious +festival, is a scene of gaiety, bright dresses, music, dancing, +bonfires, races, and improvisation or mummery; and all that we know of +the ancient rural festivals of Italy suggests that they were of much +the same lively and genial character. Tibullus gives us a good idea of +them: + + "Agricola assiduo primum satiatus aratro + Cantavit oerto rustica verba pede; + Et satur arenti primum est modulatus avena + Carmen, ut ornatos diceret ante decs; + Agricola et minio suffusus, Bacche, rubenti + Primus inexperta duxit ab arte choros."[454] + +It would be easy to multiply examples of such merry-making from the +poets of the Augustan age, nearly all of whom were born and bred in +the country, and shared Virgil's tenderness for a life of honest work +and play among the Italian hills and valleys. But in this chapter we +are to deal with the holidays and enjoyments of the great city, and +the rural festivals are only mentioned here because almost all the +characteristics of the urban holiday-making are to be found in germ +there. The Roman calendar of festivals has its origin in the regularly +recurring rites of the earliest Latin husbandman. As the city grew, +these old agricultural festivities lost of course much of their native +simplicity and naivete; some of them survived merely as religious or +priestly performances, some became degraded into licentious enjoyment; +but the music and dancing, the gay dresses, the racing, the mumming +or acting, are all to be found in the city, developed in one form or +another, from the earliest to the latest periods of Roman history. + +The Latin word for a holiday was _feriae_, a term which belongs to the +language of religious law (_ius divinum_). Strictly speaking, it means +a day which the citizen has resigned, either wholly or in part, to the +service of the gods.[455] As of old on the farm no work was to be done +on such days, so in the city no public business could be transacted. +Cicero, drawing up in antique language his idea of the ius divinum, +writes thus of feriae: "Feriis iurgia amovento, easque in familiis, +operibus patratis, habento": which he afterwards explains as meaning +that the citizen must abstain from litigation, and the slave be +excused from labour.[456] The idea then of a holiday was much the same +as we find expressed in the Jewish Sabbath, and had its root also in +religious observance. But Cicero, whether he is actually reproducing +the words of an old law or inventing it for himself, was certainly +not reflecting the custom of the city in his own day; no such rigid +observance of a rule was possible in the capital of an Empire such +as the Roman had become. Even on the farm it had long ago been found +necessary to make exceptions; thus Virgil tells us:[457] + + "Quippe etiam festis quaedam exercere diebus + Fas et iura sinunt: rivos deducere nulla + Religio vetuit, segeti praetendere saepem, + Insidias avibus moliri, incendere vepres, + Balantumque gregem fluvio mersare salubri." + +So too in the city it was simply impossible that all work should +cease on feriae, of which there were more than a hundred in the year, +including the Ides of every month and some of the Kalends and Nones. +As a matter of fact a double change had come about since the city and +its dominion began to increase rapidly about the time of the Punic +wars. First, many of the old festivals, sacred to deities whose +vogue was on the wane, or who had no longer any meaning for a city +population, as being deities of husbandry, were almost entirely +neglected: even if the priests performed the prescribed rites, no one +knew and no one cared,[458] and it may be doubted whether the State +was at all scrupulous in adhering to the old sacred rules as to +the hours on which business could be transacted on such days.[459] +Secondly, certain festivals which retained their popularity had been +extended from one day to three or more, in one or two cases, as we +shall see, even to thirteen and fifteen days, in order to give +time for an elaborate system of public amusement consisting of +chariot-races and stage-plays, and known by the name of _ludi_, or, as +at the winter Saturnalia, to enable all classes to enjoy themselves +during the short days for seven mornings instead of one. Obviously +this was a much more convenient and popular arrangement than to have +your holidays scattered about over the whole year as single days; and +it suited the rich and ambitious, who sought to obtain popular favour +by shows and games on a grand scale, needing a succession of several +days for complete exhibition. So the old religious word feriae becomes +gradually supplanted, in the sense of a public holiday of amusement, +by the word _ludi_, and came at last to mean, as it still does in +Germany, the holidays of schoolboys.[460] These ludi will form the +chief subject of this chapter; but we must first mention one or two +of the old feriae which seem always to have remained occasions of +holiday-making, at any rate for the lower classes of the population. + +One of these occurred on the Ides of March, and must have been going +on at the moment when Caesar was assassinated in 44 B.C. It was the +festival of Anna Perenna, a mysterious old deity of "the ring of the +year." The lower class of the population, Ovid tells us,[461] streamed +out to the "festum geniale" of Anna, and spent the whole day in the +Campus Martius, lying about in pairs of men and women, indulging +in drinking and all kinds of revelry. Some lay in the open; some +constructed tents, or rude huts of boughs, stretching their togas over +them for shelter. As they drank they prayed for as many years of life +as they could swallow cups of wine. The usual characteristics of the +Italian _festa_ were to be found there: they sang anything they had +picked up in the theatre, with much gesticulation ("et iactant faciles +ad sua verba manus"), and they danced, the women letting down their +long hair. The result of these performances was naturally that they +returned home in a state of intoxication, which roused the mirth of +the bystanders. Ovid adds that he had himself met them so returning, +and had seen an old woman pulling along an old man, both of them +intoxicated. There may have been other popular "jollifications" of +this kind, for example at the Neptunalia on July 23, where we find the +same curious custom of making temporary huts or shelters;[462] but +this is the only one of which we have any account by an eye-witness. +Of the famous Lupercalia in February, and some other festivals which +neither died out altogether nor were converted into ludi, we only know +the ritual, and cannot tell whether they were still used as popular +holidays. + +One famous festival of the old religious calendar did, however, always +remain a favourite holiday, viz. the Saturnalia on December 17, +which was by common usage extended to seven days in all.[463] It was +probably the survival of a mid-winter festivity in the life of the +farm, at a time when all the farm work of the autumn was over, +and when both bond and free might indulge themselves in unlimited +enjoyment. Such ancient customs die hard, or, as was the case with the +Saturnalia, never die at all; for the same features are still to be +found in the Christmas rejoicings of the Italian peasant. Every one +knows something of the character of this holiday, and especially of +the entertainment of slaves by their masters,[464] which has many +parallels in Greek custom, and has been recently supposed to have been +borrowed from the Greeks. Various games were played, and among them +that of "King," at which we have seen the young Cato playing with his +boy companions.[465] Seneca tells us that in his day all Rome seemed +to go mad on this holiday. + +But we must now turn to the real _ludi_, organised by the State on a +large and ever increasing scale. The oldest and most imposing of these +were the Ludi Romani or Magni, lasting from September 5 to September +19 in Cicero's time. These had their origin in the return of a +victorious army at the end of the season of war, when king or consul +had to carry out the vows he had made when entering on his campaign. +The usual form of the vow was to entertain the people on his return, +in honour of Jupiter, and thus they were originally called ludi +_votivi_, before they were incorporated as a regularly recurring +festival. After they became regular and annual, any entertainment +vowed by a general had to take place on other days; thus in the year +70 B.C. Pompey's triumphal ludi votivi immediately preceded the Ludi +Romani of that year,[466] giving the people in all some thirty days of +holiday. The centre-point, and original day, of the Ludi Romani was +the Ides (13th) of September, which was also the day of the epulum +Jovis,[467] and the dies natalis (dedication day) of the Capitoline +temple of Jupiter; and the whole ceremonial was closely connected with +that temple and its great deity. The triumphal procession passed along +the Sacra via to the Capitol, and thence again to the Circus Maximus, +where the ludi were held. The show must have been most imposing; +first marched the boys and youths, on foot and on horseback, then the +chariots and charioteers about to take part in the racing, with crowds +of dancers and flute-players,[468] and lastly the images of the +Capitoline deities themselves, carried on _fercula_ (biers). All such +shows and processions were dear to the Roman people, and this seems to +have become a permanent feature of the Ludi Romani, whether or no an +actual triumph was to be celebrated, and also of some other ludi, e.g. +the Apollinares and the Megalenses.[469] Thus the idea was kept up +that the greatness and prosperity of Rome were especially due to +Jupiter Optimus Maximus, who, since the days of the Tarquinii, had +looked down on his people from his temple on the Capitol.[470] + +The Ludi Plebeii in November seem to have been a kind of plebeian +duplicate of the Ludi Romani. As fully developed at the end of the +Republic, they lasted from the 4th to the 17th; their centre-point and +original day was the Ides (13th), on which, as on September 13, there +was an epulum Jovis in the Capitol.[471] They are connected with the +name of that Flaminius who built the circus Flaminius in the Campus +Martius in 220 B.C., the champion of popular rights, killed soon +afterwards at Trasimene; and it is probable that his object in +erecting this new place of entertainment was to provide a convenient +building free of aristocratic associations. But unfortunately we know +very little of the history of these ludi. + +If we may suppose that the Ludi Plebeii were instituted just before +the second Punic war, it is interesting to note that three other great +ludi were organised in the course of that war, no doubt with the +object of keeping up the drooping spirits of the urban population. The +Ludi Apollinares were vowed by a praetor urbanus in 212, when the +fate of Rome was hanging in the balance, and celebrated in the Circus +Maximus: in 208 they were fixed to a particular day, July 13, and +eventually extended to eight, viz. July 6-13.[472] In 204 were +instituted the Ludi Megalenses, to celebrate the arrival in Rome of +the Magna Mater from Pessinus in Phrygia, i.e. on April 4; but the +ludi were eventually extended to April 10.[473] Lastly, in 202 the +Ludi Ceriales, which probably existed in some form already, were made +permanent and fixed for April 19: they eventually lasted from the 12th +to the 19th.[474] After the war was over we only find one more set of +ludi permanently established, viz. the Florales, which date from 173. +The original day was April 28, which had long been one of coarse +enjoyment for the plebs; like the other ludi, these too were extended, +and eventually reached to May 3.[475] April, we may note, was a month +chiefly consisting of holidays: the Ludi Megalenses, Ceriales, and +Florales occupied no less than seventeen of its twenty-nine days. + +When Sulla wished to commemorate his victory at the Colline gate, he +instituted Ludi Victoriae on November I, the date of the battle, and +these seem to have been kept up after most of Sulla's work had been +destroyed; they are mentioned by Cicero in the passage quoted above +from the Verrines, as Ludi Victoriae, but we hear comparatively little +of them. + +Before we go on to describe the nature of these numerous +entertainments, it may be as well to realise that the spectators had +nothing to pay for them; they were provided by the State free of cost, +as being part of certain religious festivals which it was the duty +of the government to keep up. Certain sums were set aside for this +purpose, differing in amount from time to time; thus in 217 B.C., for +the Ludi Romani, on which up to that time 200,000 sesterces (L16,600) +had been spent, the sum of 333,333-1/3 sest. was voted, because the +number three had a sacred signification, and the moment was one of +extreme peril for the State.[476] On one occasion only before the end +of the Republic do we hear of any public collection for the ludi; in +186 B.C. Pliny tells us that every one was so well off, owing no doubt +to the enormous amount of booty brought from the war in the East, that +all subscribed some small sum for the games of Scipio Asiaticus.[477] +There was no doubt a growing demand for magnificence in the shows, and +thus it came about that the amount provided by the State had to be +supplemented. But the usual way of supplementing it was for the +magistrate in charge of the ludi to pay what he could out of his own +purse, or to get his friends to help him; and as all the ludi except +the Apollinares were in charge of the aediles, it became the practice +for these, if they aspired to reach the praetorship and consulship, to +vie with each other in the recklessness of their expenditure. As early +as 176 B.C. the senate had tried to limit this personal expenditure, +for Ti. Sempronius Gracchus as aedile had that year spent enormous +sums on his ludi, and had squeezed money (it does not appear how) out +of the subject populations of Italy, as well as the provinces, to +entertain the Roman people.[478] But naturally no decrees of the +senate on such matters were likely to have permanent effect; the great +families whose younger members aimed at popularity in this way were +far too powerful to be easily checked. In the last age of the Republic +it had become a necessary part of the aedile's duty to supplement the +State's contribution, and as a rule he had to borrow heavily, and thus +to involve himself financially quite early in his political career. In +his _de Officiis_,[479] writing of the virtue of _liberalitas_, Cicero +gives a list of men who had been munificent as aediles, including the +elder and younger Crassus, Mucius Scaevola (a man, he says, of great +self-restraint), the two Lueulli, Hortensius, and Silanus; and adds +that in his own consulship P. Lentulus outdid all his predecessors, +and was imitated by Scaurus in 58 B.C.[480] Cicero himself had to +undertake the Ludi Romani, Megalenses, and Florales in his aedileship; +how he managed it financially he does not tell us.[481] Caesar +undoubtedly borrowed largely, for his expenditure as aedile was +enormous,[482] and he had no private fortune of any considerable +amount. + +Our friend Caelius Rufus was elected curule aedile while he was in +correspondence with Cicero, and his letters give us a good idea of the +condition of the mind of an ambitious young man who is bent on making +the most of himself. He is in a continual state of fidget about his +games; he has set his heart on getting panthers to exhibit and hunt, +and urges Cicero in letter after letter to procure them for him in +Cilicia. "It will be a disgrace to you," he writes in one of them, +"that Patiscus has sent ten panthers to Curio, and that you should not +send me ten times as many."[483] The provincial governor, he urges, +can do what he pleases; let Cicero send for some men of Cibyra, let +him write to Pamphylia, where they are most abundant, and he will get +what he wants, or rather what Caelius wants. Even after a letter full +of the most important accounts of public business, including copies of +senatus consulta (ad Fam. viii. 8), he harks back at the end to the +inevitable panthers. Cicero tells Atticus that he rebuked Caelius for +pressing him thus hard to do what his conscience could not approve, +and that it was not right, in his opinion, for a provincial governor +to set the people of Cibyra hunting for panthers for Roman games.[484] +From the same passage it would seem that Caelius had also been urging +him to take other steps in his province of which he disapproved, no +doubt with the same object of raising money for the ludi. This letter +to Caelius is not extant, but we may believe that Cicero had the +courage to reprove his old pupil, and that the constant worrying for +panthers was more than even his amiability could stand. But others +were less sensitive; and it is a well known fact in natural history +that the Roman games had a powerful effect, from this time forwards, +in diminishing the numbers of wild animals in the countries bordering +on the Mediterranean, and in bringing about the extinction of species. +In our own day the same work is carried on by the big-game sportsman, +somewhat farther afield; the pleasure of slaughter being now confined +to the few rich and adventurous, who shoot for their own delectation, +and not to make a London holiday. + +Thus to all his ludi the citizen had the right of admission free +of cost.[485] An Englishman may find some difficulty at first in +realising this; it is as if cricket and football matches and theatres +in London were open to the public gratis, and the cost provided by the +London County Council. Yet it is not difficult to understand how the +Roman government drifted into a practice which was eventually found to +have such unfortunate results. It has already been explained that ludi +were originally attached to certain religious festivals, which it was +the duty of the State and its priests and magistrates to maintain. The +Romans, like all Italians, loved shows and out-of-door enjoyment, +and as the population increased and became more liable to excitement +during the stress of the great wars with Carthage, it became necessary +to keep them cheerful and in good humour by developing the old ludi +and instituting new ones, for which it would have been contrary to all +precedent to make them pay. The government, as we may guess from the +history of the ludi which has just been sketched, seems to have been +careful at first not to go too far with this policy, and it was some +time before any ludi but the Romani were made annual and extended to +the length they eventually reached. But the sudden increase of wealth +after the great struggle was over was answerable for this, as for +so many other damaging tendencies. We have seen that the people +themselves in 186 were able and willing to contribute; and now it was +possible for aediles to invest their capital in popular undertakings +which might, later on, pay them well by carrying them on to higher +magistracies and provincial governorships, where fresh fortunes might +be made. The evil results are, of course, as obvious here as in the +parallel case of the corn-supply (see above, p. 34); enormous amounts +of capital were used unproductively, and the people were gradually +accustomed to believe that the State was responsible for their +enjoyment as well as their food. But we must be most careful not to +jump to the conclusion that this was due to any deliberate policy on +the part of the Roman government. They drifted into these dangerous +shoals in spite of the occasional efforts of intelligent steersmen; +and it would indeed have needed a higher political intelligence than +was then and there available, to have fully divined the direction of +the drift and the dangers ahead of them. + +We must now turn in the last place to consider the nature of the +entertainments, and see whether there was any improving or educational +influence in them. + +These had originally consisted entirely of shows of a military +character, as we have seen in the case of the Ludi Romani, and +especially of chariot-racing in the old Circus Maximus. The Romans +seem always to have been fond of horses and racing, though they +never developed a large or thoroughly efficient cavalry force. It +is probable that the position of the Circus Maximus in the vallis +Murcia[486] was due to horse-racing near the underground altar of +Consus, a harvest deity, and the oldest religious calendar has +Equirria (horse-races) on February 27 and March 14, no doubt in +connexion with the preparation of the cavalry for the coming season +of war. And in the very curious ancient rite known as "the October +horse," there was a two-horse chariot-race in the Campus Martius, when +the season of arms was over, and the near horse of the winning pair +was sacrificed to Mars[487]. The Ludi Romani consisted chiefly of +chariot-races until 364 B.C. (when plays were first introduced), +together with other military evolutions or exercises, such perhaps as +the ludus Troiae of the Roman boys, described by Virgil in the fifth +Aeneid. Of the Ludi Plebeii we do not know the original character, but +it is likely that these also began with _circenses_, the regular word +for chariot-races. The Ludi Cereales certainly included circenses, and +plays are only mentioned as forming part of their programme under the +Empire; but on the last day, April 19, there was a curious practice of +letting foxes loose in the Circus Maximus with burning firebrands tied +to their tails[488],--a custom undoubtedly ancient, which may have +suggested the _venationes_ (hunts) of later times, for one of which +Caelius wanted his panthers. Of the other three ludi, Apollinares, +Megalenses, and Florales, we only know that they included both +circenses and plays; we must take it as probable that the former were +in their programme from the first. There is no need to describe +here in detail the manner of the chariot-racing. We can picture to +ourselves the Circus Maximus filled with a dense crowd of some 150,000 +people,[489] the senators in reserved places, and the consul or other +magistrate presiding; the chariots, usually four in number, painted at +this time either red or white, with their drivers in the same colours, +issuing from the carceres at the end of the circus next to the Forum +Boarium and the river, and at the signal racing round a course of +about 1600 yards, divided into two halves by a spina; at the farther +end of this the chariots had to turn sharply and always with a certain +amount of danger, which gave the race its chief interest. Seven +complete laps of this course constituted a missus or race,[490] and +the number of races in a day varied from time to time, according to +the season of the year and the equipment of the particular ludi. The +rivalry between factions and colours, which became so famous later +on and lasted throughout the period of the Empire, was only just +beginning in Cicero's time. We hear hardly anything of such excitement +in the literature of the period; we only know that there were already +two rival colours, white and red, and Pliny tells us the strange +story that one chariot-owner, a Caecina of Volaterrae, used to bring +swallows into the city smeared with his colour, which he let loose to +fly home and so bear the news of a victory.[491] Human nature in big +cities seems to demand some such artificial stimulus to excitement, +and without it the racing must have been monotonous; but of betting +and gambling we as yet hear nothing at all. Gradually, as vast sums +of money were laid out by capitalists and even by senators upon the +horses and drivers, the colour-factions increased in numbers, and +their rivalry came to occupy men's minds as completely as do now the +chances of football teams in our own manufacturing towns.[492] + +Exhibitions of gladiators (_munera_) did not as yet take place at ludi +or on public festivals, but they may be mentioned here, because they +were already becoming the favourite amusement of the common people; +Cicero in the _pro Sestio_[493] speaks of them as "that kind of +spectacle to which all sorts of people crowd in the greatest +numbers, and in which the multitude takes the greatest delight." +The consequence was, of course, that candidates for election to +magistracies took every opportunity of giving them; and Cicero himself +in his consulship inserted a clause in his _lex de ambitu_ forbidding +candidates to give such exhibitions within two years of the +election.[494] They were given exclusively by private individuals up +to 105 B.C., either in the Forum or in one or other circus: in that +year there was an exhibition by the consuls, but there is some +evidence that it was intended to instruct the soldiers in the better +use of their weapons. This was a year in which the State was in sore +need of efficient soldiers; Marius was at the same time introducing a +new system of recruiting and of arming the soldier, and we are told +that the consul Rutilius made use of the best gladiators that were to +be found in the training-school (ludus) of a certain Scaurus, to teach +the men a more skilful use of their weapons.[495] If gladiators could +have been used only for a rational purpose like this, as skilful +swordsmen and military instructors, the State might well have +maintained some force of them. But as it was they remained in private +hands, and no limit could be put on the numbers so maintained. They +became a permanent menace to the peace of society, as has already been +mentioned in the chapter on slavery. Their frequent use in funeral +games is a somewhat loathsome feature of the age. These funeral games +were an old religious institution, occurring on the ninth day after +the burial, and known as Ludi Novemdiales; they are familiar to every +one from Virgil's skilful introduction of them, as a Roman equivalent +for the Homeric games, in the fifth Aeneid, on the anniversary of the +funeral of Anchises. Virgil has naturally omitted the gladiators; but +long before his time it had become common to use the opportunity of +the funeral of a relation to give munera for the purpose of gaining +popularity.[496] A good example is that of young Curio, who in 53 B.C. +ruined himself in this way. Cicero alludes to this in an interesting +letter to Curio.[497] "You may reach the highest honours," he says, +"more easily by your natural advantages of character, diligence, and +fortune, than by gladiatorial exhibitions. The power of giving them +stirs no feeling of admiration in any one: it is a question of means +and not of character: and there is no one who is not by this time +sick and tired of them." To Cicero's refined mind they were naturally +repugnant; but young men like Curio, though they loved Cicero, were +not wont to follow his wholesome advice.[498] + +We turn now to the dramatic element in the ludi, chiefly with the +object of determining whether, in the age of Cicero, it was of any +real importance in the social life of the Roman people. The Roman +stage had had a great history before the last century B.C., into which +it is not necessary here to enter. It had always been possible without +difficulty for those who were responsible for the ludi to put on +the stage a tragedy or comedy either written for the occasion or +reproduced, with competent actors and the necessary music; and there +seems to be no doubt that both tragedies and comedies, whether adapted +from the Greek (fabulae palliatae) or of a national character (fab. +togatae), were enjoyed by the audiences. In the days of the Punic wars +and afterwards, when everything Greek was popular, a Roman audience +could appreciate stories of the Greek mythology, as presented in the +tragedies of Ennius, Pacuvius, and Accius, if without learning to read +in them the great problems of human life, at least as spectacles of +the vicissitudes of human fortune; and had occasionally listened to a +tragedy, or perhaps father a dramatic history, based on some familiar +legend of their own State. And the conditions of social life in Rome +and Athens were not so different but that in the hands of a real +genius like Plautus the New Athenian comedy could come home to the +Roman people, with their delight in rather rough fun and comical +situations: and Plautus was followed by Caecilius and the more refined +Terence, before the national comedy of Afranius and others established +itself in the place of the Greek. It is hardly possible to avoid the +conclusion that in those early days of the Roman theatre the audiences +were really intelligent, and capable of learning something from the +pieces they listened to, apart from their natural love of a show, of +all acting, and of music.[499] + +But before the age with which this book deals, the long succession +of great dramatic writers had come to an end. Accius, the nephew of +Pacuvius, had died as a very old man when Cicero was a boy;[500] and +in the national comedy no one had been found to follow Afranius. The +times were disturbed, the population was restless, and continually +incorporating heterogeneous elements: much amusement could be found in +the life of the Forum, and in rioting and disorder; gladiatorial shows +were organised on a large scale. To sit still and watch a good play +would become more tiresome as the plebs grew more restless, and +probably even the taste of the better educated was degenerating as +the natural result of luxury and idleness. Politics and political +personages were the really exciting features of the time, and there +are signs that audiences took advantage of the plays to express their +approval or dislike of a statesman. In a letter to Atticus, written +in the summer of 59,[501] the first year of the triumvirate, Cicero +describes with enthusiasm how at the Ludi Apollinares the actor +Diphilus made an allusion to Pompey in the words (from an unknown +tragedy then being acted), "Nostra miseria tu es--Magnus," and was +forced to repeat them many times. When he delivered the line + + "Eandem virtutem istam veniet tempus cum graviter gemes," + +the whole theatre broke out into frantic applause. So too in a +well-known passage of the speech _pro Sestio_ he tells from hearsay +how the great tragic actor Aesopus, acting in the Eurysaces of Accius, +was again and again interrupted by applause as he cleverly adapted the +words to the expected recall from exile of the orator, his personal +friend.[502] The famous words "Summum amicum, summo in bello, summo +ingenio praeditum," were among those which the modest Cicero tells us +were taken up by the people with enthusiasm,--greatly, without doubt, +to the detriment of the play. The whole passage is one of great +graphic power, and only fails to rouse us too to enthusiasm when we +reflect that Cicero was not himself present. + +From this and other passages we have abundant evidence that tragedies +were still acted; but Cicero nowhere in his correspondence, where we +might naturally have expected to find it, nor in his philosophical +works, gives us any idea of their educational or aesthetic influence +either on himself or others. He is constantly quoting the old plays, +especially the tragedies, and knows them very well: but he quotes them +almost invariably as literature only. Once or twice, as we shall see, +he recalls the gesture or utterance of a great actor, but as a rule he +is thinking of them as poetry rather than as plays. It may be noted +in this connexion that it was now becoming the fashion to write plays +without any immediate intention of bringing them on the stage. We read +with astonishment in a letter of Cicero to his brother Quintus, then +in Gaul, that the latter had taken to play-writing, and accomplished +four tragedies in sixteen days, and this apparently in the course of +the campaign.[503] One, the _Erigona_, was sent to his brother from +Britain, and lost on the way. We hear no more of these plays, and +have no reason to suppose that they were worthy to survive. No man of +literary eminence in that day wrote plays for acting, and in fact the +only person of note, so far as we know, who did so, was the younger +Cornelius Balbus, son of the intimate friend and secretary of Caesar. +This man wrote one in Latin about his journey to his native town +of Gades, had it put on the stage there, and shed tears during its +performance.[504] + +When we hear of plays being written without being acted, and of +tragedies being made the occasion of expressing political opinions, +we may be pretty sure that the drama is in its nonage. An interesting +proof of the same tendency is to be found in the first book of the +_Ars Amatoria_ of Ovid, though it belongs to the age of Augustus. In +this book Ovid describes the various resorts in the city where the +youth may look out for his girl; and when he comes to the theatre, +draws a pretty picture of the ladies of taste and fashion crowding +thither,--but + + Spectatum veniunt: veniunt spectentur ut ipsae. + +And then, without a word about the play, or the smallest hint that he +or the ladies really cared about such things, he goes off into the +familiar story of the rape of the Sabine women, supposed to have taken +place when Romulus was holding his ludi. + +It is curious, in view of what thus seems to be a flagging interest +in the drama as such, to find that the most remarkable event in the +theatrical history of this time is the building of the first permanent +stone theatre. During the whole long period of the popularity of +the drama the government had never consented to the erection of a +permanent theatre after the Greek fashion; though it was impossible to +prohibit the production of plays adapted from the Greek, there seems +to have been some strange scruple felt about giving Rome this outward +token of a Greek city. Temporary stages were erected in the Forum +or the circus, the audience at first standing, but afterwards +accommodated with seats in a _cavea_ of wood erected for the occasion. +The whole show, including play, actors, and pipe-players[505] to +accompany the voices where necessary, was contracted for, like all +such undertakings,[506] on each occasion of Ludi scaenici being +produced. At last, in the year 154 B.C., the censors had actually +set about the building of a theatre, apparently of stone, when the +reactionary Scipio Nasica, acting under the influence of a temporary +anti-Greek movement, persuaded the senate to put a stop to this +symptom of degeneracy, and to pass a decree that no seats were in +future to be provided, "ut scilicet remissioni animorum standi +virilitas propria Romanae gentis iuncta esset."[507] Whether this +extraordinary decree, of which the legality might have been questioned +a generation later, had any permanent effect, we do not know; +certainly the senators, and after the time of Gaius Gracchus the +equites, sat on seats appropriated to them. But Rome continued to +be without a stone theatre until Pompey, in the year of his second +consulship, 55 B.C., built one on a grand scale, capable of holding +40,000 people. Even he, we are told, could not accomplish this without +some criticism from the old and old-fashioned,--so lasting was the +prejudice against anything that might seem to be turning Rome into a +Greek city.[508] There was a story too, of which it is difficult to +make out the real origin, that he was compelled by popular feeling +to conceal his design by building, immediately behind the theatre, a +temple of Venus Victrix, the steps of which were in some way connected +with his auditorium.[509] The theatre was placed in the Campus +Martius, and its shape is fairly well known to us from fragments of +the Capitoline plan of the city;[510] adjoining it Pompey also built +a magnificent _porticus_ for the convenience of the audience, and +a _curia_, in which the senate could meet, and where, eleven years +later, the great Dictator was murdered at the feet of Pompey's statue. + +In spite of the magnificence of this building, it was by no means +destined to revive the earlier prosperity of the tragic and comic +drama. Even at the opening of it the signs of degeneracy are apparent. +Luckily for us Cicero was in Rome at the time, and in a letter to a +friend in the country he congratulates him on being too unwell to come +to Rome and see the spoiling of old tragedies by over-display.[511] +"The ludi," he says, "had not even that charm which games on a +moderate scale generally have; the spectacle was so elaborate as to +leave no room for cheerful enjoyment, and I think you need feel no +regret at having missed it. What is the pleasure of a train of six +hundred mules in the Clytemnestra (of Accius), or three thousand bowls +(craterae) in the Trojan Horse (of Livius), or gay-coloured armour of +infantry and cavalry in some mimic battle? These things roused the +admiration of the vulgar: to you they would have brought no delight." +This ostentatious stage-display finds its counterpart to some extent +at the present day, and may remind us also of the huge orchestras of +blaring sound which are the delight of the modern composer and the +modern musical audience. And the plays were by no means the only part +of the show. There were displays of athletes; but these never seem to +have greatly interested a Roman audience, and Cicero says that Pompey +confessed that they were a failure; but to make up for that there were +wild-beast shows for five whole days (_venationes_)--"magnificent," +the letter goes on, "no one denies it, yet what pleasure can it be +to a man of refinement, when a weak man is torn by a very powerful +animal, or a splendid animal is transfixed by a hunting-spear? ... The +last day was that of the elephants, about which there was a good deal +of astonishment on the part of the vulgar crowd, but no pleasure +whatever. Nay, there was even a feeling of compassion aroused by +them, and a notion that this animal has something in common with +mankind."[512] This last interesting sentence is confirmed by a +passage in Pliny's _Natural History_, in which he asserts that the +people were so much moved that they actually execrated Pompey.[513] +The last age of the Republic is a transitional one, in this, as in +other ways; the people are not yet thoroughly inured to bloodshed +and cruelty to animals, as they afterwards became when deprived of +political excitements, and left with nothing violent to amuse them but +the displays of the amphitheatre. + +Earlier in this same letter Cicero had told his friend Marius that on +this occasion certain old actors had re-appeared on the stage, who, +as he thought, had left it for good. The only one he mentions is the +great tragic actor Aesopus, who "was in such a state that no one could +say a word against his retiring from the profession." At one important +point his voice failed him. This may conveniently remind us that +Aesopus was the last of the great actors of tragedy, and that his best +days were in the early half of this century--another sign of the decay +of the legitimate drama. He was an intimate friend of Cicero, and from +a few references to him in the Ciceronian writings we can form some +idea of his genius. In one passage Cicero writes of having seen him +looking so wild and gesticulating so excitedly, that he seemed almost +to have lost command of himself.[514] In the description, already +quoted from the speech _pro Sestio_, of the scene in the theatre +before his recall from exile, he speaks of this "summus artifex" as +delivering his allusions to the exile with infinite force and passion. +Yet the later tradition of his acting was rather that he was serious +and self-restrained; Horace calls him _gravis_, and Quintilian too +speaks of his _gravitas_.[515] Probably, like Garrick, he was capable +of a great variety of moods and parts. How carefully he studied the +varieties of gesticulation is indicated by a curious story preserved +by Valerius Maximus, that he and Roscius the great comedian used to +go and sit in the courts in order to observe the action of the orator +Hortensius.[516] + +Roscius too was an early intimate friend of Cicero, who, like Caesar, +seems to have valued the friendship of all men of genius, without +regard to their origin or profession. Roscius seems to have been a +freedman;[517] his great days were in Cicero's early life, and he died +in 61 B.C., to the deep grief of all his friends.[518] So wonderfully +finished was his acting that it became a common practice to call any +one a Roscius whose work was more than usually perfect. He never could +find a pupil of whom he could entirely approve; many had good points, +but if there were a single blot, the master could not bear it.[519] +In the _de Oratore_ Cicero tells us several interesting things about +him,--how he laid the proper emphasis on the right words, reserving +his gesticulation until he came to them; and how he was never so much +admired when acting with a mask on, because the expression of his face +was so full of meaning[520]. + +In Cicero's later years, when Roscius was dead and Aesopus retired, we +hear no more of great actors of this type. With these two remarkable +men the great days of the Roman drama come to an end, and henceforward +the favourite plays are merely farces, of which a word must here be +said in the last place. + +The origin of these farces, as indeed of all kinds of Latin comedy, +and probably also of the literary satura, is to be found in the jokes +and rude fun of the country festivals, and especially perhaps, as +Horace tells us of the harvest amusements[521]: + + Fescennina per hunc inventa licentia morem + Versibus alternis opprobria rustica fudit, + Libertasque recurrentis accepta per annos + Lusit amabiliter, etc. + + _Epist_. ii. 1. 145 foll. + +These amusements were always accompanied with the music and dancing +so dear to the Italian peoples, and it is easy to divine how they may +have gradually developed into plays of a rude but tolerably fixed +type, with improvised dialogue, acted in the streets, or later in the +intervals between acts at the theatre, and eventually as afterpieces, +more after our own fashion. + +In Cicero's day two kinds of farces were in vogue. In his earlier life +the so-called Atellan plays (fabulae Atellanae) were the favourites: +these were of indigenous Latin origin, and probably took their name +from the ruined town Atella, which might provide a permanent scenery +as the background of the plays without offending the jealousy of any +of the other Latin cities.[522] They were doubtless very comic, but it +was possible to get tired of them, for the number of stock +characters was limited, and the masks were always the same for each +character--the old man Pappus, the glutton Bucco, Dossennus the +sharper, etc. About the time of Sulla the _mimes_ seem to have +displaced these old farces in popular favour, perhaps because their +fun was more varied; the mere fact that the actors did not wear masks +shows that the improvisation could be freer and less stereotyped. But +both kinds were alike coarse, and may be called the comedy of low life +in country towns and in the great city. Sulla's tastes seem to have +been low in the matter of plays, if we may trust Plutarch, who asserts +that when he was young he spent much of his time among _mimi_ and +jesters, and that when he was dictator he "daily got together from the +theatre the lewdest persons, with whom he would drink and enter into a +contest of coarse witticisms."[523] This may be due to the evidence of +an enemy, but it is not improbable; and it is possible that both Sulla +and Caesar, who also patronised the mimes, may have wished to avoid +the personal allusions which, as we have seen, were so often made or +imagined in the exhibition of tragedies, and have aimed at confining +the plays to such as would give less opportunity for unwelcome +criticism.[524] + +About the year 50 B.C., as we have seen in the chapter on education, +there came to Italy the Syrian Publilius, who began to write mimes in +verse, thus for the first time giving them a literary turn. Caesar, +always on the look-out for talent, summoned him to Rome, and awarded +him the palm for his plays.[525] These must have been, as regards wit +and style, of a much higher order than any previous mimes, and in fact +not far removed from the older Roman comedy (fabula togata) in manner. +Cicero alludes to them twice: and writing to Cornificius from Rome in +October 45 he says that at Caesar's ludi he listened to the poems of +Publilius and Laberius with a well-pleased mind.[526] "Nihil mihi +tamen deesse scito quam quicum haec familiariter docteque rideam"; +here the word _docte_ seems to suggest that the performance was at +least worthy of the attention of a cultivated man. Laberius, also +a Roman knight, wrote mimes at the same time as Publilius, and was +beaten by him in competition; of him it is told that he was induced by +Caesar to act in his own mime, and revenged himself for the insult, as +it was then felt to be by a Roman of good birth, in a prologue which +has come down to us.[527] We may suppose that his plays were of the +same type as those of Publilius, and interspersed with those wise +sayings, _sententiae_, which the Roman people were still capable of +appreciating. Even in the time of Seneca applause was given to any +words which the audience felt at once to be true and to hit the +mark.[528] + +Thus the mime was lifted from the level of the lowest farcical +improvisation to a recognised position in literature, and quite +incidentally became useful in education. But the coarseness remained; +the dancing was grotesque and the fun ribald, and, as Professor Purser +says, the plots nearly always involved "some incident of an amorous +nature in which ordinary morality was set at defiance." The Roman +audience of the early Empire enjoyed these things, and all sorts +of dancing, singing, and instrumental music, and above all the +_pantomimus_,[529] in which the actor only gesticulated, without +speaking; this and the fact that the real drama never again had a fair +chance is one of the many signs that the city population was losing +both virility and intelligence. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +RELIGION + + +It is easy to write the word "religion" at the head of this chapter, +but by no means easy to find anything in this materialistic period +which answers to our use of the word. In the whole mass, for example, +of the Ciceronian correspondence, there is hardly anything to show +that Cicero and his friends, and therefore, as we may presume, the +average educated man of the day, were affected in their thinking or +their conduct by any sense of dependence on, or responsibility to, a +Supreme Being. If, however, it had been possible to substitute for +the English word the Latin _religio_ it would have made a far more +appropriate title to this chapter, for _religio_ meant primarily awe, +nervousness, scruple--much the same in fact as that feeling which in +these days we call superstition; and secondarily the means taken, +under the authority of the State, to quiet such feelings by the +performance of rites meant to propitiate the gods.[530] In both of +these senses _religio_ is to be found in the last age of the Republic; +but, as we shall see, the tendency to superstitious nervousness was +very imperfectly allayed and the worship that should have allayed it +was in great measure neglected. + +It may be, indeed, that in quiet country districts the joyous rural +festivals went on--we have many allusions and a few descriptions of +them in the literature of the Augustan period,--and also the worship +of the household deities, in which there perhaps survived a feeling of +_pietas_ more nearly akin to what we call religious feeling than in +any of the cults (_sacra publica_) undertaken by the State for the +people. Even in the city the cult of the dead, or what may perhaps be +better called the religious attention paid to their resting-places, +and the religious ceremonies attending birth, puberty, and marriage, +were kept up as matters of form and custom among the upper and +wealthier classes. But the great mass of the population of Rome, we +may be almost sure, knew nothing of these rites; the poor man, for +example, could no more afford a tomb for himself than a house, and his +body was thrown into some _puticulus_ or common burying-place,[531] +where it was impossible that any yearly ceremonies could be performed +to his memory, even if any one cared to do so. And among the higher +strata of society, outside of these _sacra privata_, carelessness +and negligence of the old State cults were steadily on the increase. +Neither Cicero nor any of his contemporaries but Varro has anything +to tell us of their details, and the decay had gone so far that Varro +himself knew little or nothing about many of the deities of the old +religious calendar,[532] or of the ways in which they had at one +time been worshipped. Vesta, with her simple cult and her virgin +priestesses, was almost the only deity who was not either forgotten +or metamorphosed in one way or another under the influence of Greek +literature and mythology; Vesta was too well recognised as a symbol +of the State's vitality to be subject to neglect like other and less +significant cults. The old sacrificing priesthoods, such as the +Fratres Arvales and the lesser Flamines, seem not to have been filled +up by the pontifices whose duty it was to do so: and the Flamen +Dialis, the priest of Jupiter himself, is not heard of from 89 to +11 B.C., when he appears again as a part of the Augustan religious +restoration. The explanation is probably that these offices could not +be held together with any secular one which might take the holder +away from Rome; and as every man of good family had business in the +provinces, no qualified person could be found willing to put himself +under the restriction. The temples too seem to have been sadly +neglected; Augustus tells us himself[533] that he had to restore no +less than eighty-two; and from Cicero we actually hear of thefts +of statues and other temple property[534]--sacrileges which may be +attributed to the general demoralisation caused by the Social and +Civil Wars. At the same time there seems to have been a strong +tendency to go after strange gods, with whose worship Roman soldiers +had made acquaintance in the course of their numerous eastern +campaigns. It is a remarkable fact that no less than four times in a +single decade the worship of Isis had to be suppressed,--in 58, 53, +50, and 48 B.C. In the year 50 we are told that the consul Aemilius +Paullus, a conservative of the old type, actually threw off his toga +praetexta and took an axe to begin destroying the temple, because no +workmen could be found to venture on the work.[535] These are indeed +strange times; the beautiful religion of Isis, which assuredly had +some power to purify a man and strengthen his conscience,[536] was to +be driven out of a city where the old local religion had never had any +such power, and where the masses were now left without a particle of +aid or comfort from any religious source. The story seems to ring +true, and gives us a most valuable glimpse into the mental condition +of the Roman workman of the time. + +Of such foreign worships, and of the general neglect of the old cults, +Cicero tells us nothing; we have to learn or to guess at these facts +from evidence supplied by later writers. His interest in religious +practice was confined to ceremonies which had some political +importance. He was himself an augur, and was much pleased with his +election to that ancient college; but, like most other augurs of +the time, he knew nothing of augural "science," and only cared to +speculate philosophically on the question whether it is possible to +foretell the future. He looked upon the right of the magistrate to +"observe the heaven" as a part of an excellent constitution,[537] +and could not forgive Caesar for refusing in 59 B.C. to have his +legislation paralysed by the fanatical declarations of his colleague +that he was going to "look for lightning." He firmly believed in +the value of the _ius divinum_ of the State. In his treatise on the +constitution (_de Legibus_) he devotes a whole book to this religious +side of constitutional law, and gives a sketch of it in quasi-legal +language from which it appears that he entirely accepted the duty of +the State to keep the citizen in right relation to the gods, on whose +good-will his welfare depended. He seems never to have noticed that the +State was neglecting this duty, and that, as we saw just now, temples +and cults were falling into decay, strange forms of religion pressing +in. Such things did not interest him; in public life the State +religion was to him a piece of the constitution, to be maintained +where it was clearly essential; in his own study it was a matter of +philosophical discussion. In his young days he was intimate with the +famous Pontifex Maximus, Mucius Scaevola, who held that there were +three religions,--that of the poets, that of the philosophers, and +that of the statesman, of which the last must be accepted and +acted on, whether it be true or not.[538] Cicero could hardly have +complained if this saying had been attributed to himself. + +This attitude of mind, the combination of perfect freedom of thought +with full recognition of the legal obligations of the State and its +citizens in matters of religion, is not difficult for any one to +understand who is acquainted with the nature of the ius divinum and +the priesthood administering it. That ius divinum was a part of the +ius civile, the law of the Roman city-state; as the ius civile, +exclusive of the ius divinum, regulated the relations of citizen to +citizen, so did the ius divinum regulate the relations of the citizen +to the deities of the community. The priesthoods administering this +law consisted not of sacrificing priests, attached to the cult of a +particular god and temple, but of lay officials in charge of that part +of the law of the State; it was no concern of theirs (so indeed they +might quite well argue) whether the gods really existed or not, +provided the law were maintained. When in 61 B.C. Clodius was caught +in disguise at the women's festival of the Bona Dea, the pontifices +declared the act to be _nefas_,--crime against the ius divinum; but +we may doubt whether any of those pontifices really believed in the +existence of such a deity. The idea of the _mos maiorum_ was still so +strong in the mind of every true Roman, his conservative instincts +were so powerful, that long after all real life had left the divine +inhabitants of his city, so that they survived only as the dead stalks +of plants that had once been green and flourishing, he was quite +capable of being horrified at any open contempt of them. And he was +right, as Augustus afterwards saw clearly; for the masses, who had +no share in the education described in the sixth chapter, who +knew nothing of Greek literature or philosophy, and were full +of superstitious fancies, were already losing confidence in the +authorities set over them, and in their power to secure the good-will +of the gods and their favour in matters of material well-being. +This is the only way in which we can satisfactorily account for the +systematic efforts of Augustus to renovate the old religious rites and +priesthoods, and we can fairly argue back from it to the tendencies of +the generation immediately before him. He knew that the proletariate +of Rome and Italy still believed, as their ancestors had always +believed, that state and individual would alike suffer unless the gods +were properly propitiated; and that in order to keep them quiet and +comfortable the sense of duty to the gods must be kept alive even +among those who had long ceased to believe in them. It was fortunate +indeed for Augustus that he found in the great poet of Mantua one who +was in some sense a prophet as well as a poet, who could urge the +Roman by an imaginative example to return to a living pietas,--not +merely to the old religious forms, but to the intelligent sense of +duty to God and man which had built up his character and his empire. +In Cicero's day there was also a great poet, he too in some sense a +prophet; but Lucretius could only appeal to the Roman to shake off the +slough of his old religion, and such an appeal was at the time both +futile and dangerous. Looking at the matter historically, and not +theologically, we ought to sympathise with the attitude of Cicero +and Scaevola towards the religion of the State. It was based on a +statesmanlike instinct; and had it been possible for that instinct to +express itself practically in a positive policy like that of Augustus, +instead of showing itself in philosophical treatises like the _de +Legibus_, or on occasional moments of danger like that of the Bona Dea +sacrilege, it is quite possible that much mischief might have +been averted. But in that generation no one had the shrewdness or +experience of Augustus, and no one but Julius had the necessary free +hand; and we may be almost sure that Julius, Pontifex Maximus though +he was, was entirely unfitted by nature and experience to undertake +a work that called for such delicate handling, such insight into the +working of the ignorant Italian mind. + +This attitude of inconsistency and compromise must seem to a modern +unsatisfactory and strained, and he turns with relief to the +courageous outspokenness of the great poem of Lucretius on the Nature +of Things, of which the main object was to persuade the Romans to +renounce for good all the mass of superstition, in which he included +the religion of the State, by which their minds were kept in a prison +of darkness, terror, and ignorance. Lucretius took no part whatever in +public life; he could afford to be in earnest; he felt no shadow of +responsibility for the welfare of the State as such. The Epicurean +tenets which he held so passionately had always ranked the individual +before the community, and suggested a life of individual quietism; +Lucretius in his study could contemplate the "rerum natura" without +troubling himself about the "natura hominum" as it existed in the +Italy of his day. "Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas,"--so +wrote of him his great successor and admirer, yet added, with a tinge +of pathos which touches us even now, "Fortunatus et ille deos qui +novit agrestes." Even at the present day an uncompromising unbeliever +may be touched by the simple worship, half pagan though it may seem to +him, of a village in the Apennines; but in the eyes of Lucretius all +worship seemed prompted by fear and based on ignorance of natural law. +Virgil's tender and sympathetic soul went out to the peasant as he +prayed to his gods for plenty or prosperity, as it went out to all +living creatures in trouble or in joy. + +But it is nevertheless true that Lucretius was a great religious poet. +He was a prophet, in deadly earnest, calling men to renounce their +errors both of thought and conduct. He saw around him a world full of +wickedness and folly; a world of vanity, vexation, fear, ambition, +cruelty, and lust. He saw men fearing death and fearing the gods; +overvaluing life, yet weary of it; unable to use it well, because +steeped in ignorance of the wonderful working of Nature.[539] He saw +them, as we have already seen them, the helpless victims of ambition +and avarice, ever, like Sisyphus, rolling the stone uphill and never +reaching the summit.[540] Of cruelty and bloodshed in civil strife +that age had seen enough, and on this too the poet dwells with bitter +emphasis;[541] on the unwholesome luxury and restlessness of the +upper classes,[542] and on their unrestrained indulgence of bodily +appetites. In his magnificent scorn he probably exaggerated the evils +of his day, yet we have seen enough in previous chapters to suggest +that he was not a mere pessimist; there is no trace in his poem of +cynicism, or of a soured temperament. We may be certain that he was +absolutely convinced of the truth of all he wrote. + +So far Lucretius may be called a religious poet, in that with profound +conviction and passionate utterance he denounced the wickedness of +his age, and, like the Hebrew prophets, called on mankind to put away +their false gods and degrading superstitions, and learn the true +secret of guidance in this life. It is only when we come to ask what +that secret was, that we feel that this extraordinary man knew far too +little of ordinary human nature to be either a religious reformer +or an effective prophet: as Sellar has said of him,[543] he had no +sympathy with human activity. His secret, the remedy for all the +world's evil and misery, was only a philosophical creed, which he had +learnt from Epicurus and Democritus. His profound belief in it is one +of the most singular facts in literary history; no man ever put such +poetic passion into a dogma, and no such imperious dogma was ever +built upon a scientific theory of the universe. He seems to have +combined two Italian types of character, which never have been united +before or since,--that of the ecclesiastic, earnest and dogmatic, +seeing human nature from a doctrinal platform, not working and +thinking with it; and secondly the poetic type, of which Dante is the +noblest example, perfectly clear and definite in inward and outward +vision, and illuminating all that it touches with an indescribable +glow of pure poetic imagination. + +Lucretius' secret then is knowledge,[544]--not the dilettanteism of +the day, but real scientific knowledge of a single philosophical +attempt to explain the universe,--the atomic theory of the Epicurean +school. Democritus and Epicurus are the only saviours,--of this +Lucretius never had the shadow of a doubt. As the result of this +knowledge, the whole supernatural and spiritual world of fancy +vanishes, together with all futile hopes or fears of a future life. +The gods, if they exist, will cease to be of any importance to +mankind, as having no interest in him, and doing him neither good nor +harm. Chimaeras, portents, ghosts, death, and all that frightens the +ignorant and paralyses their energies, will vanish in the pure light +of this knowledge; man will have nothing to be afraid of but himself. +Nor indeed need he fear himself when he has mastered "the truth." By +that time, as the scales of fear fall from his eyes, his moral balance +will be recovered; the blind man will see. What will he see? What is +the moral standard that will become clear to him, the sanction of +right living that will grip his conscience? + +It is simply the conviction that as this life is all we have in past, +present, or future, it _must be used well_. After all then, Lucretius +is reduced to ordinary moral suasion, and finds no new power or +sanction that could keep erring human nature in the right path. And +we must sadly allow that no real moral end is enunciated by him; +his ideal seems to be quietism in this life, and annihilation +afterwards.[545] It is a purely self-regarding rule of life. It is not +even a social creed; neither family nor State seems to have any part +in it, much less the unfortunate in this life, the poor, and the +suffering. The poet never mentions slavery, or the crowded populations +of great cities. It might almost be called a creed of fatalism, in +which Natura plays much the same part as Fortuna did in the creed of +many less noble spirits of that age.[546] Nature fights on; we cannot +resist her, and cannot improve on her; it is better to acquiesce and +obey than to try and rule her. + +Thus Lucretius' remedy fails utterly; it is that of an aristocratic +intellect, not of a saviour of mankind.[547] So far as we know, it was +entirely fruitless; like the constitution of Sulla his contemporary, +the doctrine of Lucretius roused no sense of loyalty in Roman or +Italian, because it was constructed with imperfect knowledge of the +Roman and Italian nature. But it was a noble effort of a noble mind; +and, apart from its literary greatness, it has incidentally a lasting +value for all students of religious history, as showing better than +anything else that has survived from that age the need of a real +consecration of morality by the life and example of a Divine man. + +Thus while the Roman statesman found it necessary to maintain the ius +divinum without troubling himself to attempt to put any new life into +the details of the worship it prescribed, content to let much of it +sink into oblivion as no longer essential to the good government of +the State, the greatest poetical genius of the age was proclaiming in +trumpet tones that if a man would make good use of his life he must +abandon absolutely and without a scruple the old religious ideas of +the Graeco-Roman world. But there was another school of thought which +had long been occupied with these difficulties, and had reached +conclusions far better suited than the dogmatism of Lucretius to the +conservative character of the Roman mind, for it found a place for +the deities of the State, and therefore for the ius divinum, in a +philosophical system already widely accepted by educated men. This +school may be described as Stoic, though its theology was often +accepted by men who did not actually call themselves Stoics; for +example, by Cicero himself, who, as an adherent of the New Academy, +the school which repudiated dogmatism and occupied itself with +dialectic and criticism, was perfectly entitled to adopt the tenets +of other schools if he thought them the most convincing. Its most +elaborate exponent in this period was Varro, and behind both Varro and +Cicero there stands the great figure of the Rhodian Posidonius[548], +of whose writings hardly anything has come down to us. It is worth +while to trace briefly the history of this school at Rome, for it is +in itself extremely interesting, as an attempt to reconcile the old +theology--if the term may be used--with philosophical thought, and it +probably had an appreciable influence on the later quasi-religious +Stoicism of the Empire. + +We must go back for a moment to the period succeeding the war with +Hannibal. The awful experience of that war had done much to discredit +the old Roman religious system, which had been found insufficient of +itself to preserve the State. The people, excited and despairing, +had been quieted by what may be called new religious prescriptions, +innumerable examples of which are to be found in Livy's books. +The Sibylline books were constantly consulted, and _lectisternia, +supplicationes, ludi_, in which Greek deities were prominent, were +ordered and carried out. Finally, in 204 B.C., there was brought to +Rome the sacred stone of the Magna Mater Idaea, the great deity of +Pessinus in Phrygia, and a festival was established in her honour, +called by the Greek name Megalesia. All this means, as can be seen +clearly from Livy's language,[549] that the governing classes were +trying to quiet the minds of the people by convincing them that no +effort was being spared to set right their relations with the unseen +powers; they had invoked in vain their own local and native deities, +and had been compelled to seek help elsewhere; they had found their +own narrow system of religion quite inadequate to express their +religious experience of the last twenty years. And indeed that old +system of religion never really recovered from the discredit thus cast +on it. The temper of the people is well shown by the rapidity with +which the orgiastic worship of the Greek Dionysus spread over Italy a +few years later; and the fact that it was allowed to remain, though +under strict supervision, shows that the State religion no longer had +the power to satisfy the cravings of the masses. And the educated +class too was rapidly coming under the influence of Greek thought, +which could hardly act otherwise than as a solvent of the old +religious ideas. Ennius, the great literary figure of this period, +was the first to strike a direct blow at the popular belief in the +efficacy of prayer and sacrifice, by openly declaring that the gods +did not interest themselves in mankind,[550]--the same Epicurean +doctrine preached afterwards by Lucretius. It may indeed be doubted +whether this doctrine became popular, or acceptable even to the +cultured classes; but the fact remains that the same man who did +more than any one before Virgil to glorify the Roman character and +dominion, was the first to impugn the belief that Rome owed her +greatness to her divine inhabitants. + +But in the next generation there arrived in Rome a man whose teaching +had so great an influence on the best type of educated Roman that, as +we have already said, he may almost be regarded as a missionary.[551] +We do not know for certain whether Panaetius wrote or taught about the +nature or existence of the gods; but we do know that he discussed the +question of divination[552] in a work [Greek: Peri pronoias], where he +could hardly have avoided the subject. In any case the Stoic doctrines +which he held, themselves ultimately derived from Plato and the Old +Academy, were found capable in the hands of his great successor +Posidonius of Rhodes of supplying a philosophical basis for the +activity as well as the existence of the gods. These men, it must +be repeated, were not merely professed philosophers, but men of the +world, travellers, writing on a great variety of subjects; they were +profoundly interested, like Polybius, in the Roman character and +government; they became intimate with the finer Roman minds, from +Scipio the younger to Cicero and Varro, and seem to have seen clearly +that the old rigid Stoicism must be widened and humanised, and its +ethical and theological aspects modified, if it were to gain a real +hold on the practical Roman understanding. We have already seen[553] +how their modified Stoic ethics acted for good on the best Romans +of our period. In theology also they left a permanent mark on Roman +thought; Posidonius wrote a work on the gods, which formed the basis +of the speculative part of Varro's _Antiquitates divinae_, and almost +certainly also of the second book of Cicero's de _Natura Deorum_[554]. +Other philosophers of the period, even if not professed Stoics, may +have discussed the same subjects in their lectures and writings, +arriving at conclusions of the same kind. + +It is chiefly from the fragments of Varro's work that we learn +something of the Stoic attempt to harmonise the old religious beliefs +with philosophic theories of the universe[555]. Varro, following his +teacher, held the Stoic doctrine of the _animus mundi_ the Divine +principle permeating all material things which, in combination with +them, constitutes the universe, and is Nature, Reason, God, Destiny, +or whatever name the philosopher might choose to give it. The universe +is divine, the various parts of it are, therefore, also divine, in +virtue of this informing principle. Now in the sixteenth book of his +great work Varro co-ordinated this Stoic theory with the Graeco-Roman +religion of the State as it existed in his time. The chief gods +represented the _partes mundi_ in various ways; even the difference +of sex among the deities was explained by regarding male gods as +emanating from the heaven and female ones from the earth, according +to a familiar ancient idea of the active and passive principle in +generation. The Stoic doctrine of [Greek: daimones] was also utilised +to find an explanation for semi-deities, lares, genii, etc., and thus +another character of the old Italian religious mind was to be saved +from contempt and oblivion. The old Italian tendency to see the +supernatural manifesting itself in many different ways expressed by +adjectival titles, e.g. Mars Silvanus, Jupiter Elicius, Juno Lucina, +etc., also found an explanation in Varro's doctrine; for the divine +element existing in sky, earth, sea, or other parts of the _mundus_, +and manifesting itself in many different forms of activity, might +be thus made obvious to the ordinary human intellect without the +interposition of philosophical terms. + +At the head of the whole system was Jupiter, the greatest of Roman +gods, whose title of Optimus Maximus might well have suggested that no +other deity could occupy this place. Without him it would have been +practically impossible for Varro to carry out his difficult and +perilous task. Every Roman recognised in Jupiter the god who +condescended to dwell on the Capitol in a temple made with hands, and +who, beyond all other gods, watched over the destinies of the Roman +State; every Roman also knew that Jupiter was the great god of the +heaven above him, for in many expressions of his ordinary speech he +used the god's name as a synonym for the open sky.[556] The position +now accorded to the heaven-god in the new Stoic system is so curious +and interesting that we must dwell on it for a moment. + +Varro held, or at any rate taught, that Jupiter was himself that soul +of the world (animus mundi) which fills and moves the whole material +universe.[557] He is the one universal causal agent,[558] from whom +all the forces of nature are derived;[559] or he may be called, in +language which would be intelligible to the ordinary Roman, the +universal Genius.[560] Further, he is himself all the other gods and +goddesses, who may be described as parts, or powers, or virtues, +existing in him.[561] And Varro makes it plain that he wishes to +identify this great god of gods with the Jupiter at Rome, whose temple +was on the Capitol; St. Augustine quotes him as holding that the +Romans had dedicated the Capitol to Jupiter, who by his spirit +breathes life into everything in the universe:[562] or in less +philosophical language, "The Romans wish to recognise Jupiter as king +of gods and men, and this is shown by his sceptre and his seat on the +Capitol." Thus the god who dwelt on the Capitol, and in the temple +which was the centre-point of the Roman Empire, was also the +life-giving ruler and centre of the whole universe. Nay, he goes one +step further, and identifies him with the one God of the monotheistic +peoples of the East, and in particular with the God of the Jews.[563] + +Thus Varro had arrived, with the help of Posidonius and the Stoics, at +a monotheistic view of the Deity, which is at the same time a kind of +pantheism, and yet, strange to say, is able to accommodate itself to +the polytheism of the Graeco-Roman world. But without Jupiter, god of +the heaven both for Greeks and Romans, and now too in the eyes of both +peoples the god who watched over the destiny of the Roman Empire, this +wonderful feat could not have been performed. The identification of +the heaven-god with the animus mundi of the Stoics was not indeed a +new idea; it may be traced up Stoic channels even to Plato. What is +really new and astonishing is that it should have been possible for a +conservative Roman like Varro, in that age of carelessness and doubt, +to bring the heaven-god, so to speak, down to the Roman Capitol, where +his statue was to be seen sitting between Juno and Minerva, and yet to +teach the doctrine that he was the same deity as the Jewish Jehovah, +and that both were identical with the Stoic animus mundi. + +But did Varro also conceive of this Jupiter as a deity "making for +righteousness," or acting as a sanction for morality? It would not +have been impossible or unnatural for a Roman so to think of him, for +of all the Roman deities Jupiter is the one whose name from the most +ancient times had been used in oaths and treaties, and whose _numen_ +was felt to be violated by any public or private breach of faith.[564] +We cannot tell how far Varro himself followed out this line of +thought, for the fragments of his great work are few and far between. +But we know that the Roman Stoics saw in that same universal Power or +Mind which Varro identified with Jupiter the source and strength of +law, and therefore of morality; here it is usually called reason, +_ratio_, the working of the eternal and immutable Mind of the +universe. "True law is right reason," says Cicero in a noble +passage;[565] and goes on to teach that this law transcends all human +codes of law, embracing and sanctioning them all; and that the spirit +inherent in it, which gives it its universal force, is God Himself. In +another passage, written towards the end of his life, and certainly +later than the publication of Varro's work, he goes further and +identifies this God with Jupiter.[566] "This law," he says, "came into +being simultaneously with the Divine Mind" (i.e. the Stoic Reason): +"wherefore that true and paramount law, commanding and forbidding, is +the right reason of almighty Jupiter" (summi Iovis). Once more, in the +first book of his treatise on the gods, he quotes the Stoic Chrysippus +as teaching that the eternal Power, which is as it were a guide in the +duties of life, is Jupiter himself.[567] It is characteristic of the +Roman that he should think, in speculations like these, rather of the +law of his State than of the morality of the individual, as emanating +from that Right Reason to which he might give the name of Jupiter: I +have been unable to find a passage in which Cicero attributes to this +deity the sanction for individual goodness, though there are many that +assert the belief that justice and the whole system of social life +depend on the gods and our belief in them.[568] But the Roman had +never been conscious of individual duty, except in relation to his +State, or to the family, which was a living cell in the organism of +the State. In his eyes law was rather the source of morality than +morality the cause and the reason of law; and as his religion was a +part of the law of his State, and thus had but an indirect connection +with morality, it would not naturally occur to him that even the great +Jupiter himself, thus glorified as the Reason in the universe, could +really help him in the conduct of his life _qua_ individual. It is +only as the source of legalised morality that we can think of Varro's +Jupiter as "making for righteousness." + +Less than twenty-five years after Cicero's death, in the imagination +of the greatest of Roman poets, Jupiter was once more brought before +the Roman world, and now in a form comprehensible by all educated men, +whether or no they had dabbled in philosophy. What are we to say of +the Jupiter of the _Aeneid_? We do not need to read far in the first +book of the poem to find him spoken of in terms which remind us of +Varro: "O qui res hominumque deumque Aeternis regis imperiis," are the +opening words of the address of Venus; and when she has finished, + + Olli subridens hominum sator atque deorum + Vultu, quo caelum tempestatesque serenat, + Oscula libavit natae, dehine talia fatur; + "Parce metu, Cytherea, manent immota tuorum + Fata tibi." + +Jupiter is here, as in Varro's system, the prime cause and ruler of +all things, and he also holds in his hand the destiny of Rome and the +fortunes of the hero who was to lay the first foundation of Rome's +dominion. It is in the knowledge of his will that Aeneas walks, with +hesitating steps, in the earlier books, in the later ones with assured +confidence, towards the goal that is set before him. But the lines +just quoted serve well to show how different is the Jupiter of Virgil +from the universal deity of the Roman Stoic. Beyond doubt Virgil had +felt the power of the Stoic creed; but he was essaying an epic poem, +and he could not possibly dispense with the divine machinery as it +stood in his great Homeric model. His Jupiter is indeed, as has been +lately said,[569] "a great and wise god, free from the tyrannical and +sensuous characteristics of the Homeric Zeus," in other words, he is a +Roman deity, and sometimes acts and speaks like a grave Roman consul +of the olden time. But still he is an anthropomorphic deity, a purely +human conception of a personal god-king; in these lines he smiles on +his daughter Venus and kisses her. This is the reason why Virgil has +throughout his poem placed the Fates, or Destiny, in close relation to +him, without definitely explaining that relation. Fate, as it appears +in the Aeneid, is the Stoic [Greek: eimarmenae] applied to the idea of +Rome and her Empire; that Stoic conception could not take the form of +Jupiter, as in Varro's hands, for the god had to be modelled on the +Homeric pattern, not on the Stoic. It is perhaps not going too far to +say that the god, as a theological conception, never recovered from +this treatment; any chance he ever had of becoming the centre of a +real religious system was destroyed by the Aeneid, the _pietas_ of +whose hero is indeed nominally due to him, but in reality to the +decrees of Fate.[570] + +While philosophers and poets were thus performing intellectual and +imaginative feats with the gods of the State, the strong tendency to +superstition, untutored fear of the supernatural, which had always +been characteristic of the Italian peoples, so far from losing power, +was actually gaining it, and that not only among the lower classes. As +Lucretius mockingly said, even those who think and speak with contempt +of the gods will in moments of trouble slay black sheep and sacrifice +them to the Manes. This feeling of fear or nervousness, which lies at +the root of the meaning of the word _religio_,[571] had been quieted +in the old days by the prescriptions of the pontifices and their jus +divinum, but it was always ready to break out again; as we have seen, +in the long and awful struggle of the Hannibalic war, it was necessary +to go far beyond the ordinary pharmacopoeia within reach of the +priesthoods in order to convince the people that all possible means +were being taken for their salvation. Again, in this last age of the +Republic, there are obvious signs that both ignorant and educated +were affected by the gloom and uncertainty of the times. Increasing +uncertainty in the political world, increasing doubt in the world of +thought, very naturally combined to produce an emotional tendency +which took different forms in men of different temperament. We can +trace this (1) in the importance attached to omens, portents, dreams; +(2) in a certain vague thought of a future life, which takes a +positive shape in the deification of human beings; (3) at the close of +the period, in something approaching to a sense of sin, of neglected +duty, bringing down upon State and individual the anger of the gods. + +1. If we glance over the latter part of the book of prodigies, +compiled by the otherwise unknown writer Julius Obsequens from the +records of the pontifices quoted in Livy's history, we can get a fair +idea of the kind of portent that was troubling the popular mind. +They are much the same as they always had been in Roman +history,--earthquakes, monstrous births, temples struck by lightning, +statues overthrown, wolves entering the city, and so on; they are +extremely abundant in the terrible years of the Social and Civil Wars, +become less frequent after the death of Sulla, and break out again +in full force with the murder of Caesar. They were reported to the +pontifices from the places where they were supposed to have occurred, +and if thought worthy of expiation were entered in the pontifical +books. We may suppose that they were sent in chiefly by the +uneducated. But among men of education we have many examples of this +same nervousness, of which two or three must suffice. Sulla, as we +know from his own Memoirs, which were used directly or indirectly by +Plutarch, had a strong vein of superstition in his nature, and made +no attempt to control it. In dedicating his Memoirs to Lucullus he +advised him "to think no course so safe as that which is enjoined +by the [Greek: daimon] (perhaps his genius) in the night";[572] +and Plutarch tells us several tales of portents on which he acted, +evidently drawn from this same autobiography. We are told of him that +he always carried a small image of Apollo, which he kissed from time +to time, and to which he prayed silently in moments of danger.[573] +Again, Cicero tells us a curious story of himself, Varro, and Cato, +which shows that those three men of philosophical learning were quite +liable to be frightened by a prophecy which to us would not seem to +have much claim to respect.[574] He tells how when the three were +at Dyrrachium, after Caesar's defeat there and the departure of the +armies into Thessaly, news was brought them by the commander of the +Rhodian fleet that a certain rower had foretold that within thirty +days Greece would be weltering in blood; how all three were terribly +frightened, and how a few days later the news of the battle at +Pharsalia reached them. Lastly, we all remember the vision which +appeared to Brutus on the eve of the battle of Philippi, of a huge and +fearsome figure standing by him in silence, which Shakespeare has made +into the ghost of Caesar and used to unify his play. According to +Plutarch, the Epicurean Cassius, as Lucretius would have done, +attempted to convince his friend on rational grounds that the vision +need not alarm him, but apparently in vain.[575] + +2. Lucretius had denied the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, +as the cause of so much of the misery which he believed it to be his +mission to avert. Caesar, in the speech put into his mouth by Sallust, +in the debate on the execution of the conspirators on December 5, 63, +seems to be of the same opinion, and as Cicero alludes to his words in +the speech with which he followed Caesar, we may suppose that Sallust +was reporting him rightly.[576] The poet and the statesman were not +unlike in the way in which they looked at facts; both were of clear +strong vision, without a trace of mysticism. But such men were the +exception rather than the rule; Cicero probably represents better the +average thinking man of his time. Cicero was indeed too full of life, +too deeply interested in the living world around him, to think much +of such questions as the immortality of the soul; and as a professed +follower of the Academic school, he assuredly did not hold any +dogmatic opinion on it. He was at no time really affected by +Pythagoreanism, like his friend Nigidius Figulus, whose works, now +lost, had a great vogue in the later years of Cicero's life, and much +influence on the age that followed. In the first book of his Tusculan +Disputations Cicero discusses the question from the Academic point of +view, coming to no definite conclusion, except that whether we are +immortal or not we must be grateful to death for releasing us from the +bondage of the body. This book was written in the last year of his +life; but ten years earlier, in the beautiful myth, imitated from the +myths of Plato, which he appended to his treatise _de Republica_, he +had emphatically asserted the doctrine. There the spirit of the elder +Scipio appears to his great namesake, Cicero's ideal Roman, and +assures him that the road to heaven (caelum) lies open to those who do +their duty in this life, and especially their duty to the State. "Know +thyself to be a god; as the god of gods rules the universe, so the god +within us rules the body, and as that great god is eternal, so does an +eternal soul govern this frail body."[577] + +The _Somnium Scipionis_ was an inspiration, written under the +influence of Plato at one of those emotional moments of Cicero's +life which make it possible to say of him that there was a religious +element in his mind.[578] Some years later the poignancy of his grief +at the death of his daughter Tullia had the effect of putting him +again in a strong emotional mood. For many weeks he lived alone at +Astura, on the edge of the Pomptine marshes, out of reach of all +friends, forbidding even his young wife and her mother to come near +him; brooding, as it would seem, on the survival of the godlike +element in his daughter. These sad meditations took a practical form +which at first astonishes us, but is not hard to understand when we +have to come to know Cicero well, and to follow the tendencies of +thought in these years. He might erect a tomb to her memory,--but +that would not satisfy him; it would not express his feeling that the +immortal godlike spark within her survived. He earnestly entreats +Atticus to find and buy him a piece of ground where he can build a +_fanum_, i.e. a shrine, to her spirit. "I wish to have a shrine built, +and that wish cannot be rooted out of my heart. I am anxious to avoid +any likeness to a tomb ... in order to attain as nearly as possible to +an apotheosis."[579] A little further on he calls these foolish ideas; +but this is doubtless only because he is writing to Atticus, a man +of the world, not given to emotion or mysticism. Cicero is really +speaking the language of the Italian mind, for the moment free from +philosophical speculation; he believes that his beloved dead lived +on, though he could not have proved it in argument. So firmly does +he believe it that he wishes others to know that he believes it, and +insists that the shrine shall be erected in a frequented place![580] + +Though the great Dictator did not believe in another world, he +consented at the end of his life to become Jupiter Julius, and after +his death was duly canonised as Divus, and had a temple erected to +him. But the many-sided question of the deification of the Caesars +cannot be discussed here; it is only mentioned as showing in another +way the trend of thought in this dark age of Roman history. Whatever +some philosophers may have thought, there cannot be a doubt that the +ordinary Roman believed in the godhead of Julius.[581] + +3. We saw in an earlier chapter with what gay and heedless frivolity +young men like Caelius were amusing themselves even on the very eve of +civil war. In strange contrast with this is the gloom that overspread +all classes during the war itself, and more especially after the +assassination of the Dictator. Caesar seemed irresistible and godlike, +and men were probably beginning to hope for some new and more stable +order of things, when he was suddenly struck down, and the world +plunged again into confusion and doubt; and it was not till after +the final victory of Octavian at Actium, and the destruction of the +elements of disunion with the deaths of Antony and Cleopatra, that +men really began to hope for better times. The literature of those +melancholy years shows distinct signs of the general depression, which +was perhaps something more than weariness and material discomfort; +there was almost what we may call a dim sense of sin, or at least of +moral evil, such a feeling, though far less real and intense, as that +which their prophets aroused from time to time in the Jewish people, +and one not unknown in the history of Hellas. + +The most touching expression of this feeling is to be found in the +preface which Livy prefixed to his history--a wonderful example of the +truth that when a great prose writer is greatly moved, his language +reflects his emotion in its beauty and earnestness. Every student +knows the sentence in which he describes the gradual decay of all that +was good in the Roman character: "donec ad haec tempora, quibus nec +vitia nostra nec remedia pati possumus, perventum est"; but it is +not every student who can recognise in it a real sigh of despair, an +unmistakable token of the sadness of the age.[582] In the introductory +chapters which serve the purpose of prefaces to the _Jugurtha_ and +_Catiline_ of Sallust, we find something of the same sad tone, but +it does not ring true like Livy's exordium; Sallust was a man of +altogether coarser fibre, and seems to be rather assuming than +expressing the genuine feeling of a saddened onlooker. In one of his +earliest poems, written perhaps after the Perusian war of 41 B.C.[583] +even the lively Horace was moved to voice the prevailing depression, +fancifully urging that the Italian people should migrate, like the +Phocaeans of old, to the far west, where, as Sertorius had been told +in Spain, lay the islands of the blest, where the earth, as in the +golden age, yields all her produce untilled: + + Iuppiter ilia piae secrevit litora genti + Ut inquinavit aere tempus aureum; + Aere, dehinc ferro duravit saecula, quorum + Piis secunda vate me datur fuga. + +It may be, as has recently been suggested, that the famous fourth +Eclogue of Virgil, "the Messianic Eclogue," was in some sense meant as +an answer to this poem of Horace. "There is no need," he seems to say +in that poem, written in the year 39, "to seek the better age in a +fabled island of the west. It is here and now with us. The period upon +which Italy is now entering more than fulfils in real life the dream +of a Golden Age. A marvellous child is even now coming into the world +who will see and inaugurate an era of peace and prosperity: darkness +and despair will after a while pass entirely away, and a regenerate +Italy,--regenerate in religion and morals as in fertility and +wealth,--will lead the world in a new era of happiness and good +government."[584] + +But the Golden Age, so fondly hoped for, so vaguely and poetically +conceived, was not to come in the sense in which Virgil, or any other +serious thinker of the day, could dream of it. I may conclude this +chapter with a few sentences which express this most truly and +eloquently. "When there is a fervent aspiration after better things, +springing from a strong feeling of human brotherhood, and a firm +belief in the goodness and righteousness of God, such aspiration +carries with it an invincible confidence that some how, some where, +some when, it must receive its complete fulfilment, for it is prompted +by the Spirit which fills and orders the Universe throughout its whole +development. But if the human organ of inspiration goes on to fix the +how, the where, and the when, and attributes to some nearer object the +glory of the final blessedness, then it inevitably falls into such +mistakes as Virgil's, and finds its golden age in the rule of the +Caesars (which was indeed an essential feature of Christianity), +or perhaps, as in later days, in the establishment of socialism or +imperialism. Well for the seer if he remembers that the kingdom of God +is within us, and that the true golden age must have its foundation in +penitence for misdoing, and be built up in righteousness and loving +kindness."[585] + + + + +EPILOGUE + +These sketches of social life at the close of the Republican period +have been written without any intention of proving a point, or any +pre-conceived idea of the extent of demoralisation, social, moral, or +political, which the Roman people had then reached. But a perusal of +Mr. Balfour's suggestive lecture on "Decadence" has put me upon making +a very succinct diagnosis of the condition of the patient whose life +and habits I have been describing. The Romans, and the Italians, with +whom they were now socially and politically amalgamated, were not in +the last two centuries B.C. an old or worn-out people. It is at any +rate certain that for a century after the war with Hannibal Rome and +her allies, under the guidance of the Roman senate, achieved an amount +of work in the way of war and organisation such as has hardly been +performed by any people before or since; and even in the period dealt +with in this book, in spite of much cause for misgiving at home, the +work done by Roman and Italian armies both in East and West shows +beyond doubt that under healthy discipline the native vigour of the +population could assert itself. We must not forget, however severely +we may condemn the way in which the work was done, that it is to +these armies, in all human probability, that we owe not only the +preservation of Graeco-Italian culture and civilisation, but the +opportunity for further progress. The establishment of definite +frontiers by Pompeius and Caesar, and afterwards by Augustus and +Tiberius, brought peace to the region of the Mediterranean, and with +it made possible the development of Roman law and the growth of a new +and life-giving religion. + +But peoples, like individuals, if offered opportunities of doing +themselves physical or moral damage, are only too ready to accept +them. Time after time in these chapters we have had to look back to +the age following the war with Hannibal in order to see what those +opportunities were; and in each case we have found the acceptance +rapid and eager. We have seen wealth coming in suddenly, and misused; +slave-labour available in an abnormal degree, and utilised with +results in the main unfortunate; the population of the city increasing +far too quickly, yet the difficulties arising from this increase +either ignored or misapprehended. We have noticed the decay of +wholesome family life, of the useful influence of the Roman matron, of +the old forms of the State religion; the misconception of the true end +of education, the result partly of Greek culture, partly of political +life; and to these may perhaps be added an increasing liability to +diseases, and especially to malaria, arising from economic blunders +in Italy and insanitary conditions of life in the city. All these +opportunities of damage to the fibre of the people had been freely +accepted, and with the result that in the age of Cicero we cannot +mistake the signs and symptoms of degeneracy. + +But it would be a mistake to jump to the conclusion that this +degeneracy had as yet gone too far to be arrested. It was assuredly +not that degeneracy of senility which Mr. Balfour is inclined to +postulate as an explanation of decadence. So far as I can judge, the +Romans were at that stage when, in spite of unhealthy conditions of +life and obstinate persistence in dangerous habits, it was not too +late to reform and recover. To me the main interest of the history of +the early Empire lies in seeking the answer to the question how far +that recovery was made. If these chapters should have helped any +student to prepare the ground for the solution of this problem their +object will have been fully achieved. + +[Illustration: _Stanfords Geog. Estab. London_] + + + + + +INDEX + + + Accius + _Aedicula_ + Aediles, the + Aemilia, Via. _See_ Via Aemilia + Aemilius, Pons. See Pons Aemilius + Aeneas + Aerarium, the + Aesopus, the actor + Afranius + Africa, province of + Agrippa + Alexandria + Alexis (Atticus's slave) + Amafinius + _Ambitu, lex de_ + Anio, the river + Anna Perenna, festival of + _Annona_ + Antioch + Antiochus (the physician) + Antium, Cicero's villa at + Antony + _Apodyterium_ + Apollinares, Ludi. _See_ Ludi Apollinares + Apollonia + Appia, Via. _See_ Via Appia + Appius Claudius Caecus + Aqua Appia + Aqua Tepula + Aqueducts + Ara maxima + Ara Pacis + _Argentarii_ + Argiletum, the + Arpinum, Cicero's villa at + _Ars amatoria_ (Ovid's) + Arval brothers, the + Arx, the + Asia, province of + Astura, Cicero's villa at + _Atellanae, fabulae_. See _Fabulae Atellanae_ + _Atrium_ + _sutorium_, + Vestae + Atticus + house of, + wealth of, + as money-lender, + the sister of, + the slave of, + Cicero's letters to, _passim_, + Augury + Augustus + alleged proposal of, to remove the capital, + attitude of towards _plebs urbana_, + water-supply under, + the grandfather of, + as a social reformer, + marriage laws of, + furthers public comfort, + restoration of temples by, + attempts at religious revival, + Aventine hill + + Baiae + Balbus, Cornelius, the younger + Bankruptcy laws + Basilicae, the + Baths, public + Bath-rooms + Bauli + Bithynia, province of + _Blanditia_ + Bona Dea, festival of + Boscoreale + _Brutus_ (Cicero's) + Brutus, Decimus + _Bulla_ + Byzantium + + Caecilius + Caelian hill + Caelius Autipater + Caelius (M.) Rufus + Caesar, Julius + alleged proposal of, to remove the capital + extends one of the Basilicae, + reduces + corn gratuities; + regulations of, for the government of the city; + debts of; + character of; + as historian; + joined by Caelius; + restores credit in Italy; + and Cleopatra; + clemency of; + sale of prisoners by; + dismisses surrendered armies; + foundation at Corinth by; + entertained by Cicero; + habits of; + as aedile; + summons Publilius to Rome; + as Pontifex Maximus; + speech of, in Sallust; + consents to be deified; + and _passim_ + _Calceus_ + _Caldarium_ + Calvus + Camillus + Campagua, the + Campania + Campus Martius + Caninius + Capena, Porta. _See_ Porta Capena + Capital at Rome + Capitol, the + Capitoline hill + Capua + _Carceres_, the + Carinae, the + Carmentalis, Porta. _See_ Porta Carmentalis + _Castella_ + Castor, temple of + Catiline + Cato major + Cato minor + Catullus + Catulus the elder + _Cena_ + Censor, the + _Censoria locatio_ + Ceres + Ceriales, Ludi. _See_ Ludi Ceriales + Cethegus + Chariot-racing + Chrysippus + Cicero, birthplace of; + house of; + borrows money; + as a man of business; + and the publicani; + relation of, to the governing aristocracy; + letters of; + as a philosopher; + and Clodia; + views on education; + influence of philosophers upon; + and the slave question; + and the use of slaves for seditious purposes; + villas of; + undertakes the Ludi Romani; + religious views of; + and _passim_ + Cicero, Marcus + Cicero, Quintus + Cilician pirates + Circus Flaminius + Circus Maximus + Cleopatra + Clients + Clivus Capitolinus + Clivus sacer + Cloaca maxima + Clodia + Clodius + Cluvius + _Coemptio_ + _Coenaculum_ + Coinage + _Collegia_ + Colline gate, Sulla's victory at the, + Colosseum, the + Columella + Comedy + _Comissatio_ + Comitium, the + _Commercii, ius_ + _Compluvium_ + Concordia, temple of + _Conducticii_ + _Confarreatio_ + _Coniugalia praecepta_ (Plutarch's) + _Connubii, ius_ + Constantine, arch of + Consul, the + Consus, altar of + _Contubernium_ + _Convivium_ + _Copa_ ("Virgil's") + Corfinium + Cornelia + Cornelius + Crassus + Cumae, Cicero's villa at + Curia, the + Curio + + Debtors + _Declamatio_ + _Deductio_ + Democritus + _Deorum, De Natura_ (Cicero's) + Diana, temple of + _Die natali, De_ (Censorinus's) + _Diffarreatio_ + Diomedes, villa of + Dionysius of Halicarnassus + Dionysus, worship of + Di Penates. _See_ Penates + Diphilus, the actor + Divorce + _Dolia_ + _Domus_ + _Dos_ + Drama, the + Dyrrhachium, importation of corn + into; battle of + + Egypt + Emetics, use of + Ennius + Epicureanism + Epicurus + _Epulum Jovis_ + Equester, Ordo. _See_ Ordo equester + Equirria + Equites. _See_ Ordo equester + _Ergastula_ + Esquiline hill + Etruscans, the + Evander + _Exedra_ + + Fabius, arch of + _Fabri ferrarii_ + _Fabulae Atellanae_; palliatae; + _togatae_ + _Familiae urbanae_ + Fate + _Fercula_ + _Feriae_ + _Festa_ + _Figuli_ + Figulus, Nigidius + Flaccus, Verrius + Flamen Dialis; + Quirinalis + Flaminius + _Flammeum_ + Florales, Ludi. _See_ Ludi Florales + _Foeneratores_ + _Foenus_ + Formiae, Cicero's villa at + Forum Boarium + Forum Romanum + Friedlaender + Frontinus + _Fullones_ + Funeral games + Furrina, the grove of + + Gabinius + Gellius, Aulus + Genseric + Gilds. _See_ Collegia + Gladiators + Gracchus, Gaius + Gracchus, Tiberius + _Grammaticus_ + _Grassatores_ + Greeks + + Hannibal + Hercules + Hirtius + _Honorum, ius_ + Horace + Hortensius + Horti Caesaris + + _Ientaculum_ + _Impluvium_ + _Institutio Oratoris_ (Quintilian's) + _Insulae_ + _Inventione, De_ (Cicero's) + Isis, worship of + _Iura_ + _Ius civile_ + _Ius divinum_ + _Ius gentium_ + + Janiculum, the + Janus, "temple" of + Julius Obsequens + Juno, temple of + Jupiter + Jupiter Farreus; Julius; + Optimus Maximus, temple of; + Stator, temple of + Juturna, spring of + + "King," game of + + Laberius + Lar + Lares, shrine of + _Latifundium_ + Latina, Via. _See_ Via Latina + Latins, the + Latium + Law-courts, the + _Lectisternia_ + _Lectus_; _consularis_ + _genialis_ + _Legibus, De_ (Cicero's) + Lentulus + Lepidus + Liberalia, the + _Libertinus_ + Libertus + Liternum, Scipio's villa at + Livius Andronicus + Livy + Lucretius + Lucretius Vespillo, Q. + Lueullus + Ludi, Apollinares; Ceriales; + Florales; + Magni, _see_ Romani; Megalenses; + Novemdiales; Plebeii; + Romani; + Victoriae + Ludus Trojae + Lupercal, the + Lupercalia, the + + _Magister_ + Magna Mater + _Mancipes_ + _Manes_ + _Mangones_ + _Manus_ + Marcius Rex, Q. + Marius + Mars; temple of + Martial + _Matrimonium, iustum_ + Megaleuses, Ludi. See Ludi Megalenses + _Mensa_ + _Mensae_; _rationes_ + _Meridiatio_ + _Metae_, the + Metellus Celer + Metellus Macedonicus + Milo + Mimes + Minerva, temple of + _Missio in bona_ + _Missus_ + Molo + Mommsen + Money-lenders + _Moretum_ ("Virgil's") + _Mos majorum_ + _Muliones_ + _Munera_ + + _Nefas_ + _Negotiatores_ + _Negotium_ + Nepos, Cornelius + Neptunalia, the + Nicomedes, king of Bithynia + Novemdiales, Ludi. _See_ Ludi Novemdiales + _Novas homo_ + Numa + _Nummularii_ + + _Obaerati_ + _Oecus_ + _Officiis, De_ (Cicero's) + _Operarii_ + _Opifices_ + Oppia, lex + Oppius Mons + _Oratore, De_ (Cicero's) + Ordo equester; + senatorius + Oseans, the + Ostia + Ovid + + Pacuvius + Palatine hill + _Palliatae, fabulae_. See _Fabulae + palliatae_ + Panaetius + _Pantomimus_ + _Participes_ + _Patronus_ + Paullus, L. Aemilius + _Paupereuli_ + _Peculium_ + Penates, the; + temple of the + Pergamum + _Peristylium_ + _Permutatio_ + _Pero_ + _Perscriptio_ + _Persona_ + Phaedrus the Epicurean + Philippi, battle of + Philippus (tribune) + Philo the Academician + Philodemus + _Pietas_ + Piso, Calpurnius + _Pistores_ + Plaetoria, lex + Plautus + Plebeii, Ludi. _See_ Ludi Plebeii + Pliny, the elder; the younger + Plutarch + Pollio, Asinius + Polybius + Pomerium + Pompeii + Pompeius + house of + theatre of + Pomponia + Pons Aemilius + Ponte Rotto + Pontifex Maximus + Porta Capena + Carmentalis + Esquilina + Portunus + Posidonius + Praecia + _Praedes_ + _Praediola_ + Praetor, the + _Prandium_ + Priesthoods + _Promagister_ + _Pronuba_ + Provinces, the + _Provocations_, _ius_ + Ptolemy Auletes + _Publicani_ + _Publicum_ + Publilius Syrus + Punic wars + Puteoli, Cicero's villa at + _Puticulus_ + Pythagoreanism + + _Quaestiones Conviviales (Plutarch's)_ + Quaestorship, the + Quintilian + Quirinal (hill) + Quirinus + + Rabirius Postumus + _Redemptor_ + Regia, the + _Religio_ + Religion + _Repetundis, quaestio de_ + _Republica, De_ (Cicero's) + _Res_, _mancipi_ + _Rex, the_ + _Rex sacrorum_ + _Rhetorica ad Herennium_ + Romulus + Roscius, the actor + Rostra, the + Rutilius + + Sabines, the + _Saccarii_ + _Sacra_, + _privata_; + _publica_; + via, _see_ Via Sacra + St. Peter, church of + Salaminians, the + Sallust + Samnium + San Gregorio, via di + Sarpedon + Sassia + Saturnalia, the + _Saturninus_ + Saturnus, temple of + Scaevola, Mucius + Scaurus + Scipio Aemilianus, + Asiaticus, + Nasica, + Sempionia + Senate, the + Senatorius, ordo. _See_ Ordo senatorius + Senec, + "Servian wall" + Servilius + Sibylline books, the + Slaves + _Societates publicanorum_ + _Socii_ + _Sodalicia, collegia_. See _Collegia_ + _Soleae_ + _Somnium Scipionis_ (Cicero's) + Spanish silver mines + Spartacus + _Spina_ + _Sponsalia_ + _Sportula_ + Stoics, the + _Stola matronalis_ + Strabo + Subura, the + _Suffragii, ius_ + Sulla + Sulla, P. + Sulpicius (S.), Rufus + Sun-dials + _Supplicationes_ + _Synthesis_ + + _Tabellarii + Tabernae + Tabernae argentariae + Tablinum + Tabulae + Tabulae novae_ + Tabularia, the + _Tepidarium_ + Terence + Terentia + Theatre, the + Theatre, building of a + Thurii + Tiber + Tiber island + _Tibicines_ + Tibur + Time, divisions of, in the day + Tiro (Cicero's slave) + _Tirocinium fori_ + Titus, arch of + _Toga_; _libera_; _praetexta_; _virilis_ + _Togatae, fabulae_. See _Fabulae togatae_ + Tragedy + _Tributum_ + _Triclinia_ + Triumph, a + Trofei di Mario + Tullia (Cicero's daughter) + Tullianum, the + _Tunica_ + Turia, the story of + Tusculum, Cicero's villa at + _Tutela_ + _Tutor_ + Twelve Tables, the + + _Usus_ + + Valerius Maximus + Varro + Varro, Terentius (consul) + Veii + Velabrum, the + Velia, the + _Venationes_ + Venus Victrix, temple of + Verres + Vesta; temple of + Vestal Virgins + Veterans, Roman + Via Aurelia; Appia; Collatina; Latina; Sacra + Victoriae, Ludi. See Ludi Victoriae + Vicus Tuscus + _Vilicus_ + _Villa pseudurbana_ + Vinalia, the + _Vindicta_ + Virgil + Voconia, lex + + Water-clocks, introduction of + + + + +THE END + + + + +APPENDIX + + +Page 1, l. 12. _totam aestimare Romam_: to appreciate Rome in its +entirety. + +Page 3, l. 12. _Hinc ad Tarpeiam_, etc.: he leads him next to the +Tarpeian Rock and to the Capitol, now of gold, once thick with wild +bushes. + +Page 4, l. 24. _Hinc septem_, etc.: from here you may see the seven +hills of the sovereign city, and appreciate Rome as a whole, the Alban +and the Tusculan hills, and all the cool suburban retreats. + +Page 10, l. 1. _rerum_, etc. Rome became a supreme thing of beauty. + +Page 10, l. 13. _nativa praesidia_: natural defences. + +Page 10, l. 21. _regionum_, etc. A site in the middle of Italy, +singularly fitted by nature for the development of the city. + +Page 17, l. 2. _nec ferrea_, etc.: nor has he seen the hardships of +the law, the mad forum, or the archives of the people. + +Page 22, l. 2. _Ille, ille_, etc.: he it was, Jupiter himself, who +withstood the attack, he who willed it that the Capitol, that these +temples, that the whole city and you all should be safe. + +Page 29, footnote 1. _in montibus_, etc.: built between mountains and +valleys, raised and almost suspended on high, through the stones of +its buildings, with its back streets. + +Page 39, l. 6. _ubi semel_, etc.: he who has once strayed from the +right path will come to calamity. + +Page 52, l. 11. _lanificium_: the working of wool. + +Page 55, l. 26. _graffiti_: ancient scribblings, scratched, painted, +or otherwise marked on a wall, column, tablet, or other surface. + +Page 61, l. 4. _quaestio de repetundis_: court for extortion. + +Page 64, l. 15. _familiarem_, etc.: intimate with L. Lucullus, +wealthy, of intractable character. + +Page 73, l. 14. _qui de censoribus_, etc.: whosoever shall have +secured a contract from the censors shall not be accepted as associate +or shareholder. + +Page 73, footnote 2. _Asiatici_, etc.: of the public revenue of Asia, +he had a very small share. + +Page 91, l. 3. _fortissimus_, etc.: a most powerful and important +farmer of the public revenue. + +Page 93, l. 20. _insanum forum_: the forum in its maddening bustle. + +Page 116, l. 12. _doctissimus_, etc.: the most learned of that time. + +Page 121, l. 11. _monumentum_, etc.: a monument more enduring than +bronze. + +Page 123, l. 20. _vere humanus:_ truly refined. + +Page 127, l. 23. _omnia_, etc.: he transforms himself into all +portentous shapes. + +Page 130, l. 20. _menager ses transitions:_ to pass gradually over to +the other side. + +Page 132, l. 18. _de vi:_ of criminal violence. + +Page 133, l. 9. _Uni se_, etc.: they are addicted to one and the same +practice, that they may cautiously cheat and craftily contend, outdo +each other in blandishments, feign honesty, set snares as if they were +all enemies to each other. + +Page 133, l. 28. _rari nantes_, etc.: few and scattered swimmers in +the vast abyss. + +Page 142 (bottom). _Claudite_, etc.: close the doors, maidens, enough +have we sung. And you, noble couple, live happily and apply your +vigorous youth to the assiduous task of wedlock. + +Page 149, footnote 2. _Si quid_, etc.: if a woman act reprehensibly or +disgracefully, he punishes her; if she has drunk wine, if she has done +something wrong with a stranger, he condemns her. If you surprise your +wife in the act of adultery, you may with impunity kill her without +any form of judgment; but if she caught you in adultery, she would not +dare touch you, for she has no right. + +Page 150, l. 11. _liberorum_, etc.: in order to have children. + +Page 155, l. 22. _Odi_, etc.: I hate and I love. You ask perhaps how +that can be. I do not know, I feel it, and am distressed. + +Page 155 (bottom). _Elle apportait_, etc.: she revealed in her private +behavior, in her affections, the same vehemence and the same passion +which her brother showed in public life. Ready for all excesses, and +not blushing to confess them, loving and hating with fury, incapable +of controlling herself, and opposed to all constraint, she did not +belie the great and haughty family from which she was sprung. + +Page 178,1. 3. _rusticorum_, etc.: + + The farmer-soldier's manly brood + Was trained to delve the Sabine sod, + And at an austere mother's nod + To hew and fetch the fagot wood. + +Page 178, l. 20. _Maxima_, etc.: the greatest concern must be shown +for children. + +Page 185, l. 8. _Avarus_, etc.: + + The covetous is the cause of his own misery. + Bravery is increased by daring and fear by hesitation. + You can more easily discover fortune than cling to it. + The wrath of the just is to be dreaded. + A man dies every time that he is bereft of his kin. + Man is loaned, not given to life. + The best strife is rivalry in benignity. + Nothing is pleasing unless renewed by variety. + Bad is the plan which cannot be altered. + Less often would you err if you knew how much you don't know. + He who shows clemency always comes out victorious. + He who respects his oath succeeds in everything. + Where old age is at fault youth is badly trained. + +Page 187, l. 7. _Grais_, etc.: the muse gave genius to the Greeks and +the pride of language, covetous of nothing but of praise. But the +Roman youths by long reckonings learn to split the coin into a hundred +parts. Let young Albinus say: "If you take one away from five pence, +what results?" "A groat." Good, you'll thrive. + +Page 189, l. 1. In _grammaticis_, etc.: in the study of literature, +the perusal of the poets, the knowledge of history, the interpretation +of words, the peculiar tone of pronunciation. + +Page 191, l. 9. _Orator est_, etc.: an orator, my son, is an upright +man skilled in speaking. + +Page 191, l. 11. _Rem tene_, etc.: master the subject; the words will +follow. + +Page 196, l. 9. _vir bonus_, etc.: see page 191, l. 9. + +Page 196, l. 13. _Non enim_, etc.: eloquence and oratorical aptness +obtain good results if they be swayed by a right understanding and by +the discretion and control of the mind. + +Page 210, footnote 1. _Mancipiis_, etc.: avoid being like the +Cappadocian monarch, rich in slaves and penniless in purse. + +Page 211, footnote 1. _pone aedem_, etc.: behind the temple of Castor +are those to whom you'd be sorry to lend money. + +Page 215, l. 18. _An te ibi_, etc.: would you stay there among those +harlots, prostitutes of bakers, leavings of the breadmakers, smeared +with rank cosmetics, nasty devotees of slaves? + +Page 216, footnote 2. _agrum_, etc.: in cultivating the fields or in +hunting, servile occupations, etc. + +Page 233, l. 5. _Nec turpe_, etc.: what a master commands cannot be +disgraceful. + +Page 233, footnote 3. _Coli rura_, etc.: it is a bad practice to fill +the fields with men from the workhouse, or to have anything done by +men who are forsaken by hope. + +Page 235, footnote 2. _Regum_, etc.: we have taken the tyrant's +temper. + +Page 239, l. 10. _ante focos_, etc.: it was customary once to take +places in the long benches before the fireplace, and to trust that the +gods were present at our table. + +Page 246, l. 5. _nunc vero_, etc.: but now from morning till evening, +on holidays and working days, the whole people, senators and +commoners, busy themselves in the forum and retire nowhere, etc. (See +page 133, l. 9, and translation of that passage.) + +Page 246, footnote 2. _Urbem_, etc.: remain in the city, Rufus; stay +there and live in that light. All foreign travel is humble and lowly +for those that can work for the greatness of Rome. + +Page 247, footnote 1. _Frequens_, etc.: constant change of abode is a +sign of unstable mind. + +Page 248, l. 12. _contentio_, etc.: not a straining of the mind, but a +relaxation. + +Page 259, l. 12. _locus_, etc.: a pleasant site, on the sea itself, +and can be seen from Antium and Circeii. + +Page 265, footnote 3. _Ut illum_, etc.: may the gods confound him who +first invented the hours, and who first placed a sundial in this city. +Pity on me! They have cut up my day in compartments. Once when I was +a boy my stomach was my clock, and it was much more fitting and +reliable; it never failed to warn me except when there was nothing; +now, even when there is something, there is no eating unless it so +please the sun. For the whole city is full of sun-dials, and most of +the people crawl on in need of food and drink. + +Page 269, footnote 1. _Romae_, etc.: in Rome it was for a long time a +joy and a pride to open up the house at early morning and attend to +the legal needs of the clients. + +Page 275, l. 20. _Nesciit vivere_: he did not know how to live. + +Page 277, l. 10. _ad noctem_: late into the night. + +Page 280, l. 17. _Saepe tribus_, etc.: often you would see three +couches with four guests apiece. + +Page 283, l. 21. [Greek: Emetikhaeu], etc.: he was under the +emetic cure, and consequently ate and drank freely and with much +satisfaction; and everything certainly was good and well served; nay +more, I may say that + + "Though the cook was good, + 'Twas Attic salt that flavored best the food." + +Page 283, footnote 1. _qua lege_, etc.: which law did not determine +the expense, but the kind of victuals and the manner of cooking them. + +Page 285, l. 11. _Agricolo_, etc.: the farmer is the first who after +a long day of toil in the fields adapted rustic songs to the laws of +metre; the first in satisfied leisure to modulate a song on his reed, +which he would say before the gods decked with flowers. It was the +farmer, O Bacchus, who with his face colored with reddish minium, +taught his untrained feet the first movements of the dance. + +Page 287, l. 13. _Quippe etiam_, etc.: for even on holy days, divine +and human laws allow us to perform certain works. No religion has +forbidden to clear the channels, to raise a fence before the corn, to +lay snares for birds, to fire the thorns, and plunge in the wholesome +river a flock of bleating sheep. + +Page 303, l. 2. _lex de ambitu_: law concerning the courting of +popular favor in canvassing. + +Page 307, l. 4. _Eandem_, etc.: a time will come when you will bewail +that valor of yours. + +Page 309, l. 7. _Spectatum_, etc.: they come to see, but they come +also to be seen. + +Page 313, l. 27. _summuts artifex_: consummate artist. + +Page 314, l. 3. _gravis_: serious. + +Page 314, l. 4. _gravitas_: seriousness. + +Page 315, l. 14. _Fescennina_, etc.: the rude Fescennine farce grew +from rites like these, where rustic taunts were hurled in alternate +verse; and the pleasing license, tolerated from year to year, +gambolled, etc. + +Page 317, l. 18. _Nihil mihi_, etc.: know well that I lacked nothing +except company with whom to laugh in a friendly way and intelligently +over these things. + +Page 324, l. 28. _mos maiorum_: the customs of our ancestors. + +Page 327, l. 12. _Felix_, etc.: blessed is he who succeeded in knowing +the causes of events. + +Page 327, l. 16. _Fortunatus_, etc.: fortunate he also who knows the +rustic gods. + +Page 333, l. 6. _lectisternia_: a feast of the gods during which their +images on pillars were placed in the streets. + +Page 333, l. 6. _supplicationes_: religious solemnities for +supplication. + +Page 333, l. 6. _ludi_: games. + +Page 339, l. 23. _numen_: godhead, deity. + +Page 340, footnote 3. _idem etiam_, etc.: he says also that Jupiter is +the power of this law, eternal and immutable, which is the guide, so +to speak, of our life and the principle of our duties; a law which he +calls a fatal necessity, an eternal truth of future things. + +Page 341, l. 15. _qua_: as. + +Page 341, l. 26. _O qui res_, etc.: thou who rulest with eternal sway +the doings of men and gods. + +Page 342, l. 1. _Olli_, etc.: the sire of men and gods, smiling to +her with that aspect wherewith he clears the tempestuous sky, gently +kissed his daughter's lips; then thus replies: Cytherea, cease from +fear; immovable to thee remain the fates of thy people. + +Page 351, l. 13. _Iuppiter_, etc.: Jove reserved these shores for the +just, when he alloyed the golden age with brass; with brass, then with +iron he hardened the ages, from which there shall be a happy escape +according to my predictions. + + + + +FOOTNOTES: + + +[Footnote 1: Martial iv. 64. 12.] + +[Footnote 2: _Aen_. viii. 90. foll. The Capitoline hill, which Virgil +means by "arx" a conspicuous object from the river just below the +Aventine, and would have been much more conspicuous in the poet's +time. There is a view of it from this point in Burn's _Rome and the +Campagna_, p. 184.] + +[Footnote 3: Plutarch, _Cato minor_ 39. Cato was expected to land +at the commercial docks _below_ the Aventine (see below), where the +senate and magistrates were awaiting him, but with his usual rudeness +rowed past them to the navalia.] + +[Footnote 4: _Aen._ viii. 363. Possibly Virgil meant to put this +dwelling on the site of the future Regia, just below the Palatine and +between it and the Forum. See Servius _ad loc._] + +[Footnote 5: The modern visitor would cross by the Ponte Rotto, which +is in the same position as the ancient bridge, just below the Tiber +island.] + +[Footnote 6: Livy v. 54.] + +[Footnote 7: The Fratres Arvales.] + +[Footnote 8: For navigation of the river above Rome see Strabo p. +235.] + +[Footnote 9: Horace _Od_. i. 2. After a bad flood in A.D. 15 proposals +were made for diverting a part of the water coming down the Tiber into +the Arnus, but this met with fatal opposition from the superstition +of the country people (Tacitus, _Ann_. i. 79). Nissen, _Italische +Landeskunde_, i. p. 324, has collected the records of these floods.] + +[Footnote 10: See Nissen, i. p. 407. But it seems likely that the +Tiber valley was less malarious then than now (see Nissen's chapter on +malaria in Italy, p. 410 foll.). In an interesting paper on _Malaria +and History_, by Mr. W.H.S. Jones (Liverpool University Press), which +reached me after this chapter was written, the author is inclined to +attribute the ethical and physical degeneracy of the Romans of the +Empire partly to this cause.] + +[Footnote 11: Livy v. 54.] + +[Footnote 12: Horace, _Epode_ 16.] + +[Footnote 13: _Reden und Aufsaetze_, p. 173 foll.] + +[Footnote 14: _Ib._ p. 175.] + +[Footnote 15: _De Rep_. ii. 5 and 6.] + +[Footnote 16: Beloch, _Die Bewoelkerung der griechisch-roemischen Welt_, +cap. 9, approaching the problem by three several methods, puts it in +the first century A.D. at 800,000, including slaves. In Cicero's time +it was, no doubt, considerably less; but we know that in his last +years 320,000 free persons were receiving doles of corn, apart from +slaves and the well-to-do.] + +[Footnote 17: Huelsen-Jordan, _Roem. Topographie_, vol. i. part iii. pp. +627, 638.] + +[Footnote 18: _Ib_. 643; Cic. _ad Att_. xv. 15. Here, after the death +of his daughter Tullia, Cicero wished to buy land on which to erect +a fanum to her (Cic. _ad Att_. xii. 19). Here also were the horti +Caesaris.] + +[Footnote 19: Livy xxxv. 40.] + +[Footnote 20: Huelsen-Jordan, _op. cit_. p. 143 note.] + +[Footnote 21: See below, p. 302. Dionysius of Halicarnassus (iii. 68) +gives an elaborate account of it in the time of Augustus, when it had +been altered and ornamented.--Huelsen-Jordan, p. 120 foll.] + +[Footnote 22: Fowler, _Roman Festivals_, p. 199; Wissowa in +Pauly-Wissowa, _Real-Encyklopaedie_, s.v. Diana.] + +[Footnote 23: The two roads converged just before arriving at the +city. The reader may be reminded that it was by the via Appia that St. +Paul entered Rome (Acts xxviii.). Another useful passage for this gate +is Juvenal in. 10 foll.] + +[Footnote 24: It might be useful here to follow the course of the +_pomerium_, which also went round the Palatine, as described in +Tacitus, _Annals_ xii. 24.] + +[Footnote 25: Cic. _de Officiis_ iii. 16. 66, and the story there +related.] + +[Footnote 26: Strictly speaking, the Oppius Mons, or southern part of +the Esquiline.] + +[Footnote 27: See Lanciani's admirable chapter, "A Walk through the +Sacra Via," in his _Ruins and Excavations of Ancient Rome_, p. 190 +foll.] + +[Footnote 28: _Georg_. ii. 502. Virgil, for all his admiration of +Rome, did not love its crowds.] + +[Footnote 29: Cic. _pro Plancio_, ch. 7. Cp. Horace, _Sat_. i. 9; +Lucilius, _Frag._ 9 (ed. Baehrens), which last will be quoted in +another context.] + +[Footnote 30: On the vexed question of the position of the Subura and +its history see Wissowa, _Gesammelte Abhandlungen_, p. 230 foll.] + +[Footnote 31: For excavations here see Lanciani, _op. cit_. p. 221 +foll.] + +[Footnote 32: Cic. _Cat._ iii. 9. 21 foll.] + +[Footnote 33: Formerly we may assume that it faced south or +south-east, like the temple.] + +[Footnote 34: It was completed by Caesar in 46 B.C.] + +[Footnote 35: Beloch, _Bewoelkerung_ p. 382.] + +[Footnote 36: C.I.L. i. 206, and Dessau, _Inscr. Lat. Selectae_, ii. +1. p. 493.] + +[Footnote 37: Cic. _ad Q. Fratr_. iii.I. 14 Suet. _de Grammaticis_, +15; Corn. Nepos, _Atticus_, 13.] + +[Footnote 38: Huelsen-Jordan, _Roem. Topographie_, vol. i. part iii. p. +323.] + +[Footnote 39: This is the number receiving corn gratis when Julius +Caesar reformed the corn-distribution.--Suetonius, _Iul_. 41.] + +[Footnote 40: See Zeller, _Stoics_, etc., Eng. trans. p. 255 foll.] + +[Footnote 41: cic. _de Legibus_, i. 15. 43. It was not as yet possible +to be "poor, making many rich"; to have nothing and yet to possess all +things.] + +[Footnote 42: See the definition of insula in Festus. n. Ill. and +for insula generally Middleton's article "Domus" in the _Dict, of +Antiquities_, ed. 2. De Marchi (_La Religione nella vita domestica_, +i. p. 80) compares the big lodging-houses of the poor at Naples.] + +[Footnote 43: Cicero (_Leg. Agr._ ii. 35. 96) describes Rome as being +(in comparison with Capua) "in montibus positam et convallibus, +coenaculis (i.e. upper rooms) sublatum atque suspensam, non optimis +viis," etc. Vitruv. ii. 17 is the _locus classicus_.] + +[Footnote 44: Cic. _pro Caelio_ 17.] + +[Footnote 45: In _C.I.L._ vi. 65-67 we find a Bona Dea erected "in +tutelam insulae," i.e. a common cult for all the lodgers. De Marchi +_l.c._ compares the common shrine of the Neapolitan lodging-house. +Tutela is mentioned as a protecting deity both of insulae and domus by +St. Jerome, _Com. in Isaiam_, 672.] + +[Footnote 46: Cic. _de Domo_ 109.] + +[Footnote 47: Cic. _ad Att._ xv. 17; cp. xiv. 9.] + +[Footnote 48: Plut. _Crassus_ 2: perhaps from Fenestella.] + +[Footnote 49: "Dormientem in taberna," Asconius, ed. Clark, p. 37. Cp. +Tacitus, _Hist_ i. 86, for persons sleeping in tabernae.] + +[Footnote 50: Tucker, _Life in Ancient Athens_, p. 10.] + +[Footnote 51: The _Moretum_ may be a translation from a Greek poet, +perhaps Parthenius, but it is certainly as well adapted to the +experience of Italians.] + +[Footnote 52: e.g. Caesar, _Bell. Civ._ iii. 47. Cp. Tacitus, _Ann_. +xiv. 24.] + +[Footnote 53: On this point see Salvioli, _Le Capitalisme dans le +monde antique_, ch. vi. is a book with many shortcomings, but written +by an Italian who knows his own country.] + +[Footnote 54: See the author's _Roman Festivals_, p. 76 (Cerealia).] + +[Footnote 55: Marquardt, _Staatsverwaltung_, ii. pp. 107, 110 foll. A +modius, which = nearly a peck, contained about 20 lb. of wheat (Pliny, +_N.H._ xviii. 66). Four and a half modii x 20=90 lb.] + +[Footnote 56: Hirschfeld, _Verwaltungsbeamten_, ed. 2, p. 231; Strabo, +p. 652 (Rhodes).] + +[Footnote 57: Caesar, _B.C._ iii. 42. 3.] + +[Footnote 58: Marquardt, _op. cit._ p. 110.] + +[Footnote 59: For Gracchus' motives see a paper by the present writer +in the _English Historical Review_ for 1905, p. 221 foll.] + +[Footnote 60: Cic. _Tusc. Disp._ iii. 20. 48.] + +[Footnote 61: Lex Julia municipalis, 1-20, compared with Suetonius, +_Jul_. 41.] + +[Footnote 62: A good example will be found in Cic. _ad Att._ iv. 1. +6 foll.; the first letter written by Cicero after his return from +exile.] + +[Footnote 63: See my _Roman Festivals_, pp. 85 and 204.] + +[Footnote 64: Pliny, _Nat. Hist_. xviii. 17.] + +[Footnote 65: Suet. _Aug_. 42.] + +[Footnote 66: Frontinus i. 4. The date of his work is towards the end +of the first century A.D.] + +[Footnote 67: See Lanciani, _Ruins and Excavations_, p. 48; Mommsen, +_Hist_. vol. i. Appendix.] + +[Footnote 68: Frontinus i. 7, whose account is confirmed by the +recently discovered Epitomes of Livy's lost books.--Grenfell and Hunt, +_Oxyrhynchus Papyri_, iv. 113.] + +[Footnote 69: See the useful table in Lanciani, _op. cit._ 58.] + +[Footnote 70: This dates from the reign of Domitian. The nature of the +public fountain may be realised at Pompeii. See Mau, _Pompeii, its +Life and Art_, p. 224 foll.] + +[Footnote 71: Cic. _de Officiis_, i. 42. 150.] + +[Footnote 72: Livy xxii. 25 _ad fin_.] + +[Footnote 73: It is very conspicuous, e.g., in the novels of Jane +Austen.] + +[Footnote 74: G. Unwin, _Industrial Organisation_, etc., p. 2.] + +[Footnote 75: Plutarch, _Numa_, 17; Ovid, _Fasti_, iii. 310 foll.] + +[Footnote 76: J.B. Carter, _The Religion of Numa_, p. 48.] + +[Footnote 77: Marq. iii. p. 138. See also Kornemann's article +"Collegium" in Pauly-Wissowa, _Real-Encykl._, and Waltzing, +_Corporations professionelles chez les Romains_, i. p. 78 foll.] + +[Footnote 78: _Le Capitalisme_, etc., p. 144 foll.] + +[Footnote 79: Cairnes, _Slave Power_, pp. 78, 143 foll. See below, p. +235.] + +[Footnote 80: Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ xviii. 107.] + +[Footnote 81: _C.I.L._ i. 1013. The date is possibly pre-Augustan.] + +[Footnote 82: Mau's _Pompeii_, p. 380.] + +[Footnote 83: See my _Roman Festivals_, p. 148. For the mills of +various kinds see also Marquardt, _Privatleben_, p. 405.] + +[Footnote 84: _Privatleben_, p. 409.] + +[Footnote 85: _Pseudolus_, 810 foll.] + +[Footnote 86: Cp. the uncta popina of Horace, _Epist_. i. 14. 21 foll. +Scene in a wineshop at Pompeii, Mau, p. 395.] + +[Footnote 87: See, e.g., the Laudatio Turiae, _C.I.L._ vi. i. 1527, +line 30.] + +[Footnote 88: Only very rich families employed their own +fullers.--Marq. _Privatleben_, p. 512.] + +[Footnote 89: _Menaechmi_, 404: this may, however, be only a +translation from the Greek.] + +[Footnote 90: _C.I.L._ i. p. 389.] + +[Footnote 91: Marquardt, _Privatleben_, p. 693 and reff.] + +[Footnote 92: Cato, _de re rustica_, 135; a very interesting chapter, +which shows that of the farmer's "plant," clothing, rugs, carts as +well as dolia, were best purchased at Rome.] + +[Footnote 93: Marq. _Privatleben_, p. 645.] + +[Footnote 94: Strabo, p. 231.] + +[Footnote 95: Lex Julia Municipalis, line 56 foll.] + +[Footnote 96: Mau, _Pompeii_, p. 377.] + +[Footnote 97: See Greenidge, _Roman Public Life_, p. 225.] + +[Footnote 98: Lex Claudia; Livy xxi. 63.] + +[Footnote 99: Plut. _Crassus_, 2; Pliny, _N.H._ xxxiii. 134: +equivalent to about L160,000.] + +[Footnote 100: Cic. _ad Att_. ii. 1. 2.] + +[Footnote 101: _Ib._ iv. 4.] + +[Footnote 102: Corn. Nepos, _Atticus_, 5.] + +[Footnote 103: Livy ixiii. 49.] + +[Footnote 104: Pliny, _N.H._ xxxiii. 148; Livy xxxvii. 59.] + +[Footnote 105: Polyb. xxxiv. 9, quoted by Strabo, p. 148. Cp. Livy +xlv. 18 for valuable mines in Macedonia.] + +[Footnote 106: Polyb. xviii. 35, For the unwillingness to serve, Livy, +Epit. 48 and 55.] + +[Footnote 107: Cunningham, _Western Civilisation (Modern)_, p. 162 +foll.] + +[Footnote 108: Duruy, _Hist. de Rome_, vol. ii. p. 12.] + +[Footnote 109: Cic. _de Provinciis consularibus_, v. 12.] + +[Footnote 110: Cic. _pro Quinctio_ 3. 12; a good case of partnership +in a res pecuaria et rustica in Gaul.] + +[Footnote 111: Examples in Livy xxiii. 49; xxxii. 7 (portoria); +xxxviii. 35 (corn-supply); xliv. 16 (army); xlii. 9 (revenue of ager +Campanus).] + +[Footnote 112: Festus, ed. Mueller, p. 151.] + +[Footnote 113: e.g. Livy xxii. 60 praedibus et praediis cavere +populo.] + +[Footnote 114: Cicero, in his defence of Rabirius Postumus, 2.4, says +that Rabirius' father magnas _partes_ habuit publicorum. One Aufidius +(Val. Max. vi. 9. 7) "Asiatici publici exiguam admodum _particulam_ +habuit." Cp. Cic _in Vat._ 12. 29] + +[Footnote 115: This is the view of Deloume, _Les Manieurs d'argent a +Rome_, p. 119 foll.] + +[Footnote 116: Marq. _Staatsverwaltung_, ii. p.291] + +[Footnote 117: Deloume, _Manieurs d'argent_, p. 317 foll.] + +[Footnote 118: _pro lege Manilia_, 7. 18.] + +[Footnote 119: _Ib._ 7. 19.] + +[Footnote 120: _ad Att._ i. 17. 9. Crassus, no doubt a large +shareholder, urged them on.] + +[Footnote 121: In a letter to his brother, then governor of this +province, Cicero contemplates the possibility of contracts being taken +at a loss (_ad Q.F._ i. 1. 33), "publicis male redemptis." And in a +letter of introduction in 46, he alludes to heavy losses suffered in +this way, _ad Fam._ xiii. 10.] + +[Footnote 122: _ad Att._ v. 16. 2.] + +[Footnote 123: _Ib._ vi. 1. 16.] + +[Footnote 124: _ad Familiares_, xiii. 65.] + +[Footnote 125: _Ib._ xiii. 9. I have not adhered quite closely to his +translation.] + +[Footnote 126: "Qui est in operis ejus societatis," i.e. engaged as a +subordinate agent.--Marquardt, _Staatsverwaltung_, ii. p. 291.] + +[Footnote 127: Marq. ii. p. 35 foll.] + +[Footnote 128: See his article in _Dict. of Antiq._ ed. 2, s.v. +argentarii.] + +[Footnote 129: Augustus' grandfather was an argentarius (Suet. _Aug._ +2), yet his son could marry a Julia, and be elected to the consulship, +which, however, he was prevented by death from filling.] + +[Footnote 130: The word for this cheque is _perscriptio_. Cp. Cic. _ad +Att_. ix. 12. 3 viri boni usuras perscribunt, i.e. draw the interest +on their deposits.] + +[Footnote 131: Cic. _ad Att_. xii. 24 and 27.] + +[Footnote 132: Cic. _ad Fam_. xvi. 4 and 9] + +[Footnote 133: Cic. _ad Att_. xiii. contains many letters of interest +in this connexion.] + +[Footnote 134: Cic. _ad Att._ xiii. 2. 3. Cp. xii. 25. In xii. 12 +Cicero's divorced wife Terentia wishes to pay a debt by transferring +to her creditor a debt of Cicero's to herself. Another way in +which actual payment could be avoided was by paying interest on +purchase-money instead of the lump sum. Cp. xii. 22.] + +[Footnote 135: A good example of this in Velleius ii. 10 +(house-rent).] + +[Footnote 136: Cic. _de Officiis_, ii. 24, 84.] + +[Footnote 137: Caesar, _de Bell. Civ._ iii. 1 and 20 foll.] + +[Footnote 138: Deloume in his _Manieurs d'argent_ has a chapter on +this (p. 58 foll.), but his details are not wholly to be relied +on. Boissier's sketch in _Ciceron et ses amis_, 83 foll., is quite +accurate.] + +[Footnote 139: _ad Fam_. v. 20 fin.] + +[Footnote 140: _Ib_. v. 9.] + +[Footnote 141: Deloume's attempt to prove that Cicero speculated with +enormous profits seems to me to miss the mark.] + +[Footnote 142: _ad Q. Fratr._ ii. 4. 3. Cp. _ad Att._ iv. 2.] + +[Footnote 143: _ad Q. Fratr._ ii. 14. 3.] + +[Footnote 144: _ad Att._ xii. 22. I may add in a footnote a final +startling example of recklessness we have been noting. Decimus Brutus +had, in March 44 B.C., a capital of L320,000, yet next year he writes +to Cicero that so far from any part of his private property being +unencumbered, he had encumbered all his friends with debt also (_ad +Fam._ xi. 10. 5). But this was in order to maintain troops.] + +[Footnote 145: _ad Att._ xiii. 42. Cp. xvi. 5.] + +[Footnote 146: What the king really wanted the money for, was to bribe +the senate to restore him.--Cic. _ad Fam._ i. 1.] + +[Footnote 147: Cic. _pro Bab. Post_. 8. 22.] + +[Footnote 148: Varro, _R.R._ i. 2. Ferrero (_Greatness and Decline of +Rome_) has the merit of having discerned the signs of the regeneration +of Italian agriculture at this time, but he is apt to push his +conclusions further than the evidence warrants. See the translation of +his work by A.E. Zimmern, i. p. 124; ii. p. 131 foll. The statement of +Pliny quoted by him (xv. 1. 3) that oil was first exported from Italy +in the year 52 B.C., is, however, of the utmost importance.] + +[Footnote 149: The Republic was not to last long; but among the +consuls of the last years of its existence were several members of the +old families.] + +[Footnote 150: _ad Fam_. xv. 12. This rather stilted letter is nearly +identical with one to the other consul-designate, another aristocrat, +Claudius Marcellus. Cicero is in each case trying to do his own +business, while writing to a man of higher social rank than his own.] + +[Footnote 151: The letters of the years 58 to 54 are full of bitter +allusions to the _invidia_ of these men, which culminate in the long +and windy one to Lentulus Spinther of October 54, where he actually +accuses them of taking up Clodius in order to spite him. In a +confidential note to Atticus in the spring of 56, he told him that +they hated him for buying the Tusculan villa of the great noble +Catulus.--_ad Fam._ i. 9; _ad Att_. iv. 5.] + +[Footnote 152: Plutarch, _Cato major_ 2 and 12.] + +[Footnote 153: Corn. Nepos, _Cato_ 1. 4, who remarks that Cato's +return from his quaestorship in Sardinia with Ennius in his train was +as good as a splendid triumph.] + +[Footnote 154: Plut. _Aem. Paul. 6 ad fin._] + +[Footnote 155: Polybius, xxxii. 9-16.] + +[Footnote 156: The difference between him and his father, especially +in politics, is sketched in Plutarch's _Life_ of the latter, ch. +xxxviii.] + +[Footnote 157: Leo, in _Die griechische und lateinische Literatur_, p. +337.] + +[Footnote 158: The best specimens, or rather the worst, are to be +found in the speeches _in Pisonem, in Vatinium_, and in the _Second +Philippic_.] + +[Footnote 159: The most instructive passage on vituperatio is Cicero's +defence of Caelius, ch. 3. Cp. Quintilian iii. 7. 1 and 19. On the +custom at triumphs, etc., see Munro's _Elucidations of Catullus_, p. +75 foll. for most valuable remarks.] + +[Footnote 160: We have courteous letters from Cicero both to Piso and +Vatinius, only a few years after he had depicted them in public as +monsters of iniquity.] + +[Footnote 161: Plut. C. Gracchus, ch. 6 _ad fin_. Cp. Livy vii. 33.] + +[Footnote 162: These characteristic figures may be most conveniently +seen in Strong's interesting volume on Roman sculpture, p. 42 foll.] + +[Footnote 163: Plut. _Cato_, ch. 1. _ad fin_. Blanditia was the word +for civility in a candidate: "opus est magnopere blanditia," says +Quintus Cicero, _de pet cons_.Sec. 41.] + +[Footnote 164: There is a pleasanter picture of Cato, sitting in +Lucullus' library and in his right mind, in Cic. _de Finibus_ iii. 2. +7.] + +[Footnote 165: See Leo, in work already cited, p. 338 foll.] + +[Footnote 166: For this remarkable writer, of whose work only a few +fragments survive, see Leo, _op. cit._ p. 340, and Schanz, _Gesch. der +roem. Literatur_, i. p. 278 foll.] + +[Footnote 167: Cicero, _Brutus_, 75, 262.] + +[Footnote 168: The other Caesarian writers followed him more or less +successfully; Hirtius, who wrote the eighth book of the Gallic War, +and the authors of the Alexandrian, African, and Spanish Wars (the +first possibly by Asinius Pollio).] + +[Footnote 169: Leo, _op. cit._ p. 355.] + +[Footnote 170: See below, ch. vi.] + +[Footnote 171: The passage just cited from the _de Finibus_ (iii. 27) +introduces us to the library of Lucullus at Tusculum, whither Cicero +had gone to consult books, and where he found Cato sitting surrounded +by volumes of Stoic treatises.] + +[Footnote 172: The fragments of Panaetius are collected by H.N. +Fowler, Bonn, 1885. The best account of his teaching known to me is in +Schmekel, _Philosophie der Mittleren Stoa_, p. 18 foll. But all can +read the two first books of the _de Officiis_.] + +[Footnote 173: Leo, _op. cit._ p. 360. Schmekel deals comprehensively +with Posidonius' philosophy, as reflected in Varro and Cicero, p. 85 +foll.] + +[Footnote 174: See Professor Reid's introduction to Cicero's +_Academica_, p. 17. Cicero considered Posidonius the greatest of the +Stoics.--_Ib._ p. 5.] + +[Footnote 175: Cic. _de Legibus_ i. affords many examples of this +view, which was apparently that of Posidonius, e.g. 6. 18 and 8. 25. +Cp. _de Republica_, iii. 22. 33.] + +[Footnote 176: Gaius i. i; Cic. _de Officiis_ iii. 5. 23; Mommsen, +_Staatsrecht_, iii. p. 604, based on the research of H. Nettleship in +_Journal of Philology_, vol. xiii. p. 175. See also Sohm, _Institutes +of Roman Law_, ch. ii.] + +[Footnote 177: _Brutus_ 41. 151, where he plainly ranks him above +Scaevola. The passage is a most interesting one, deserving careful +attention.] + +[Footnote 178: The _Ninth Philippic_: the passage referred to in the +text is 5. 10 foll.] + +[Footnote 179: I omit _pro Murena_, chs. vii. and xxi., for want of +space. Sulpicius was opposing Cicero in this case, and the latter's +allusions to him are useful specimens of the good breeding spoken of +above.] + +[Footnote 180: See Dio Cassius xl. 59; and Cic. _ad Fam_. iv. 1 and 3, +to Sulpicius, with allusions to his consulship.] + +[Footnote 181: _Tusc. Disp_. iv. 3. 6.] + +[Footnote 182: The speech _in Pisonem_; cp. the _de Provinciis +consularibus_, 1-6. This Piso was the father of Caesar's wife +Calpurnia, who survives in Shakespeare.] + +[Footnote 183: The difficult passage in which Cicero describes the +perversion of this character under the influence of Philodemus, has +been skilfully translated by Dr. Mahaffy in his _Greek World under +Roman Sway_, p. 126 foll.; and the reader may do well to refer to his +whole treatment of the practical result of Epicureanism.] + +[Footnote 184: This chapter is also useful as illustrating the +urbanity of manners, for Lucullus and Pompeius were political +enemies.] + +[Footnote 185: _ad Fam_. viii. 5 _fin_.; viii. 9. 2.] + +[Footnote 186: See the introduction of Asconius to Cicero _pro +Cornelio_, ed. Clark, p. 58.] + +[Footnote 187: _ad Att_. v. 21. 11, 13.] + +[Footnote 188: _ad Q. frat._ ii. 1. 1; ii. 10. 1.] + +[Footnote 189: The letters written immediately after Cicero's return +from exile are the best examples of this paralysis of business, e.g. +_ad Fam_. i. 4; _ad Q. F_. ii. 3. See a useful paper by P. Groebe in +_Klio_, vol. v. p. 229.] + +[Footnote 190: This appears from a letter of Oaelius to Cicero in +51.--_ad Fam._ viii. 8. 8.] + +[Footnote 191: Asconius _in Cornelianum_, ed. Clark, p. 59. "Ut +praetores ex edictis suis perpetuis ius dicerent."] + +[Footnote 192: All his letters are in the eighth book of those _ad +Familiares_.] + +[Footnote 193: Tacitus, _Annals_ xiii. 2: "voluptatibus concessis."] + +[Footnote 194: Quintil. iv. 2. 123.] + +[Footnote 195: Brutus 79. 273.] + +[Footnote 196: e.g. _ad Fam._ ii. 13. 3.] + +[Footnote 197: Exactly the same combination of real interest in, and +frivolous treatment of, politics is to be found in the early letters +of Horace Walpole to Sir H. Mann, especially those of the year 1742.] + +[Footnote 198: _ad Fam._ viii. 14. 3.] + +[Footnote 199: Caesar, Bell. Civ. iii. 20 foll.] + +[Footnote 200: See above, p. 86; cp. p. 58.] + +[Footnote 201: So for example Servaeus is disqualified, _ad Fam_. +viii. 4. I.] + +[Footnote 202: _Ib_. viii. 8. 2] + +[Footnote 203: _Ib_. 8. 12] + +[Footnote 204: Lucilius, _Fragm_. 9, ed. Baehrens.] + +[Footnote 205: This probably means that the deity was believed to +reside in the cake, and that the communicants not only entered into +communion with each other in eating of it, but also with him. It is +in fact exactly analogous to the sacramental ceremony of the Latin +festival, in which each city partook of the sacred victim, in that +case a white heifer. See Fowler, Roman _Festivals_, p. 96 and reff.] + +[Footnote 206: This interesting custom is recorded by Servius (ad Aen. +iv. 374). For the whole ceremony of confarreatio see De Marchi, +_La Religione nella vita domestica_, p. 155 foll.; Marquardt, +_Privatleben_, p. 32 foll. Cp. also Gaius i. 112.] + +[Footnote 207: Gaius l.c.] + +[Footnote 208: Cic. _de Off_. i. 17. 54.] + +[Footnote 209: i.e. ius commercii and ius connubii: the former +enabling a man to claim the protection of the courts in all cases +relating to property, the latter to claim the same protection in cases +of disputed inheritance.] + +[Footnote 210: i.e. ius provocationis, ius suffragii, ius honorum.] + +[Footnote 211: This is how I understand Cuq, _Institutions juridiques +des Romains_, p. 223. In the well known Laudatio Turiae we have a +curious case of a re-marriage by coemptio with manus, for a particular +purpose, connected of course with money matters. See Mommsen's +Commentary, reprinted in his _Gesammelte Schriften_, vol. i.] + +[Footnote 212: Westermarck, _History of Human Marriage_, ch. x.] + +[Footnote 213: See, however, the curious passage quoted by Gellius +(iv. 4. 2) from Serv. Sulpicius, the great jurist (above, p. 118 +foll.), on _sponsalia_ in Latium down to 89 B.C.] + +[Footnote 214: For the other details of the dress, see Marq. +_Privatleben_, p. 43.] + +[Footnote 215: Cic. _de Div._ i. 16. 28.] + +[Footnote 216: These lines suggested to Virgil the famous four at the +end of the fourth Eclogue. See _Virgil's "Messianic Eclogue_," p. 72.] + +[Footnote 217: She was addressed as _domina_, by all members of the +family. See Marquardt, _Privatleben_, p. 57 note 3. It should be noted +that she had brought a contribution to the family resources in +the form of a dowry (dos) given her by her father to maintain her +position.] + +[Footnote 218: These details are drawn chiefly from the sixth book of +Valerius Maximus, _de Pudicitia_.] + +[Footnote 219: This is proved by an allusion to Cato's speech in +support of the law, in Gellius, _Noct. Att._ vi. 13.] + +[Footnote 220: Livy xxxiv. 1 foll., where the speech of Cato is +reproduced in Livy's language and with "modern" rhetoric.] + +[Footnote 221: De Marchi, _op. cit._ p. 163; Marq. _Privatleben_, p. +87 foll. Confarreatio was only dissoluble by diffarreatio, but this +was perhaps used only for penal purposes. Other forms of marriage +did not present the same difficulty, not being of a sacramental +character.] + +[Footnote 222: Plutarch, _Aem. Paull._ 5.] + +[Footnote 223: Livy xl. 37.] + +[Footnote 224: Livy, _Epit._ 48.] + +[Footnote 225: Livy xxxix. 8-18.] + +[Footnote 226: Plutarch, _Cato the Elder_ 8.] + +[Footnote 227: Gellius (x. 23) quotes a fragment of Cato's speech de +Dotibus, in which the following sentences occur: "Si quid perverse +taetreque factum est a muliere, multitatur: si vinum bibit, si cum +alieno viro probri quid fecerit, condempnatur. In adulterio uxorem +tuam si prehendisses sine indicio impune necares: illa te, si +adulterares sive tu adulterarere, digito non auderet contingere, neque +ius est." Under such circumstances a bold woman might take her revenge +illegally.] + +[Footnote 228: Gellius i. 6; cp. Livy, Epit. 59.] + +[Footnote 229: e.g. _ad Fam._ xiv. 2.] + +[Footnote 230: The story of the relations of Cicero, Terentia, +Clodius, and Clodia, in Pint. _Cic._ 29 is too full of inaccuracies to +be depended on. In the 41st chapter what he says of the divorce and +its causes must be received with caution; it seems to come from some +record left by Tiro, Cicero's freedman and devoted friend, and as +Cicero obviously loved this man much more than his wife, we can +understand why the two should dislike each other.] + +[Footnote 231: Plutarch, _Ti. Gracch._ 1; _Gaius Gracch._ 19. The +letters of Cornelia which are extant are quite possibly genuine.] + +[Footnote 232: The recent edition of the _Ars amatoria_ by Paul Brandt +has an introduction in which these points are well expressed.] + +[Footnote 233: Catullus 72. 75.] + +[Footnote 234: _Ciceron et ses amis_, p. 175.] + +[Footnote 235: Decimus Brutus, one of the tyrannicides of March 15, +44.] + +[Footnote 236: Sall. _Cat_. 25.] + +[Footnote 237: Plut. _Lucullus_ 6.] + +[Footnote 238: Cic. _ad Fam._ viii. 7: a letter of Caelius, in which +he tells of a lady who divorced her husband without pretext on the +very day he returned from his province.] + +[Footnote 239: Plut. _Cato min._ 25 and 52. Plutarch seems to be +using here the Anti-Cato of Caesar, but the facts must have been well +known.] + +[Footnote 240: e.g. _ad Att._ xv. 29.] + +[Footnote 241: _ad Fam._ ix. 26.] + +[Footnote 242: The so-called Laudatio Turiae is well known to all +students of Roman law, as raising a complicated question of Roman +legal inheritance; but it may also be reckoned as a real fragment of +Roman literature, valuable, too, for some points in the history of +the time it covers. It was first made accessible and intelligible by +Mommsen in 1863, and the paper he then wrote about it has lately been +reprinted in his _Gesammelte Schriften_, vol. i., together with a +new fragment discovered on the same site as the others in 1898. This +fragment, and a discussion of its relation to the whole, will he found +in the _Classical Review_ for June 1905, p. 261; the laudatio without +the new fragment in _C.I.L._ vi. 1527.] + +[Footnote 243: App. _B.C._ iv. 44. The identification has been +impugned of late, but, as I think, without due reason. See my article +in _Classical Rev._, 1905, p. 265.] + +[Footnote 244: This is how I interpret the new fragment. See +_Classical Rev. l.c._ p. 263 foll.] + +[Footnote 245: For the legal question see Mommsen, _Gesammelte +Schriften_, i. p. 407 foll.] + +[Footnote 246: The account that follows is put together from Appian +iv. 44, Valerius Maximus vi. 7. 2, and the Laudatio. Appian preserved +some fifty stories of escapes at this time, and the only one that fits +with the Laudatio is that of Lucretius.] + +[Footnote 247: Newman, _Politics of Aristotle_, i. p. 372.] + +[Footnote 248: A list of the best authorities will be found at the +beginning of Professor Wilkins' book. Of these by far the most useful +for a student is the section in Marquardt's _Privatleben_, p. 79 foll. +The two volumes of Cramer (_Geschichte der Erziehung_, etc.), which +cover all antiquity, are, as he says, most valuable for their breadth +of view. See also H. Nettleship, _Lectures and Essays_, ch. iii. +foll.] + +[Footnote 249: Plut. _Cato the Elder_, ch. xx.] + +[Footnote 250: Plut. _Aem. Paul._ ch. vi.] + +[Footnote 251: Plut. _Cato minor 1 ad fin._ What is told in the +earlier part of this chapter may perhaps be invention, based on the +character of the grown man; but this information at the end may be +derived from a contemporary source.] + +[Footnote 252: Val. Max. iii. 1. 2.] + +[Footnote 253: There is a single story of Cicero's boyhood in +Plutarch's _Life_ of him, ch. ii., that parents used to visit his +school because of his fame as a scholar, etc., but to this I do not +attach much importance.] + +[Footnote 254: So in _ad Q.F._ iii. 1. 7: de Cicerone tuo quod me +semper rogas, etc.] + +[Footnote 255: Ib.] + +[Footnote 256: Ib. iii. 3. 4.] + +[Footnote 257: Ib. iii. 9.] + +[Footnote 258: See the few fragments in the Appendix to Riese's +edition of the remains of Varro's Menippean Satires, p. 248 foll.] + +[Footnote 259: _De Rep._ iv. 3. 3.] + +[Footnote 260: Plut. _Cato_ 20.] + +[Footnote 261: There is probably an allusion to the Stoic view, that +reason is not attained till the fourteenth year, in Virgil's line in +_Ecl._ 4. 27.] + +[Footnote 262: in Nonius, p. 108, s.v. ephippium. Cp. the account of +the education of Cato's young son, Plut. _Cato_, 20. Cp. also Virg. +_Aen._ ix. 602 foll.] + +[Footnote 263: in Nonius, p. 156, s.v. puerae.] + +[Footnote 264: p. 281, ed. Mueller.] + +[Footnote 265: Her. _Odes_ iii. 6.] + +[Footnote 266: Dionys. Hal. ii. 26.] + +[Footnote 267: Cic. _pro Cluentio_ 60. 165; Marq. _Privatleben_, p. +87.] + +[Footnote 268: See a paper by the author in _Classical Rev._ vol. x. +p. 317, in which evidence is collected in support of this view. That +the praetexta had a quasi-sacred character seems certain; see e.g. +Hor. _Epod._ 5. 7; Persius, v. 30; pseudo-Quintilian, _Declam._ 340. +See Henzen, _Acta Fratrum Arvalium_ 15, for the pueri patrimi et +matrimi, representing in that ancient cult the children of the old +Roman family.] + +[Footnote 269: Cic. _de Legibus_, ii. 59.] + +[Footnote 270: Polyb. vi. 53. For an account of the practice of +laudatio see Marq. _Privatleben_, p. 346 foll. This, too, degenerated +into falsification.] + +[Footnote 271: A full list of games will be found in Marquardt, +_Privatleben_, p. 814 foll.] + +[Footnote 272: The question is discussed by Quintilian, i. 2.] + +[Footnote 273: Plut. Aem. Fault. 6.] + +[Footnote 274: Full details about elementary schools in Wilkins, ch. +iv., and Marq p. 90 foll.] + +[Footnote 275: Quintil. i. 3. 14.] + +[Footnote 276: Plutarch is careful to tell us that Aem. Paullus +exercised this supervision himself (ch. vi.).] + +[Footnote 277: _Pro Flacco_ 4, 9. Cp. _ad Quint. Fratr._ i. 2. 4.] + +[Footnote 278: That the boy was not always respectful is shown in an +amusing passage in Plautus. _Bacchides_, III. iii. 34 foll.] + +[Footnote 279: Sen. _Controversiae_, vii. 3. 8.] + +[Footnote 280: London, O.J. Clay and Sons, 1895.] + +[Footnote 281: Fortuna occurs many times, as in the so-called +sententiae Varronis printed at the end of Riese's edition of the +fragments of Varro's Menippean satires. This is characteristic of the +period.] + +[Footnote 282: Hor. _Epist._ i. I. 70.] + +[Footnote 283: Marq. _Privatleben_, p. 95 foll.; Wilkins, p. 53.] + +[Footnote 284: There is a good example of this in the well-known case +of Brutus' loan to the Salaminians of Cyprus: see especially Cic. ad +Alt. v. 21. 12.] + +[Footnote 285: Hor. Ars Poet. 323 foll.] + +[Footnote 286: Mommsen, _Hist. of Rome_, iv. p. 563.] + +[Footnote 287: Quintilian was of opinion that Greek authors should +precede Latin: i. I. 12.] + +[Footnote 288: _De Oratore_, i. 187.] + +[Footnote 289: There are many subjects in the book of other kinds, but +all are illustrated in exactly the same way.] + +[Footnote 290: H. Jordan, _M. Catonis praeter librum de re rustica +quae extant_, p. 80.] + +[Footnote 291: Full information on this point will be found in +Marquardt, _Privatleben_, p. 131 foll.] + +[Footnote 292: See my _Roman Festivals_, p. 56. The Liberalia (March +17) was the usual day for the change, and a convenient one for the +enrolment of tirones.] + +[Footnote 293: See the very interesting note (11) in Marq. p. 123, as +to the enrolment in municipal towns.] + +[Footnote 294: Pro Caelio, 4. 9.] + +[Footnote 295: Livy xlv. 37. 3.] + +[Footnote 296: Pro Caelio, 30. 72.] + +[Footnote 297: _Pro Caelio_, 31. 74.] + +[Footnote 298: _Roman Education_, ch. v.] + +[Footnote 299: Rhetorica ad Herenniwm, init. The date of this work was +about 82 B.C. See a paper by the author in Journal of Philology, x. +197.] + +[Footnote 300: H. Nettleship, _Lectures_, etc., p. III; Wilkins, p. +85; Quintil. xii. 2.] + +[Footnote 301: Wilkins, _l.c._] + +[Footnote 302: Quintil. i. 4. 5; xii. 1. 1; xii. 2 and 7.] + +[Footnote 303: _Ib._ xii. 1. 11.] + +[Footnote 304: Plut. _Cic._ 4; _Caes._ 3.] + +[Footnote 305: _ad Fam._ xvi. 21. The translation is based on Mr. +Shuckburgh's.] + +[Footnote 306: See _Der Horn, Gutsbetrieb_, by H. Gummerus, reprinted +from _Klio_, 1906: an excellent specimen of economic research, to +which I am much indebted in this chapter.--E. Meyer, _Die Sclaverei im +Altertum_, p. 46.] + +[Footnote 307: Strabo, p. 668.] + +[Footnote 308: Livy, xlv. 34.] + +[Footnote 309: Livy, _Epit._ 68.] + +[Footnote 310: Caesar, _B.G._ ii. 33.] + +[Footnote 311: _ad Att._ v. 20. 5.] + +[Footnote 312: Wallon (_Hist. de l'Esclavage_, ii. p. 38) has noted +that Virgil alone shows a feeling of tenderness for the lot of the +captive, quoting _Aen_. iii. 320 foll. (the speech of Andromache): but +this was for the fate of a princess, and a mythical princess. No +Latin poet of that age shows any real sympathy with captives or with +slaves.] + +[Footnote 313: Cic. _pro lege Manilia_ 12. 23. Plutarch, in his _Life +of Pompey_ 24, adds that Romans of good standing would join in the +pirates' business in order to make profit in this scandalous way.] + +[Footnote 314: Suet. _Aug._ 32, of the period before Augustus.] + +[Footnote 315: Varro, _R.R._ ii. 10; Diodorus xxxvi. 3. 1.] + +[Footnote 316: Hor. _Epist_. i. 6. 39:-- + + "Mancipiis locuples eget aeris Cappadocum rex: + Ne fueris hic tu." +] + +[Footnote 317: Varro, _R.R._ i. 17.] + +[Footnote 318: _Ib_. 2. 10. 3.] + +[Footnote 319: Hor. _Epode_ 2. 65. Cp. Tibull. ii. 1. 25 "turbaque +vernarum, saturi bona signa coloni."] + +[Footnote 320: See Gummerus, _op. cit._ p. 63, who considers the +_obaeratus_ of Varro as the equivalent of the _addictus_ of the Roman +law of debt.] + +[Footnote 321: See the well-known description of the Forum in Plautus' +_Curculio_, iv. 1: "pone aedem Castoris, ibi sunt subito quibu' credas +male"; Marq. _Privatleven_, p. 168; Wallon, _op. cit_. ch. ii.] + +[Footnote 322: Gellius iv. 2 gives an extract from the edict of +the aediles drawn up with the object of counteracting such sharp +practice.] + +[Footnote 323: Livy xxxix. 44.] + +[Footnote 324: _N.H._. vii. 55. This story affords a good example +of the tricks of the trade: the boys were not twins, and came from +different countries, though exactly alike.] + +[Footnote 325: _Bevoelkerung_, p. 403.] + +[Footnote 326: Cic. _Off_. ii. 21. 73.] + +[Footnote 327: Galen v. p. 49, ed. Kuhn; Galen was a native of this +great city.] + +[Footnote 328: Dr. Gummerus promises it.] + +[Footnote 329: Sittengeschichte, i., ed. 5, p. 264.] + +[Footnote 330: Probably by Clodius in 58.] + +[Footnote 331: _Asconius ad Cic. pro Cornel_., ed. Clark, p. 75; +Waltzing, _Corporations professionelles_, i. p. 90 foll.] + +[Footnote 332: Baking as a trade only came in, as we saw, in 174; +Plautus died in 184; some doubt is thus thrown on the Roman character +of the passage, or the allusion may not be to a public bakery.] + +[Footnote 333: See a remarkable passage of Athenaeus (vi. 104) quoted +by Marquardt, _Privatleben_, p. 156, on the use of slaves at Rome for +unproductive labour.] + +[Footnote 334: Sallust, e.g., says of his own life in retirement +that he would not engage in "agrum colendo aut venando, servilibus +officiis."--_Catil._ 4.] + +[Footnote 335: Wallon, _Hist. de l'Esclavage_, vol. ii. ch. iii.] + +[Footnote 336: Sall. _Catil_. 12.] + +[Footnote 337: iv. 3. 11 and 12. Plutarch says that as military +tribune Cato the younger had fifteen slaves with him.--Cato minor 9.] + +[Footnote 338: Cato, R.R. 2. I.] + +[Footnote 339: In ch. 185 he mentions towns where many other objects +may be bought best and cheapest: at Rome, e.g., clothing and rugs, at +Cales and Minturnae farm-instruments of iron, etc. See also Gummerus, +_op. cit._ p. 36.] + +[Footnote 340: _R.R._ 10 and 11.] + +[Footnote 341: Assiduos homines quinquaginta praebeto, i.e. the +contractor: ch. 144.] + +[Footnote 342: See the discussion of this word in Gummerus, p. 62 +foll. Varro defines them as those "qui suas operas in servitutem dant +pro pecunia quam debebant" (_de Ling. Lat._ vii. 105), i.e. they give +their labour as against servitude.] + +[Footnote 343: _R.R._ i. 22.] + +[Footnote 344: Cp. Plut. _Cato the Elder_ 21; a slave must be at work +when he is not asleep.] + +[Footnote 345: This is a point on which I cannot enter, but there can +hardly be a doubt that in the long run free labour is cheaper. +See Cairnes, _Slave Power in America_, ch. iii.; Salvioli, _Le +Capitalisme_, p. 253; Columella, _Praejatio_.] + +[Footnote 346: Gummerus, p. 81. At the same time the small cultivator +is an obvious fact in Columella, cultivating his bit of land without +working for others.] + +[Footnote 347: For Spartacus, Appian, _B.G._ i. 116; for Caelius, +Caesar, _B.C._ iii. 22; and cp. _B.C._ i. 56.] + +[Footnote 348: _R.R._ ii. 10.] + +[Footnote 349: Columella i. 8.] + +[Footnote 350: Gaius ii. 15.] + +[Footnote 351: For examples of slaves' devotion to their masters, +Appian, _B.C._ iv. 29; Seneca, _de Benef_. iii. 25.] + +[Footnote 352: _ad Fam_. xvi. 1; read also the charming letters which +follow. Tiro was manumitted by Cicero at an unknown date.] + +[Footnote 353: _ad Att_. xii. 10.] + +[Footnote 354: See the article "Manumissio" in _Dict. of +Antiquities_.] + +[Footnote 355: Only in exercising the jus suffragii he was limited +with all his fellow libertini to one of the four city tribes.] + +[Footnote 356: Val. Max. viii. 6. 2.] + +[Footnote 357: Sall. _Cat_. 24 and 56; Wallon, ii. p. 318 foll.] + +[Footnote 358: See, e.g., Cic. _ad Att_. ii. 24. 3; Asconius, _in +Milonianam_ (ed. Clark, p. 31); Milo's host of slaves had gladiators +among them, and were organised in military fashion (an antesignanus, +p. 32), when he fell in with Clodius.] + +[Footnote 359: _Pro Sestio_, 15. 34.] + +[Footnote 360: _De Pet. Consulatus_, 5. 17.] + +[Footnote 361: _ad Quint. Fratr._ i. 2 _ad fin_.] + +[Footnote 362: Strabo, p. 381.] + +[Footnote 363: Dion. Hal. iv. 23.] + +[Footnote 364: Wallon, op. cit. ii. p. 436.] + +[Footnote 365: See Otto Seeck, _Geschichte des Untergangs der antiken +Welt_, ch. iv. and v.] + +[Footnote 366: See Marquardt, _Privatleben_, p. 172.] + +[Footnote 367: Wallon (ii. p. 255 foll.) has collected a number of +examples. Plautus' slaves are as much Athenian as Roman, but the +conditions would be much the same in each case. Cp. Varro, _Men. Sat_. +ed. Riese, p. 220: "Crede mihi, plures dominos servi comederunt quam +canes."] + +[Footnote 368: Petronius, _Sat_. 75.] + +[Footnote 369: Diodorus xxxiv. 38.] + +[Footnote 370: "Coli rura ab ergastulis pessimum est et quicquid +agitur a desperantibus," wrote Pliny (_Nat. Hist_. xviii. 36) in the +famous passage about latifundia.] + +[Footnote 371: _R.R._ i. 17.] + +[Footnote 372: See some excellent remarks on this subject in _Ecce +Homo_, towards the end of ch. xii. ("Universality of the Christian +Republic ").] + +[Footnote 373: _The Slave Power_, ch. v., and especially p. 374 foll. +A living picture of the mean white may be found in Mark Twain's +_Huckleberry Finn_, drawn from his own early experience, particularly +in ch. xxi.] + +[Footnote 374: "Regum nobis induimus animos," wrote Seneca in a +well-known letter about the claims of slaves as human beings, _Ep_. +47.] + +[Footnote 375: _Life in Ancient Athens_, p. 55.] + +[Footnote 376: For this view of the Lar see Wissowa, _Religion und +Kultus der Roemer_, p. 148 foll.; and a note by the author in _Archiv +fur Religionswissenschaft_, 1906, p. 529.] + +[Footnote 377: _Fasti_, vi. 299.] + +[Footnote 378: Cato, _R.R._, ch. ii. init.; Horace, _Epode_ 2. 65; +_Sat_. ii. 6. 65.] + +[Footnote 379: _Romische Religion_, p. 214.] + +[Footnote 380: Or lectulus adversus, i.e. opposite the door; Ascon. +ed. Clark, p. 43, a good passage for the contents of an atrium.] + +[Footnote 381: See Mau's _Pompeii_, p. 248.] + +[Footnote 382: Mau, _Pompeii_, p. 240.] + +[Footnote 383: The extent to which this could be carried can be +guessed from Sall. _Cat._ 12.] + +[Footnote 384: Quintus Cicero, growing rich with Caesar in Gaul, had a +fancy for a domus suburbana: Cic. _ad Q. Fr._ iii. I. 7. Marcus tells +his brother in this letter that he himself had no great fancy for such +a residence, and that his house on the Palatine had all the charm of +such a suburbana. His villa at Tusculum, as we shall see, served the +purpose of a house close to the city.] + +[Footnote 385: A great number of passages about the noise and crowds +of Rome are collected in Mayor's _Notes to Juvenal_, pp. 173, 203, +207.] + +[Footnote 386: Some interesting remarks on the general aspect of the +city will be found in the concluding chapter of Lanciani's _Ruins and +Excavations_. For the bore elsewhere than in Rome, see below, p. 256.] + +[Footnote 387: _ad Fam_. ii. 12: "Urbem, Urbem, mi Rufe, cole, et in +ista luce viva Omnis peregrinatio (foreign travel) obscura et sordida +est iis, quorum industria Roma potest illustris esse," etc.] + +[Footnote 388: Lucr. ii. 22 foll.; iii. 1060 foll. Cp. Seneca, _Ep._ +69: "Frequens migratio instabilis animi est!"] + +[Footnote 389: _de Oratore_, ii. 22.] + +[Footnote 390: These houses, with the coast on which they stood, +have long sunk into the sea, and we are only now, thanks to the +perseverance of Mr. R.T. Guenther of Magdalen College, realising their +position and former magnificence. See his volume on _Earth Movements +in the Bay of Naples_.] + +[Footnote 391: See Cic. _pro Caelio_, Sec.Sec. 48-50.] + +[Footnote 392: _Cicero's Villen_, Leipzig, 1889.] + +[Footnote 393: Varro, _R.R._ iii. 13.] + +[Footnote 394: The villa had once been Sulla's also: and the +aristocratic connection gave its owner some trouble. See above, p. +102.] + +[Footnote 395: Schmidt, _op. cit._ p. 31.] + +[Footnote 396: _de Finibus_, iii. 2. 7.] + +[Footnote 397: _de Legibus_, ii. 1.] + +[Footnote 398: _op. cit_. p. 15. I am assured by a travelling friend +that the Fibreno is a delicious stream.] + +[Footnote 399: _ad Quint. Fratr_. iii. 1.] + +[Footnote 400: _ad Att._ xiii. 19. 2.] + +[Footnote 401: For further details of the amenities of the villa at +Arpinum see Schmidt, _op. cit._] + +[Footnote 402: _ad Att._ ii. 14 and 15.] + +[Footnote 403: O.E. Schmidt, _Briefwechsel Cicero's_, pp. 66 and 454; +but see his _Cicero's Villen_, p. 46, note.] + +[Footnote 404: _ad Att_. xii. 19 init.] + +[Footnote 405: See Seneca, _Epist_. 69, on the disturbing influence of +constant change of scene.] + +[Footnote 406: There is an exception in the young Cicero's letter to +Tiro, translated above, p. 202.] + +[Footnote 407: Censorinus, _De die natali_, 23. 6.; Pliny, _N.H._ vii. +213. On the whole subject of the division of the day see Marquardt, +_Privatlben_, p. 246 foll.] + +[Footnote 408: In the XII Tables only sunrise and sunset were +mentioned (Pliny, _l.c._ 212). Later on noon was proclaimed by the +Consul's marshal (Varro, _de Ling. Lat_. vi. 5), and also the end of +the civil day. Cp. Varro, _L.L._ vi. 89.] + +[Footnote 409: Cic. _pro Quinctio_, 18. 59.] + +[Footnote 410: See the article "Horologium" in _Dict. of Antiquities_, +vol. i.] + +[Footnote 411: Our modern hours are called equinoctial, because they +are fixed at the length of the natural hour at the equinoxes. This +system does not seem to have come in until late in the Empire period.] + +[Footnote 412: For the water-clock see Marquardt, _op. cit_. p. 773 +foll.] + +[Footnote 413: The lines are so good that I may venture to quote them +in full from Gell. iii 3 (cp. Ribbeck, _Fragm. Gomicorum_, ii. p. 34): +"parasitus esuriens dicit: + + Ut illum di perdant primus qui horas repperit, + Quique adeo primus statuit hic solarium. + Qui mihi comminuit misero articulatim diem, + Nam olim me puero venter erat solarium, + Multo omnium istorum optimum et verissimum: + Ubivis ste monebat esse, nisi quom nihil erat. + Nunc etiam quom est, non estur, nisi soli libet. + Itaque adeo iam oppletum oppidum est solariis, + Maior pars populi iam aridi reptant fame." + +The fourth line contains a truth of human nature, of which +illustrations might easily be found at the present day.] + +[Footnote 414: Pliny, _N.H._ xv. 1 foll, supplies the history of the +oil industry. For the candles see Marquardt, _Privatleben_, p. 690.] + +[Footnote 415: See above, p. 93.] + +[Footnote 416: Marq. _Privatleben_, p. 264.] + +[Footnote 417: Cic. _ad Q.F._ ii. 3. 7. For the lippitudo, _ad Att._ +vii. 14.] + +[Footnote 418: Hor. _Epist_. ii. 1. 112; Pliny, _Ep_. iii. 5, 8, 9.] + +[Footnote 419: Hor. _Epist._ ii. 1. 103: "Romae dulce diu fuit et +solenne reclusa Mane domo vigilare, clienti promere iura" etc. It is +curious that all our information on this early business comes from the +literature of the Empire. The single passage of Cicero which Marquardt +could find to illustrate it unluckily relates to his practice as +governor of Cilicia (_ad Att._ vi. 2. 5).] + +[Footnote 420: e.g. _ad Q.F._ i. 2. 16.; and Q. Cic. _Commentariolum +petitionis_, sec. 17.] + +[Footnote 421: See what he says of M. Manilius in _De Orat_. iii. +133.] + +[Footnote 422: The word seems to be connected with ieiunium (Plant. +_Curculio_ I. i. 73; Festus, p. 346), and thus answers to our +break_fast_. The verb is ientare: Afranius: fragm. "ientare nulla +invitat."] + +[Footnote 423: Galen, vol. vi. p. 332. I take this citation from +Marquardt, _Privatleben_, p. 257; others will be found in the notes +to that page. Marquardt seems to have been the first to bring the +evidence of the medical writers to bear on the subject of Roman +meals.] + +[Footnote 424: See the interesting account of these (salutatores, +deductores, assectatores) in the _Commentariolum petitionis_ of Q. +Cicero, 9. 34 foll.] + +[Footnote 425: See above, p. 109.] + +[Footnote 426: Q. Cicero, _Comment. Pet._9. 37.] + +[Footnote 427: See the author's _Roman Festivals_, pp. 125 foll.] + +[Footnote 428: Plutarch, _C. Gracchus_, 6.] + +[Footnote 429: Cic. _ad Fam._ ii. 12.] + +[Footnote 430: Fragm. 9. Baehrens, _Fragm. Poet. Rom._ p. 141. Cp. +Galen, vol. x. p. 3 (Kuhn).] + +[Footnote 431: Livy xlv. 36; Cic. _ad Fam_. i. 2; for a famous case of +"obstruction" by lengthy speaking, Gell. iv. 10.] + +[Footnote 432: Festus, p. 54.] + +[Footnote 433: _ad Fam._ vii. 30.] + +[Footnote 434: _de Divinatione_, ii. 142, written in 44 B.C.] + +[Footnote 435: Varro, _R.R._ i. 2; the words are put into the mouth +of one of the speakers in the dialogue. See, for examples from later +writers, Marq., _Privatleben_, p. 262.] + +[Footnote 436: _ad Att_. xiii. 52; the habit may have often been +dropped in winter.] + +[Footnote 437: Seneca, _Ep_. 86. The whole passage is most +interesting, as illustrating the difference in habits wrought in the +course of two centuries.] + +[Footnote 438: Mau, _Pompeii_, p. 300. See above, p. 244.] + +[Footnote 439: See the plan in Mau, p. 357; Marquardt, _Privatleben_, +p. 272.] + +[Footnote 440: See Professor Purser's explanation and illustrations in +the _Dict. of Antiquities_, vol. i. p. 278.] + +[Footnote 441: The subject of the public baths at Rome properly +belongs to the period of the Empire, and is too extensive to be +treated in a chapter on the daily life of the Roman of Cicero's time. +Public baths did exist in Rome already, but we hear very little of +them, which shows that they were not as yet an indispensable adjunct +of social life; but the fact that Seneca in the letter already quoted +describes the aediles as testing the heat of the water with their +hands shows (1) that the baths were public, (2) that they were of hot +water and not, as later, of hot air (_thermae_). The latter invention +is said to have come in before the Social war (Val. Max. ix. 1. +1.). Some baths seem to have been run as a speculation by private +individuals, and bore the name of their builder (e.g. balneae Seniae, +Cic. _pro Cael_. 25. 61). In summer the young men still bathed in the +Tiber (_pro Cael_. 15. 36). At Pompeii the oldest public baths (the +Stabian; Mau, p. 183) date from the second century B.C.] + +[Footnote 442: The tradition was that the paterfamilias originally +also sat instead of reclining. See Marq. _Privatleben_, p. 292 note +3.] + +[Footnote 443: Columella, ii. 1. 19, a very interesting chapter; +Plutarch, _Cato min_. 56.] + +[Footnote 444: Plut. _Lucullus_ 40; see above, p. 242.] + +[Footnote 445: Plut. _Quaest. Conv._ 1. 3 foll.; and Marq. p. 295.] + +[Footnote 446: Hor. _Sat_. i. 4. 86; cp. Cic. _in Pisonem_, 27. 67.] + +[Footnote 447: Cic. _de Senect_. 14. 46.] + +[Footnote 448: Lucilius, fragm. 30; 120 foll.; 168, 327 etc. Varro +wrote a Menippean satire on gluttony, of which a fragment is preserved +by Gellius, vi. 16.] + +[Footnote 449: See the interesting passage in _Cic. pro Murena_, 36. +75, about the funeral feast of Scipio Aemilianus.] + +[Footnote 450: Catull. 47. 5: "vos convivia lauta sumptuose De die +facitis?"] + +[Footnote 451: 26. 65 foll; Hor. _Od_. iii. 19, and the commentators.] + +[Footnote 452: _ad Fam_. vii. 26, of the year 57 B.C. The sumptuary +law must have been a certain lex Aemilia of later date than Sulla. +(See Gell. ii. 24: "qua lege non sumptus cenarum, sed ciborum genus et +modus praefinitus est.") This chapter of Gellius, and Macrob. iii. 17, +are the safest passages to consult on the subject of the growth of +gourmandism.] + +[Footnote 453: See Munro, _Elucidations of Catullus_, p. 92 foll.] + +[Footnote 454: Tibull. ii. 1. 51 foll. Cp. ii. 5. 83 foll. Several are +also described by Ovid in his _Fasti_. A charming account of feste in +a Tuscan village of to-day will be found in _A Nook in the Apennines_, +by Leader Scott, chapters xxviii. and xxix.: a book full of value for +Italian rural life, ancient and modern.] + +[Footnote 455: Wissowa, _Religion und Kultus_, p. 366. "Feriae" came +in time to be limited to public festivals, while "festus dies" covered +all holidays.] + +[Footnote 456: de Legibus, ii. 8. 19: cp. 12. 29.] + +[Footnote 457: Georg. i. 268 foll. Cato had already said the same +thing: _R.R._ ii. 4.] + +[Footnote 458: Thus Ovid describes the rites performed by the Flamen +Quirinalis at the old agricultural festival of the Robigalia (Robigus, +deity of the mildew) as if it were a curious bit of old practice which +most people knew nothing about.--_Fasti_, iv. 901 foll.] + +[Footnote 459: Greenidge, _Legal Procedure in Cicero's time_, p. 457.] + +[Footnote 460: It is the same word as our _fair_.] + +[Footnote 461: _Fasti_, iii. 523 foll.; Fowler, _Roman Festivals_, p. +51.] + +[Footnote 462: _Roman Festivals_, p. 185. The custom doubtless had a +religious origin.] + +[Footnote 463: _Ib_. p. 268. Augustus limited the days to three.] + +[Footnote 464: Wissowa, _Religion und Kultus_, p. 170. The cult of +Saturn was largely affected by Greek usage, but this particular custom +was more likely descended from the usage of the Latin farm.] + +[Footnote 465: See above, p. 172. Marquardt, _Privatleben_, p. 586; +Frazer, _Golden Bough_ (ed. 2), vol. iii. p. 188 foll.] + +[Footnote 466: Cic. _Verr_. I. 10. 31; where Cicero complains of the +difficulties he experienced in conducting his case in consequence of +the number of ludi from August to November in that year.] + +[Footnote 467: Fowler, _Roman Festivals_, p. 217 foll.] + +[Footnote 468: See the account in Dion. Hal. vii. 72, taken from +Fabius Pictor.] + +[Footnote 469: See Friedlaender in Marquardt, _Staatsverwaltung_, iii. +p. 508, note 3.] + +[Footnote 470: For full accounts of this procession, and the whole +question of the Ludi Romani, see Friedlaender, _l.c._; Wissowa, +_Religion und Kultus_, p. 383 foll.; or the article "Triumphus" in +the _Dict. of Antiquities_, ed. 2. All accounts owe much to Mommsen's +essay in _Roemische Forschungen_, ii. p. 42 foll.] + +[Footnote 471: On the parallelism between the Ludi Plebeii and Romani +see Mommsen, _Staatsrecht_, ii. p. 508, note 4.] + +[Footnote 472: Fowler, _Roman Festivals_, p. 179 foll.] + +[Footnote 473: _Ib_. p. 69.] + +[Footnote 474: _Ib_. p. 72 foll.] + +[Footnote 475: Fowler, _Roman Festivals_, p. 91 foll.] + +[Footnote 476: Livy xxii. 10.7; Dionys. vii. 71.] + +[Footnote 477: Pliny, N.S. xxxiii. 138. The same thing happened once +or twice under Augustus.] + +[Footnote 478: Livy xl. 44.] + +[Footnote 479: ii. 16, 57 foll.] + +[Footnote 480: We have some details of the ridiculously lavish +expenditure of this aedile in Pliny, N.H. xxxvi. 114. He built a +temporary theatre, which was decorated as though it were to be a +permanent monument of magnificence.] + +[Footnote 481: Verr. v. 14. 36.] + +[Footnote 482: Plut. Caes. 5.] + +[Footnote 483: Cio. _ad Fam_. viii. 9.] + +[Footnote 484: _ad Att_. vi. I. 21.] + +[Footnote 485: There is no evidence that slaves were admitted under +the Republic. Columella, who wrote under Nero, is the first to mention +their presence at the games (_R.R._ i. 8. 2), unless we consider the +vilicus of Horace, _Epist_. i. 14. 15, as a slave. See Friedlaender in +Marq. p. 491, note 4.] + +[Footnote 486: See above, p. 13; Fowler, _Roman Festivals_, p. 208.] + +[Footnote 487: _Roman Festivals_, p. 241.] + +[Footnote 488: _Ib_. p. 77 foll.] + +[Footnote 489: Dionys. Hal. in. 68 gives this number for Augustus' +time, and so far as we know Augustus had not enlarged the Circus.] + +[Footnote 490: Gell. iii. 10. 16.] + +[Footnote 491: Pliny, _N.H._ x. 71: he seems to be referring to an +earlier time, and this Caecina may have been the friend of Cicero. In +another passage of Pliny we hear of the red faction about the time of +Sulla (vii. 186; Friedl. p. 517). Cp. Tertullian, _de Spectaculis_, +9.] + +[Footnote 492: For a graphic picture of the scene in the Circus in +Augustus' time see Ovid, _Ars Amatoria_, i. 135 foll.] + +[Footnote 493: ch. 59.] + +[Footnote 494: See Schol. Bob. on the _pro Sestio_, new Teubner ed., +p. 105.] + +[Footnote 495: Val. Max. ii. 3. 2. The conjecture as to the object +of the exhibition by the consuls is that of Buecheler, in _Rhein. +Mus._1883, p. 476 foll.] + +[Footnote 496: The example was set, according to Livy, _Epit_. 16, by +a Junius Brutus at the beginning of the first Punic war.] + +[Footnote 497: _ad Fam_. ii. 3.] + +[Footnote 498: The origin of these bloody shows at funerals needs +further investigation. It may be connected with a primitive and savage +custom of sacrificing captives to the Manes of a chief, of which we +have a reminiscence in the sacrifice of captives by Aeneas, in Virg. +_Aen_. xi. 82.] + +[Footnote 499: See Lucian Mueller's _Ennius_, p. 35 foll., where he +maintains against Mommsen the intelligence and taste of the Romans of +the 2nd century B.C.] + +[Footnote 500: Cic. _Brutus_, 28. 107, where he speaks of having known +the poet himself.] + +[Footnote 501: _ad_ Att. ii. 19.] + +[Footnote 502: _Pro Sestio_, 55. 117 foll.] + +[Footnote 503: _ad Q. Fratr_. iii. 5.] + +[Footnote 504: It is only fair to say that this information comes from +a letter of Asinius Pollio to Cicero (_ad Fam_. x. 32. 3), and as +Pollio was one who had a word of mockery for every one, we may +discount the story of the tears.] + +[Footnote 505: Tibicines, usually mistranslated flute-players; this +characteristic Italian instrument was really a primitive oboe played +with a reed, and usually of the double form (two pipes with a +connected mouthpiece), still sometimes seen in Italy.] + +[Footnote 506: See above, p. 70.] + +[Footnote 507: Val. Max. ii. 4. 2; Livy, _Epit_. 48.] + +[Footnote 508: Tacitus, _Ann_. xiv. 20.] + +[Footnote 509: Tertullian, _de Spectaculis_, 10; Pliny, _N.H._ viii. +20.] + +[Footnote 510: See the excellent account in Huelsen, vol. iii. of +Jordan's _Topographie_, p. 524 foll. Some of the arches of the +supporting arcade are still visible.] + +[Footnote 511: _ad Fam_. vii. I. Professor Tyrrell calls this letter a +rhetorical exercise; is it not rather one of those in which Cicero is +taking pains to write, therefore writing less easily and naturally +than usual?] + +[Footnote 512: I have used Mr. Shuckburgh's translation, with one or +two verbal changes.] + +[Footnote 513: Pliny, _Nat. Hist_. viii. 21.] + +[Footnote 514: _de Div_. i. 37. 80. Cp. the story in Plut. _Cic_. 5.] + +[Footnote 515: Hor. _Ep_. ii. 82; Quintil. ii. 3. Ill.] + +[Footnote 516: Val. Max. viii. 10. 2. Cicero was said to have learnt +gesticulation both from Aesopus and Roscius.--Plut. _Cic_. 5.] + +[Footnote 517: Pliny, _N.H._ vii. 128.] + +[Footnote 518: _Pro Archia_, 8.] + +[Footnote 519: _De Oratore_, i. 28. 129.] + +[Footnote 520: _De Oratore_, iii. 27, 59.] + +[Footnote 521: A useful succinct account of the literature of +this difficult subject will be found in Schanz, _Gesch. der rom. +Litteratur_, vol. i. (ed. 3) p. 21 foll.] + +[Footnote 522: This is the view of Mommsen, _Hist_. iii. p. 455, which +is generally accepted. For further information see Teuffel, _Hist. of +Roman Literature_, i. (ed. 2) p. 9. That they were in fashion before +the mimus is gathered from Cic. _ad Fam_. ix. 16.] + +[Footnote 523: Plut. _Sulla_, 2: ep. 36.] + +[Footnote 524: Political allusions in mimes, were, however, not +unknown. Cp. Cic. _ad Alt_. xiv. 3, written in 44 B.C., after Caesar's +death.] + +[Footnote 525: All the passages about Publilius are collected in Mr. +Bickford Smith's edition of his _Sententiae_, p. 10 foll. On mimes +generally the reader may be referred to Professor Purser's excellent +article in Smith's _Diet. of Antiq_. ed. 2.] + +[Footnote 526: Animo aequissimo, _ad Fam_. xii. 19. He means perhaps +rather that flattering allusions to Caesar did not hurt his feelings.] + +[Footnote 527: See Ribbeck, _Fragm. Comic. Lat_. p. 295 foll.] + +[Footnote 528: Seneca, _Epist_. 108. 8.] + +[Footnote 529: See another excellent article of Professor Purser's in +the _Dict. of Antiq_.] + +[Footnote 530: See the _Hibbert Journal_ for July 1907, p. 847. In the +second sense Cicero often uses the plural "religiones," esp. in _de +Legibus_, ii.] + +[Footnote 531: See Middleton, _Rome in 1887_, p. 423; Horace, _Sat_. +i. 8. 8 foll.; Nissen, _Italische Landeskunde_, ii. p. 522.] + +[Footnote 532: Fowler, _Roman Festivals_, p. 336 foll.] + +[Footnote 533: _Monumentum Ancyranum_ (Lat.), 4. 17.] + +[Footnote 534: _de Nat. Deor._ i. 29. 82.] + +[Footnote 535: Valerius Maximus, _Epit._ 3. 4; Wissowa, _Rel. und +Kult._ p. 293.] + +[Footnote 536: See, e.g. Dill, _Roman Society from Nero to Marcus +Aurelius_, ch. v.] + +[Footnote 537: See, e.g., _pro Sestio_, 15. 32; _in Vatinium_, 7. 18.] + +[Footnote 538: Augustine, _Civ. Dei_, iv. 27.] + +[Footnote 539: Cp. i. 63 foll.; iii. 87 and 894; v. 72 and 1218; and +many other passages.] + +[Footnote 540: iii. 995 foll.; v. 1120 foll.] + +[Footnote 541: iii. 70; v. 1126.] + +[Footnote 542: ii. 22 foll.; iii. 1003; v. 1116.] + +[Footnote 543: _Roman Poets of the Republic_, p. 306.] + +[Footnote 544: The secret may be found in the last 250 lines of Bk. +iii., and at the beginning and end of Bk. v.] + +[Footnote 545: v. 1203; ii. 48-54.] + +[Footnote 546: v. 1129.] + +[Footnote 547: "Philosophy has never touched the mass of mankind +except through religion" (_Decadence_, by Rt. Hon. A.J. Balfour, p. +53). This is a truth of which Lucretius was profoundly, though not +surprisingly, ignorant.] + +[Footnote 548: See above, p. 115.] + +[Footnote 549: e.g. xxi. 62.] + +[Footnote 550: Ribbeck, _Fragm. Trag. Rom._ p. 54: Ego deum genus esse +semper dixi et dicam coelitum, Sed eos non curare opinor quid agat +humanum genus.] + +[Footnote 551: See above, p. 114.] + +[Footnote 552: See H.N. Fowler, _Panaetii et Hecatonis librorum +fragmenta_, p. 10; Hirzel, _Untersuchungen zu Cicero's philosophischen +Schriften_, i. p. 194 foll.] + +[Footnote 553: See above, p. 115.] + +[Footnote 554: Schmekel, _Die Mittlere Stoa_, p. 85 foll.; Hirzel, +_Untersuchungen_, etc., i. p. 194 foll.] + +[Footnote 555: The fragments are collected by E. Agahd, Leipzig, 1898. +The great majority are found in St. Augustine, _de Civitate Dei_.] + +[Footnote 556: As Wissowa says (_Religion und Kultus der Roemer_, p. +100), Jupiter does not appear in Roman language and literature as a +personality who thunders or rains, but rather as the heaven itself +combining these various manifestations of activity. The most familiar +illustration of the usage alluded to in the text is the line of Horace +in _Odes_ i. 1. 25: "manet sub Iove frigido venator."] + +[Footnote 557: ap. Aug. _Civ. Dei_, iv. 11.] + +[Footnote 558: _Ib._ vii. 9.] + +[Footnote 559: ap. Aug. _Civ. Dei_, vii. 13: animus mundi is here so +called, but evidently identified with Jupiter.] + +[Footnote 560: _Ib._ vii. 9.] + +[Footnote 561: _Ib._ iv. 11, 13.] + +[Footnote 562: Aug. _de consensu evangel._ i. 23, 24. Cp. _Civ. Dei_, +iv. 9.] + +[Footnote 563: _Ib._ i. 22. 30; _Civ. Dei_, xix. 22.] + +[Footnote 564: See Wissowa, _Religion und Kultus_, p. 103.] + +[Footnote 565: _de Rep_. iii. 22. See above, p. 117.] + +[Footnote 566: _de Legilus_, ii. 10.] + +[Footnote 567: _de Nat. Deor._. i. 15. 40: "idem etiam legis perpetuae +et eternae vim, quae quasi dux vitae et magistra officiorum sit, Iovem +dicit esse, eandemque fatalem necessitatem appellat, sempiternam rerum +futurarum veritatem." Chrysippus of course was speaking of the Greek +Zeus.] + +[Footnote 568: e.g. _de Off._ iii. 28; _de Nat. Deor._ i. 116.] + +[Footnote 569: Glover, _Studies in Virgil_, p. 275.] + +[Footnote 570: It is interesting to note that in the religious revival +of Augustus Jupiter by no means has a leading place. See Carter, +_Religion of Numa_, p. 160, where, however, the attitude of Augustus +towards the great god is perhaps over-emphasised. On the relation of +Virgil's Jupiter to Fate, see E. Norden, _Virgils epische Technik_, p. +286 foll. Seneca, it is worth noting, never mentions Jupiter as the +centre of the Stoic Pantheon.--Dill, _Roman Society from Nero to M. +Aurelius_, p. 331.] + +[Footnote 571: See an article by the author in _Hibbert Journal_, July +1907, p. 847.] + +[Footnote 572: Plut. _Sulla_, 6.] + +[Footnote 573: Valerius Maximus ii. 3.] + +[Footnote 574: _de Div_. i. 32. 68.] + +[Footnote 575: Plut. _Brutus_, 36, 37.] + +[Footnote 576: Sall. _Cat._ 51; Cic. _Cat._ iv. 4. 7.] + +[Footnote 577: Cic. _de Rep._ iv. 24.] + +[Footnote 578: Reid, _The Academics of Cicero_, Introduction, p. 18.] + +[Footnote 579: _ad Att._ xii. 36.] + +[Footnote 580: ad Att. xii. 37.] + +[Footnote 581: Suetonius, _Jul_. 88. See E. Kornemann in _Klio_, vol. +i. p. 95.] + +[Footnote 582: We do not know exactly when this preface was written. +Prefaces are now composed, as a rule, when a work is finished: but +this does not seem to have been the practice in antiquity, and +internal evidence is here strongly in favour of an early date.] + +[Footnote 583: _Epode_ 16. 54; cp. 30 foll.] + +[Footnote 584: Sir W.M. Ramsay, quoted in _Virgil's Messianic +Eclogue_, p. 54.] + +[Footnote 585: Dr. J.B. Mayor, in _Virgil's Messianic Eclogue_, p. 118 +foll.] + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Social life at Rome in the Age of +Cicero, by W. 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