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SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
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 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO 
 ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 
 
 LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
 MELBOURNE 
 
 THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 
 
 TORONTO 
 
SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 LN THE AGE OF CICERO 
 
 BY 
 
 W. WARDE FOWLER, MA. 
 
 FELLOW AND LECTURF.R OF LINCOLN COLLEGE, OXFORD 
 AUTHOR OF ‘THE CITY-STATE OF THE GREEKS AND ROMANS,’ 
 *THE ROMAN FESTIVALS OF THE PERIOD OF THE REPUBLIC,’ ETC. 
 
 ‘ Ad ilia mihi pro se quisque acriter intendat animum, 
 quae vita, quae mores fuerint ’ — Livv, Prae/atio. 
 
 Neto gorfe 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 1922 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
Copyright, 1909, 
 
 By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 
 
 Set up and electrotyped. Published February, 1909. 
 
 Nortooob : 
 
 Berwick & Smith Co., Norwood, Mass., U.Sjk. 
 
AMICO VETERRIMO 
 
 I. A. STEWART 
 
 BOMAE PR1MUM VISAS 
 COMES MEMOR 
 D. D. D. 
 
 V 
 
PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 This book was originally intended to be a companion 
 to Professor Tucker’s Life in Ancient Athens , pub¬ 
 lished 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 
 
vm 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 correspondence, of more than nine hundred contem¬ 
 porary 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 tier Rumer of Marquardt, 
 which forms the last portion of the great Handbuch 
 tier Romischen Altertiimer of Mommsen and Mar¬ 
 quardt. 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. AVe 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, 1 ; justification of this, 2 ; view from Janiculum 
 and its lessons, 4 ; advantages of the position of Rome, for 
 defence and advance, 5 ; disadvantages as to commerce 
 and salubrity, 7 ; views of Roman writers, 9 ; a walk 
 through the city in 50 B.C., 12; Forum Boarium and 
 Circus maximus, 13 ; Porta Capena, 14 ; via Sacra, 16 ; 
 summa sacra via and view of Forum, 17 ; religious build¬ 
 ings at eastern end of Forum, 19 ; Forum and its buildings 
 in Cicero’s time, 19 ; ascent to the Capitol, 20 ; temple of 
 Jupiter and the view from it, 21. 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 The Lower Population .... 
 
 Spread of the city outside original centre, 24 ; the plebs dwelt 
 mainly in the lower ground, 25 ; little known about its life : 
 indifference of literary men, 27 ; housing : the insulae, 28 ; 
 no sign of home life, 29 ; bad condition of these houses, 30 ; 
 how the plebs subsisted, 32 ; vegetarian diet, 32 ; the corn 
 supply and its problems, 34 ; the corn law of Gaius Gracchus, 
 36; results, and later laws, 37 ; the water-supply, 39 ; 
 history of aqueducts, 40 ; employment of the lower grade 
 population, 42 ; aristocratic contempt for retail trading, 
 43 ; the trade gilds, 45 ; relation of free to slave labour, 
 47 ; bakers, 49 ; supply of vegetables, 49 ; of clothing, 51 ; 
 of leather, 53 ; of iron, etc., 54 ; gave employment to large 
 numbers, 55 ; porterage, 55 ; precarious condition of labour, 
 56 ; fluctuation of markets, 56 ; want of a good bankruptcy 
 law, 57. 
 
 ta ora 
 1-23 
 
 24-59 
 
 IX 
 
X 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 PAGES 
 
 The Men of Business and their Methods . . 60-96 
 
 Meaning of equester ordo, 60 ; how the capitalist came by his 
 money, 62 ; example of Atticus, 63 ; incoming of wealth 
 after Hannibalic war, 65 ; suddenness of this, 68 ; rise of a 
 capitalist class, 69 ; the contractors, 70 ; the public contrac.- 
 ing companies, 71 ; in the age and writings of Cicero, 73 ; 
 their political influence, 74 ; and power in the provinces, 
 
 76 ; the bankers and money-lenders, 80 ; origin of the 
 Koinan banker, 81 ; nature of his business, 82 ; risks of the 
 money-lender, 84 ; general indebtedness of society, 85; 
 
 Cicero's debts, 86 ; story of Rabirius Postumus, 90 ; mischief 
 done by both contractors and money-lenders, 94. 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 The Governing Aristocracy .... 97-134 
 
 The old noble families, 97 ; their exclusiveness, 99 ; Cicero’s 
 attitude towards them, 99 ; new type of noble, 101 ; Scipio 
 Aemilianus : his “circle,” 104; its influence on theCiceronian 
 age in (1) manners, 106; (2) literary capacity, 109; (3) 
 philosophical receptivity, 113 ; Stoicism at Rome, 114 ; its 
 influence on the lawyers, 117 ; Sulpicius Rufus, his life and 
 work, 118 ; Epicureanism, its general effect on society, 121 ; 
 case of Calpurnius Piso, 123 ; pursuit of pleasure and neglect 
 of duty, 124 ; senatorial duties neglected, 125 ; frivolity of 
 the younger public men, 127 ; example of M. Caelius Rufus, 
 
 127; sketch of his life and character, 128; life of the Forum 
 as seen in the letters of Caelius, 131. 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 Marriage and the Rohan Lady . . . 135-167 
 
 Meaning of matrimonium : its religious side, 135 ; shown from 
 the oldest marriage ceremony, 136 ; its legal aspect, 138 ; 
 marriage cum rnanu abandoned, 139 ; betrothal, 140 ; 
 marriage rites, 142 ; dignified position of Roman matron, 
 
 143 ; the ideal inaterfamilias, 144 ; change in the character 
 of women, 146; its causes, 147 ; the ladies of Cicero's time, 
 
 150 ; Terentia, 150 ; Pomponia, 152 ; ladies of society and 
 culture : Clodia, 155 ; Sempronia, 156 ; divorce, its frequency, 
 
 158 ; a wonderful Roman lady : the Laudatio Turiae, 159 ; 
 story of her life and character as recorded by her husband, 
 
 160. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 XI 
 
 CHAPTER YX 
 
 The Education of the Upper Classes 
 
 An education of character needed, 168 ; Aristotle’s idea of 
 education, 168 ; little interest taken in education at Rome, 
 171 ; biographies silent, 171 ; education of Cato the 
 younger, 172 ; of Cicero’s son and nephew, 173 ; Varro and 
 Cicero on education, 175 ; the old Roman education of the 
 body and character, 177 ; causes of its breakdown, 180 ; 
 the new education under Greek influence, 183 ; schools, 
 elementary, 183 ; the sententiae in use in schools, 185; 
 arithmetic, 186 ; utilitarian character of teaching, 187 ; 
 advanced schools, 188 ; teaching too entirely linguistic and 
 literary, 189 ; assumption of toga virilis, 191 ; study of 
 rhetoric and law, 193 ; oratory the main object, 195; 
 results of this, 197 ; Cicero’s son at the University of 
 Athens : his letter to Tiro, 199. 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 The Slave Population , . , 
 
 The demand for labour in second century b.c., 205 ; how it was 
 supplied, 206 ; the slave trade, 208 ; kidnapping by pirates, 
 etc., 208; breeding of slaves, 210; prices of slaves, 211 ; 
 possible number in Cicero’s day, 212 ; economic aspect of 
 slavery: did it interfere with free labour ? 213 ; no 
 apparent rivalry between them, 214 ; either in Rome, 214 ; 
 or on the farm, 217 ; the slave-shepherds of South Italy, 
 220 ; they exclude free labour, 222 ; legal aspect of slavery : 
 absolute power of owner, 223 ; prospect of manumission, 
 224 ; political results of slave system, 225 ; of manumission, 
 227 ; ethical aspect: destruction of family life, 230 ; no 
 moral standard, 232 ; effects of slavery on the slave-owners, 
 234. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 The House of the Rich Man in Town and Country 
 
 Out-of-door life at Rome, 237 ; but the Roman house originally 
 a home, 238 ; religious character of it, 233 ; the atrium and 
 its contents, 240 ; development of atrium : the peristylium, 
 
 PAOES 
 
 168-203 
 
 204-236 
 
 237-262 
 
SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 PAGES 
 
 xii 
 
 242 ; desire for country houses: crowding at Rome, 243 ; 
 callers, clients, etc., 245 ; effects of this city life on the 
 individual, 246 ; country house of Scipio Africanus, 247 ; 
 watering-places in Campania, 248 ; meaning of villa in 
 Cicero’s time : Hortensius’ park, 250 ; Cicero’s villas : 
 Tusculum, 251; Arpinum, 253; Formiae, 256 ; Puteoli, 257 ; 
 Cumae, 258 ; Pompeii, 258 ; Astura, 259 ; constant change 
 of residence, and its effects, 260. 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 The Daily Life of the Well-to-do . 
 
 Roman division of the day, 263 ; sundials, 265 ; hours varied 
 according to the season, 265 ; early rising of Romans, 266 ; 
 want of artificial light, 267 ; Cicero’s early hours, 268 ; 
 early callers, 269 ; breakfast, followed by business, 270 ; 
 morning in the Forum, 271; lunch (prandium), 273; siesta, 
 274 ; the bath, 275 ; dinner : its hour becomes later, 277 ; 
 dinner-parties : the triclinium, 279 ; drinking after dinner, 
 279 ; Cicero’s indifference to the table, 282 ; his entertain¬ 
 ment of Caesar at Cumae, 283. 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 Holidays and Public Amusements 
 
 The Italian festa, ancient and modern, 285 ; meaning of the word 
 feriae, 287 ; change in its meaning, 288 ; holidays of plebs, 
 289 ; festival of Anna Perenna, 289 ; The Saturnalia, 290 ; 
 the ludi and their origin, 291 ; ludi Romani and plebeii, 
 292 ; other ludi, 293 ; supported by State, 294 ; by private 
 individuals, 295 ; admission free, 298 ; Circus maximus and 
 chariot-racing, 299 ; gladiators at funeral games, 302 ; 
 stage-plays at ludi, 304 ; political feeling expressed at the 
 theatre, 306 ; decadence of tragedy in Cicero’s time, 308 ; 
 the first permanent theatre, 55 B.C., 309 ; opening of 
 Pompey’s theatre, 310 ; Cicero’s account of it, 311 ; the 
 great actors of Cicero’s day : Aesopus, 313 ; Roscius, 314 ; 
 the farces, 315 ; Publilius Syrus and the mime, 317. 
 
 263-284 
 
 285-318 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 Religion . .... 
 
 Absence of real religious feeling, 319 ; neglect of worship, 
 except in the family, 320; foreign cults, e.g. of Isis, 322 ; 
 religious attitude of Cicero and other public men : free 
 thought, combined with maintenance of the ius divinum, 
 323; Lucretius condemns all religion as degrading: his 
 failure to produce a substitute for it, 326 ; Stoic attitude 
 towards religion : Stoicism finds room for the gods of the 
 State, 332 ; Yarro’s treatment of theology on Stoic lines, 
 335 ; his monotheistic conception of Jupiter Capitolinus, 
 337 ; the Stoic Jupiter a legal rather than a moral deity, 
 340 ; Jupiter in the Aeneid, 341 ; superstition of the age, 
 343; belief in portents, visions, etc., 344; ideas of im¬ 
 mortality, 346 ; sense of sin, or despair of the future, 350. 
 
 Epilogue 
 
 xiii 
 
 PAOBS 
 
 319-352 
 
 353-355 
 
 Index 
 
 357-362 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 FAGI 
 
 Plan of House of the Silver Wedding at Pompeii . 244 
 Map to Illustrate the Position of Cicero's Villas . 252 
 Plan of the Villa of Diomedes at Pompeii . . 255 
 
 Plan of a Triclinium . . . . .279 
 
 i 
 
 MAP 
 
 Home in the Last Years of the Republic . At end of Volume 
 
 xv 
 
Translations of passages in foreign languages in this 
 book will be found in the Appendix following page 362. 
 
 xvi 
 
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 
 
 1 Martial iv. 64. 12. 
 
 2 Aen. viii. 90 foil. The Capitoline hill, which Virgil means by 
 “arx,” is a conspicuous object from the river just below the Aventine, 
 
 35 B 
 
2 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 him dismiss all handbooks from his mind, and con¬ 
 centrate 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 . 1 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. 
 
 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 
 
 1 Plutarch, Cato minor 30. Cato was expected to land at the com¬ 
 mercial docks below the Aventine (see below, p. 14), where the senate 
 and magistrates were awaiting him, but with his usual rudeness rowed 
 past them to the navalia. 
 
I 
 
 TOPOGRAPHICAL 
 
 o 
 
 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 pro¬ 
 phetic nymph Carmenta, with the Porta Car- 
 mentalis 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 . 1 
 
 What Evander showed to his visitor, as we shall 
 presently see, comprised the whole site of the heart 
 
 1 Aen. viii. 363. Possibly Virgil meant to put this dwelling on the 
 site of the future Kegia, just below the Palatine and between it and 
 the Porum. See Servius ad loc. 
 
4 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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 political 
 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 , 1 let us climb to the 
 fort of the Janiculam, an ancient outwork against 
 attack from the north, by way of the via Aurelia, 
 and here enjoy the view which Martial has made for 
 ever 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 
 
 1 The modern visitor would cross by the Ponte Rotto, which is in 
 the same position as the ancient bridge, just below the Tiber island. 
 
I 
 
 TOPOGRAPHICAL 
 
 5 
 
 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 coun¬ 
 try to the north. The site was an outpost, because 
 the three isolated hills make it a natural point of de¬ 
 fence, 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 
 
6 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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. 1 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 2 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. 3 Her position on the Tiber 
 
 1 Livy v. 54. 2 The Fratres Arvales. 
 
 3 For navigation of the river above Rome see Strabo p. 235. 
 
I 
 
 TOPOGRAPHICAL 
 
 7 
 
 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 
 
8 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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. 1 Lastly, the 
 site has never really been a healthy one, especially 
 during the months of July and August, 2 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 
 
 1 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 Amus, 
 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. 
 
 2 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 foil.). In an interesting paper on Malaria and History , by Mr. 
 W. II. 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. 
 
I 
 
 TOPOGRAPHICAL 
 
 9 
 
 burning of the city by the Gauls, it was proposed 
 that the people should desert the site and migrate 
 to Yeii, the conquered Etruscan city to the north, 
 and that it needed all the eloquence of Camillus to 
 dissuade them. It has given Livy 1 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 2 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 3 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. 4 
 
 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 
 
 1 Livy v. 54. 
 
 3 Reden und Aufsdtze, p. 173 foil. 
 
 2 Horace, Epode 16. 
 * lb. p. 175. 
 
IO 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 of the site. For him “ rerum facta est pulclierrima 
 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.” 1 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 doubt¬ 
 less 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 
 
 De Rep. ii. 5 and 6. 
 
i TOPOGRAPHICAL n 
 
 Rome, to which Virgil gave such inimitable ex¬ 
 pression. 
 
 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 pesti¬ 
 lence ; 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 increas¬ 
 ing population of slaves to the city, many of whom 
 in course of time would be manumitted, would marry, 
 
12 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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 popu¬ 
 lation which, in the latter part of the last century 
 b.c., probably reached half a million or even more. 1 
 
 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, 2 and where farther down 
 the rich were buying land for gardens 3 and suburban 
 villas; but cross by the Pons Aemilius, with the 
 Tiber island on our left, and the opening of the 
 Cloaca maxima, w T hich 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. 4 Here by the river was in fact the 
 
 1 Beloeli, Die Bewolkerung der griechisch-romischen Welt, cap. 9, approach¬ 
 ing 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. 
 
 2 Hiilsen-Jordan, Bom. Topographie, vol. i. part iii. pp. 627, 638. 
 
 3 lb. 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. 
 
 * Livy xxxv. 40. 
 
[ 
 
 TOPOGRAPHICAL 
 
 13 
 
 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 
 Yelabrum, 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 fill¬ 
 ing 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 subter¬ 
 ranean 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 . 1 
 
 The Circus, some six hundred yards long, at the 
 
 1 Hiilsen-Jordan, op. cit. p. 143 note. 
 
14 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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. 1 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. 2 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. 3 Outside the wall 
 there was then a small temple of Mars, from which 
 
 1 See below, p. 302. Dionysius of Halicarnassus (iii. 68) gives an 
 elaborate account of it in tbe time of Augustus, when it had been altered 
 and ornamented.—Hiilsen-Jordan, p. 120 folL 
 
 2 Fowler, Roman Festivals, p. 199 ; Wissowa in Pauly-Wissowa, Real- 
 Encyklopadie, s.v. Diana. 
 
 3 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 iii. 10 foil. 
 
I 
 
 TOPOGRAPHICAL 
 
 i5 
 
 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. l). 
 
 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; 1 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 
 
 1 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. 
 
i6 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 ordered to be pulled down. 1 Going straight on we 
 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 2 —another of 
 the spurs of the plain beyond—known by the name 
 of the Yelia. And now we are approaching the real 
 heart of the city. 
 
 At this point starts the Sacra via, 3 so called 
 because it is the way to the most sacred spots of the 
 ancient Roman city,—the temples of Yesta 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 w T e 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 w T hich 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 
 
 1 Cic. de Officiis iii. 16. 66, and the story there related. 
 
 3 Strictly speaking, the Oppius Mons, or southern part of the Esquiline. 
 
 3 See Lanciani’s admirable chapter, “ A Walk through the Sacra Via,” in 
 his Ruins and Excavations of Ancient Rome, p. 190 foil. 
 
TOPOGRAPHICAL 
 
 i 
 
 i7 
 
 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 norths 
 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. 1 
 
 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 
 
 1 Georg, ii. 502. Virgil, for all his admiration of Rome, did not love its 
 crowds. 
 
 0 
 
i8 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAf. 
 
 some one at the top of the via Sacra, but the man 
 who jostles me.” 1 
 
 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 Yelabrum. 
 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, 2 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 Yelabrum, 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, wdiich the via Sacra 
 now follows, and reach the Forum by the fornix 
 Fabiana. Close by to our left is the round temple of 
 Yesta, where the sacred fire of the State is kept ever 
 
 1 Cic. pro Plancio, ch. 7. Cp. Horace, Sat. i. 9 ; Lucilius, Frag. 9 (ed. 
 Baehrens), which last will be quoted in another context. 
 
 2 On the vexed question of the position of the Subura and its histoTj 
 see Wissowa, Gesammelte Abhandlungen, p. 230 foil. 
 
I 
 
 TOPOGRAPHICAL 
 
 19 
 
 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. 1 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 
 
 1 For excavations here see Lanciani, op. cit. p. 221 ML 
 
20 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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 con¬ 
 spirators 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 
 
I 
 
 TOPOGRAPHICAL 
 
 21 
 
 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 
 very 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 con¬ 
 viction. 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 , 1 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 
 
 1 Cic. Cat. iii. 9. 21 foil. 
 
22 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 so placed, the machinations of Catiline and his 
 conspirators had been detected. 1 “ 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. 2 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 Flammius 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. 
 
 1 Formerly we may assume that it faced south or south-east, like the 
 temple. 
 
 2 It was completed by Caesar in 46 B.c. 
 
I 
 
 TOPOGRAPHICAL 
 
 23 
 
 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 ; 1 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 threaten¬ 
 ing 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 
 
 1 Beloch, Bewolkcrung, p. 382. 
 
 24 
 
CHAP. II THE LOWER POPULATION 
 
 25 
 
 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 . 1 
 
 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 aristo¬ 
 cratic 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 . 2 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 
 with what we may call the working classes; the 
 
 1 C.I.L. i. 206, and Dessau, Inscr. Lat. Seledae, ii. 1. p. 493. 
 
 2 Cic. ad Q. Fratr. iii. 1. 14 ; Suet, dc Grammaticis, 15 ; Corn. Nepos, 
 Atticus, 13. 
 
26 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 Argiletum, for example, was famous both for its 
 booksellers and its shoemakers , 1 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, com¬ 
 prising 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 , 2 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, includ¬ 
 ing all writers of memoirs and history, were not 
 interested in them. There was no philanthropist, no 
 
 1 Hiilsen-Jordan, Horn. Topographic, vol. i. part iii. p. 323. 
 
 s This is the number receiving corn gratis when Julius Caesar reformed 
 the corn-distribution.—Suetonius, lul. 41. 
 
II 
 
 THE LOWER POPULATION 
 
 2 7 
 
 devoted inquirer like Mr. Charles Booth, to investi¬ 
 gate 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 . 1 ^he 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 ”; 2 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 
 
 1 See Zeller, Stoics, etc., Eng. trans. p. 255 foil. 
 
 2 Cic. de Legibus, i. 15. 43. It was not as yet possible to be “poor, 
 yet making many rich ” ; to have nothing and yet to possess all things. 
 
28 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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 un¬ 
 fashionable 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 : (l) how was this 
 population housed ? (2) how was it supplied with 
 food and clothing ? and (3) how was it employed ? 
 
 1. It w T as 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. 1 These insulae were often three 
 
 1 See the definition of insula in Festus. n. 111. and for insula generally 
 
II 
 
 THE LOWER POPULATION 
 
 29 
 
 or four stories high ; 1 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 . 2 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 other¬ 
 wise. 
 
 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 
 
 Middleton’s article “ Domus ” in the Diet, of Antiquities, ed. 2. De Marchi 
 {La Religions nella vita domestica, i. p. 80) compares the big lodging-houses 
 of the poor at Naples. 
 
 1 Cicero {Leg. Agr. ii. 35. 96) describes Rome as being (in comparison with 
 Capua) “in montibus positam et convallibus, coenaculis (i.e. upper rooms) 
 sublatam atque suspensam, non optimis viis,” etc. Vitruv. ii. 17 is the 
 locus classicus. 
 
 Cic. pro Caelio 17. 
 
30 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 society . 1 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 .” 2 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 , 3 incident¬ 
 ally 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 (tabemae) 
 belonging to him were tumbling down and unoccu- 
 
 o o o 
 
 pied. 
 
 It is more than likely that many of the 
 
 1 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. 
 
 2 Cic. de Domo 109. 
 
 3 Cic. ad Att. xv. 17 ; cp. xiv. 9. 
 
THE LOWER POPULATION 
 
 3 1 
 
 SI 
 
 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, conflagra¬ 
 tions 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.” 1 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; 2 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 con- 
 
 1 Plut. Or asms 2 : perhaps from Fenestella. 
 
 2 “Donxdentem in taberna,” Asconins, ed. Clark, p. 37. Cp. Tacitus, 
 Hist. i. 86, for persons sleeping in tabernae. 
 
32 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAR 
 
 stantly 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, 1 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, 
 
 1 Tucker, Lift in Ancient Athens, p. 10. 
 
II 
 
 THE LOWER POPULATION 
 
 33 
 
 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. 1 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 submit¬ 
 ting to eat meat when corn was not to be had. 2 
 
 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, 3 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 
 
 1 The Moretum may be a translation from a Greek poet, perhaps Par- 
 thenius, but it is certainly as well adapted to the experience of Italians, 
 
 2 e.g. Caesar, Bell. Civ. iii. 47. Cp. Tacitus, Ann. xiv. 24. 
 
 s On this point see Salvioli, Le Capitalisme dans le monde antique, ch. vi. 
 This is a book with many shortcomings, but written by an Italian who knows 
 his own country. 
 
 D 
 
34 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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, 1 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 pro¬ 
 ductive 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 circum¬ 
 stances, be starved ; and as our attention has never 
 
 1 See the author’s Roman Festivals, p. 76 (Cerealia). 
 
II 
 
 THE LOWER POPULATION 
 
 35 
 
 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 con¬ 
 sumption of the people. 1 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. 2 
 Even comparatively small cities like Dyrrhachium and 
 Apollonia in Epirus, as Caesar tells us while narrat¬ 
 ing his own difficulty in feeding his army there, used 
 for the most part imported corn. 3 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 
 
 1 Marquardt, Staatsverwaltung, ii. pp. 107, 110 foil. A modius, which 
 = nearly a peck, contained about 20 lb. of wheat (Pliny, N. E. xviii. 66). 
 Four and a half modii x 20 = 90 lb. 
 
 2 Hirschfeld, Verwaltungsbeamten, ed. 2, p. 231 ; Strabo, p. 652 (Rhodes). 
 
 3 Caesar, B. O. iii. 42. 3. 
 
3 ^ 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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 popula¬ 
 tion 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. 1 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 states¬ 
 man 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 
 
 1 Marquardt, op. cit. p. 110. 
 
II 
 
 THE LOWER POPULATION 
 
 37 
 
 moral. Gracchus saw that the work of supply needed 
 a thorough organisation in regard to production, 
 transport, warehousing, and finance, and set about it 
 with a delight in hard work such as no Roman states¬ 
 man had shown before, believing that if the people 
 could be fed cheaply and regularly, they would cease 
 to be “a troublesome neighbour.” 1 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. 2 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 semi¬ 
 pauperism, 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 com still lower, as was done 
 by Saturninus in 100 b.c,, for political purposes. To 
 
 1 For Gracchus’ motives see a paper by the present writer in the English 
 Historical Review tor 1905, p. 221 fnl1 a Cic. Tusc, Disp. iii. 20. 48. 
 
38 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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, 1 
 he reduced the number to 150,000, and by a rigid 
 system of rules, of which we know something, con¬ 
 trived 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 comfort¬ 
 able 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 the 
 time of Cicero the people were still powerful in 
 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, 2 and 
 handled by reckless politicians in a way that was 
 as ruinous to the treasury as it was to the moral 
 
 1 Lex Julia minicipalis, 1-20, compared with Suetonius, Jul. 41. 
 
 * A good example will be found in Cic. ad Att. iv. 1. 6 foil. ; the first 
 letter written by Cicero after his return from exile. 
 
a 
 
 THE LOWER POPULATION 
 
 39 
 
 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. Fortu¬ 
 nately 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 1 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; 2 under the early 
 
 1 See my Roman Festivals, pp. 85 and 204. 2 Pliny, Nat. Hist. xviiL 17. 
 
4 o 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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. 1 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. 2 Cicero describes Rome, in his idealising 
 
 1 Suet. Aug. 42. 
 
 5 Frontinus i. 4. The date of his work is towards the end of the first 
 century a.d. 
 
II 
 
 THE LOWER POPULATION 
 
 41 
 
 way, as “ locum fontibus abundantem,” and twenty- 
 three springs are known to have existed ; but as early 
 as 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. 1 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 influ¬ 
 ence 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 repu- 
 
 1 See Lanciani, Ruins and Excavations, p. 48 ; Mommsen, Hist. vol. i. 
 Appendix. 
 
42 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 tation at all times; and for the last six miles of its 
 course it was carried above ground upon a series of 
 arches. 1 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,OOO.' 2 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. 3 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 
 
 1 Frontinus i. 7, whose account is confirmed by the recently discovered 
 Epitomes of Livy's lost books.—Grenfell and Hunt, Oxyrhynchus Papyri, 
 iv. 113. 
 
 2 See the useful table in Lanciani, op. cit. 58. 
 
 3 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 foil. 
 
II 
 
 THE LOWER POPULATION 
 
 43 
 
 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 phil¬ 
 anthropic 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 
 
44 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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 dis¬ 
 graceful than untruthful huckstering. Again, the 
 work of all artisans (opifices) is sordid; there can be 
 nothing honourable in a workshop.” 1 
 
 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 2 —a true gentleman—of the low 
 origin of Terentius Yarro, 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 . 3 
 
 Yet in Rome these humble workers existed and 
 made a living for themselves from the very be¬ 
 ginning, as far as w r e can guess, of real city life. 
 They are the necessary and inevitable product of the 
 growth of a town population, and of the resulting 
 
 1 Cic. de OJficiis, i. 42. 150. * Livy xxii. 25 ad fin. 
 
 3 It is very conspicuous, e.g., in the novels of Jane Austen. 
 
II 
 
 THE LOWER POPULATION 
 
 45 
 
 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 : 1 “ The town arose as a centre in which 
 the surplus produce of many villages could be profit¬ 
 ably 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 liveli¬ 
 hood, each craft devoting itself to the supply of a 
 single branch of those wants which the village house¬ 
 hold 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 ., 2 and were mainly devoted to Minerva as the 
 
 1 G. Unwin, Industrial Organisation, etc., p. 2. 
 3 Plutarch, Numa, 17 ; Ovid, Fasti , 010 
 
SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 46 
 
 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.” 1 These 
 collegia opijicum, 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). 2 
 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 character¬ 
 istic 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 
 
 1 J. B. Carter, The Religion of Numa, p. 48. 
 
 2 Marq. iii. p. 138. See also Kornemann’s article “Collegium” in Pauly- 
 Wissowa, Real-Encylcl ., and Waltzing, Corporations professionelles chez let 
 Romains, i. p. 78 foil. 
 
II 
 
 THE LOWER POPULATION 
 
 47 
 
 age, 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 popula¬ 
 tion 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 , 1 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 
 
 1 Le Capitalisme, etc., p. 144 foil. 
 
4 8 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 without active rivalry. No doubt slavery helped to 
 foster idleness, as it did in the Southern States of 
 America before the Civil War; 1 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. 2 “ 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 
 
 1 Cairneg, Slave Power, pp. 78, 143 foil. See below, p. 235. 
 a Pliny, Nat. Hist, xviii. 107. 
 
II 
 
 THE LOWER POPULATION 
 
 49 
 
 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 com some of them probably rose 
 above the level of the small tradesman, like the pistor 
 redemptor, Marcus Yergilius Eurysaces, whose monu¬ 
 ment has come down to us. 1 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. 2 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. 3 
 
 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 
 com, the staple food of the lower classes. We have 
 
 1 O.I.L. i. 7013. The date is possibly pre- Augustan. 
 
 * Mau’s Pompeii, p. 380. 
 
 3 See my Roman Festivals, p. 148. For the mills of various kinds see 
 also Marquardt, Privatleben, p. 405. 
 
 E 
 
50 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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. 1 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 ! 2 But 
 
 1 Privatlebcn, p. 409. 2 Pseudolus, 810 folL 
 
II 
 
 THE LOWER POPULATION 
 
 5i 
 
 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 Yirgilian poems, the Copa, i.e. hostess, or per¬ 
 haps 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. 1 
 
 Let us now see how the other chief necessity of 
 human fife, 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, 
 and the inner ( tunica ) were of this material, and the 
 
 1 Cp. the uncta popina of Horace, Epist. i. 14. 21 foil. Scene in a wine¬ 
 shop at Pompeii, Mau, p. 395. 
 
52 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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 lanijicium recorded as the 
 honourable practice of matrons. 1 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 2 ( 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 
 
 1 See, e.g., the Laudatio Turiae, C.I.L. vi. i. 1527, line 30. 
 
 3 Only very rich families employed their own fullers.—Marq. Privat- 
 Uben, p. 512. 
 
n 
 
 THE LOWER POPULATION 
 
 53 
 
 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 
 
 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. 1 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 ; 2 
 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 
 
 1 Menaechmi, 404 : this may, however, be only a translation from the 
 Greek. 
 
 2 C.I.L. i. p. 389. 
 
54 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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 ( Jiguli ), 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, 1 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 2 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. 3 
 
 But industries of this kind may serve to remind 
 
 1 Marquardt, Privatleben, p. 693 and reff. 
 
 2 Cato, de rc 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. 
 
 3 Marq. Privatleben, p. 645. 
 
a 
 
 THE LOWER POPULATION 
 
 55 
 
 as 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 , 1 and also at the wharves 
 at Rome under the Aventine. We must also re¬ 
 member 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 . 2 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 . 3 
 
 1 Strabo, p. 231. 2 Lex Julia Municipalis, line 56 foil. 
 
 * Mau, Pompeii, p. 377. 
 
56 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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 modem 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 
 
II 
 
 THE LOWER POPULATION 
 
 57 
 
 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 bim to pay it within a reason¬ 
 able 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 consul¬ 
 ship, when political and social revolutionary projects 
 were combined in the conspiracy of Catiline; and in 
 
SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 58 
 
 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 w r ell 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 
 
n 
 
 THE LOWER POPULATION 
 
 59 
 
 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 w T ere 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 
 
 60 
 
CHAP. Ill THE MEN OF BUSINESS 61 
 
 equo privato, i.e. the cavalry who served with their 
 own 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 repe- 
 tundis . 1 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 ; 2 his 
 services were needed at home, and if indeed he had 
 
 1 See Greenidge, Roman Public Life, p. 225. 
 a Lex Claudia ; Livy xxi. 63. 
 
62 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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 sena¬ 
 tors did undoubtedly employ members of the eques¬ 
 trian 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 
 
 O 7 
 
 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. 1 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 
 
 5 Plut. Crassus, 2 ; Pliny, N. H. xxxiii. 134 : equivalent to about £160,000. 
 
m THE MEN OF BUSINESS 63 
 
 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 to¬ 
 gether 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 publish¬ 
 ing 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. 1 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. 2 Lastly, 
 he owned houses in Rome; in fact he must have 
 been making money in many different ways, spending 
 but little himself, and attending personally and in- 
 
 1 Cic. ad Att. ii. 1. 2. 
 
 2 lb. iv. 4. 
 
SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 64 
 
 defatigably 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 business¬ 
 man : 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 Feather- 
 stone 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), 1 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 
 
 1 Corn. Nepos, Atticus, 5. 
 
Ill 
 
 THE MEN OF BUSINESS 
 
 65 
 
 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 ; 1 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 w*ay; 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 
 
 1 Livy xxiii. 49. 
 
 F 
 
66 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 of the war the supply of silver was recovered ; hence¬ 
 forward 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. 1 It has been 
 roughly computed that the total amount from in¬ 
 demnities 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. 2 
 
 1 Pliny, N. IT. xxxiii. 148 ; Livy xxxvii. 59. 
 
 2 Polyb. xxxiv. 9, quoted by Strabo, p. 148. Cp. Livy xlv. 18 for valuabl* 
 mines in Macedonia. 
 
Ill 
 
 THE MEN OF BUSINESS 
 
 67 
 
 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 tributum 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 pro¬ 
 minent 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, 1 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 
 
 1 Polyb xviii. 35. For the unwillingness to serve, Livy, Epit. 48 and 55. 
 
68 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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. 1 As the French 
 historian has said with singular felicity, 2 “ Money is 
 
 1 Cunningham, Western Civilisation (Modern), p. 162 foil. 
 2 Duruy, Hist, de Rome, vol. ii. p. 12. 
 
Ill 
 
 THE MEN OF BUSINESS 
 
 69 
 
 like the 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 un¬ 
 wholesome 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 with¬ 
 out 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 ,* and the 
 men who undertook it publicani ; a private under¬ 
 taking was negotium, and all private business men 
 
 1 Cic. de Provmciis consularibn* v. 12. 
 
70 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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, 1 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 con¬ 
 tractors 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. 2 The government had no ap- 
 
 1 Cic. pro Quinctio 3. 12 ; a good case of partnership in a res pecuaria et 
 rustica in Gaul. 
 
 2 Examples in Livy xriii. 49 ; xxxii. 7 (portoria); xxxviii. 35 (corn- 
 supply) ; xliv. 16 (army); xlii. 9 (revenue of ager Campanus). 
 
III 
 
 THE MEN OF BUSINESS 
 
 7 1 
 
 paratus 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 
 
72 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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. 1 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 ful¬ 
 filment of the contract, and Polybius does not omit 
 
 1 Festus, ed. Muller, p. 151. 
 
Ill 
 
 THE MEN OF BUSINESS 
 
 73 
 
 to mention the precedes or guarantors. 1 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 . 2 The 
 socii and participes seem to be distinguished by 
 Cicero in his Verrine orations (ii. 1. 55), where he 
 quotes an addition made by Yerres illegally as 
 praetor to a lex censoria: “ qui de censoribus red¬ 
 emerit, 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. 3 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. 4 Communications between the manage- 
 
 1 e.g. Livy xxii. 60 praedibus et praediis cavere populo. 
 
 2 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. 
 
 3 This is the view of Deloume, Les Manieurs d’argent d. Rome, 
 p. 119 foil. 
 
 * Marq. Staatsverwaltung, ii. p. 291. 
 
74 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 ment 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. 1 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 labellarii 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 
 
 1 Delourae, Manieurs d'argent, p. 317 foil. 
 
Ill 
 
 THE MEN OF BUSINESS 
 
 75 
 
 in some of the companies which had their head¬ 
 quarters 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. 1 “ 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.” 2 
 
 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 con¬ 
 sidered for the time as their representative; the 
 
 j pro Icje Manilla, 7. 18. 
 
 2 lb. 7. 19. 
 
SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 76 
 
 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; 1 
 but it is quite possible that they had great difficulty 
 in getting the money in, and feared a dead loss, 2 
 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 con¬ 
 firm, 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 middle- 
 
 1 ad Att. i. 17. 9. Crassus, no doubt a large shareholder, urged them on. 
 
 2 In a letter to his brother, then governor of this province, Cicero con¬ 
 templates 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. 
 
Ill 
 
 THE MEN OF BUSINESS 
 
 77 
 
 man in order to do so; 1 his sympathies were thus 
 divided between the unfortunate provincials, for whom 
 he felt a genuine pity, and the interests of the com¬ 
 pany 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; 2 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 
 
 1 ad Att. v. 16. 2. * ^ vi. 1. 16. 
 
SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 78 
 
 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. 1 The second letter, to his own son-in- 
 law, Furius Crassipes, quaestor of Bithynia, shall 
 be quoted here in full from Mr. Shuckburgh’s trans¬ 
 lation : 2 
 
 “ 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 feel¬ 
 ing 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 
 
 1 ad Familiares, xiii. 65. 
 
 ! lb. xiii. 9. I have not adhered quite closely to his translation. 
 
Ill 
 
 THE MEN OF BUSINESS 
 
 79 
 
 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 
 employ^ of the company, 1 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. 
 
 1 “ Qui est in operis ejus societatis,” i.e. engaged as a subordinate agent. 
 —Marquardt, Staatsverwaltung, ii. p. 291. 
 
8o 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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. 1 No doubt the 
 money-changing business was a profitable one, and 
 itself led to the formation of capital which could be 
 
 1 Marq. ii. p. 35 foil. 
 
Ill 
 
 THE MEN OF BUSINESS 
 
 81 
 
 used in taking deposits and making advances; and, 
 as Professor Purser puts it, 1 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 trans¬ 
 actions. The profession was a respectable one, for 
 honesty and exactness in accounts were absolutely 
 necessary to success in it. 2 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 Nodes Atticae of Aulus Gellius (xiv. 2) a 
 judge who is describing a civil case which came 
 before him, mentions, among the documents pro¬ 
 duced, 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 
 
 1 See Ms article in Diet, of Antiq. ed. 2, s.v. argentarii. 
 
 * Augustus’ grandfather was an argentarius (Suet. Aug. 2), yet his soa 
 could marry a Julia, and he elected to the consulship, which, however, he 
 was prevented by death from filling. 
 
 G 
 
82 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 chap. 
 
 receipt of a written order, answering to our cheque ; 1 
 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 jpermutatio, i.e. 
 exchange, and received an affirmative answer. 2 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. 3 
 
 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 
 
 1 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. 
 
 2 Cic. ad Att. xii. 24 and 27. 5 Cic. ad Fam. xvi. 4 and 9. 
 
Ill 
 
 THE MEN OF BUSINESS 
 
 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 ; 1 and we may be pretty sure that Atticus 
 
 1 Cic. ad Att. xiii. contains many letters of interest in this connexion. 
 
SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP 
 
 84 
 
 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 . 1 
 
 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 profit¬ 
 able 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 ; 2 it was needed by the cities of Greece and 
 
 1 Cic. ad Alt. 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. 
 
 " A good example of this in Velleius iL 10 (house-rent). 
 
in THE MEN OF BUSINESS 85 
 
 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 recol¬ 
 lection was the whole world in such a condition of 
 indebtedness, 1 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 foil.). 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 
 
 1 Cic. de Officiis, ii. 24, 84. 
 
86 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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 leader¬ 
 ship. 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. 1 
 
 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 , 2 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 
 
 1 Caesar, de Bell. Civ. iii. 1 and 20 foil. 
 
 2 Deloume in his Manicurs d'argent has a chapter on this (p. 58 foil.), 
 but his details are not wholly to be relied on. Boissier’s sketch in Cic4ron 
 cl ses amis, 83 foil., is quite accurate. 
 
ill 
 
 THE MEN OF BUSINESS 
 
 87 
 
 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. 1 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. : 2 
 “ 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 I . . . 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 
 
 2 lb. v. 9 . 
 
 1 ad Fain. y. 20 fin. 
 
88 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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, 1 and there is abundant evidence of the 
 borrowing. After his return from exile, though the 
 senate had given him somewhat meagre compensa¬ 
 tion 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, 2 “ 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 
 
 1 Deloume’s attempt to prove that Cicero speculated with enormous 
 profits seems to me to miss the mark. 
 
 2 ad Q. Fratr. ii. 4. 3. Cp. ad Att. iv. 2. 
 
m THE MEN OF BUSINESS 89 
 
 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; 1 2 but as he 
 continues to read the correspondence his astonish¬ 
 ment 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” 2 
 
 1 ad Q. Fratr. ii. 14. 3. 
 
 2 ad Att. xii. 22. I may add in a footnote a final startling example of 
 the recklessness we have been noting. Decimus Brutus had, in March 
 
90 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 Such beino; 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. 1 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. 
 
 44 b.c., a capital of £320,000, yet next year lie 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. 
 
 1 ad Att. xiii. 42. Cp. xvi. 5. 
 
Ill 
 
 THE MEN OF BUSINESS 
 
 9i 
 
 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: 1 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 
 
 1 What the king really wanted the money for, was to bribe the senate to 
 restore him.—Cic. ad Fam. i. 1. 
 
92 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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 Pom- 
 peius—to march into Egypt without the authority 
 of the senate. He took Rabirius with him, and, in 
 order to secure the re-payment, the latter was made 
 superintendent (Block-tj t?/?) of the Egyptian revenues. 1 
 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 de¬ 
 clared 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 
 
 1 Cic. pro Rab. Post. 8. 22. 
 
III 
 
 THE MEN OF BUSINESS 
 
 93 
 
 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 king¬ 
 doms 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 agri¬ 
 cultural 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; Yarro, some 
 twenty years later, could claim that Italy was the 
 best cultivated country in the world . 1 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 
 
 1 Varro, E. E. i. 2. Ferrero (Greatness and Decline of Rome) has the 
 merit of having discerned the signs of the regeneration of Italian agri¬ 
 culture 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 foil. 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. 
 
CHAP. 
 
 94 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 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 
 
Ill 
 
 THE MEN OF BUSINESS 
 
 95 
 
 of wealth helps to produce a curious restlessness 
 aud 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 
 
96 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. Ill 
 
 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 
 
 97 H 
 
98 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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) pro¬ 
 foundly 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 inclina¬ 
 tion, 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, con¬ 
 tinue to elect them so long as our Republic lasts.” 1 
 
 1 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. 
 
IV THE GOVERNING ARISTOCRACY 99 
 
 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 correspond¬ 
 ence, nor does he tell the truth so strictly, for they 
 might not always care to hear it. 
 
IOO 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 Here is a specimen which will give some idea of 
 his manner in writing to an aristocrat: he is con¬ 
 gratulating 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 administra¬ 
 tion 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.” 1 
 
 This Aemilius Paullus, like Spinther and many 
 
 1 ad Fam. xv. 12. This rather stilted letter is nearly identical with one to 
 the other consul-designate, another aristocrat, Claudius Marcellus. Cicero 
 i3 in each case trying to do his own business, while writing to a man of 
 higher social rank than his own. 
 
IV THE GOVERNING ARISTOCRACY ioi 
 
 others, belonged to a respectable but somewhat 
 characterless type of aristocrat; these formed a con¬ 
 siderable 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 develop¬ 
 ment 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 
 not noble. While the high aristocrats looked down 
 
102 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 as a rule on Cicero the novus homo, and for some 
 years positively hated him, 1 Caesar, though differ¬ 
 ing 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 irre¬ 
 sistible to the sensitive “novus homo.” With Pom- 
 pey, 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 destroy¬ 
 ing the best Roman qualities, but drawing them into 
 
 1 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. 
 
IV THE GOVERNING ARISTOCRACY 103 
 
 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 oppor¬ 
 tunity 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 , 1 
 and it was to him that Rome owed the introduction 
 
 1 Plutarch, Cato major 2 and 12. 
 
104 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 of Ennius, the greatest literary figure of that age, 
 into Roman society. 1 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 2 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 philo¬ 
 sophy, 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 
 
 1 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. 
 
 2 Plut. Atm. Paul. 6 ad Jin. 
 
IV THE GOVERNING ARISTOCRACY 105 
 
 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, 1 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 patronis¬ 
 ing Greek culture; 2 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 tradi¬ 
 tions.” 3 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 
 
 1 Polybius, xxxii. 9-16. 
 
 a The difference between him and his father, especially in politics, is 
 sketched in Plutarch’s Life of the latter, ch. xxxviii. 
 
 3 F. Leo, in Die griechische und lateinische Literatur, p. 337. 
 
io6 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 cultured meu, 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 enlighten¬ 
 ment 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 
 
IV THE GOVERNING ARISTOCRACY 107 
 
 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. 1 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. 2 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. 3 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 corre¬ 
 spondence 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 
 
 1 The best specimens, or rather the worst, are to be found in the speeches 
 in Pisonem, in Vatinium, and in the Second Philippic. 
 
 2 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 foil, for most valuable remarks. 
 
 3 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. 
 
CHAP. 
 
 108 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 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 “ baud minus libertatis 
 alienae quam suae dignitatis memor.” 1 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 long 
 noses and large mouths, which meet us in the 
 sculptures of Augustus’ Ara Pacis, 2 —full of dignity, 
 but a little wanting in animation. 
 
 1 Plut. C. Gracchus, ch. 6 ad Jin. Cp. Livy vii. 33. 
 
 2 These characteristic figures may be most conveniently seen in Mrs. 
 Strong’s interesting volume on Roman sculpture, p. 42 foil. 
 
IV THE GOVERNING ARISTOCRACY 109 
 
 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. 1 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 assert¬ 
 ing 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 affec¬ 
 tation, shown up by the real amenities of intercourse, 
 for which Romans had largely to thank Greece. 2 
 
 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 
 
 1 Plut. Cato, ch. 1. ad fin. Blanditia was the word for civility in a 
 candidate: “opus est magnopere blanditia,” says Quintus Cicero, depet. 
 eons. § 41. 
 
 2 There is a pleasanter picture of Cato, sitting in Lucullus’ library and 
 in his right mind, in Cic. de Finibus iii. 2. 7. 
 
I IO 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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 with¬ 
 out disgracing himself in the senate and the courts. 
 Oratory w r as, 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, 1 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 admir¬ 
 able 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. 
 
 1 See Leo, in work already cited, p. 338 foil. 
 
IV 
 
 THE GOVERNING ARISTOCRACY hi 
 
 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 investiga¬ 
 tion and reflection set by Polybius was not followed, 
 except perhaps by Caelius Antipater in the Gracchan 
 age. 1 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 expres¬ 
 sion than of truth and fact. Caesar, who did not 
 profess to be a historian, but only to provide the 
 materials for history, 2 stands alone in making facts 
 more important than words, and rarely troubles his 
 reader with speeches or other rhetorical superfluities. 3 
 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 Lueullus. But far above all other 
 prose writers of the age stand two men, neither of 
 them Roman by birth, but yet members of the 
 
 1 For this remarkable writer, of whose work only a few fragments survive, 
 see Leo, op. cit. p. 340, and Schanz, Gesch. der rom. Literatur, i. p. 278 foil. 
 
 2 Cicero, Brutus, 75, 262. 
 
 3 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). 
 
I 12 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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. 1 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 corre¬ 
 spondence 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 
 
 1 Leo, op. cit. p. 355. 
 
IV THE GOVERNING ARISTOCRACY 113 
 
 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. 1 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. 2 
 Greek philosophers were often domesticated in wealthy 
 families, and could discourse with the statesman when 
 
 1 See below, eh. vi. 
 
 * 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. 
 
 I 
 
SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 II 4 
 
 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 
 
IV THE GOVERNING ARISTOCRACY 115 
 
 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 Ojfficiis, 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. 1 
 
 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 attain¬ 
 ment ; 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 
 
 1 The fragments of Panaetius are collected by H. N. Fowler, Bonn, 1885. 
 The best account of his teaching known to me is in Sehmekel, Philosophie 
 der Mittleren Stoa, p. 18 foil. But all can read the two first books of the 
 
 de Officiis. 
 
SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 I 16 
 
 Roman literary output of his time. 1 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. 2 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 
 
 1 Leo, op. cit. p. 360. Schniekel deals comprehensively with Posidonius’ 
 philosophy, as reflected in Varro and Cicero, p. 85 foil. 
 
 2 See Professor Reid's introduction to Cicero's Academica, p. 17. Cicero 
 considered Posidonius the greatest of the Stoics.— lb. p. 5. 
 
IV THE GOVERNING ARISTOCRACY 117 
 
 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, emanat¬ 
 ing 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 exist¬ 
 ence 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. 1 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-philo¬ 
 sophical 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”; 2 and that this led by 
 degrees to the later idea of the Law of Nature, and 
 to the cosmopolitanism of the Roman legal system, 
 
 1 Cic. de Legibus i. affords many examples of this view, which was ap¬ 
 parently that of Posidonius, e.g. 6. 18 and 8. 25. Cp. de Repuhlica, iii. 22. 33. 
 
 2 Gaius i. 1; 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 Solim, Institutes of Roman Law, ch. ii. 
 
118 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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 
 
IV THE GOVERNING ARISTOCRACY 119 
 
 remained friends till their deaths in 43 , Snlpicins 
 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, 1 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, 2 Cicero again emphatically declared 
 him to be unrivalled in jurisprudence. In beautiful 
 but untranslatable language he claims that he was 
 
 1 Brutus 41. 151, where he plainly ranks him above Scaevola. The 
 passage is a most interesting one, deserving careful attention. 
 
 2 The Ninth Philippic : the passage referred to in the text is 5. 10 foil. 
 
120 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 “ 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 liumanitas in the 
 widest sense of that expressive word; and this is 
 entirely borne out in other ways. 1 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. 2 
 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 
 
 1 I omit pro Murena, ehs. 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. 
 
 2 See Dio Cassius xl. 59 ; and Cic. ad Fam. iv. 1 and 3, to Sulpicius, with 
 allusions to his consulship. 
 
IV 
 
 THE GOVERNING ARISTOCRACY 121 
 
 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 mis¬ 
 chievous side of the new Greek culture, in combina¬ 
 tion 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 
 
122 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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 1 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 
 
 1 Tuac. Disp. iv. 3. 6. 
 
xv THE GOVERNING ARISTOCRACY 123 
 
 envenomed invective that he ever uttered. 1 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 teach¬ 
 ing 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. 2 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 
 
 1 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. 
 
 2 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 foil.; and the 
 reader may do well to refer to his whole treatment of the practical result of 
 Epicureanism. 
 
124 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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 distrac¬ 
 tion 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 astonish¬ 
 ing, even if we make due allowance for the exagger¬ 
 ation 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. 1 
 
 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 
 
 1 This chapter is also useful as illustrating the urbanity of manners, for 
 Lucullus and Pompeius were political enemies. 
 
IV THE GOVERNING ARISTOCRACY 125 
 
 ordinary senator. Active and busy in bis own interest, 
 be 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. 1 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. 2 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 miser¬ 
 able Salaminians of Cyprus at 48 per cent, and to 
 recover his money under the bond. 3 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. 4 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 
 
 1 ad Fam. viii. 5 Jin. ; viii. 9. 2. 
 
 2 See the introduction of Asconius to Cicero pro Gornelio, ed. Clark, p. 58. 
 
 * ad Att. v. 21. 11, 13. 4 ad Q. frat. ii. 1. 1 ; ii. 10. 1. 
 
126 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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 cor¬ 
 respondence 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. 1 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; 2 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.” 3 
 
 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, 
 
 1 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. 
 
 2 This appears from a letter of Caelius to Cicero in 51.— ad Fam. viii. 8. 3. 
 
 3 Asconius in Cornelianum, ed. Clark, p. 59. “Ut praetores ex edictis 
 suis perpetuis ius dioerent.” 
 
,V THE GOVERNING ARISTOCRACY 127 
 
 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. 1 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, 
 
 1 All his letters are in the eighth book of those ad Familiares. 
 
128 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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 apolo¬ 
 gises 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. 1 
 
 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; 
 
 1 Tacitus, Annals xin. 2: “ voluptatibus concessis. ” 
 
XV THE GOVERNING ARISTOCRACY 129 
 
 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 success¬ 
 fully, 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 pre¬ 
 served by Quintilian shows, as Professor Tyrrell ob¬ 
 serves, wonderful power of graphic and picturesque 
 utterance. 1 Cicero, writing of him after his death, 2 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 
 
 2 Brutus 79. 273. 
 
 K 
 
 1 Quintil. iv. 2. 123. 
 
13° 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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 . 1 
 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 . 2 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 3 
 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 
 
 1 e.g .ad Fam. ii. 13. 3. 
 
 2 Exactly the same combination of real interest in, and frivolous treat¬ 
 ment of, politics is to be found in the early letters of Horace Walpole to Sir 
 H. Mann, especially those of the year 1742. 
 
 3 ad Fam. viii. 14. 3. 
 
IV THE GOVERNING ARISTOCRACY 131 
 
 Caesar himself, who was not, however, in Italy at the 
 time. 1 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. 2 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 Tre- 
 bonius,—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 play¬ 
 ing 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 
 
 1 Caesar, Bell. Civ. iii. 20 foil. 2 See above, p. 86 ; cp. p. 58. 
 
132 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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. 1 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 ! 2 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 informa¬ 
 tion under the same law against the censor, Appius. 
 I never saw a more successful stroke ! ” 3 
 
 Of the games, and the panthers to be exhibited at 
 
 1 So for example Servaeus is disqualified, ad Fam. viii. 4. 1. 
 3 lb. viii. 8. 2. 5 lb. 8. 12. 
 
IV THE GOVERNING ARISTOCRACY 133 
 
 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 demoral¬ 
 ising one: 
 
 Uni 6e 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. 1 
 
 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, 
 
 1 Lucilius, Fragm. 9, ed. Baehrens. 
 
i34 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. IV 
 
 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 Y 
 
 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 
 
 135 
 
SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 136 
 
 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 {maims) 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 confar- 
 reatio, because a sacred cake, made of the old Italian 
 grain called far, and offered to Jupiter Farreus, 1 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), 
 
 1 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. 
 
V 
 
 MARRIAGE 
 
 *37 
 
 on which the bride and bridegroom had to sit. 1 
 These details of the early form of patrician marriage 
 are only mentioned here to make the religious char¬ 
 acter 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 mater- 
 familias 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 (fla- 
 minium 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. 2 
 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 cere¬ 
 monies making up a iustum matrimonium, but also 
 the State and its sacra, its life and its maintenance. 3 
 As confarreatio had as its immediate object the 
 providing of a materfamilias fully qualified in all 
 
 1 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 foil. ; Marquardt, Privatleben, p. 32 foil. Cp. also 
 Gaius i. 112. 
 
 2 Gaius l.c. 
 
 3 Cic. de Off. i. 17. 54. 
 
SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 138 
 
 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 main¬ 
 tenance of the family and its sacra and the pro¬ 
 duction 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, 1 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. 2 
 
 Marriage then was a matter of the utmost import¬ 
 ance 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 practi¬ 
 cally 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 
 
 1 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. 
 
 2 Le. ius provocationis, ius suffragii, ius honorum. 
 
y 
 
 MARRIAGE 
 
 139 
 
 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. 1 
 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 abandon¬ 
 ment 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 pro¬ 
 duced 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 
 
 1 This is how I understand Cuq, Institutions juridiques des Eomains, 
 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. 
 
140 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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. 1 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. 2 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 
 
 1 Westermarck, History of Human Marriage, ch. x. 
 
 2 See, however, the curious passage quoted by Gellius (iv. 4. 2) from Serv. 
 Sulpicius, the great jurist (above, p. 118 foil.), on sponsalia in Latium down 
 to 89 b.c. 
 
MARRIAGE 
 
 141 
 
 from concubinage by an “ affeetio maritalis ” as well as 
 by legal forms, and though a true attachment might, 
 and often did, as in modern times in like circum¬ 
 stances, 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 ( jlammeum) and the woollen girdle fastened 
 with a knot called the knot of Hercules, 1 she awaits 
 
 1 For the other details of the dress, see Marq. Privatleben, p. 43. 
 
142 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 the arrival of the bridegroom in her father’s house. 
 Meanwhile the auspices are being taken; 1 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 , charm¬ 
 ingly 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. 
 
 1 Cic. de Div. i. 16. 28. 
 
V 
 
 MARRIAGE 
 
 J 43 
 
 Even the dissipated Catullus eould 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. 1 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 
 
 1 These lines suggested to Virgil the famous four at the end of the fourth 
 Eclogue. See Virgil’s “ Messianic Eclogue," p. 72. 
 
144 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAF. 
 
 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. 1 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. 2 
 
 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 
 
 1 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. 
 
 2 These details are drawn chiefly from the sixth book of Valerius 
 Maximus, de Pudicitia. 
 
V 
 
 MARRIAGE 
 
 i45 
 
 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 Yolumnia 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 
 
146 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAT. 
 
 Volumnia and the passionate and voluptuous Cleo¬ 
 patra 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 con¬ 
 cerned 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 w r ars 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 every¬ 
 thing 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 
 
V 
 
 MARRIAGE 
 
 M 7 
 
 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 1 (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. 2 At the same time 
 divorce, which had probably never been impossible 
 though it must have been rare, 3 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. 4 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 
 
 1 This is proved by an allusion to Cato’s speech in support of the law, in 
 Gellius, Nod. Att. vi. 13. 
 
 2 Livy xxxiv. 1 foil., where the speech of Cato is reproduced in Livy’s 
 language and with “modern” rhetoric. 
 
 3 De Marchi, op. tit. p. 163 ; Marq. Priuatleben , p. 87 foil. 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. 
 
 4 Plutarch, Aem. Pauli. 5. 
 
SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 I48 
 
 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. 1 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. 2 
 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. 3 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 
 
 1 Livy xl. 37. a Livy, Epit. 48. 3 Livy xxxix. 8-18. 
 
MARRIAGE 
 
 V 
 
 149 
 
 women, we Romans rule over all men, and our 
 wives rule over us.” 1 
 
 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. 2 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 
 
 1 Plutarch, Cato the Elder 8. 
 
 2 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 
 iudicio impune necares: ilia te, si adulterares sive tu adulterarere, digito 
 non auderet contingere, neque ius est.” Under such circumstances a bold 
 woman might take her revenge illegally. 
 
SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 150 
 
 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.” 1 
 
 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 revolu¬ 
 tionary character of the half century that succeeded 
 the Gracchi,—the Social and Civil Wars, the proscrip¬ 
 tions 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, 
 
 1 Gellius i. 6; cp. Livy, Epit. 59. 
 
V 
 
 MARRIAGE 
 
 151 
 
 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, 1 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; 2 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, aud does not seem to have 
 behaved very well to her. In a letter to Atticus 
 
 1 e.g. ad Fam. xiv. 2. 
 
 2 The story of the relations of Cicero, Terentia, Clodius, and Clodia, in 
 Plut. 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. 
 
152 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 (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’ callous¬ 
 ness 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. 1) 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 cour¬ 
 teous, 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 
 
MARRIAGE 
 
 153 
 
 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 
 
154 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 the duties of wife and mother, 1 —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 moncle, 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 2 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. 
 
 1 Plutarch, Ti. Gracch. 1 ; Gains Gracch. 19. The letters of Cornelia 
 which are extant are quite possibly genuine. 
 
 2 The recent edition of the Ars amatoria by Paul Brandt has an intro¬ 
 duction in which these points are well expressed 
 
V 
 
 MARRIAGE 
 
 155 
 
 The most notable example of a woman of cultus 
 in Cicero’s clay 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 : 1 
 
 Odi et amo. Quare id faciam, fortasse requiris; 
 
 Nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior. 
 
 Catull. 85. 
 
 She was, as M. Boissier has well said , 2 the exact 
 counterpart of her still more famous brother : “ Elle 
 apportait dans sa conduite privee, dans ses engage¬ 
 ments d’affection, les memes emportements et les 
 
 1 Catullus 72. 75. 3 Cicirorn et ses amis, p. 175. 
 
SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 156 
 
 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 
 d^mentait pas cette grande et here 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 ; 1 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 incom¬ 
 patible 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 .” 2 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 
 
 1 Decimus Brutus, one of the tyrannicides of March 15, 44. 
 3 Sail. Cat. 25. 
 
T 
 
 MARRIAGE 
 
 i57 
 
 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. 1 
 
 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 un¬ 
 healthy 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 
 
 1 Plut. Lucullus 6. 
 
SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 158 
 
 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. 1 
 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. 2 
 Cicero himself writes sometimes in the lightest- 
 hearted way of conjugal relations which we should 
 think most serious ; 3 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.” 4 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 
 
 1 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. 
 
 2 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. 
 
 3 e.g. ad Att. xv. 29. 4 ad Fam. ix. 26. 
 
Y 
 
 MARRIAGE 
 
 159 
 
 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. 1 
 
 1 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., 
 
i6o 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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, 1 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 out¬ 
 break 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 
 
 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. 
 
 1 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. 
 
MARRIAGE 
 
 161 
 
 ▼ 
 
 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. 1 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 him¬ 
 self, 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 
 
 1 This is how I interpret the new fragment. See Classical Rev. l.c. 
 p. 263 foil. 
 
 M 
 
162 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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 . 1 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 patri- 
 monium 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.” 
 
 1 For the legal question see Mommsen, Gesammelte Schriften, i. p. 407 foil. 
 
V 
 
 MARRIAGE 
 
 163 
 
 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. 1 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 
 
 1 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. 
 
SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 I64 
 
 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 per¬ 
 severance had its ultimate reward. The clemency 
 
V 
 
 MARRIAGE 
 
 165 
 
 of Octavian prevailed on his return to Italy, and this 
 treatment of a lady 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 
 
SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 166 
 
 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 
 
V 
 
 MARRIAGE 
 
 167 
 
 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 becom¬ 
 ing 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 (what¬ 
 ever 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 . 1 
 
 “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 
 
 1 Newman, Politics of Aristotle, L p. 372. 
 
 168 
 
cH.vi EDUCATION OF UPPER CLASSES 169 
 
 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, 
 
170 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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 . 1 
 
 Let us notice, in the first place, how little is said 
 in the literature of the time, including biographies, 
 
 1 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 foil. 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. foil. 
 
VI 
 
 EDUCATION OF UPPER CLASSES 171 
 
 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 child¬ 
 hood, 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, 1 and something too, in his Life of Aemilius 
 Paullus , 2 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 up-bringing 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 
 
 1 Plut. Cato the Elder, ch. xx. 
 
 2 Plut. Aem. Paul. ch. vi. 
 
172 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 exception to the rule, which we must ascribe to the 
 attraction which all historians and philosophers felt 
 to this singular character. Plutarch knew the name 
 and character of Cato’s paedagogus, Sarpedon, 1 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 pur¬ 
 poses ; 2 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 hand¬ 
 some 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 
 
 OOO 7 
 
 pushing through those who were posted in front of 
 it to prevent him, took the boy out; and went off 
 
 1 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 contem¬ 
 porary source. 
 
 5 Val. Max. iii. 1. 2. 
 
VI 
 
 EDUCATION OF UPPER CLASSES 173 
 
 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 miser¬ 
 able 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. 1 
 
 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 
 
 1 There is a single story ot 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. 
 
SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 04 
 
 built for him. But it is clear that the father wished 
 to know about the boy as well as about the villas; 1 
 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).” 2 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 declama¬ 
 tory method of the teacher. 3 The last entry in these 
 letters to the absent father is curious : 4 “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, disappro¬ 
 bation is barely hinted in order not to hurt the 
 feelings of his correspondent. 
 
 1 So in ad Q.F. iii. 1. 7 : de Cicerone tuo quod me semper rogas, etc. 
 
 2 lb. 3 lb. iii. 3. 4. 4 lb. iii. 9. 
 
VI 
 
 EDUCATION OF UPPER CLASSES 175 
 
 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} In the fourth book of his de 
 Republica Cicero seems to have dealt with “ disci- 
 plina 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; 2 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 unneces¬ 
 sary 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 
 
 1 See the few fragments in the Appendix to Riese’s edition of the remains 
 of Varro’s Menippean Satires, p. 248 foil. 2 De Rep. iv. 3. 3. 
 
SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 176 
 
 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. 1 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. 2 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. 
 
 1 Plut. Cato 20. 
 
 2 There is probably an allusion to the Stoic view, that reason is not 
 attained till the fourteenth year, in Virgil's line in Eel. 4. 27. 
 
vi EDUCATION OF UPPER CLASSES 177 
 
 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 Yarro, 
 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. 1 
 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. 2 Cato the 
 elder, in a fragment preserved by Festus, 3 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 
 
 1 in Nonius, p. 108, s.v. ephippium. Cp. the account of the education 
 of Cato’s young son, Plut. Cato, 20. Cp. also Virg. JEn. ix. 602 foil. 
 
 9 in Nonius, p. 156, s.v. puerae. * p. 281, ed. Muller. 
 
 N 
 
SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 178 
 
 the Sabines of central Italy, the type of men who 
 could be called frugi : 
 
 rusticorum mascula militmn 
 proles, Sabellis docta ligonibus 
 versare glebas et severae 
 matris ad arbitrium recisos 
 portare fustis. 1 
 
 It was an education also in demeanour, and especi¬ 
 ally in obedience 2 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 child¬ 
 hood was always esteemed at Rome: “ adolescens 
 pudentissimus ” is the highest praise that can be given 
 even to a grown youth ; 3 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 per¬ 
 haps the reason why they wore, throughout Roman 
 history, the toga praetexta with the purple stripe, 
 like magistrates and sacrificing priests. 4 It is hardly 
 
 1 Hor. Odes iii. 6. 2 Dionys. Hal. ii. 26. 
 
 3 Cic. pro ClueMio 60. 165 ; Marq. Privatleben, p. 87. 
 
 4 See a paper by the author in Classical Rev. vol. x. p. 317, in which 
 
VI 
 
 EDUCATION OF UPPER CLASSES 179 
 
 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 glorify¬ 
 ing—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 boy¬ 
 hood, though the practice had since then been dropped. 1 
 That ancient code of law would have acted, we may 
 imagine, as a kind of catechism of the rules laid down 
 
 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. 
 
 1 Cic. de Legibus, ii. 59. 
 
i8o 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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. 1 
 
 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 per¬ 
 sonal care for his children. The conscientious Roman 
 
 1 Polyb. vi. 53. For an account of the practice of laudatio see Marq. 
 Privatleben, p. 346 foil. This, too, degenerated into falsification. 
 
VI 
 
 EDUCATION OF UPPER CLASSES 181 
 
 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.” 1 
 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 
 
 1 A full list of games will be found in Marquardt, Privatleben, p. 814 foil. 
 
182 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 question would arise in most families whether he 
 should remain at home or go to an elementary 
 school. 1 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. 2 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. 3 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 
 
 1 The question is discussed by Quintilian, i. 2. 
 
 2 Plut. Aem. Pauli. 6. 
 
 3 Full details about elementary schools in Wilkins, ch. iv., and Marq. 
 p. 90 foil. 
 
yi EDUCATION OF UPPER CLASSES 183 
 
 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 main¬ 
 taining discipline rather by means of corporal punish¬ 
 ment (to which the Romans never seem to have 
 objected, though Quintilian criticises it) 1 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. 2 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. 3 Thus 
 the Roman boy was in the anomalous position of 
 
 1 Quintil. i 3. 14. 
 
 2 Plutarch is careful to tell us that Aem. Paullus exercised this super¬ 
 vision himself (ch. vi.). 
 
 8 Pro Flacco 4. 9. Cp. ad Quint. Fratr. i. 2. 4. 
 
CHAP. 
 
 184 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 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 . 1 
 
 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 
 (yvu 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 con¬ 
 trived 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, 2 and we may take them as a fair example 
 of the maxims already in use in Cicero’s time, 
 
 1 That the boy was not always respectful is shown in an amusing passage 
 in Plautus, Bacchides, ill. iii. 34 foil. 
 
 2 Sen. Controversial, vii. 3. 8. 
 
yi EDUCATION OF UPPER CLASSES 185 
 
 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. 1 
 
 Avarus ipse miseriae causa est suae. 
 
 Audendo virtus crescit, tardando timor. 
 
 Cicatrix conscientiae pro vulnere est. 
 
 Fortunam 2 citius reperias quam retineas. 
 
 Gravissima 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 dementia. 
 
 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 school¬ 
 days 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-system- 
 
 1 London, C. J. Clay and Sons, 1895. 
 
 2 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. 
 
SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 186 
 
 atised precepts of parents and teachers. No such neat 
 71 >w/acu 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, 1 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 Privatlebcn, and com¬ 
 pressed into a page by Professor Wilkins in his 
 Roman Education. 2 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 calcula¬ 
 tions 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 reckon¬ 
 ing 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 
 
 1 Hor. Epist. i. 1. 70. 
 
 3 Marq. Privatlebcn, p. 95 foil. ; Wilkins, p. 53. 
 
VI 
 
 EDUCATION OF UPPER CLASSES 187 
 
 the tributes of the provinces, as well as in lending the 
 money to enable the tax-payers to pay (see above, 
 p. 71 foil.), were constantly busy with their ledgers. 
 The humbler inhabitants of the Empire had long 
 been growing familiar with the Roman aptitude for 
 arithmetic. 1 
 
 Grais ingenium, Grais dedit ore rotundo 
 Musa loqui, praeter laudem nullius avaris. 
 
 Romani pueri longis rationibus assem 
 
 discunt in partes centum diducere. “ Dicat 
 
 filius Albini: si de quincunce remota est 
 
 uncia, quid superat ? poteras dixisse.” “ triens.” “ eu ! 
 
 rem poteris servare tuam .” 2 
 
 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 
 
 1 There is a good example of this in the well-known case of Brutus’ loan 
 to the Salaminians of Cyprus : see especially Cic. ad Att. v. 21. 12. 
 
 2 Hor. Ars Poet. 323 foil. 
 
SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 188 
 
 may note, by the way, that science, i.e. the higher 
 mathematics and astronomy, was reckoned under 
 the head of philosophy, while medicine and juris¬ 
 prudence had become professional studies, 1 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. 2 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 know¬ 
 ledge and a certain amount of history, mixed up of 
 course with a large percentage of valueless mythology. 
 
 1 Mommsen, Hist, of Rome, iv. p. 563. 
 
 s Quintilian was of opinion that Greek authors should precede Latin: 
 i. 1. 12. 
 
n EDUCATION OF UPPER CLASSES 189 
 
 “In grammaticis,” says Cicero,“poetarumpertractatio, 
 historiarum cognitio, verborum interpretatio, pro- 
 nuntiandi quidam sonus.” 1 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, 2 —fortitudo, patientia, 
 abstinentia, moderatio, pietas erga parentes, amicitia, 
 
 1 De Oratore, i. 187. 
 
 * There are many subjects in the book of other kinds, but all are 
 illustrated in exactly the same way. 
 
SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 190 
 
 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 ohe 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. 
 
VI 
 
 EDUCATION OF UPPER CLASSES 191 
 
 But so far as the study of language, of artistic 
 diction, of elocution, and intelligent reading could 
 help a hoy to prepare himself for life, this education 
 was good; more especially good as laying a founda¬ 
 tion 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,” 1 
 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; 2 thus the two young Ciceros seem both to 
 have been sixteen when they received the toga 
 virilis, while Octavian and Virgil were just fifteen, 
 
 1 H. Jordan, M. Catonis praeter librum de re rustica quae extant, p. 80. 
 
 2 Full information on this point will be found in Marquardt, Privatleben, 
 p. 131 foil. 
 
192 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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; 1 
 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 primi¬ 
 tive 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 
 
 1 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. 
 
VI 
 
 EDUCATION OF UPPER CLASSES 193 
 
 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. 1 
 
 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 
 
 1 See the very interesting note (11) in Marq. p. 123, as to the enrolment 
 in municipal towns. 
 
 O 
 
194 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 was committed was supposed to be responsible for 
 bis welfare and conduct as well as for bis education 
 in tbe art of war: thus Cicero says of Caelius 1 that 
 at that period of bis life no one ever saw bim 
 “ except witli bis father or with me, or in the A^ery 
 w T ell-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 ser\ T e 
 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, 2 and if it were a success, 
 he might devote himself more particularly hence¬ 
 forward 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, howe\^er, 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. 8 
 
 1 Pro Caelio, 4. 9. 
 
 3 Pro Caelio, 30 . 72 . 
 
 2 Livy xlv. 37. 3. 
 
VI 
 
 EDUCATION OF UPPER CLASSES 195 
 
 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 after¬ 
 wards consul with Cicero. 1 
 
 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, 2 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 
 
 1 Rfo Caelio, 31. 74. 
 
 2 Roman Education, ch. v. 
 
SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 196 
 
 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 ex¬ 
 pressed, 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.” 1 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 discre¬ 
 tion, 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 
 
 1 Rhetorica ad Hercnnium, init. The date of this work was about 82 b.c. 
 See a paper by the author in Journal of Philology, x. 197. 
 
VI 
 
 EDUCATION OF UPPER CLASSES 197 
 
 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 endhow 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,” 1 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 contro¬ 
 versial 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 
 
 1 EL Nettleship, Lectures, etc., p. Ill; Wilkins, p. 85 ; Quintil. xii. 2. 
 a Wilkins, l.c. 
 
SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 198 
 
 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. 1 And the 
 object of oratory is “ id agere, ut iudici quae proposita 
 fuerint, vera et honesta videantur ”: 2 i.e. the object 
 is not truth, but persuasion. We might get an idea 
 of how such a training would fail in forming char- 
 acter, 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 
 
 1 Quintil. i. 4. 5 ; xii. 1. 1 ; xii. 2 and 7. 
 
 * lb. xii. 1. 11. 
 
VI EDUCATION OF UPPER CLASSES 199 
 
 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. 1 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 
 
 1 Plut. Cic. 4 ; Coes. 3. 
 
200 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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. 1 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 fora 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, 
 
 1 ad Fam. xvi. 21. The translation is based on Mr. Shuckburgh’s. 
 
VI 
 
 EDUCATION OF UPPER CLASSES 201 
 
 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 delight¬ 
 ful 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 dis¬ 
 tinguished, that you ought to make his acquaint¬ 
 ance as soon as ever you can. As for Bruttius, I 
 never let him leave me. Fie 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 com¬ 
 pany are those whom Cratippus brought with him 
 
202 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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 injunc¬ 
 tions 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 pub 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 w r as at the corre¬ 
 sponding 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 
 
VI 
 
 EDUCATION OF UPPER CLASSES 203 
 
 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. 1 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 
 
 1 See Dcr Rom. Gutsbctrieb, 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. 
 
 204 
 
chap, vn THE SLAVE POPULATION 205 
 
 Italian agriculture. All this business, public and 
 private, called for a vast amount of labour, 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 depart¬ 
 ment ; 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 
 
206 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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. 1 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. 
 
 1 Strabo, p. 668. 
 
VII THE SLAVE POPULATION 207 
 
 The enormous number of slaves thus made avail¬ 
 able, 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 inhabit¬ 
 ants of communities in Epirus which had sided with 
 Perseus in the war . 1 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 ; 2 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 . 3 And of 
 course every war, whether great or small, while it 
 diminished the free population by slaughter, pesti¬ 
 lence, 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 .” 4 It is 
 
 2 Livy, Epit. 68. 
 
 4 ad Att. v. 20. 5. 
 
 1 Livy xlv. 34. 
 
 * Caesar, B.G. ii. 33. 
 
208 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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 re¬ 
 pugnant to him, if not to his own soldiers. 1 
 
 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 way3. 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 
 
 1 Wallon (Hist, de I'Esclavage, ii. p. 38) has noted that Virgil alone shows 
 a feeling of tenderness for the lot of the captive, quoting Aen. iii. 320 foil, 
 (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. 
 
VII 
 
 THE SLAVE POPULATION 
 
 209 
 
 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. 1 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. 2 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 pro¬ 
 cured ; 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. 3 
 Every one will remember the line of Horace in 
 
 1 Cic. pro lege Manilla 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. 
 
 2 Suet. Aug. 32, of the period before Augustus. 
 
 3 Varro, R.R. ii. 10 ; Diodorus xxzvi. 3. 1. 
 
 P 
 
210 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 which he calls one of these wretches a “ king of 
 Cappadocia.” 1 
 
 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. 2 Varro recommends the practice in the 
 large sheep - farms, 3 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.” 4 
 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 Yarro’s time in some modified condition 
 of slavery, 5 surrendering their labour in lieu of pay- 
 
 1 Hor. Epist. i. 6. 39 :— 
 
 “ Mancipiis locuples eget aeris Cappadocum rex: 
 
 Ne fueris hie tu.” 
 
 5 Varro, R.K. i. 17. 3 lb. 2. 10. 3. 
 
 4 Hor. Epode 2. 65. Cp. Tibull. ii. 1. 25 “ turbaque vemarum, saturi 
 bona signa colonL” 
 
 5 See Gummerus, op. cit. p. 63, who considers the obaeratus of Varro as 
 the equivalent of the addiclus of the Roman law of debt. 
 
YII 
 
 THE SLAVE POPULATION 
 
 2 11 
 
 ment. 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, 1 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. 2 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 
 
 1 See the well-known description of the Forum in Plautus’ Curculio, iv. 1: 
 “pone aedem Castoris, ibi sunt subito quibu’ credas male” ; Marq. Privat- 
 leben, p. 168 ; Wallon, op. cit. eh. ii. 
 
 2 Gellius iv. 2 gives an extract from the edict of the aediles drawn up 
 with the object of counteracting such sharp practice. 
 
212 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 slave, and Cato as censor in 184 attempted to check 
 such high prices by increasing the duties payable 
 on the sales. 1 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. 2 
 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 3 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. 4 
 The great majority of citizens living in Rome had, 
 he thinks, no slaves. He is forced to take as a basis 
 
 1 Livy xxxix. 44. 
 
 2 JY. II. 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. 
 
 3 BevSlkerung, p. 403. 
 
 4 Cic. Off. ii. 21. 73. 
 
VII 
 
 THE SLAVE POPULATION 213 
 
 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. 1 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 manu¬ 
 mission ; (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 
 
 1 Galen v. p. 49, ed. Kuhn ; Galen was a native of this great city. 
 
214 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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 vve 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, 1 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. Friedlander, 
 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; 2 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. 3 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 
 
 1 Dr. Gummerus promises it. 2 Sittengcschichte, i., ed. 5, p. 264. 
 
 3 Probably by Clodius in 58. 
 
YU 
 
 THE SLAVE POPULATION 215 
 
 assuredly not to be bad for nothing? We know 
 again, that the gilds of trades (see above, p. 45) con¬ 
 tinued to exist in the last century of the Republic, 1 
 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 arnicas, reginas alicarias, 
 
 Miseras scboeno delibutas servilicolas sordidas ? * 
 
 Poenulus, 265 foil 
 
 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 
 
 1 Asconius ad Cie. pro Cornel., ed. Clark, p. 75 ; Waltzing, Corporations 
 prqfessionelles, i. p. 90 foil. 
 
 * 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. 
 
2 l6 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 industry, but in supplying the luxurious needs of the 
 household. 1 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 con¬ 
 stantly to cramp it, and doubtless started notions of 
 work in general which helped to degrade it. 2 Those 
 immense familiae urbanae, of which the historian of 
 slavery has given a detailed account in his second 
 volume, 3 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, 4 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, 
 
 1 See a remarkable passage of Athenaeus (vi. 104) quoted by Marquardt, 
 Privatleben, p. 156, on the use of slaves at Rome for unproductive labour. 
 
 2 Sallust, e.g., says of his own life in retirement that he would not engage 
 in “agrum colendo aut venando, servilibus officiis.”— Catil. 4. 
 
 3 Wallon, Hist, de VEsclavage, vol. ii. ch. iii. 
 
 * Sail. Catil. 12. 
 
vn THE SLAVE POPULATION 217 
 
 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 1 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 pater¬ 
 familias 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 2 (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 
 
 1 iv. 3. 11 and 12. Plutarch says that as military tribune Cato the 
 younger had fifteen slaves with him .—Cato minor 9. 
 
 2 Cato, R.R. 2. 1. 
 
21 8 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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. 1 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 noil-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. 2 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 eutirely 
 free or slave labour does not appear distinctly, 
 but it seems clear that a proportion at least was 
 
 1 In cli. 135 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. 
 
 2 R.R. 10 and 11. 
 
THE SLAVE POPULATION 
 
 VII 
 
 219 
 
 free. 1 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 con¬ 
 cerned, 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). 2 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 
 
 1 Assiduos homines quinquaginta praebeto, i.e. the contractor : ch. 144. 
 
 2 See the discussion of this word in Gummerus, p. 62 foil. 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. 
 
220 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 free labour; but so far as possible the farm should 
 supply itself with the materials for its own working, 1 
 for this gives employment to the slaves throughout the 
 year,—and they should never be allowed to be idle. 2 
 
 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, 3 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 tw r o centuries B.c. 4 
 
 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 
 
 1 K.B. i. 22 . 
 
 2 Cp. Plut Cato the Elder 21 ; a slave must be at work when he is not 
 asleep. 
 
 3 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 Capitalisms, p. 253 ; Columella, Praefatio. 
 
 4 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. 
 
VII 
 
 THE SLAVE POPULATION 221 
 
 Italy. If a man invested his capital in a com¬ 
 paratively 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. 1 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 
 
 1 For Spartacus, Appian, B.C. i. 116; for Caelius, Caesar, B.C. iii. 22; 
 and cp. B. C. i. 56. 
 
222 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 of course armed, and as we may guess from Varro’s 
 remarks on the kind of slaves suitable for shepherd¬ 
 ing, 1 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; 2 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 Dad; 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 
 
 1 R.R. ii. 10. 
 
 2 Columella i. 8. 
 
VII THE SLAVE POPULATION 223 
 
 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). 1 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, 2 
 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, 3 “ yes, but I 
 
 1 Gaius ii. 15. 
 
 2 For examples of slaves’ devotion to their masters, Appian, B. C. iv. 29 ; 
 Seneca, de Benef. iii. 25. 
 
 3 ad Fam. xvi. 1; read also the charming letters which follow. Tiro 
 was manumitted by Cicero at an unknown date. 
 
224 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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, 1 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 (vinclicta), 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. 2 
 
 Thus the leading facts in the legal position of the 
 Roman slave were two : (l) he was absolutely at the 
 disposal of his owner, the law never interfering to 
 protect him ; (2) he had a fair prospect of manumis¬ 
 sion if valuable and well-behaved, and if manumitted 
 he of course became a Roman citizen (libertus or 
 libertinus) with full civil rights, 3 remaining, however, 
 
 1 ad Att. xii. 10. 
 
 2 See the article “ Manumissio ” in Did. of Antiquities. 
 
 3 Only in exercising the jus suffragii he was limited with all his fellow 
 libertini to one of the four city tribes. 
 
VII 
 
 THE SLAVE POPULATION 225 
 
 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 
 
 Q 
 
226 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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; 1 
 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 after¬ 
 wards abandoned his intention, thinking that to mix 
 up the cause of citizens with that of slaves would 
 not be judicious. 2 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 wflth 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. 3 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 
 
 1 Val. Max. viii. 6. 2. 
 
 3 Sail. Cat. 24 and 56 ; Wallon, ii. p. 318 foil. 
 
 3 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. 
 
VII 
 
 THE SLAVE POPULATION 227 
 
 that such proceedings were not deemed impossible. 1 
 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, 2 urges his brother 
 to make himself agreeable to his tribesmen, neigh¬ 
 bours, clients, freedmen, and even slaves, “ for nearly 
 all the talk which affects one’s public reputation 
 emanates from domestic sources.” And Marcus him¬ 
 self, in the last letter he wrote before he fled into 
 exile in 58 , declares that all his friends are promis¬ 
 ing him not only their own aid, but that of their 
 clients, freedmen, and slaves,—promises which doubt¬ 
 less might have been kept had he stayed to take 
 advantage of them.* 
 
 The mention of the freedmen in this letter may 
 serve to remind us of the political results of manu¬ 
 mission, 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 
 
 1 Pro Sestio, 15. 34. * De Pet. Consulatus, 5. 17. 
 
 3 ad Quint. Fratr. i. 2 ad fin. 
 
228 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 Italy is but a stepmother” (Yal. 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 institu¬ 
 tions, 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. 1 
 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 indis¬ 
 criminate manumission, unchecked by the law. 2 
 
 “ Many,” he says, “ are indignant when they see 
 
 1 Strabo, p. 381. 5 Dion. Hal. iv. 23. 
 
VII 
 
 THE SLAVE POPULATION 
 
 229 
 
 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 alto¬ 
 gether, 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 ex¬ 
 pressed 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 andFuria Caninia 
 do not lie within the compass of this book. No 
 great success could attend these efforts; the ab¬ 
 normal circumstances which had brought to Rome 
 the great familiae of slaves reacted inevitably upon 
 the citizen body itself through the process of manu¬ 
 mission. 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 
 
230 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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 over¬ 
 abundant 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 unre¬ 
 strainedly, 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.” 1 
 
 3. The ethical aspect of Roman slavery. What 
 were the moral effects of the system (l) on the slaves 
 themselves ; (2) on the freemen who owned them ? 
 
 First, as regards the slaves themselves, there are 
 
 1 Wallon, op. cit. ii. p. 436. 
 
VII 
 
 THE SLAVE POPULATION 
 
 231 
 
 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 Mediter¬ 
 ranean, 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 cap¬ 
 tivity 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. 1 The 
 point for us is that a large proportion of the popula¬ 
 tion of Rome and of Italy was now composed of 
 
 1 See Otto Seeck, Geschichte des Untergangs dev antiken Jf’clt, ch. iv. and v. 
 
232 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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 introduc¬ 
 tion 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 . 1 But towards the close of the Republican 
 period those moral influences, as we have seen, were 
 fast vanishing in the majority of families which pos¬ 
 sessed 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 over¬ 
 reaching, and destitute of a conscience . 2 We need 
 
 O’ 
 
 1 See Marquardt, Privatleben, p. 172. 
 
 3 Wallon (ii. p. 255 foil.) has collected a number of examples. Plautus’ 
 slaves are as much Athenian as Roman, hut 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.” 
 
tii THE SLAVE POPULATION 233 
 
 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.” 1 
 
 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 . 2 The ergastula, where 
 slaves were habitually chained and treated like beasts, 
 were sowing the seeds of permanent moral contamina¬ 
 tion in Italy . 3 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 
 
 1 Petronius, Sat. 75. 2 Diodorus xxxiv. 38. 
 
 3 “Coli rura ab ergastulis pessimum est et quicquid agitur a de- 
 sperantibus,” wrote Pliny (Nat. Hist, xviii. 36) in the famous passage about 
 latifundia. 
 
234 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 by words than blows . 1 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 . 2 
 
 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 them¬ 
 selves 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. 
 Loner 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 
 
 1 R.R. i. 17. 
 
 2 See some excellent remarks on this subject in Ecce Homo, towards 
 the end of ch. xii. ( “Universality of the Christian Republic ”). 
 
VII 
 
 THE SLAVE POPULATION 
 
 235 
 
 rowdyism . 1 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 nob 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 gladia¬ 
 torial 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 ? 2 Even the best men of the 
 age, such as Cicero, Caesar, Lucretius, show hardly a 
 
 1 The Slave Power, ch. v., and especially p. 374 foil. 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. 
 
 2 “Regum nobis induimus animos,” wrote Seneca in a well-known letter 
 about the claims of slaves as human beings, Ep. 47. 
 
236 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME CHAP. VII 
 
 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 dwell¬ 
 ings, 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 , 1 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 
 
 1 Life in Ancient Athens, p. 55. 
 237 
 
SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 238 
 
 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 inhabi¬ 
 tants. 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—w r ere not distinct from each other, but 
 associated, in fact almost identical; the hearth-fire 
 was the dwelling of Yesta, 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 super¬ 
 natural side, in the shape of his Genius ; and the 
 Lar familiaris was the protecting spirit of the farm¬ 
 land, who had found his way into the house in course 
 
VIII HOUSE OF THE RICH MAN 239 
 
 of time, perhaps with the slave labourers, who always 
 had a share in his worship . 1 
 
 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 : 2 
 
 ante focos olim scamnis considere longis 
 inos 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: “ hie arae 
 sunt, hie foci, hie di penates: hie 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 
 
 1 For this view of the Lar see Wissowa, Religion und Kultus der Romer, 
 
 p. 148 foil.; and a note by the author in Archiv fur Religionswissemchaft, 
 1906, p. 529. 
 
 9 Fatti, vi. 299. 
 
240 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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. 1 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 Georgies , the old 
 religion of the household gained a new life. 
 
 It is not necessary here to give any detailed ac¬ 
 count 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 Excava¬ 
 tions of Ancient Rome ; and to these should be added 
 Mau’s work on Pompeii, where the houses w T ere 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 
 
 1 Cato, R.R., ch. ii. init.; Horace, Epodc 2. 65 ; Sat. ii. 6. 65. 
 
VIII 
 
 HOUSE OF THE RICH MAN 241 
 
 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; 1 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, 2 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 rain¬ 
 water 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 prob¬ 
 ably 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 
 
 1 Romische Religion, p. 214. 
 
 2 Or lectulus adversus, i.e. opposite the door; Ascon. ed. Clark, p. 43, 
 a good passage for the contents of an atrium. 
 
 R 
 
SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 242 
 
 the house as the choir is to a cathedral. 1 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, 
 
 1 Set Man’s Pompeii, p. 248. 
 
Tin HOUSE OF THE RICH MAN 243 
 
 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. 1 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. 2 
 
 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. 
 
 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. 3 But nowhere within three miles 
 
 1 Mau, Pompeii, p. 240. 
 
 2 The extent to which this could be carried can he guessed from Sail. 
 Cat. 12. 
 
 3 Quintus Cicero, growing rich with Caesar in Gaul, had a fancy for a 
 domus suburbana : Cic. ad Q. Fr. iii. 1. 7. Marcus tells his brother in this 
 letter that he himself had no great fancy for such a residence, and that his 
 
244 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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 
 
 Plan of the House of the Silver Wedding. From Mau’s Pompeii . 
 
 a. Fauces. 
 
 <1. Tetrastyle atrium. 
 
 n. Dining-room. 
 
 o. Tablinura. 
 
 p. Andron. 
 
 r. Peristyle. 
 
 s. Kitchen. 
 
 t-v. Bath. (v. Apodyterium. u. Tepi- 
 darinm. t. Caldarium.) 
 iv. Summer dining-room, 
 i, z. Sleeping-rooms. 
 y. Exedra. 
 
 1. Open-air swimming tank, in a 
 small garden (2). 
 
 3. Corridor leading to another house 
 
 and to a side street. 
 
 4. Oecus. 
 
 6. Garden, partially excavated. 
 
 7. Open-air triclinium. 
 
 a-r. Fauces, atrium, and other rooms 
 of separate dwelling connected 
 with the larger house. 
 
 in previous chapters, the crowd in the Forum and 
 its adjuncts can be left to the reader’s imagination ; 
 
 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. 
 
VIII 
 
 HOUSE OF THE RICH MAN 245 
 
 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. 1 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 
 gr im 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 wher- 
 
 1 A great number of passages about the noise and crowds of Rome are 
 collected in Mayor’s Notes to Juvenal, pp. 173, 203, 207. 
 
SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 246 
 
 ever the stream of life hurried with its busy eddies. 1 
 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 oumes, decedere nusquam : 
 uni se atque eidem studio omnes dedere et arti, 
 verba dare ut caute possint, pugnare dolose: 
 blanditia certare, bonum simulare virum se: 
 insidias facere, ut si hostes sint omnibus omnea 
 
 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. 2 The clear sight 
 and strong nerve of Caesar, as compared with so 
 many of his contemporaries, was doubtless largely 
 
 1 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. 
 
 2 ad Fam. ii. 12: “Urbem, Urbem, mi Rufe, cole, et in ista luce vive. 
 Omnis peregrinatio (foreign travel) obscura et sordida est iis, quorum 
 industria Roma potest illustris esse,” etc. 
 
VIH HOUSE OF THE RICH MAN 247 
 
 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. 1 
 
 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 con¬ 
 veniences 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 
 
 1 Lucr. ii. 22 foil.; iii. 1060 foil. Cp. Seneca, Ep. 69: ‘ Frequena 
 migratio instabilis animi est! ” 
 
SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 248 
 
 attached to it, but in the growing sense of indi¬ 
 viduality 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 (Aemili- 
 anus), 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). 1 
 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 
 
 1 de Oratore, ii. 22. 
 
VIII HOUSE OF THE RICH MAN 249 
 
 residences. 1 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. 2 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 0 . E. Schmidt, 
 whose genuine enthusiasm for Cicero took him in 
 person to all these sites, and inspired him to write of 
 them most felicitously. 3 
 
 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 farmhouse of 
 his own into a residence with “ modern requirements.” 
 In choosing his sites he would naturally look south¬ 
 wards, 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 
 
 1 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. 
 Gunther of Magdalen College, realising their position and former magnifi¬ 
 cence. See his volume on Earth Movements in the Bay of Naples. 
 
 2 See Cic. pro Caelio, §§ 48-50. 
 
 3 Cicero’s Villen, Leipzig, 1889. 
 
250 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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 mountain¬ 
 ous parts of central Italy the villa was still the 
 farmhouse 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 agricul¬ 
 ture ; 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. 1 Such was the taste of 
 the great master of “ Asiatic ” eloquence. We are 
 
 1 Varro, R.R. iii. 13. 
 
Till 
 
 HOUSE OF THE RICH MAN 251 
 
 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. 1 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, 2 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 
 
 1 The villa had once been Sulla’s also: and the aristocratic connection 
 gave its owner some trouble. See above, p. 102. 
 
 a Schmidt, op. cit. p. 31. 
 
252 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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. 1 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. 
 
 1 de Finibus, iii. 2. 7. 
 
VIII HOUSE OF THE RICH MAN 253 
 
 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 com¬ 
 bined with the tender associations of his boyhood. 1 
 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 associa¬ 
 tions ; 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. 2 
 
 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 exact¬ 
 ness in a letter written to the absent owner, 3 that 
 Schmidt thinks himself justified in applying it by 
 
 1 de Legibus, ii. 1. 
 
 2 op. cit. p. 15. I am assured by a travelling friend that the Fibreno 
 
 is a delicious stream. s ad Quint. Fratr. iii. 1. 
 
254 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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 resi¬ 
 dence, 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 1 ( prciediola ), 
 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 farmhouse, but a farmhouse 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 vesti¬ 
 bule 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). 2 
 
 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 
 
 1 ad Alt. xiii. 19. 2. 
 
 2 For further details of the amenities of the villa at Arpinum see 
 Schmidt, op. tit. 
 
Tin HOUSE OF THE RICH MAN 255 
 
 
 Plan of the Villa of Diomedes. From Man’s Pompeii. 
 
 Steps. 
 
 3. Peristyle. 
 
 8. Tablinum. 
 
 30. Exedra. 
 
 12. Dining-room. 
 
 14. Sleeping-room, with anteroom (13). 
 
 15. Passage leading to a garden at the level 
 
 of the street. 
 
 17. Small court, with hearth (e) and 
 
 swimming tank (f). 
 
 18. Store-room. 
 
 19-21. Bath. (19. Apodyterium. 20. 
 Tepidarium. 21. Caldarium.) 
 
 22. Kitchen. 
 
 2G. Colonnade, facing a terrace (28) 
 over the front rooms of the 
 lower part. 
 
 /> Si Colonnade enclosing a large 
 garden. 
 
 t, k, l, m. Rooms. 
 
 r. Fish-pond. 
 
 . s. Arbour. 
 
256 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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. 
 
 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 
 Ids 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 
 
VIII 
 
 HOUSE OF THE RICH MAN 257 
 
 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.” 1 
 
 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 
 mil es’ 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 im¬ 
 portance ; 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 
 
 1 ad Att. ii. 14 and 15. 
 
SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 258 
 
 the year 45,^8 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 reallv 
 
 j 
 
 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 
 
 1 O. E. Schmidt, Brie/wechsel Cicero's, pp. 66 and 454 ; but see his Cicero's 
 Villen, p. 46, note. 
 
VIII 
 
 HOUSE OF THE RICH MAN 259 
 
 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 neighbour¬ 
 hood 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 .” 1 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 
 
 1 ad Att. xii. 19 init. 
 
260 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 problems of philosophy or politics, is impossible 
 under constant change of scene, and without the 
 opportunity of forming regular habits . 1 And the 
 fact is that no man at this time seriously set him¬ 
 self 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 change¬ 
 able, 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 . 2 For such things we must go to 
 
 1 See Seneca, Epist. 69, on the disturbing influence of constant change of 
 scene. 
 
 2 There is an exception in the young Cicero’s letter to Tiro, translated 
 above, p. 202. 
 
via HOUSE OF THE RICH MAN 261 
 
 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 unpro¬ 
 ductive. 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 communica¬ 
 tion 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 
 
262 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME CHAP. VIII 
 
 did it too, helping each other by kindly and cheer¬ 
 ing 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. 1 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 
 
 1 Censorinus, De die natali, 23. 6.; Pliny, N. E. vii. 213. On the whole 
 subject of the division of the day see Marquardt, Privatleben, p. 246 foil. 
 
 263 
 
CHAP. 
 
 264 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 time about which there can be no mistake. 1 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 piecious. 
 
 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. 2 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. 3 
 
 Thus from the time of the Punic wars the city popu¬ 
 lation reckoned time by hours, i.e. twelve divisions 
 of the day ; but as they continued to reckon the day 
 
 1 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. 
 
 2 Cic. pro Quinctio, 18. 59. 
 
 3 See the article “Horologium” in Did. of Antiquities, vol. i. 
 
IX 
 
 DAILY LIFE OF WELL-TO-DO 265 
 
 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 . 1 This, of course, made the construction 
 of accurate dials and water-clocks a matter of con¬ 
 siderable 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. 2 
 
 Sun-dials, once introduced with the proper reckon¬ 
 ing 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,” 3 and many 
 have been discovered in other Roman towns, including 
 
 1 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. 
 
 2 For the water-clock see Marquardt, op. cit. p. 773 foil. 
 
 3 The lines are so good that I may venture to quote them in full from 
 Gell. iii. 3 (cp. Ribbeck, Fragm. Comicorum, ii. p. 34): “ parasitus esuriens 
 dicit: 
 
 Ut ilium di perdant primus qui horas reppsrit, 
 
 Quique adeo primus statuit hie solarium. 
 
 Qui mihi comminuit misero articulatim diem, 
 
 Nam olim me puero venter erat solarium, 
 
 Multo omnium istorum optimum et verissimum : 
 
266 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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 
 
 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. 
 
IX 
 
 DAILY LIFE OF WELL-TO-DO 267 
 
 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 imper¬ 
 fect 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 occa¬ 
 sions, 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 . 1 The 
 introduction of the use of olive oil, which was first 
 imported from Greece and the East and then pro¬ 
 duced 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 ., 2 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 . 3 But in spite of this and of the inven¬ 
 tion 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 
 
 1 Pliny, N.H. xv. 1 foil, supplies the history of the oil industry. For 
 the candles see Marquardt, Privatleben, p. 690. 
 
 a See above, p. 93. 3 Marq. Privatleben, p. 264. 
 
268 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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 valu¬ 
 able, 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 , 1 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 
 w r ork for hours before daylight, and then go to the 
 Emperor Vespasian, who was also a very early riser . 2 
 After sunrise the whole population was astir; boys 
 
 1 Cic. ad Q.F. ii. 3. 7. For the lippitudo, ad Att. vii. 14. 
 
 2 Hor. Epist. ii. 1. 112 ; Pliny, Ep. iii. 5, 8, 9. 
 
IX 
 
 DAILY LIFE OF WELL-TO-DO 269 
 
 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. 1 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; 2 but we do not hear of his pressing 
 himself on the attention of his patron every morn¬ 
 ing, or receiving any “ sportula.” All the same, the 
 number of persons, whether clients in this sense or 
 
 1 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 informa¬ 
 tion 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). 
 
 2 e.g. ad Q.F. i. 2. 16.; and Q. Cic. Commentariolum petitionis, sec. 17. 
 
27 o 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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. 1 
 
 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 , 2 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. 3 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 
 
 1 See what he says of M’. Manilius in De Orat. iii. 133. 
 
 2 The word seems to be connected with ieiunium (Plaut. Curculio I. i. 
 73 ; Festus, p. 346), and thus answers to our break/ast. The verb is ientare : 
 Afranius : fragm. “ientare nulla invitat.” 
 
 3 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. 
 
IX 
 
 DAILY LIFE OF WELL-TO-DO 271 
 
 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, 1 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 . 2 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.” 3 It may 
 perhaps be paralleled with the love of the Roman 
 for processions, e.g. the lustrations of farm, city, 
 and army, 4 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 
 
 1 See the interesting account of these (salutatores, deductores, assecta- 
 tores) in the Commentariolum petitionis of Q. Cicero, 9. 34 foil. 
 
 2 See above, p. 109. 3 Q. Cicero, Comment. Pet. 9. 37. 
 
 4 See the author’s Roman Festivals, pp. 125 foil. 
 
272 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 paterfamilias and of the magistrate. Examples are 
 easy to find in the literature of this period; an ex¬ 
 cellent one is the graphic picture of Gaius Gracchus 
 and his train of followers, which Plutarch has pre¬ 
 served from a contemporary writer. “ The people 
 looked with admiration on him, seeing him attended 
 by crowds of building-contractors, artificers, ambas¬ 
 sadors, 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.” 1 
 
 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 invest¬ 
 ments 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.” 2 But it was also this crowded and talka- 
 
 1 Plutarch, C. Gracchus, 6. 2 Cic. ad Fam. ii. 12. 
 
IX 
 
 DAILY LIFE OF WELL-TO-DO 273 
 
 tive 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 . 1 
 
 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 . 2 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 excite¬ 
 ment. Thus the dinner hour had come to be post¬ 
 poned from about noon to the ninth or even the 
 tenth hour , 3 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 
 
 1 Fragm. 9. Baehrens, Fragm. Poet. Bom. p. 141. Cp. Galen, vol. x. p. 3 
 (Kuhn). 
 
 2 Livy xlv. 36 ; Cic. ad Fam. i. 2 ; for a famous case of “obstruction” 
 by lengthy speaking, Gell. iv. 10. 
 
 3 Festus, p. 54. 
 
 T 
 
274 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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.” 1 
 
 After the prandium, if a man w'ere 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 how¬ 
 ever 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. 2 Even the sturdy Varro in his old 
 age declared that in summer he could not possibly 
 
 1 ad Farru vii. 30. 
 
 • dt Divinatione, ii. 142, written in 44 B.o. 
 
IX 
 
 DAILY LIFE OF WELL-TO-DO 275 
 
 do without his nap in the middle of the day. 1 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. 2 
 
 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 tas>oe 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. 8 “ 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 
 
 1 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. 
 
 2 ad Att. xiii. 52 ; the habit may have often been dropped in winter. 
 
 3 Seneca, Ep. 86. The whole passage is most interesting, as illustrating 
 the difference in habits wrought in the course of two centuries. 
 
SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 276 
 
 Silver Wedding at Pompeii. 1 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. 2 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 per¬ 
 spiration, with a strigil on which oil was dropped 
 to soften its action. 3 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. 4 
 
 1 Mau, Pompeii, p. 300. See above, p. 244. 
 
 2 See the plan in Mau, p. 357 ; Marquardt, Privatleben, p. 272. 
 
 3 See Professor Purser’s explanation and illustrations in the Diet, of 
 Antiquities, vol. i. p. 278. 
 
 4 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 
 
IX 
 
 DAILY LIFE OF WELL-TO-DO 277 
 
 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 Rlietorica 
 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 interrup¬ 
 tion 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- 
 
 Pompeii tlie oldest public baths (the Stabian ; Mau, p. 183) date from the 
 second century b.c. 
 
CHAP. 
 
 278 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 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, 1 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. 2 
 
 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. 3 These triclinia were so 
 
 1 The tradition was that the paterfamilias originally also sat instead of 
 reclining. See Marq. Privatleben, p. 292 note 3. 
 
 2 Columella, ii. 1. 19, a very interesting chapter ; Plutarch, Cato min. 56. 
 
 * Plut. Lucullus 40 ; see above, p. 242. 
 
IX 
 
 DAILY LIFE OF WELL-TO-DO 279 
 
 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. 
 
 Plan of a Tricltnittm:. 
 
 will show this sufficiently without elaborate descrip¬ 
 tion ; 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 conversa¬ 
 tion with his distinguished guest; and that the latter 
 
28 o 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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. 1 
 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. 2 
 
 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 3 (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 
 
 1 Plut. Quaest. Conv. 1. 3 foil. ; and Marq. p. 295. 
 
 1 Hor. Sat. i. 4. 86 ; cp. Cic. in Pisonem, 27. 67. 
 s Cic. de Senect. 14. 46. 
 
IX 
 
 DAILY LIFE OF WELL-TO-DO 281 
 
 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 dis¬ 
 cussed with much self-satisfaction. That such dis¬ 
 cussion 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. 1 Splendid dinner-services 
 
 1 Lucilius, fragm. 30 ; 120 foil. ; 168, 327 etc. Varro wrote a Menippean 
 satire on gluttony, of which a fragment is preserved by Gellius, vi. 16. 
 
282 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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 . 1 
 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 . 2 
 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 Republic. 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.” 3 
 
 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 
 
 1 See the interesting passage in Cic. pro Murena, 36. 75, about the 
 funeral feast of Scipio Aemilianus. 
 
 2 Catull. 47. 5 : “ vos convivia lauta sumptuose De die facitis 1” 
 
 * 26. 65 foil. ; Hor. Od. iii. 19, and the commentators. 
 
IX 
 
 DAILY LIFE OF WELL-TO-DO 283 
 
 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 . 1 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: “’EyueTt/c^i/ 
 agebat; itaque et edit et bibit dSew? 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 
 
 3 ad Fam. vii. 26, of tbe 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 gounnandism. 
 
CHAP. IX 
 
 284 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 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 ; 1 that 
 Caesar, whose health was always delicate, and at 
 this time severely tried, was then under this treat¬ 
 ment, and could therefore eat his dinner com¬ 
 fortably, 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. 
 
 1 See Mimro, Elucidations of Catullus, p. 92 folL 
 
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, bon¬ 
 fires, 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 satiatusaratro 
 Cantavit certo rustica verba pede ; 
 
 Et satur arenti primum est modulatus avena 
 Carmen, ut ornatos diceret ante deos ; 
 
 Agricola et minio suffusus, Baccbe, rubenti 
 
 Primus inexperta duxit ab arte choros.” 1 
 
 It would be easy to multiply examples of such 
 merry-making from the poets of the Augustan age, 
 
 1 Tibull. ii. 1. 51 foil. Cp. ii. 5. 83 foil. Several are also described by 
 Ovid in his Fasti. A charming account of fcste 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. 
 
 285 
 
286 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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 . 1 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 
 
 1 Wissowa, j Religion und Kultus, p. 366. “Feriae” came in time to be 
 limited to public festivals, while “ festus dies ” covered all holidays. 
 
X HOLIDAYS AND AMUSEMENTS 287 
 
 afterwards explains as meaning that the citizen must 
 abstain from litigation, and the slave be excused 
 from labour . 1 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 : 2 
 
 “ Quippe etiam festis quaedam exercere dielms 
 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 
 
 1 de Legibus, ii. 8. 19 : cp. 12. 29. 
 
 a Georg, i. 268 foil. Cato had already said the same thing : K.H. ii. 4. 
 
288 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 knew and no one cared , 1 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 . 2 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 arrange¬ 
 ment 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 be¬ 
 comes 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 . 3 These ludi will form the 
 chief subject of this chapter; but w T e must first 
 
 1 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 foil. 
 
 2 Greenidge, Legal Procedure in Cicero's time, p. 457. 
 
 3 It is the same word as our fair. 
 
X HOLIDAYS AND AMUSEMENTS 289 
 
 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, 1 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 charac¬ 
 teristics 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 perform¬ 
 ances 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 
 
 1 Fasti, iii. 523 foil. ; Fowler, Roman Festivals, p. 51. 
 
SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 290 
 
 or shelters ; 1 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 con¬ 
 verted into ludi, we only know the ritual, and 
 cannot tell whether they w T ere 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. 2 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 holi¬ 
 day, and especially of the entertainment of slaves by 
 their masters, 3 w T hich 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 
 
 1 Roman Festivals, p. 185. The custom doubtless had a religious origin. 
 
 2 lb. p. 268. Augustus limited the days to three. 
 
 * 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. 
 
X HOLIDAYS AND AMUSEMENTS 291 
 
 companions. 1 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 enter¬ 
 tain the people on his return, in honour of Jupiter, 
 and thus they were originally called ludi votivi, 
 before they were incorporated as a regularly recur¬ 
 ring 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 pre¬ 
 ceded the Ludi Romani of that year, 2 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, 3 and the dies natalis 
 (dedication day) of the Capitoline temple of Jupiter ; 
 and the whole ceremonial was closely connected with 
 
 1 See above, p. 172. Marquardt, Privatlelen, p. 586 ; Frazer, Golden 
 
 Bough (ed. 2), vol. iii. p, 138 foil. 
 
 3 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. 
 
 * Fowler, Roman Festivals, p. 217 foil. 
 
292 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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, 1 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. 2 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. 3 
 
 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 
 
 1 See the account in Dion. Hal. vii. 72, taken from Fabius Pictor. 
 
 2 See Friedlander in Marquardt, Staatsverwaltung, iii. p. 508, note 3. 
 
 8 For full accounts of this procession, and the whole question of the Ludi 
 Romani, see Friedlander, l.c. ; Wissowa, Religion und Kultus, p. 383 foil.; or 
 the article “ Triumphus ” in the Diet, of Antiquities, ed. 2. All accounts owe 
 much to Mommsen’s essay in Romische Forschungen, ii. p. 42 foil. 
 
X HOLIDAYS AND AMUSEMENTS 293 
 
 the Capitol. 1 They are connected with the name of 
 that Flaminins 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 build¬ 
 ing 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 w r ere 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. 2 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 ex¬ 
 tended to April 10. 3 Lastly, in 202 the Ludi Ceriales, 
 which probably existed in some form already, were 
 made permanent and fixed for April 19 : they eventu¬ 
 ally lasted from the 12th to the 19th. 4 After the 
 war was over we only find one more set of ludi per- 
 
 1 On the parallelism between the Ludi Plebeii and Romani see Mommsen, 
 Staatsrecht, ii. p. 508, note 4. 
 
 2 Fowler, Roman Festivals, p. 179 foil. 8 lb. p. 69. 4 lb. p. 72 foil. 
 
294 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 manently 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 eventu¬ 
 ally reached to May 3. 1 April, we may note, was a 
 month chiefly consisting of holidays : the Ludi Mega¬ 
 lenses, 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 1, 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 Yerrines, 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^ sest. was voted, 
 because the number three had a sacred signification, 
 and the moment w r as one of extreme peril for the State. 2 
 On one occasion only before the end of the Republic 
 do we hear of any public collection for the ludi; 
 
 1 Fowler, Roman Festivals, p. 91 foil. 2 Livy xxii. 10. 7 ; Dionys. vii. 71. 
 
X HOLIDAYS AND AMUSEMENTS 295 
 
 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. 1 
 There was no doubt a growing demand for magni¬ 
 ficence 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. 2 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, 
 
 1 Pliny, N.H. xxxiii. 138. The same thing happened once or twioe 
 under Augustus. 3 Livy xl. 44. 
 
CHAP. 
 
 296 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 and thus to involve himself financially quite early in 
 his political career. In his de Officiis, 1 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 Luculli, 
 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. 2 Cicero himself 
 had to undertake the Ludi Romani, Megalenses, and 
 Florales in his aedileship; how he managed it 
 financially he does not tell us. 3 Caesar undoubtedly 
 borrowed largely, for his expenditure as aedile was 
 enormous, 4 and he had no private fortune of an} 
 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 
 
 1 ii. 16, 57 foil. 
 
 2 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. 
 
 s Verr. v. 14. 36. * Plut. Caes. 5. 
 
X HOLIDAYS AND AMUSEMENTS 29; 
 
 as many.” 1 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. 2 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 
 
 2 ad Att. vi. 1. 21. 
 
 1 Cic. ad Fam. viii. 9. 
 
298 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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. 1 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 
 
 1 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 (Ji.Ix. i. 8. 2), unless we consider the vilicus of Horace, Epist. 
 i. 14. 15, as a slave. See Friedlander in Marq. p. 491, note 4. 
 
X 
 
 HOLIDAYS AND AMUSEMENTS 299 
 
 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 con¬ 
 clusion 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 
 
3 °° 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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 1 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. 2 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 char- 
 acter, 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, 3 —a custom undoubtedly ancient, which 
 may have suggested the venationes (hunts) of later 
 
 1 See above, p. 13 ; Fowler, Roman Festivals, p. 208. 
 
 ' l Roman Festivals, p. 211. 3 lb. p. 77 foil. 
 
X HOLIDAYS AND AMUSEMENTS 301 
 
 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, 1 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, 2 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 
 
 1 Dionys. Hal. iii. 6S gives this number for Augustus' time, and so far as 
 we know Augustus had not enlarged the Circus. 2 Gell. iii. 10. 16. 
 
302 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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. 1 
 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. 2 
 
 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 3 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 con- 
 sequence was, of course, that candidates for election 
 to magistracies took every opportunity of giving 
 
 1 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 ; Priedl. p. 517). 
 Cp. Tertullian, de Spectaculis, 9. 
 
 2 For a graphic picture of the scene in the Circus in Augustus’ time see 
 
 Ovid, Ars Amatoria, i. 135 foil. 3 ch. 59. 
 
X HOLIDAYS AND AMUSEMENTS 303 
 
 them; and Cicero himself in his consulship inserted 
 a clause in his lex de arnbitu forbidding candidates 
 to give such exhibitions within two years of the 
 election. 1 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 exhibi¬ 
 tion 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 gladi¬ 
 ators 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. 2 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, 
 
 1 See Schol. Bob. on the pro Sestio, new Teubner ed., p. 105. 
 
 2 Val. Max. ii. 3. 2. The conjecture as to the object of the exhibition by 
 the consuls is that of Biicheler, in Rhein. Mus. 1883, p. 476 foil. 
 
304 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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. 1 
 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. 2 “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. 3 
 
 AVe 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 
 
 1 The example was set, according to Livy, Epit. 16, by a Junius Brutus 
 at the beginning of the first Punic war. 2 ad Farm. ii. 3. 
 
 3 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. 
 
X HOLIDAYS AND AMUSEMENTS 305 
 
 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 rather a dramatic history, based on some 
 familiar legend of their own State. And the condi¬ 
 tions 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 
 
 x 
 
SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAT. 
 
 306 
 
 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. 1 
 
 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; 2 
 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, 3 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 
 
 1 See Lucian Muller’s Ennius, p. 35 foil., where he maintains against 
 Mommsen the intelligence and taste of the Romans of the 2nd century B.c. 
 
 2 Cic. Brutus, 28. 107, where he speaks of having known the poet himself. 
 
 3 ad Att. ii. 19. 
 
X HOLIDAYS AND AMUSEMENTS 307 
 
 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. 1 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 philo¬ 
 sophical 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. 
 
 1 Pro Sestio, 55. 117 foil. 
 
SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 308 
 
 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. 1 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. 2 
 
 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 interest¬ 
 ing proof of the same tendency is to be found in the 
 
 1 ad Q. Fratr. iii. 5. 
 
 2 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. 
 
X HOLIDAYS AND AMUSEMENTS 309 
 
 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 1 to accom- 
 
 1 Tibicines, usually mistranslated flute-players; this characteristic Italian 
 
3io 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 pany the voices where necessary, was contracted for, 
 like all such undertakings, 1 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 tem¬ 
 porary 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.” 2 
 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. 3 There was 
 a story too, of which it is difficult to make out the 
 real origin, that he was compelled by popular feel- 
 
 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. 
 
 1 See above, p. 70. 3 Val. Max. ii. 4. 2 ; Livy, Epit. 48. 
 
 1 Tacitus, Ann. xiv. 20. 
 
X HOLIDAYS AND AMUSEMENTS 311 
 
 ing 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 . 1 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 ; 2 adjoin¬ 
 ing it Pompey also built a magnificent portions 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 . 3 “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 
 
 1 Tertullian, de Spectaculis, 10 ; Pliny, N.H. viii. 20. 
 
 2 See the excellent account in Hiilsen, vol. iii. of Jordan’s Topograph.it 
 p. 524 foil. Some of the arches of the supporting arcade are still visible. 
 
 * ad Fam. vii. 1. Professor Tyrrell calls this letter a rhetorical exercise ; 
 is it not rather one of those in which Cicero is taking pains to write, there¬ 
 fore writing less easily and naturally than usual ? 
 
3 12 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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.” 1 This last interesting sentence is 
 confirmed by a passage in Pliny’s Natural History , 
 in which he asserts that the people were so much 
 
 1 I have used Mr. Shuckburgh’s translation, with one or two verbal 
 changes. 
 
x HOLIDAYS AND AMUSEMENTS 313 
 
 moved that they actually execrated Pompey. 1 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 excite¬ 
 ments, 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 him¬ 
 self. 2 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 
 
 1 Pliny, Nat. Hist. viii. 21. 
 
 5 de Div. i. 37. 80. Cp. the story in Plut. Cic. 5. 
 
3 1 4 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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. 1 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 pre¬ 
 served 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. 2 
 
 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 freed- 
 man ; 3 his great days were in Cicero’s early life, and 
 he died in 61 B.C., to the deep grief of all his friends.'* 
 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. 5 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 
 
 1 Hor. Ep. ii. 82; Quintil. ii. 3. 111. 
 
 2 Val. Max. viii. 10. 2. Cicero was said to have learnt gesticulation both 
 from Aesopus and Roscius.—Plut. Cic. 5. 
 
 5 Pliny, N.E. vii. 128. 
 
 6 Dt Oratore, i. 28. 129. 
 
 * Fro Archia, 8. 
 
X HOLIDAYS AND AMUSEMENTS 315 
 
 with a mask on, because the expression of his face 
 was so full of meaning. 1 
 
 In Cicero’s later years, when Eoscius 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 Eoman 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 : 2 
 
 Fescennina per hunc inventa licentia morem 
 Versibus altemis opprobria rustica fudit, 
 
 Libertasque recurrentis accepta per anno3 
 Lusit amabiiiter, 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 fife the so-called Atellan plays (fabulae 
 
 1 De Oratore, iii. 27, 59. 
 
 2 A useful succinct account of tbe literature of this difficult subject will 
 be found in Schanz, Gesch. der rim. Litteratur, vol. i. (ed. 3) p. 21 foil. 
 
SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 3 j 6 
 
 Atellanae) were the favourites: these were of indi¬ 
 genous 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. 1 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 dis¬ 
 placed 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 impro¬ 
 visation 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.” 2 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 
 
 1 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. 2 Plut. Sulla, 2 : cp. 36. 
 
X HOLIDAYS AND AMUSEMENTS 317 
 
 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. 1 
 
 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. 2 
 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. 3 “ 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 
 
 1 Political allusions in mimes, were, however, not unknown. Cp. Cic. 
 ad Att. xiv. 3, written in 44 b.c., after Caesar’s death. 
 
 2 All the passages about Publilius are collected in Mr. Bickford Smith’s 
 edition of his Sententiae, p. 10 foil. On mimes generally the reader may be 
 referred to Professor Purser’s excellent article in Smith’s Diet, of Antiq. 
 ed. 2. 
 
 3 Animo aequissimo, ad Fam. xii. 19. He means perhaps rather that 
 flattering allusions to Caesar did not hurt his feelings. 
 
SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. X 
 
 318 
 
 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. 1 We may suppose that his plays were 
 of the same type as those of Publilius, and inter¬ 
 spersed 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. 2 
 
 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 , 3 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 popula¬ 
 tion was losing both virility and intelligence. 
 
 1 See Ribbeck, Fragm. Comic. Lat. p. 295 foil. 
 
 2 Seneca, Epist. 108. 8. 
 
 * See another excellent article of Professor Purser’s in the Did. of Antiq. 
 
CHAPTEE XI 
 
 RELIGION 
 
 It is easy to write the word “ religion ” at the head 
 of this chapter, but by no means easy to find any¬ 
 thing in this materialistic period which answers to our 
 use of the word. In the w'hole mass, for example, of 
 the Ciceronian correspondence, there is hardly any¬ 
 thing 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. 1 In both of 
 these senses religio is to be found in the last age of 
 
 1 See the Hiblert Journal for July 1907, p. 847. In the second sense 
 Cicero often uses the plural “religiones,” esp. in de Legions, ii. 
 
 319 
 
320 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAF. 
 
 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 publico) 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, 1 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, out¬ 
 side of these sacra privata, carelessness and negligence 
 of the old State cults were steadily on the increase. 
 
 1 See Middleton, Rome in 1887, p. 423 ; Horace, Sat. i. 8. 8 foil. ; Nissen, 
 Italische Landeskunde, ii. p. 522. 
 
XI 
 
 RELIGION 
 
 321 
 
 Neither Cicero nor any of his contemporaries but 
 Yarro has anything to tell us of their details, and the 
 decay had gone so far that Yarro himself knew little 
 or nothing about many of the deities of the old 
 religious calendar, 1 or of the ways in which they had 
 at one time been worshipped. Yesta, 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 recog¬ 
 nised 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 2 
 that he had to restore no less than eighty-two; and 
 from Cicero we actually hear of thefts of statues and 
 other temple property 3 —sacrileges which may be 
 
 1 Fowler, Roman Festivals, p. 336 foil. 
 
 * Monumentum Ancyranum (Lat.), 4. 17. 3 de Nat. Deor. i. 29. 82. 
 
 Y 
 
322 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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 numer¬ 
 ous eastern campaigns. It is a remarkable fact that 
 no less than four times in a single decade the wor¬ 
 ship 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. 1 
 These are indeed strange times ; the beautiful religion 
 of Isis, wdiich assuredly had some power to purify a 
 man and strengthen his conscience, 2 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 
 
 1 Valerius Maximus, Epit. 3. 4 ; Wissowa, Eel. und Kult. p. 293. 
 2 See, e.g. Dill, Eoman Society from, Nero to Marcus Aurelius, ch. t. 
 
xr 
 
 RELIGION 
 
 3 2 3 
 
 was mucli 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, 1 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 goodwill 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 fife the State religion was to h im 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 
 
 1 See, e.g., pro Sestio, 15. 32 ; in Vatinium, 7. 18. 
 
324 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 the statesman, of which the last must he accepted 
 and acted on, whether it be true or not. 1 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 con- 
 
 1 Augustine, Civ. Dei, iv. 27. 
 
XI 
 
 RELIGION 
 
 325 
 
 servative 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, 
 
CHAP. 
 
 326 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 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 w r ith relief to the courageous out¬ 
 spokenness 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 
 
RELIGION 
 
 XI 
 
 327 
 
 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” with¬ 
 out 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, 
 
SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 328 
 
 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. 1 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. 2 Of cruelty and bloodshed in 
 civil strife that age had seen enough, and on this 
 too the poet dwells with bitter emphasis; 3 on the 
 unwholesome luxury and restlessness of the upper 
 classes, 4 and on their unrestrained indulgence of 
 bodily appetites. In his magnificent scorn he prob¬ 
 ably 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 
 
 1 Cp. i. 63 foil. ; iii. 87 and 894 ; v. 72 and 1218 ; and many other 
 passages. 2 iii. 995 foil. ; v. 1120 foil. 
 
 * iii. 70 ; v. 1126. 4 ii. 22 foil. ; iii. 1003 ; v. 1116. 
 
XI 
 
 RELIGION 
 
 329 
 
 little of ordinary human nature to be either a religious 
 reformer or an effective prophet: as Sellar has said of 
 him, 1 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, 2 —not the 
 dilettanteism of the day, but real scientific knowledge 
 of a single philosophical attempt to explain the uni¬ 
 verse,—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 
 
 1 Roman Poets of the Republic, p. 306. 
 
 2 The secret may be found in the last 250 lines of Bk. iii., and at the 
 beginning and end of Bk. v. 
 
330 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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 . 1 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 
 
 1 v. 1203 ; ii. 48-54. 
 
XI 
 
 RELIGION 
 
 33i 
 
 did in the creed of many less noble spirits of that 
 age . 1 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 . 2 
 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 him¬ 
 self 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 
 
 1 v. 1129. 
 
 2 “ 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. 
 
332 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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 , 1 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 philo¬ 
 sophical 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 
 
 1 See above, p. 115. 
 
XI 
 
 RELIGION 
 
 333 
 
 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, 1 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 else- 
 wdiere; 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 
 
 1 e.g. xxi. 62. 
 
334 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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, 1 —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. 2 AVe 
 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 3 in a work Tlept irpovoia ?, 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 
 
 1 Ribbeck, Fragm. Trag. Bom. p. 54 : Ego deum genus esse semper dixi 
 et dicam coelitum, Sed eos non curare opinor quid agat humanum genus. 
 
 2 See above, p. 114. 
 
 3 See H. N. Fowler, Panaetii et Hecatonis librorum fragmenta, p. 10 ; 
 Hirzel, Untenuchungen zu Cicero's philosophischen Schrifttn, i. p. 194 foil. 
 
RELIGION 
 
 335 
 
 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 
 Yarro, 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 understand¬ 
 ing. We have already seen 1 2 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 Yarro’s Antiquitates divinae, and almost 
 certainly also of the second book of Cicero’s de 
 Natura Deorum} 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 Yarro’s work 
 that we learn something of the Stoic attempt to 
 harmonise the old religious beliefs with philosophic 
 
 1 See above, p. 115. 
 
 2 Schmekel, Die Mittlere Stoa, p. 85 foil.; Hirzel, Untersuchungen, ete., 
 i. p. 194 foil. 
 
CHAP. 
 
 336 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 theories of the universe . 1 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 
 cods 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 hai^iove^ 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 super¬ 
 natural manifesting itself in many different w^ays 
 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 
 
 1 The fragments are collected by R. Agahd, Leipzig, 1898. The great 
 majority are found in St. Augustine, de Civitate Dei. 
 
XI 
 
 RELIGION 
 
 337 
 
 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 con¬ 
 descended 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 . 1 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 . 2 
 He is the one universal causal agent , 3 from whom all 
 
 1 As Wissowa says (Religion und Kultus der Rorner, 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 manifest¬ 
 ations 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 love frigido 
 Venator.” 
 
 2 ap. Aug. Civ. Dei, iv. 11. 
 
 3 lb. vii. 9. 
 
SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 333 
 
 the forces of nature are derived ; 1 or he may be 
 called, in language which would be intelligible to 
 the ordinary Roman, the universal Genius . 2 Further, 
 he is himself all the other gods and goddesses, who 
 may be described as parts, or powers, or virtues, 
 existing in him . 3 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 : 4 
 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 . 5 
 
 Thus Varro had arrived, with the help of Posi¬ 
 donius 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 
 
 1 ap. Aug. Civ. Dei, vii. 13: animus mundi is here so called, but 
 evidently identified with Jupiter. 
 
 J lb. vii. 9. 5 lb. iv. 11, 13. 
 
 * Aug. de consensu evangel, i. 23. 24. Cp. Civ. Dei, iv. 9. 
 
 * Jb. i. 22. 30 ; Civ. Dei, xix. 22. 
 
XI 
 
 RELIGION 
 
 339 
 
 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 Yarro, 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 Yarro 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 . 1 We cannot tell how far Yarro 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 Yarro identified with 
 
 1 See Wissowa, Religion und Kultus, p. 103. 
 
34° 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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 ; 1 and goes on to teach 
 that this law transcends all human codes of law, em¬ 
 bracing 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 pub¬ 
 lication of Varro’s work, he goes further and identifies 
 this God with Jupiter . 2 “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 . 3 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 
 Rio-ht Reason to which he might give the name of 
 J upiter: I have been unable to find a passage in 
 
 1 de Hep. iii. 22. See above, p. 117. 
 
 2 de Legibus, ii. 10. 
 
 * 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, sempitemam rerum futurarum veritatem." 
 Chrysippus of course was speaking of the Greek Zeus. 
 
XI 
 
 RELIGION 
 
 34i 
 
 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. 1 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 
 Yarro’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 : “0 qui res hominumque 
 deumque Aeternis regis imperiis,” are the opening 
 words of the address of Venus; and when she has 
 finished, 
 
 1 e.g. de Off. iii. 28 ; de Nat. Deor. i. 116. 
 
342 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 Olli subridens hominum sator atque deorum 
 Yultu, quo caelum tempestatesque serenat, 
 
 Oscula libavit natae, dehinc talia fatur ; 
 
 “ Parce metu, Cytberea, 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, 1 “ 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 
 
 1 Glover, Studies in Virgil, p. 275. 
 
XI 
 
 RELIGION 
 
 343 
 
 that relation. Fate, as it appears in the Aeneid, is 
 the Stoic elfiapixev'n 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. 1 
 
 While philosophers and poets were thus performing 
 intellectual and imaginative feats with the gods of 
 the State, the strong tendency to superstition, un¬ 
 tutored 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 mock¬ 
 ingly 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, 2 had been 
 
 1 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 foil. 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. 
 
 * See an article by the author in Hilbert Journal, July 1907, p. 847. 
 
344 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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 pharma¬ 
 copoeia 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 (l) 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 over- 
 
XI 
 
 RELIGION 
 
 345 
 
 thrown, 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 unedu¬ 
 cated. 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 Sai/Mcov (perhaps his genius) in the night ” ; 1 
 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. 2 Again, Cicero tells us a curious 
 story of himself, Yarro, 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. 3 He 
 
 s Valerius Maximus ii. 3. 
 
 5 de Div. i. 32. 68. 
 
 1 Plut. Sulla, 6. 
 
SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 346 
 
 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 com¬ 
 mander 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. 1 
 
 2. Lucretius had denied the doctrine of the im¬ 
 mortality 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. 2 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 
 
 1 Plut. Brutus, 36, 37. 2 Sail. Cat. 51 ; Cic. Cat. ir. 4 . 7. 
 
XI 
 
 RELIGION 
 
 347 
 
 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.” 1 
 
 1 Cic. de Rep. iv. 24. 
 
CHAP. 
 
 348 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 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. 1 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.” 2 
 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. 
 
 Reid, The Academics of Cicero, Introduction, p. 18. 
 2 ad Att. xii. 36. 
 
XI 
 
 RELIGION 
 
 349 
 
 Cicero is really speaking the language of the Italian 
 mind, for the moment free from philosophical specula¬ 
 tion ; 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 ! 1 
 
 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 god¬ 
 head of Julius. 2 
 
 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 over¬ 
 spread 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 
 
 1 ad Att. xii. 37. 
 
 * Suetonius, Jul. 88. See E. Komemann in Klio, vol. i. p. 95. 
 
350 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 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 re¬ 
 flects 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: “ donee 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 . 1 In the introductory chapters 
 which serve the purpose of prefaces to the Jugurtha 
 and Catiline of Sallust, we find something of the 
 
 1 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. 
 
XI 
 
 RELIGION 
 
 35i 
 
 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. 1 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 
 
 1 Epode 16. 54 ; cp. 30 foil. 
 
352 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 CHAP. XI 
 
 and wealth,—will lead the world in a new era of 
 happiness and good government .” 1 
 
 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 com¬ 
 plete 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 lovingkindness. ” 2 
 
 O o 
 
 1 Sir W. M. Ramsay, quoted in Virgil’s Messianic Eclogue, p. 54. 
 2 Dr. J. B. Mayor, in Virgil's Messianic Eclogue, p. 118 folL 
 
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. 
 
 353 2 A 
 
354 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 We must not forget, however severely we may con¬ 
 demn 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 Medi¬ 
 terranean, and with it made possible the develop¬ 
 ment 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 mis¬ 
 apprehended. We have noticed the decay of whole¬ 
 some 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 
 
EPILOGUE 
 
 355 
 
 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 can¬ 
 not 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. 
 
 2 a 2 
 
INDEX 
 
 Accius, 305, 306, 307, 312 
 Aedicuia, 29 
 
 Aediles, the, 36, 295, 296 
 
 Aemilia, Via. See Via Aemilia 
 
 Aemilius, Pons. See Pons AemiHus 
 
 Aeneas, 2, 141, 342 
 
 Aerarium, the, 20, 67 
 
 Aesopus, the actor, 307, 313-315 
 
 Afranius, 305, 306 
 
 Africa, province of, 36 
 
 Agrippa, 40 
 
 Alexandria, 35 
 
 Alexis (Atticus’s slave), 224 
 
 Amafinius, 122 
 
 Ambitu, lex de, 303 
 
 Anio, the river, 41 
 
 Anna Perenna, festival of, 289 
 
 Annona, 38 
 
 Antioch, 35 
 
 Antiochus (the physician), 270 
 Antium, Cicero’s villa at, 259 
 Antony, 212, 256 
 Apodyterium, 244, 255, 275, 276 
 Apollinares, Ludi. See Ludi Apolli- 
 nares 
 
 Apollonia, 35 
 
 Appia, Via. See Via Appia 
 Appius Claudius Caecus, 41 
 Aqua Appia, 41 
 Aqua Tepula, 42 
 Aqueducts, 40, 41, 42 
 Ara maxima, 2, 13 
 Ara Pacis, 108 
 Argentarii, 80 ff. 
 
 Argiletum, the, 3, 18, 25, 26 
 Arpinum, Cicero’s villa at, 253, 260 
 Ars amatoria (Ovid's), 238, 309 
 Arval brothers, the, 6, 321 
 Arx, the, 1 n., 17 
 Asia, province of, 88 
 Astura, Cicero’s villa at, 259, 348 
 Atellanae, fabulcie. See Fabulae Atel- 
 lanae 
 
 Atrium, 241, 254, 278 ; sutorium, 53; 
 Vestae, 19 
 
 Atticus, house of, 25; wealth of, 
 62-64; as money-lender, 83-84; 
 the sister of, 152 ; the slave of, 
 224 ; Cicero’s letters to, passim 
 Augury, 322, 323 
 
 Augustus, alleged proposal of, to 
 remove the capital, 9 ; attitude of, 
 towards plebs urbana, 38 ; water- 
 supply under, 40 ; the grandfather 
 of, 81 ?i. ; as a social reformer, 95 ; 
 marriage laws of, 149-150 ; furthers 
 public comfort, 237-238 ; restora¬ 
 tion of temples by, 321; attempts 
 at religious revival, 325 
 Aventine hill, 3, 4, 14, 24, 41, 55 
 
 Baiae, 257 
 
 Balbus, Cornelius, the younger, 308 
 Bankruptcy laws, 57, 59 
 Basilicae, the, 19, 74 
 Baths, public, 276 n. 
 
 Bath-rooms, 255, 275 
 Bauli, 257 
 
 Bithynia, province of, 77-79, 94 
 Blanditia, 271 
 
 Bona Dea, festival of, 324, 326 
 Boscoreale, 261, 276 
 Brutus (Cicero’s), 110 
 Brutus, Decimus, 89 n., 125, 346 
 Bulla, 193 
 Byzantium, 9 
 
 Caecilius, 228, 305 
 Caelian hill, 4, 15, 24 
 Caelius Antipater, 111 
 Caelius (M.) Rufus, 29, 126-128 ff., 
 155, 161, 194, 195, 221, 296, 297 
 and passim 
 
 Caesar, Julius, alleged proposal of, 
 to remove the capital, 9 ; extends 
 one of the Basilicae, 19; reduces 
 
 357 
 
SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 corn gratuities, 38 ; regulations of, 
 for the government of the city, 55 ; 
 debts of, 62 ; character of, 101-102 ; 
 as historian, 111 ; joined by Caelius, 
 130 ; restores credit in Italy, 131 ; 
 and Cleopatra, 158 ; clemency of, 
 161 ; sale of prisoners by, 207 ; 
 dismisses surrendered armies, 208 ; 
 foundation at Corinth by, 228 ; 
 entertained by Cicero, 275 ; habits 
 of, 283 ; as aedile, 296 ; summons 
 Publilius to Rome, 317 ; as Ponti- 
 fex Maximus, 326 ; speech of, in 
 Sallust, 346 ; consents to be deified, 
 349 ; and passim 
 Calceus, 53 
 
 Caldarium, 244, 255, 275, 276 
 Calvus, 128 
 Camillus, 9 
 Campagna, the, 15 
 Campania, 6, 7, 161 
 Campus Martius, 3, 22, 194, 289, 300, 
 311 
 
 Caninius, 274 
 
 Capena, Porta. See Porta Capena 
 Capital at Rome, 65 ff. 
 
 Capitol, the, 2, 3, 15, 338 
 Capitoline hill, In., 4, 17 
 Capua, 7 
 
 Carceres, the, 13, 301 
 Carinae, the, 25 
 
 Carmentalis, Porta. See Porta Car- 
 mentalis 
 
 Castella, 42 
 
 Castor, temple of, 19, 211 
 Catiline, 128, 210, 226, 228 
 Cato major, 68, 1U3, 176, 177, 191, 
 212, 217-219, 280 
 
 Cato minor, 2, 76, 109, 113 n., 115, 
 116, 120, 122, 158, 171 ff. 
 
 Catullus, 109, 128, 143, 155 
 Catulus the elder, 111 
 Cena, 273, 277, 281, 283, 284 
 Censor, the, 71, 229, 310 
 Censoria localio, 71 
 Ceres, 136 
 
 Ceriales, Ludi. See Ludi Ceriales 
 Cethegus, 157 
 Chariot-racing, 301. 302 
 •Chrysippus, 340 
 
 Cicero, birthplace of, 10; house of, 
 17 ; borrows money, 62 ; as a man 
 of business, 74 ff. ; and the publi- 
 cani, 76 ff. ; relation of, to the 
 governing aristocracy, 97 ff.; letters 
 of, 112 ; as a philosopher, 113 ff. ; 
 and Clodia, 155 ; views on educa¬ 
 tion, 174 ff. ; influence of philoso¬ 
 
 phers upon, 199; and the slave 
 question, 207; and the use of slaves 
 for seditious purposes, 226 ; villas 
 of, 251 ff'. ; undertakes the Ludi 
 Romani, 296 ; religious views of, 
 322, 323, 326 ; and passim 
 Cicero, Marcus, 152, 227 
 Cicero, Quintus, 25, 89, 152, 173, 
 174, 227, 253, 254, 308 
 Cilician pirates, 208 
 Circus Flaminius, 22, 293 
 Circus Maximus, 13, 14, 292, 293, 
 299, 300, 301 
 Cleopatra, 168, 212 
 Clients, 269 
 Clivus Capitolinus, 20 
 Clivus sacer, 3, 17, 18 
 Cloaca maxima, 12, 18 
 Clodia, 129, 155, 249 
 Clodius, 20, 38, 48, 226, 324 
 Cluvius, 257 
 Cocmptio, 138, 139, 140 
 Coenaculum, 29 
 Coinage, 80 ff. 
 
 Collegia, 45, 46, 215 
 Colline gate, Sulla’s victory at the, 
 294 
 
 Colosseum, the, 16 
 Columella, 220, 278 
 Comedy, 305 ff. 
 
 Comissatio, 282 
 Comitium, the, 19 
 Commercii, ius, 138 n. 
 
 Compluvium, 241 
 Concordia, temple of, 20 
 Conducticii, 219 
 Con/arreatio, 136-139, 147 n. 
 Coniugalia praecepta (Plutarch’s), 145 
 Connubii, ius, 138 n. 
 
 Constantine, arch of, 16 
 Consul, the, 21, 58, 229 
 Consus, altar of, 13, 300 
 Contubernium, 193, 194 
 Convivium, 282 
 Copa (“ Virgil’s ”), 51 
 Corfinium, 7 
 Cornelia, 153, 154 
 Cornelius, 126 
 
 Crassus, 31, 62, 87, 108, 296 
 Cumae, Cicero’s villa at, 257 
 Curia, the, 19, 20, 311 
 Curio, 304 
 
 Debtors, 85, 86 
 Declamatio, 197, 202 
 Deduclio, 142 
 Democritus, 329 
 
 Deorum, De Nalura (Cicero’s), 335 
 
INDEX 
 
 359 
 
 Diana, temple of, 14 
 
 Die natali, De (Censorinus’s), 266 
 
 Diffarreatio, 147 n. 
 
 Diomedes, villa of, 254, 255 
 Dionysius of Halicarnassus, 228, 229 
 Dionysus, worship of, 333 
 Di i enates. See Penates 
 Diphilus, the actor, 306 
 Divorce, 147 
 Dolia, 54 
 
 Domus, 28, 29, 237 if. 
 
 Dos, 144 ft. 
 
 Drama, the, 305 ff. 
 
 Dyrrhachium, importation of corn 
 into, 35 ; battle of, 346 
 
 Emetics, use of, 1283, 284 
 Ennius, 104, 305 
 Epicureanism, 121-124, 327 
 Epicurus, 329 
 Epulurn Joins, 291, 292 
 Equester, Ordo. See Ordo equester 
 Equirria, 300 
 
 Equites. See Ordo equester 
 Ergastula, 233 
 Esquiline hill, 4, 16 n., 24 
 Etruscans, the, 5, 9 
 Evander, 2, 3, 4 
 Exedra, 242, 244, 255 
 
 Fabius, arch of, 17 
 Fabri ferrarii, 54 
 
 FabulaeAtellanae,%\b,3 \§; palliatae, 
 305 ; togatae, 305, 317 
 Familiae urbanae, 216 
 Fate, 342, 343 
 Fercula, 292 
 Feriae, 286 ff. 
 
 Festa, 285 ff. 
 
 Figuli, 54 
 
 Figulus, Nigidius, 347 
 
 Flaccus, Yerrius, 228 
 
 Flamen Dialis, 39, 136, 137, 321 ; 
 
 Quirinalis, 288 n. 
 
 Flaminius, 293 
 Flainmeum, 141 
 
 Florales, Ludi. See Ludi Florales 
 Fueneratores, 81 
 Foenus, 81 
 
 Formiae, Cicero’s villa at, 256, 258 
 Forum Boarium, 2, 12, 18, 22, 301 
 l orum Romanum, 3, 13, 15, 17-19, 74, 
 75, 245, 246, 271, 272, 303, 309 
 Friedlander, 214 
 Frontinus, 40, 42 ft. 
 
 Fullones, 52 
 
 Funeral games, 303, 304 
 Furrina, the grove of, 14 
 
 Gabinius, 92 
 Gellius, Aulus, 81 
 Genseric, 5 
 Gilds. See Collegia 
 Gladiators, 302 ff. 
 
 Gracchus, Gaius, 14, 36-39, 61, 107, 
 108, 272 
 
 Gracchus, Tiberius, 149, 295 
 Grammaticus, 187, 189 
 Grassatores, 209 
 Greeks, 183 
 
 Hannibal, 5, 65 
 Hercules, 2, 3, 13, 141 
 Hirtius, 111 n. 
 
 Honorum, ius, 138 ft. 
 
 Horace, 188, 268, 351 
 H'irtensius, 158, 250, 296, 314 
 Horti Caesaris, 12 n. 
 
 Tentaculum, 270 
 Impluvium, 241 
 
 Institutio Oratoris (Quintilian’s), 195 
 
 Insulae, 15, 28-32, 48, 237 
 
 Inventionc, De (Cicero’s), 110, 195 
 
 Isis, worship of, 322 
 
 Iura, 138 
 
 Ius civile, 324 
 
 Ius divinum, 286, 323, 324 
 
 Ius gentium, 117 
 
 Janiculum, the, 4 
 Janus, “temple "of, 20 
 Julius Obsequens, 344 
 Juno, temple of, 17 
 Jupiter, 291, 321, 337 ff. 
 
 Jupiter Farreus, 136 ; Julius, 349; 
 Optimus Maximus, temple of, 17, 
 21, 291, 292 ; Stator, temple of, 16 
 Juturna, spring of, 19 
 
 tc King,” game of, 172, 290, 291 
 
 Laberius, 317, 318 
 
 Lar, 141, 193, 238, 240, 241, 242 
 
 Lares, shrine of, 16 
 
 Latifundium, 221, 222, 233 
 
 Latina, Via. See Via Latina 
 
 Latins, the, 5 
 
 Latium, 5 
 
 Law-courts, the, 17, 273 
 Lectisternia, 333 
 
 Lectus, 278-280 ; consulates, 279 ; 
 genialis, 241 
 
 Legibus, De (Cicero’s), 253, 323, 326 
 
SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 360 
 
 Lentulus, 296 
 Lepidus, 164 
 Liberalia, the, 192 n. 
 
 Libertinus, 224, 228 
 Libertus, 224 
 
 Litemum, Scipio’s villa at, 247, 248 
 Livius Andronicus, 228, 312 
 Livy, 6, 9, 10, 350 
 Lucretius, 109, 122, 134, 247, 326 
 Lucretius Yespillo, Q., 159 if. 
 Lucullus, 111, 113 n., 124, 157, 296 
 Ludi, 288 ff. ; Apollinares, 292, 
 
 293, 295, 301, 306 ; Ceriales, 293, 
 
 294, 300 ; Florales, 293, 294, 296, 
 301 ; Magni, see Romani ; Mega¬ 
 lenses, 292-294, 296, 301, 333 ; 
 Novemdiales, 304 ; Plebeii, 292, 
 293, 300 ; Romani, 291, 292, 294, 
 296, 297, 300 ; Victoriae, 294 
 
 Ludus Trojae, 300 
 Lupercal, the, 3 
 Lupercalia, the, 290 
 
 Magister, 73 
 
 Magna Mater, 293, 333 
 
 Mancipes, 72 
 
 Manes, 343 
 
 Mangones, 211 
 
 Manus, 136, 139, 146 
 
 Marcius Rex, Q., 41 
 
 Marius, 209, 226, 303 
 
 Mars, 137, 300 ; temple of, 14 
 
 Martial, 4 
 
 Matrimonium, iustum, 135, 137, 138 
 Megalenses, Ludi. See Ludi Mega¬ 
 lenses 
 Mensa, 279 
 
 Mcnsae, 281 ; rationes, 81 
 
 Meridiatio, 274 
 
 Mctae, the, 14 
 
 Metellus Celer, 155 
 
 Metellus Macedonieus, 149, 150 
 
 Milo, 131, 221 
 
 Mimes, 316-318 
 
 Minerva, temple of, 17, 46 
 
 Missio in bona, 57 
 
 Missus, 301 
 
 Molo, 199 
 
 Mommsen, 9, 262 
 
 Money-lenders, 56, 57, 60, 80 ff. 
 
 Moretum (“Virgil’s”), 32, 33 and n. 
 
 Mos mojorum, 324, 325 
 
 Muliones, 55 
 
 Munera, 302 ff. 
 
 Nc/as, 324 
 
 Negotiatores, 26, 70, 80 ff. 
 
 Negoliu/n, 69 
 
 Nepos, Cornelius, 63, 64, 111 
 Neptunalia, the, 289, 290 
 Nicomedes, king of Bithynia, 209 
 Novemdiales, Ludi. See Ludi Novem- 
 diales 
 
 Novus homo, 99 
 Numa, 45 
 Nummularii, 81 
 
 Obaerati, 219 
 Oecus, 242, 244 
 
 Oj/iciis, De (Cicero’s), 115, 296 
 
 Oper aril, 218 
 
 Opifices, 44, 46 
 
 Oppia, lex, 147 
 
 Oppius Mons, 16 n. 
 
 Oratore, De (Cicero’s), 110, 314 
 Ordo equester, 15, 26, 60 ff., 97, 310 ; 
 
 senatorius, 26, 60, 97 ff 
 Oscans, the, 6 
 Ostia, 5-7, 55 
 Ovid, 154, 289, 309 
 
 Pacuvius, 305 
 Palatine hill, 3, 4, 15, 25 
 Palliatac, fabulae. See Fabulae 
 palliatae 
 
 Panaetius, 106, 114-116, 334 
 Pantomimus, 318 
 Participes, 73 
 Patronvs, 269 
 
 Paullus, L. Aemilius, 100, 101, 104, 
 207, 322 
 Paupcrculi, 219 
 Peculium, 233 
 
 Penates, the, 30, 238, 241, 242; 
 
 temple of the, 16 
 Pergamum, 213 
 
 Peristylium, 242-244, 254, 255, 278 
 Permutatio, 82 
 Pero, 54 
 
 Perscriptio, 82 n. 
 
 Persona, 222, 224 
 Phaedrus the Epicurean, 199 
 Philippi, battle of, 346 
 Philippus (tribune), 212 
 Philo the Academician, 199 
 Philodemus, 123 
 Pietas, 320 
 
 Piso, Calpurnius, 123, 280 
 Pistores, 48, 49 
 Plaetoria, lex, 266 
 Plautus, 50, 305 
 
 Plebeii, Ludi. See Ludi Plebeii 
 Pliny, the elder, 268 ; the younger, 
 112 
 
 Plutarch, 171, 190 
 Pollio, Asinius, 111 n. 
 
INDEX 
 
 361 
 
 Polybius, 72, 105, 106, 114, 175, 190 
 Pomerium, the, 16 n. 
 
 Pompeii, 49, 254, 258, 267 
 Pompeius, 75, 78, 88, 102, 124, 208, 
 209, 291, 806 ; house of, 25 ; theatre 
 of, 22 
 
 Pomponia, 152, 153 
 Pons Aemilius, 4, 12 
 Ponte Rotto, 4 n. 
 
 Pontifex Maximus, 16, 19, 136, 323, 
 326 
 
 Porta Capena, 14, 15 ; Carmentalis, 
 3, 22 ; Esquilina, 20 
 Portunus, 13 
 
 Posidonius, 115, 116, 332, 335, 338 
 
 Praecia, 157 
 
 Praedts, 73 
 
 Praediola, 254 
 
 Praetor, the, 57, 126 
 
 Prandium, 273, 274 
 
 Priesthoods, 324 if. 
 
 Promagister, 73, 78 
 Pronuba, 142 
 
 Provinces, +he, 67, 72, 73, 76-79, 95 
 Provocationis, ius, 138 n. 
 
 Ptolemy Auletes, 91 
 Publicani, 26, 69, 70 
 Publicum, 69 
 
 Publilius Syrus, 184, 228, 317, 318 
 Punic wars, 12 
 Puteoli, Cicero’s villa at, 257 
 Puticulus, 320 
 Pythagoreanism, 347 
 
 Quaestiones Conviviales (Plutarch’s), 
 279 
 
 Quaestorship, the, 97 
 Quintilian, 198 
 
 Quirinal (hill), 4, 18, 24, 25, 243 
 Quirinus, 137 
 
 Rabirius Postumus, 90 if. 
 
 Redemptor, 218 
 Regia, the, 3 n., 16, 19 
 Religio, 319 if. 
 
 Religion, 319 ff. 
 
 Repetundis, quaestio de, 61, 92, 126 
 Republica, De (Cicero’s), 175, 347 
 Res, 223, 224 ; mancipi, 223 
 Rex, the, 16 
 Rexsacrorum, 137 
 Rhetorica ad Herennium, 110 
 Romulus, 10 
 
 Roscius, the actor, 314, 315 
 Rostra, the, 19, 264 
 Rutilius, 111, 116, 303 
 
 Sabines, the, 13 
 
 Saccarii, 55 
 
 Sacra, 136 ; privata, 320 ; publica , 
 320 ; via, see Via Sacra 
 St. Peter, church of, 22 
 Salaminians, the, 125 
 Sallust, 111, 156, 243, 350, 351 
 Samnium, 6 
 
 San Gregorio, Via di, 15 
 Sarpedon, 172 
 Sassia, 157, 158 
 Saturnalia, the, 288, 290, 291 
 Saturninus, 37, 225, 226 
 Saturnus, temple of, 20 
 Scaevola, Mucius, 116, 118, 119, 296, 
 323, 326 
 Scaurus, 296 
 
 Scipio Aemilianus, 104-106, 227, 248 ; 
 
 Asiaticus, 66. 295 ; Nasica, 310 
 Sempronia, 156 
 Senate, the, 97 if., 273, 310 
 Senatorius, ordo. See Ordo senatorius 
 Seneca, 112 
 “Servian wall,” 24 
 Servilius, 132 
 Sibylline books, the, 333 
 Slaves, 11, 47, 48, 59, 204 ff., 278, 280, 
 290, 298 n. 
 
 Societates publicanorum, 70 ff. 
 
 Socii, 72 
 
 Sodalicia, collegia. See Collegia 
 Soleae, 281 
 
 Somnium Scipionis (Cicero’s), 348 
 Spanish silver mines, 66 
 Spartacus, 221 
 Spina, 301 
 Sponsalia, 140 n. 
 
 Sportula, 269 
 
 Stoics, the, 27, 43, 114-117, 176, 332, 
 334 ff. 
 
 Stola matronalis, 144 
 Strabo, 6 
 
 Subura, the, 18 and n., 25, 26 
 Suffragii, ius, 138 n. 
 
 Sulla, 37, 38, 57, 75, 111, 124, 226- 
 228, 294, 345 
 Sulla, P., 226 
 
 Sulpicius (S.), Rufus, 118-121, 134, 
 261 
 
 Sun-dials, 264, 265 
 Supplicationes, 333 
 Synthesis, 281 
 
 Tabellarii, 74 
 Tabernac, 19, 31 n. 
 
 Tabernae argentariae, 80 
 Tablinum, 241, 242, 244, 255 
 Tabulae, 83 
 Tabulae novae, 57 
 
SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME 
 
 362 
 
 Tabularia, the, 17, 20, 193 
 Tepidarium, 244, 255, 275 
 Terence, 228, 305 
 Terentia, 150-152 
 Theatre, the, 305 ff. 
 
 Theatre, building of a, 309 ff. 
 
 Thurii, 221 
 Tiber, 2, 4, 5, 6, 12 
 Tiber island, 12 
 Tibicines, 309 n. 
 
 Tibur, 41 
 
 Time, divisions of, in the day, 266 
 Tiro (Cicero's slave), 82, 151 n., 200, 
 223 
 
 Tirocinium fori , 194 
 Titus, arch of, 16 
 
 Toga, 151 ; libera, 193 ; praetexta, 
 141, 192 ; virilis, 191 
 Togatae, fabulae. See Fabulae togatae 
 Tragedy, 305 ff. 
 
 Tributum, 67 
 Triclinia, 278-280 
 Triumph, a, 21 
 Trofei di Mario, 42 
 Tullia (Cicero’s daughter), 120, 140, 
 259, 348 
 
 Tullianum, the, 20 
 
 Tunica, 51 
 
 Turia, the story of, 159 ff. 
 
 Tusculum, Cicero’s villa at, 251, 252 
 Tutela , 139, 162 
 Tutor, 139 
 
 Twelve Tables, the, 179, 180, 264 n. 
 
 Usus, 138 
 
 Valerius Maximus, 172, 189 
 Varro, 93, 112, 116, 175, 177, 209, 
 210, 219, 221, 222, 232, 260, 261, 
 274, 281 n., 321, 333, 335 ff. 
 
 Varro, Terentius (consul), 44 
 Veii, 9 
 
 Velabrum, the, 13, 18, 22 
 Velia, the, 16 
 Venationes, 312 
 Venus Victrix, temple of, 311 
 Verres, 73 
 
 Vesta, 19, 238, 241, 242, 321 : temple 
 of, 16, 18, 19 
 Vestal Virgins, 19 
 Veterans, Roman, 11 
 Via Aurelia, 4 ; Appia, 14, 258 ; 
 Collatina, 41 ; Latina, 14 ; Sacra, 
 16, 17, 18, 21, 245, 292 
 Victoriae, Ludi. See Ludi Victoriae 
 Vicus Tuscus, 18, 22 
 Vilicus, 217, 233, 278 
 Villa psendurbana, 254 
 Vinalia, the, 39 
 Vindicta, 224 
 
 Virgil, 2, 9, 10, 188, 304, 325, 341-343, 
 
 351 
 
 Voconia, lex, 147 
 
 Water-clocks, introduction of, 264, 
 265 
 
 THE END 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 Page 1, 1. 12. totam aestimare Romam: to appreciate Rome in its 
 
 entirety. 
 
 Page 3,1. 12. Hinc ad Tarpeiam, etc.: he leads him next to the Tar- 
 peian Rock and to the Capitol, now of gold, once thick with wild 
 bushes. 
 
 Page 4,1. 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, 1. 1. rerum, etc. Rome became a supreme thing of beauty. 
 
 Page 10, 1. 13. nativa praesidia: natural defences. 
 
 Page 10,1. 21. regionum, etc. A site in the middle of Italy, singu¬ 
 larly fitted by nature for the development of the city. 
 
 Page 17,1. 2. nec ferrea, etc.: nor has he seen the hardships of the 
 law, the mad forum, or the archives of the people. 
 
 Page 22,1. 2. Ille, ille, etc.: he it was, Jupiter himself, who with¬ 
 stood 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, 1. 6. ubi semel, etc.: he who has once strayed from the 
 right path will come to calamity. 
 
 Page 52, 1. 11. lanificium: the working of wool. 
 
 Page 55, 1. 26. graffiti: ancient scribblings, scratched, painted, or 
 otherwise marked on a wall, column, tablet, or other surface. 
 
 Page 61,1. 4. quaestio de repetundis: court for extortion. 
 
 Page 64,1. 15. familiarem, etc.: intimate with L. Lucullus, wealthy, 
 of intractable character. 
 
 Page 73, 1. 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, 1. 3. fortissimus, etc.: a most powerful and important 
 farmer of the public revenue. 
 
 Page 93, 1. 20. insanum forum: the forum in its maddening bustle. 
 
 Page 116,1. 12. doctissimus, etc.: the most learned of that time. 
 
 Page 121,1. 11. monumentum, etc.: a monument more enduring than 
 bronze. 
 
 i 
 
11 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 Page 123,1. 20. vere humanus: truly refined. 
 
 Page 127, 1. 23. omnia, etc.: he transforms himself into all porten¬ 
 tous shapes. 
 
 Page 130, 1. 20. manager ses transitions: to pass gradually over to 
 the other side. 
 
 Page 132,1. 18. de vi: of criminal violence. 
 
 Page 133,1. 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 133,1. 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 150,1. 11. liberorum, etc.: in order to have children. 
 
 Page 155, 1. 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 r and fetch the fagot wood. 
 
 Page 178,1. 20. Maxima, etc.: the greatest concern must be shown 
 for children. 
 
 Page 185, 1. 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. 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 in 
 
 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, 1. 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 189,1.1. 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, 1. 9. Orator est, etc.: an orator, my son, is an upright 
 man skilled in speaking. 
 
 Page 191,1. 11. Rem tene, etc.: master the subject; the words will 
 follow. 
 
 Page 196,1. 9. vir bonus, etc.: see page 191, 1. 9. 
 
 Page 196, 1. 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 Cappa¬ 
 docian 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 215,1. 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 233,1. 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, 1. 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. 1. 5. nunc vero, etc.: but now from morning till evening, 
 on holidays and working days, the whole people, senators and 
 
IV 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 commoners, busy themselves in the forum and retire nowhere, 
 etc. (See page 133, 1. 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, 1. 12. contentio, etc.: not a straining of the mind, but a 
 relaxation. 
 
 Page 259, 1. 12. locus, etc.: a pleasant site, on the sea itself, and can 
 be seen from Antium and Circeii. 
 
 Page 265, footnote 3. Ut ilium, 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 compart¬ 
 ments. 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 ex¬ 
 cept 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 sundials, 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, 1. 20. Nesciit vivere: he did not know how to live. 
 
 Page 277, 1. 10. ad noctem: late into the night. 
 
 Page 280, 1. 17. Saepe tribus, etc.: often you would see three couches 
 with four guests apiece. 
 
 Page 283, 1. 21. ’EfKTiKr/v, 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, 1. 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, 1. 13. Quippe etiam, etc.: for even on holy days, divine 
 and human laws allow us to perform certain works. No religion 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 v 
 
 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, 1. 2. lex de ambitu : law concerning the courting of popular 
 favor in canvassing. 
 
 Page 307,1. 4. Eandem, etc.: a time will come when you will bewail 
 that valor of yours. 
 
 Page 309, 1. 7. Spectatum, etc.: they come to see, but they come 
 also to be seen. 
 
 Page 313,1. 27. summus artifex: consummate artist. 
 
 Page 314, 1. 3. gravis: serious. 
 
 Page 314,1. 4. gravitas : seriousness. 
 
 Page 315, 1. 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, gam¬ 
 bolled, etc. 
 
 Page 317, 1. 18. Nihil mihi, etc.: know well that I lacked nothing 
 except company with whom to laugh in a friendly way and intel¬ 
 ligently over these things. 
 
 Page 324, 1. 28. mos maiorum: the customs of our ancestors. 
 
 Page 327,1. 12. Felix, etc.: blessed is he who succeeded in knowing 
 the causes of events. 
 
 Page 327,1. 16. Fortunatus, etc.: fortunate he also who knows the 
 rustic gods. 
 
 Page 333, 1. 6. lectisternia : a feast of the gods during which their 
 images on pillars were placed in the streets. 
 
 Page 333, 1. 6. supplicationes : religious solemnities for supplication. 
 
 Page 333,1. 6. ludi: games. 
 
 Page 339, 1. 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, 1. 15. qua: as. 
 
 Page 341,1. 26. 0 qui res, etc.: thou who rulest with eternal sway 
 the doings of men and gods. 
 
 Page 342, 1. 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, 1. 13. I up piter, 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. 
 
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