John Lord
Ancient States and Empires
CHAPTER XXXIV.
ROMAN CIVILIZATION AT THE CLOSE OF THE THIRD PUNIC WAR, AND THE FALL OF GREECE
Dominion of Rome.
Rome was now the unrivaled mistress of the world. She had conquered all the civilized States around the Mediterranean, or had established a protectorate over them. She had no fears of foreign enemies. Her empire was established.
Before we proceed to present subsequent conquests or domestic revolutions, it would be well to glance at the political and social structure of the State, as it was two hundred years before the Christian era, and also at the progress which had been made in literature and art.
The rise of a new nobility. Roman nobility.
One of the most noticeable features of the Roman State at this period was the rise of a new nobility. The patricians, when they lost the exclusive control of the government, did not cease to be a powerful aristocracy. But another class of nobles arose in the fifth century of the city, and shared their power—those who had held curule offices and were members of the Senate. Their descendants, plebeian as well as patrician, had the privilege of placing the wax images of their ancestors in the family hall, and to have them carried in funeral processions. They also wore a stripe of purple on the tunic, and a gold ring on the finger. These were trifling insignia of rank, still they were emblems and signs by which the nobility were distinguished. The plebeian families, ennobled by their curule ancestors, were united into one body with the patrician families, and became a sort of hereditary nobility. This body of exclusive families really possessed the political power of the State. The Senate was made up from their members, and was the mainstay of Roman nobility. The equites, or equestrian order, was also composed of the patricians and wealthy plebeians. Noble youths gradually withdrew from serving in the infantry, and the legionary cavalry became a closed aristocratic corps. Not only were the nobles the possessors of senatorial privileges, and enrolled among the equites, but they had separate seats from the people at the games and at the theatres. The censorship also became a prop to the stability of the aristocratic class.
Leading families.
We have some idea of the influence of the aristocracy from the families which furnished the higher offices of the State. For three centuries the consuls were chiefly chosen from powerful families. The Cornelii gentes furnished fifteen consuls in one hundred and twelve years, and the Valerii, ten. And, what is more remarkable, for the following one hundred and fifty years these two families furnished nearly the same number. In one hundred and twelve years fifteen families gave seventy consuls to the State: the Cornelii, fifteen; the Valerii, ten; the Claudii, four; the Æmilii, nine; the Fabii, six; the Manilii, four; the Postumii, two; the Servilii, three; the Sulpicii, six; and also about the same number the following one hundred and fifty years, thereby showing that old families, whether patrician or plebeian, were long kept in sight, and monopolized political power. This was also seen in the elevation of young men of these ranks to high office before they had reached the lawful age. M. Valerius Corvus was consul at twenty-three, Scipio at thirty, and Flaminius at twenty-nine.
Provincial governors.
The control of Rome over conquered provinces introduced a new class of magistrates, selected by the Senate, and chosen from the aristocratic circles. These were the provincial governors or prætors, who had great power, and who sometimes appeared in all the pomp of kings. They resided in the ancient palaces of the kings, and had great opportunities for accumulating fortunes. Nor could the governors be called to account, until after their term of office expired, which rarely happened. The governors were, virtually, sovereigns while they continued in office—were satraps, who conducted a legalized tyranny abroad, and returned home arrogant and accustomed to adulation—a class of men who proved dangerous to the old institutions, those which recognized equality within the aristocracy and the subordination of power to the senatorial college.
Decline of the burgesses. Public amusements.
The burgesses, or citizens, before this period, were a very respectable body, patriotic and sagacious. They occupied chiefly Latium, a part of Campania, and the maritime colonies. But gradually, a rabble of clients grew up on footing equality with these independent burgesses. These clients, as the aristocracy increased in wealth and power, became parasites and beggars, and undermined the burgess class, and controlled the Comitia. This class rapidly increased, and were clamorous for games, festivals, and cheap bread, for corn was distributed to them by those who wished to gain their favor at elections, at less than cost. Hence, festivals and popular amusements became rapidly a great feature of the times. For five hundred years the people had been contented with one festival in a year, and one circus. Flaminius added another festival, and another circus. In the year 550 of the city, there were five festivals. The candidates for the consulship spent large sums on these games, the splendor of which became the standard by which the electoral body measured the fitness of candidates. A gladiatorial show cost seven hundred and twenty thousand sesterces, or thirty-six thousand dollars.
Decay of military sports. Distinctions in society.
And corruption extended to the army. The old burgess militia were contented to return home with some trifling gift as a memorial of victory, but the troops of Scipio, and the veterans of the Macedonian and Asiatic wars, came back enriched with spoils. A decay of a warlike spirit was observable from the time the burgesses converted war into a traffic in plunder. A great passion also arose for titles and insignia, which appeared under different forms, especially for the honors of a triumph, originally granted only to the supreme magistrate who had signally augmented the power of the State. Statues and monuments were often erected at the expense of the person whom they purported to honor. And finally, the ring, the robe, and the amulet case distinguished not only the burgesses from the foreigners and slaves, but also the person who was born free from one who had been a slave, the son of the free-born from the son of the manumitted, the son of a knight from a common burgess, the descendant of a curule house from the common senators. These distinctions in rank kept pace with the extension of conquests, until, at last, there was as complete a net work of aristocratic distinctions as in England at the present day.
Cato.
All these distinctions and changes were bitterly deplored by Marcus Portius Cato—the last great statesman of the older school—a genuine Roman of the antique stamp. He was also averse to schemes of universal empire. He was a patrician, brought up at the plow, and in love with his Sabine farm. Yet he rose to the consulship, and even the censorship. He served in war under Marcellus, Fabius, and Scipio, and showed great ability as a soldier. He was as distinguished in the forum as in the camp and battle-field, having a bold address, pungent wit, and great knowledge of the Roman laws. He was the most influential political orator of his day. He was narrow in his political ideas, conservative, austere, and upright; an enemy to all corruption and villainy, also to genius, and culture, and innovation. He was the protector of the Roman farmer, plain, homely in person, disdained by the ruling nobles, but fearless in exposing corruption from any quarter, and irreconcilably at war with aristocratic coteries, like the Scipios and Flaminii. He was publicly accused twenty-four times, but he was always backed by the farmers, notwithstanding the opposition of the nobles. He erased, while censor, the name of the brother of Flaminius from the roll of senators, and the brother of Scipio from that of the equites. He attempted a vigorous reform, but the current of corruption could only be stemmed for awhile. The effect of the sumptuary laws, which were passed through his influence, was temporary and unsatisfactory. No legislation has proved of avail against a deep-seated corruption of morals, for the laws will be avoided, even if they are not defied. In vain was the eloquence of the hard, arbitrary, narrow, worldly wise, but patriotic and stern old censor. The age of Grecian culture, of wealth, of banquets, of palaces, of games, of effeminate manners, had set in with the conquest of Greece and Asia. The divisions of society widened, and the seeds of luxury and pride were to produce violence and decay.
Political changes. Rise of demagogues.
Still some political changes were effected at this time. The Comitia Centuriata was remodeled. The equites no longer voted first. The five classes obtained an equal number of votes, and the freedmen were placed on an equal footing with free-born. Thus terminated the long conflict between patricians and plebeians. But although the right of precedence in voting was withdrawn from the equites, still the patrician order was powerful enough to fill, frequently, the second consulship and the second censorship, which were open to patricians and plebeians alike, with men of their own order. At this time the office of dictator went into abeyance, and was practically abolished; the priests were elected by the whole community; the public assemblies interfered with the administration of the public property—the exclusive prerogative of the Senate in former times—and thus transferred the public domains to their own pockets. These were changes which showed the disorganization of the government rather than healthy reform. To this period we date the rise of demagogues, for a minority in the Senate had the right to appeal to the Comitia, which opened the way for wealthy or popular men to thwart the wisest actions and select incompetent magistrates and generals. Even Publius Scipio was not more distinguished for his arrogance and title-hunting than for the army of clients he supported, and for the favor which he courted, of both legions and people, by his largesses of grain.
Agriculture. The slaves. Small farmers.
At this period, agriculture had reached considerable perfection, but Cato declared that his fancy farm was not profitable. Figs, apples, pears were cultivated, as well as olives and grapes—also shade-trees. The rearing of cattle was not of much account, as the people lived chiefly on vegetables, and fruits and corn. Large cattle were kept only for tillage. Considerable use was made of poultry and pigeons—kept in the farm-yard. Fish-ponds and hare-preserves were also common. The labor of the fields was performed by oxen, and asses for carriage and the turning of mills. The human labor on farms was done by slaves. Vineyards required more expenditure of labor than ordinary tillage. An estate of one hundred jugera, with vine plantations, required one plowman, eleven slaves, and two herdsmen. The slaves were not bred on the estate, but were purchased. They lived in the farm-buildings, among cattle and produce. A separate house was erected for the master. A steward had the care of the slaves. The stewardess attended to the baking and cooking, and all had the same fare, delivered from the produce of the farm on which they lived. Great unscrupulousness pervaded the management of these estates. Slaves and cattle were placed on the same level, and both were fed as long as they could work, and sold when they were incapacitated by age or sickness. A slave had no recreations or holidays. His time was spent between working and sleeping. And when we remember that these slaves were white as well as black, and had once been free, their condition was hard and inhuman. No negro slavery ever was so cruel as slavery among the Romans. Great labors and responsibilities were imposed upon the steward. He was the first to rise in the morning, and the last to go to bed at night; but he was not doomed to constant labor, like the slaves whom he superintended. He also had few pleasures, and was obsequious to the landlord, who performed no work, except in the earlier ages. The small farmer worked himself with the slaves and his children. He more frequently cultivated flowers and vegetables for the market of Rome. Pastoral husbandry was practiced on a great scale, and at least eight hundred jugera were required. On such estates, horses, oxen, mules, and asses were raised, also herds of swine and goats. The breeding of sheep was an object of great attention and interest, since all clothing was made of wool. The shepherd-slaves lived in the open air, remote from human habitations, under sheds and sheep-folds.
Decline of agriculture. The farmers sacrificed to the city population.
The prices of all produce were very small in comparison with present rates, and this was owing, in part, to the immense quantities of corn and other produce delivered by provincials to the Roman government, sometimes gratuitously. The armies were supported by transmarine corn. The government regulated prices. In the time of Scipio, African wheat was sold as low as twelve ases for six modii—(one and a half bushel)—about sixpence. At one time two hundred and forty thousand bushels of Sicilian grain were distributed at this price. The rise of demagogism promoted these distributions, which kept prices down, so that the farmers received but a small reward for labors, which made, of course, the condition of laborers but little above that of brutes: when the people of the capital paid but sixpence sterling for a bushel and a half of wheat, or one hundred and eighty pounds of dried figs, or sixty pounds of oil, or seventy-two pounds of meat, or four and a half gallons of wine sold only for fivepence, or three-fifths of a denarius. In the time of Polybius, the traveler was charged for victuals and lodgings at an inn only about two farthings a day, and a bushel of wheat sold for fourpence. At such prices there was very little market for the farmer. Sicily and Sardinia were the real granaries of Rome. Thus were all the best interests of the country sacrificed to the unproductive population of the city. Such was the golden age of the republic—a state of utter misery and hardship among the productive classes, and idleness among the Roman people—a state of society which could but lead to ruin. The farmers, without substantial returns, lost energy and spirit, and dwindled away. Their estates fell into the hands of great proprietors, who owned great numbers of slaves. They themselves were ruined, and sunk into an ignoble class. The cultivation of grain in Italy was gradually neglected, and attention was given chiefly to vines, and olives, and wool. The rearing of cattle became more profitable than tillage, and small farms were absorbed in great estates.
Money.
The monetary transactions of the Romans were preeminently conspicuous. No branch of commercial industry was prosecuted with more zeal than money-lending. The bankers of Rome were a great class, and were generally rich. They speculated in corn and all articles of produce. Usury was not disdained even by the nobles. Money-lending became a great system, and all the laws operated in favor of capitalists.
Industrial art did not keep pace with usurious calculations, and trades were concentrated in the capital. Mechanical skill was neglected in all the rural districts.
Business operations.
Business operations were usually conducted by slaves. Even money-lenders and bankers made use of them. Every one who took contracts for building, bought architect slaves. Every one who provided spectacles purchased a band of serfs expert in the art of fighting. The merchants imported wares in vessels managed by slaves. Mines were worked by slaves. Manufactories were conducted by slaves. Everywhere were slaves.
Great fortunes.
While the farmer obtained only fourpence a bushel for his wheat, a penny a gallon for his wine, and fivepence for sixty pounds of oil, the capitalists, centered in Rome, possessed fortunes which were vastly disproportionate to those which are seen in modern capitals. Paulus was not reckoned wealthy for a senator, but his estate was valued at sixty talents, nearly £15,000, or $75,000. In other words, the daily interest of his capital was fifteen dollars, enough to purchase one hundred and eighty bushels of wheat—as much as a farmer could raise in a year on eight jugera—a farm as large as that of Cincinnatus. Each of the daughters of Scipio received as a dowry fifty talents, or $60,000. The value of this sum, in our money, when measured by the scale of wheat, or oil, or wine—allowing wheat now to be worth five shillings sterling a bushel—against fivepence in those times, would make gold twelve times more valuable then than now. And hence, Scipio left each of his daughters a sum equal to $720,000 of our money. In estimating the fortune of a Roman, by the prices charged at an inn per day, a penny would go further then than a dollar would now. But I think that gold and silver, in the time of Scipio, were about the same value as in England at the time of Henry VII., about twenty times our present standard.
The rich favored.
Every law at Rome tended in its operation to the benefit of the creditor, and to vast accumulations of property; for the government being in the hands of the rich, as in England a century since, and in France before the Revolution, favored the rich at the expense of the poor. It became disgraceful at Rome to perform manual labor, and a wall separated the laboring classes from the capitalists, which could not be passed. Industrial art took the lowest place in the scale of labor, and was in the hands of slaves. The traffic in money, and the farming of the revenue formed the mainstay and stronghold of the Roman economy. The free population of Italy declined, while the city of Rome increased. The loss was supplied by slaves. In the year 502 of the city, the Roman burgesses in Italy numbered two hundred and ninety-eight thousand men capable of bearing arms. Fifty years later, the number was only two hundred and fourteen thousand. The nation visibly diminished, and the community was resolved into masters and slaves. And this decline of citizens and increase of slaves were beheld with indifference, for pride, and cruelty, and heartlessness were the characteristics of the higher classes.
Extravagant prices for luxuries.
With the progress of luxury, and the decline of the rural population, and the growth of disproportionate fortunes, residence in the capital became more and more coveted, and more and more costly. Rents rose to an unexampled height. Extravagant prices were paid for luxuries. When a bushel of corn sold for fivepence, a barrel of anchovies from the Black Sea cost £14, and a beautiful boy twenty-four thousand sesterces (£246), more than a farmer's homestead. Money came to be prized as the end of life, and all kinds of shifts and devices were made to secure it. Marriage, on both sides, became an object of mercantile speculation.
Education.
In regard to education, there was a higher development than is usually supposed, and literature and art were cultivated, even while the nation declined in real virtue and strength. By means of the Greek slaves, the Greek language and literature reached even the lower ranks, to a certain extent. “The comedies indicate that the humblest classes were familiar with a sort of Latin, which could no more be understood without a knowledge of Greek, than Wieland's German without a knowledge of French.” Greek was undoubtedly spoken by the higher classes, as French is spoken in all the courts of Europe. In the rudiments of education, the lowest people were instructed, and even slaves were schoolmasters. At the close of the Punic wars, both comedy and tragedy were among the great amusements of the Romans, and great writers arose, who wrote, however, from the Greek models. Livius translated Homer, and Nævius popularized the Greek drama. Plautus, it is said, wrote one hundred and thirty plays. The tragedies of Ennius were recited to the latter days of the empire. The Romans did not, indeed, make such advance in literature as the Greeks, at a comparatively early period of their history, but their attainments were respectable when Carthage was destroyed.
