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Title: A day in old Rome
a picture of Roman life
Author: William Stearns Davis
Release date: May 14, 2025 [eBook #76087]
Language: English
Original publication: Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1925
Credits: Aaron Adrignola, Tim Lindell, Karin Spence and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A DAY IN OLD ROME ***
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF GREAT PUBLIC BATHS IN IMPERIAL
ROME.
_Restoration according to Von Falke._]
A DAY IN OLD ROME
A PICTURE OF ROMAN LIFE
BY
WILLIAM STEARNS DAVIS
PROFESSOR OF HISTORY IN THE
UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA
[Illustration]
ALLYN AND BACON
BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO
ATLANTA SAN FRANCISCO DALLAS
COPYRIGHT, 1925
BY ALLYN AND BACON
PAP
Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing Co.--Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
PREFACE
This book tries to describe what an intelligent person would have
witnessed in Ancient Rome if by some legerdemain he had been translated
to the Second Christian Century, and conducted about the imperial city
under competent guidance. Rare and untypical happenings have been
omitted, and sometimes to avoid long explanations _probable_
matters have been stated as if they were ascertained facts: but these
instances it is hoped are so few that no reader can be led into serious
error.
The year 134 after Christ has been chosen as the hypothetical time of
this visit, not from any special virtue in that date, but because Rome
was then architecturally nearly completed, the Empire seemed in its
most prosperous state, although many of the old usages and traditions
of the Republic still survived, and the evil days of decadence were
as yet hardly visible in the background. The time of the absence of
Hadrian from his capital was selected particularly, in order that
interest could be concentrated upon the life and doings of the great
city itself, and upon its vast populace of slaves, plebeians, and
nobles, not upon the splendid despot and his court, matters too often
the center for attention by students of the Roman past.
To acknowledge all the modern books upon which the writer has drawn
heavily would be to present a list of almost all the important
handbooks or discussions of Roman life and antiquities. It is proper
to say, however, that such secondary sources have been mainly useful
so far as they reënforced a fairly exhaustive study of the Latin
writers themselves, especially of Horace, Seneca, Petronius, Juvenal,
Martial, and, last but nowise least, of Pliny the Younger. Inevitably
this volume follows the lines of its companion “A Day in Old Athens,”
published several years ago, a book which has enjoyed such public favor
as to prove the usefulness of this method of presentation; but life
in the Roman Imperial Age has seemed so much more complex than that
in the Athens of Demosthenes, and our fund of information is so much
greater, that the present volume is perforce considerably longer than
its companion. The “day” devoted to Rome will probably seem therefore a
somewhat lengthy one.
To my colleague and friend Dr. Richard C. Cram, Professor of Latin in
the University of Minnesota, I am deeply grateful for a careful reading
of the manuscript and for many helpful and incisive suggestions; and
for a careful checking over of every feature of the work I must once
again gladly acknowledge the gracious and untiring services of my wife.
The illustrations, which, it is hoped, add considerably to the interest
of the book, have been collected from many sources. Many of the highly
informational “restorations” included are from the monumental work of
Jakob von Falke, _Hellas und Rom_, the English version whereof has
long ceased to be available to American readers.
W. S. D.
THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA
MINNEAPOLIS
CONTENTS
PAGE
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xxi
Chapter I. The General Aspect of the City
SECTION
1. The Prosperity of Rome in the Reign of Hadrian
(A.D. 117–138) 1
2. Increasing Glory of the Imperial City 2
3. Population and Crowded Condition of Rome 3
4. The Country around Rome 5
5. The Tiber and Its Valley 6
6. A View over Rome from the Campus Martius 7
7. The Seven Hills of Rome 9
8. Building Materials Used in Rome 10
9. The Great Use of Concrete 11
10. Greek Architectural Forms Plus the Arch and Vault 12
Chapter II. Streets and Street Life
11. The Regions of Rome: Fashionable and Plebeian Quarters 15
12. A Typical Short Street, “Mercury Street” 16
13. The House and Shop Fronts 18
14. Street Shrines and Fountains 20
15. Typical Street Crowds 21
16. Frequent Use of Greek in Rome 22
17. Clamor and Thronging in the Streets 23
18. The Processions Attending Great Nobles 24
19. A Great Lady Traveling 25
20. Public Salutations: the Kissing Habit 26
21. The Swarms of Idlers and Parasites 27
22. Public Placards and Notices 28
23. Wall Scribblings 30
24. The Streets Dark and Dangerous at Night 32
25. Discomforts of Life in Rome 33
Chapter III. The Homes of the Lowly and of the
Mighty
26. The Great _Insulæ_--Tenement Blocks 34
27. A Typical Insula 35
28. The Flats in an Insula 36
29. The Cheap Attic Tenements and Their Poor Occupants 37
30. A Senatorial “Mansion” (_Domus_) 39
31. The Plan of a Large Residence 40
32. Entrance to the Residence 42
33. The Atrium and the View across It 42
34. The Rooms in the Rear and the _Peristylium_ 44
35. The Dining Room (_Triclinium_) and the Chapel 45
36. The Garden and the Slaves’ Quarters 47
37. The Floors and Windows 49
38. Frescos, Beautiful and Innumerable 50
39. The Profusion of Statues and Art Objects 51
40. Family Portrait Busts 52
41. Death Masks (_Imagines_) 54
42. Couches, Their General Use 54
43. Elegant Chairs and Costly Tables 55
44. Chests, Cabinets, Water Clocks, and Curios 57
45. Spurious Antiques 58
46. Pet Animals 58
Chapter IV. Roman Women and Roman Marriages
47. Honorable Status of Roman Women 60
48. Men Reluctant to Marry 61
49. Rights and Privileges of Married Women 61
50. Selection of Husbands for Young Girls 63
51. A Marriage Treaty among Noble-Folk 64
52. A Betrothal in Wealthy Circles 65
53. Adjusting the Dowry 66
54. Dressing the Bride 66
55. The Marriage Ceremonies 67
56. The Wedding Procession 69
57. At the Bridegroom’s House 70
58. Honors and Liberties of a Matron 71
59. Unhappy Marriages and Frivolous Women 72
60. Divorces, Easy and Frequent 74
61. Celibacy Common: Old Families Dying Out 75
62. Nobler Types of Women 75
63. Famous and Devoted Wives 76
64. The Story of Turia 78
Chapter V. Costume and Personal Adornment
65. The Type of Roman Garments 80
66. The Toga, the National Latin Garment 81
67. Varieties of Togas 83
68. Draping the Toga 83
69. The Tunica 84
70. Capes, Cloaks, and Gala Garments 85
71. Garments of Women: the _Stola_ and the _Palla_ 86
72. Materials for Garments. Wool and Silk 88
73. Styles of Arranging Garments. Fullers and Cleaners 89
74. Barbers’ Shops. The Revived Wearing of Beards 90
75. Fashions in Women’s Hairdressing. Hair Ornaments 93
76. Elaborate Toilets 94
77. Sandals and Shoes 95
78. The Mania for Jewels and Rings 96
79. Pearls in Enormous Favor 97
80. Perfumes: Their Constant Use 98
Chapter VI. Food and Drink. How the Day is
Spent. The Dinner
81. Romans Fond of the Table. Gourmandizing. The Famous
Apicius 100
82. Vitellius, the Imperial Glutton 102
83. Simple Diet of the Early Romans 102
84. Bread and Vegetables 103
85. Fruits, Olives, Grapes, and Spices 104
86. Meat and Poultry 105
87. Fish in Great Demand 106
88. Olive Oil and Wine: Their Universal Use 107
89. Vintages and Varieties of Wine 108
90. Kitchens and the Niceties of Cookery 109
91. A Roman Gentleman’s Morning: Breakfast (_jentaculum_)
and the Visit to the Forum 110
92. The Afternoon and Dinner-Time. Importance of the
Dinner (_cena_) 111
93. Dinner Hunters and Parasites (“Shadows”) 112
94. The Standard Dinner Party--Nine Guests 113
95. Preparing the Dinner and Mustering the Guests 114
96. Arrangement of the Couches: Placing the Guests 115
97. Serving the Dinner 116
98. The Drinking Bout (_Comissatio_) after the Dinner 118
99. Distribution of Garlands and Perfumes. Social
Conversation 119
100. Elaborate and Vulgar Banquets. Simple Home
Dinners 120
Chapter VII. The Social Orders: The Slaves
101. Enormous Alien Population in Rome. The “Græcules” 122
102. Strict Divisions of Society. The Régime of _Status_ 123
103. Vast Number of Slaves. Universality of Slavery 124
104. Power of Master over Slaves 125
105. The City Slaves and the Country Slaves 125
106. Purchasing a Slave Boy 126
107. Traffic in the Slave Pens 127
108. Sale of Slaves 128
109. Size of Slave Households (_Familiæ_). Slave Workmen 129
110. Division of Duties and Organization of Slave Households 131
111. Discipline in a Well-Ordered Mansion. Long Hours of
Idleness 132
112. Inevitable Degradation Caused by Slavery. Evil Effect
upon Masters 133
113. Punishment of Slaves 135
114. Branding of Slaves. _Ergastula_--Slave Prisons 136
115. Death Penalties for Slaves. Pursuit of Runaways 136
Chapter VIII. The Social Orders: Freedmen, Provincials,
Plebeians, and Nobles
116. Manumission of Slaves Very Common 139
117. The Ceremony of Manumission 140
118. The Status of Freedmen. Their Great Success in Business 140
119. Humble Types of Freedmen 141
120. Wealth and Power of Successful Freedmen 142
121. Importance of Freedmen in a Roman Family 143
122. The Status of Provincials. The Case of Jesus 143
123. Great Alien Colonies in Rome 145
124. The Roman Plebeians, the “Mob” (_Vulgus_) 145
125. The Desirability of Roman Citizenship. The Case
of St. Paul 146
126. Clientage: Its Oldest Form 147
127. The New Parasitical Clientage: the Morning Salutation 148
128. The Dole to Clients (the _Sportula_) 150
129. Attendance by Clients in Public. Insults They Must
Undergo 151
130. The Decurions: the Notables of the Chartered Cities 152
131. The Equites: the Nobles of the Second Class 153
132. Qualifications and Honors of the Equites 154
133. Review of the Equites. Pretenders to the Rank 156
134. The Senatorial Order. The First-Class Nobility 156
135. Social Glories of Senators 157
136. The Senatorial Aristocracy Greater than the Senate 158
137. Insignia, Qualifications, and Titles of Senators 158
Chapter IX. Physicians and Funerals
138. Scanty Qualifications and Training of Doctors 160
139. Superior Class of Physicians 161
140. A Fashionable Doctor 161
141. Medical Books and Famous Remedies 163
142. Absurd Medicines. Theriac 164
143. Fear of Poisoning. Popularity of Antidotes 165
144. Medical Students, “Disciples,” Beauty Specialists 166
145. Cheap Doctors: No Hospitals 167
146. Suicide as Escape from Hopeless Disease 168
147. Execution of Wills. Numerous Legacies Customary 169
148. Regular Incomes from Legacies. Professional Legacy
Hunters 171
149. Public Bequests 172
150. Great Funerals Very Fashionable. Desire to Be
Remembered after Death 172
151. Preliminaries to a Funeral 173
152. The Funeral Procession. The Display of Masked
“Ancestors” 174
153. The Exhibits in the Procession. The Retinue around
the Bier 175
154. The Funeral Oration in the Forum 176
155. Family Tombs. The _Columbarium_ and the Garden 177
156. The Funeral Pyre and Its Ceremonies 180
157. Funeral Monuments. Memorial Feasts to the Dead 182
158. Funerals of the Poor. “Funeral Societies” 182
Chapter X. Children and Schooling
159. Theoretical Rights of Father over Children. The _Patria
Potestas_ 184
160. Ceremonies after Birth of a Child. The _Bulla_ 185
161. The Roman Name: Its Intricacy 186
162. Irregular and Lengthy Names under the Empire. Names
of Slaves 187
163. Names of Women. Confusion of Roman Names 188
164. Care of Parents in Educating Children 189
165. Toys and Pets 190
166. The Learning of Greek by Roman Children 191
167. Selection of a School 192
168. Extent of Literacy in Rome. Education of Girls 193
169. Schools for the Lower Classes 193
170. Scourging, Clamors, and Other Abuses of Cheap Schools 195
171. A Superior Type of School 196
172. Methods of Teaching 197
173. Training in Higher Arithmetic 199
174. The Grammarians’ High Schools 199
175. Oratory Very Fashionable 200
176. Professional Rhetoricians 201
177. Methods in Rhetoric Schools: Mock Trials 201
178. Enormous Popularity of Rhetoric Studies 203
179. Philosophical Studies: Delight in Moralizing 204
180. Children’s Games. “Morra” and Dice 204
181. Board Games of Skill: “Robbers” (_Latrunculi_) 205
182. Out-Door Games. Ball Games, Trignon 206
Chapter XI. Books and Libraries
183. Letters and Writing Tablets 207
184. Personal Correspondence and Secretaries 208
185. Books Very Common: Papyrus and the Papyrus Trade 209
186. Size and Format of Books 210
187. Mounting and Rolling of Books 211
188. Copying Books: the Publishing Business. Horace’s
and Martial’s Publishers 212
189. Passion for Literary “Fame” 214
190. Zeal for Poetry: Multiplication of Verses 216
191. Size of Libraries 217
192. A Private Library 218
193. The Great Public Libraries of Rome 219
Chapter XII. Economic Life of Rome: I. Banking,
Shops, and Inns
194. Passion for Gain in Rome 220
195. Life in Rome Expensive. Premiums upon Extravagance
and Pretence 221
196. Rome a City of Investors and Buyers of Luxuries 222
197. Multiplicity of Shops. The Great Shopping Districts 223
198. Arrangement of Shops. Streets Blocked by Hucksters 224
199. Barbers’ Shops and Auction Sales 225
200. Superior Retail Stores 226
201. Numerous Banks and Bankers 227
202. A Great Banker and His Business 228
203. Trust Business: Savings Banks 229
204. Places of Safe Deposit: The Temple of Vesta 230
205. Inns: Usually Mean and Sordid 231
206. Reckonings and Guests at a Cheap Inn 233
207. Noble Frequenters of Taverns 234
208. Respectable Eating-Houses 235
209. _Thermopolia_--“Hot Drink Establishments” 236
Chapter XIII. Economic Life of Rome: II. The
Industrial Quarters. The Grain Trade. Ostia.
The Trade Guilds
210. Industrial Quarters by the Tiber 238
211. Conditions of Industrial Labor 238
212. Great Trade through Ostia and the Campanian Ports 239
213. The Emporium and Its Wharves: The Tiber Barges 240
214. The Marble and Grain Trades 241
215. The Public Grain Doles 242
216. Distribution of Free Bread: Extraordinary Bonuses
(_Congiaria_ and _Donativa_) 244
217. The Trade in Sculptures and Portrait Statues 246
218. The Tiber Trip to Ostia: The Merchant Shipping 247
219. Imperial Naval Vessels 248
220. The Harbor Town of Ostia 249
221. The Roman Guilds (_Collegia_) 249
222. Very Ancient Guilds. The Flute-Blowers 250
223. Importance of the Guilds 251
224. Multitude of Beggars 252
Chapter XIV. The Fora, Their Life and Buildings.
The Daily Journal
225. The Fora, the Centers of Roman Life 254
226. Incessant Crowds at the Forum. The Centers of Gossip 256
227. Grandiose Architecture: Vast Quantities of Ornaments
and Statues 258
228. Use of Color on Sculptures and Architecture 259
229. Entering the Series of Fora: the Temple of Venus and
Rome 260
230. The Arch of Titus: Continuation of the Sacred Way 262
231. House and Temple of Vesta: the Regia: the Temple of the
Divine Julius 265
232. The Old Forum (_Forum Romanum_) 265
233. The Forum Area: the Posting of Public Notices 268
234. Western End of Forum: Rostra: the Golden Milestone:
the Tullianum Prison 269
235. The Basilica Æmilia: the Temple of Janus: the Senate
House (_Curia_) 271
236. The Basilica Julia, the Greatest Court House in Rome;
the _Lacus Curtius_ 272
237. The New Fora of the Emperors: the Temple of Peace 275
238. The Fora of Julius, Augustus, and Nerva 276
239. The Forum, Column, and Libraries of Trajan 278
240. The Park System of the Campus Martius: the Pantheon 280
241. The Daily Gazette (_Acta Diurna_). How Rome Gets Its
News 282
242. Contents of the Acta Diurna 283
243. Miscellaneous Entries and Gossip in the “Gazette” 284
Chapter XV. The Palatine and the Palace of the
Cæsars. The Government Offices, and the Police
and City Government of Rome
244. History of the Palatine: Its Purchase by Augustus 286
245. Extension of the Imperial Buildings: Central Position of
the Palatine 287
246. Commanding View from the Palatine Hill 288
247. Magnificence of the Palatine Structures 288
248. The More Famous Buildings on the Palatine: Enormous
Display of Art Objects 290
249. The Triclinium and Throne Room of Domitian 291
250. Swarms of Civil Officials Always on the Palatine 293
251. The Emperor Center of High Social Life 294
252. Friends of Cæsar (_Amici Cæsaris_) 295
253. The Imperial Audiences 296
254. Social Ruin through Imperial Disfavor 296
255. Enormous Value of Imperial Favor 298
256. City Government of Rome: the “City Præfect” (_Præfectus
Urbi_) 299
257. The Municipal Superintendents and Commissioners
(_Curatores_) 301
258. Excellent Water Supply of Rome 301
259. The Great Aqueducts 303
260. The Police System Instituted by Augustus 304
261. The Police-Firemen of the Watch (_Vigiles_). The
_Præfectus Vigilum_ 304
Chapter XVI. The Prætorian Camp. The Imperial
War Machine
262. The Army the Real Master of the Roman Empire 307
263. Army Held under Stiff Discipline and Concentrated
on Frontiers 308
264. The Prætorian Guard of the Emperors 309
265. The Prætorian Præfect and the Prætorian Camp 311
266. Organization and Discipline of the Prætorians 312
267. The City Cohorts (_Cohortes Urbanæ_) 313
268. A Private in the Legions. The Legionary Organization 314
269. Training of the Legionaries: the _Pilum_ and the
_Gladius_ 316
270. Defensive Weapons 318
271. Rewards and Punishments for Soldiers 319
272. Pay and Rations in the Army: Soldiers’ Saving Banks 320
273. The Training of Soldiers: Non-Military Labors 321
274. Petty Officers in the Legions 322
275. The Centurions: Their Importance and Order of Promotion 323
276. The _Primipilus_: the Great Eagle of the Legion 325
277. Locations and Names of Legions 326
278. The Auxiliary Cohorts: the Second Grand Division of the
Army 327
279. The Præfect of the Camps and the Legate of the Legion 328
280. Care for Veterans: Retiring Bonuses and Land Grants 329
281. Barrier Fortresses; System of Encampments; Flexible
Battle Tactics; Siege Warfare 330
282. Limited Size of the Imperial Army: Its Great
Efficiency 331
Chapter XVII. The Senate: A Session and a
Debate
283. Apparent Authority and Importance of the Senate 334
284. Actual Weakness of the Senate 335
285. Amount of Power Left to the Senate 336
286. Organization and Procedure of the Senate 337
287. The _Curia_ (Senate House) and Its Arrangement of
Benches 338
288. The Gathering of the Senators 339
289. Opening the Session: Taking the Auspices 340
290. Presentation of Routine Business: Taking a Formal Vote 341
291. Presenting an Impeachment at a Senate Trial 342
292. The Water Clocks; Method of a Prosecutor; Applause
in the Senate 344
293. Speech for the Defendant: Methods of a Professional
Advocate 345
294. Concluding Speeches; Interrupting Shouts; Personal
Invectives 347
295. Taking the Opinion of the Senate 348
296. An Uproar in the Senate: An “Altercation” 350
297. Taking a Vote of the Senate. A Sentence of Banishment 351
Chapter XVIII. The Courts and the Orators. The
Great Baths. The Public Parks and Environs of
Rome
298. Roman Court Procedure Highly Scientific 353
299. The Great Tribunals in the Basilicas 354
300. Great Stress on Advocacy 355
301. Cheap Pettifogging Lawyers 356
302. Character Witnesses; Torture of Slave Witnesses 357
303. Written Evidence; High Development of the Advocate’s
Art 357
304. Popularity and Necessity of the Baths 358
305. Luxurious Private Baths 359
306. Government and Privately Owned Public Baths: Both
Very Popular 360
307. The Great Baths of Trajan: Baths, Club-House, and Café 361
308. Heterogeneous Crowds in the Great Baths 362
309. Entering the Thermæ 363
310. Interior of the Baths: the Cold Room (_Frigidarium_) 364
311. The Great Swimming Pool and the _Tepidarium_ 365
312. The Hot Baths (_Caldaria_): Their Sensuous Luxury 366
313. Restaurants, Small Shops, and Sports in or around the
Baths 367
314. The Great Porticoes along the Campus Martius. The
Park System towards the Tiber 368
315. Public Buildings upon the Campus Martius 369
316. The Tombs of Hadrian and Augustus 370
Chapter XIX. The Public Games: the Theater,
the Circus, and the Amphitheater
317. Roman Festivals: Their Great Number 374
318. Passion for Public Spectacles: Mania for Gambling 375
319. Expenses of Public Spectacles to Great Officials 376
320. Indescribable Popularity of the Games 377
321. The Theater Less Popular than the Circus or Amphitheater 378
322. The Mimes: Character Plays 380
323. The Pantomimes: Their Real Art 381
324. Extreme Popularity of the Circus 382
325. Popular Charioteers (_Aurigæ_): the Great Racing
Factions 383
326. The Circus Maximus 384
327. The Race-Track: Procession before the Races 384
328. Beginning a Race in the Circus 386
329. Perils of the Races; Proclaiming the Victors 386
330. Gladiatorial Contests Even More Popular than the
Circus 389
331. Gladiator Fights at Funerals 390
332. Gladiator “Schools” (_Ludi_): Inmates Usually Criminals 390
333. Severe Training of Gladiators; Their Ephemeral Glory 392
334. Normal Arrangements for an Arena Contest 393
335. The Flavian Amphitheater (Later “Colosseum”) 394
336. Exterior and Ticket Entrances to the Flavian
Amphitheater 396
337. Interior Arrangements of the Flavian 396
338. Procession of Gladiators 397
339. Throwing a Criminal to the Beasts. The Animal Hunt 398
340. Interval in the Contests: Scattering of Lottery Tickets 399
341. Beginning the Regular Gladiatorial Combats 401
342. Mounted Combats: the Signals for Ruthlessness and Mercy 403
343. Combats between Netters (_Retiarii_) and Heavy-Armed
Warriors (“Thracians”) 404
344. End of the Combats: Rewarding the Victors 405
Chapter XX. The Roman Religion: the Priesthoods,
the Vestal Virgins
345. Religious Symbols Everywhere in Rome 407
346. Epicureanism and Agnosticism among the Upper Classes 407
347. Stoicism: Revival of Religion under the Empire 408
348. Foreign Cults Intruded upon the “Religion of Numa” 410
349. Superstitious Piety of the City Plebeians 411
350. Roman Religion Originally Developed by Italian Farmers 411
351. Native Italian Gods: Janus, Saturn, Flora. The Lares
and Penates 413
352. Personified Virtues as Gods: Cold and Legalistic Character
of the Roman Religion 414
353. Priestly Offices: Little Sacrosanct about Them 416
354. The Pontifices 417
355. The Augurs 418
356. The Flamens 420
357. The _Salii_ (“Holy Leapers”) 421
358. The _Fetiales_ (“Sacred Heralds”): Ceremony of Declaring
War 422
359. The Arval Brethren (_Fratres Arvales_) 423
360. Rustic Ceremonies; Soothsaying, Astrologers, and
Witches 424
361. A Private Sacrifice 425
362. Ceremony at the Temple 426
363. A Formal Prayer: the Actual Sacrifice 428
364. The Vestal Virgins: Their Sanctity and Importance 429
365. The Temple of Vesta and the House of the Vestals 431
366. Appointment of Vestals 432
367. Duties of the Vestals: the Maxima 433
368. Punishments of Erring Vestals 434
369. Remarkable Honors Granted the Vestals 435
Chapter XXI. The Foreign Cults: Cybele, Isis,
Mithras. The Christians in Pagan Eyes
370. Saturnalia: the Exchange of Presents on New Year’s Day 437
371. Multiplication of Oriental Cults 437
372. The Cult of the Deified Emperors 439
373. The “Divine Augustus” and His Successors 439
374. The Cult of Cybele, the “Great Mother” 441
375. Cult of Isis and Associated Egyptian Gods 442
376. Ceremonies at an Isis Temple 443
377. Cult of Serapis and of Other Oriental Gods 445
378. The Cult of Mithras: Its Relative Nobility 445
379. The _Taurobolium_ (“Bath in Bull’s Blood”) 447
380. The Christians: Pagan Account of Their Origin 449
381. The Persecution of Christians: Their “Insane Obstinacy” 450
382. Current Charges against the Christians 451
Chapter XXII. A Roman Villa. The Love of the
Country
383. Appreciation of Country Life by the Romans 453
384. Praises of the Country Towns and Villas 453
385. Comfortable Modes of Travel: Luxurious Litters
and Carriages 454
386. Multiplication of Villas: Seashore Estates at Baiæ, etc. 456
387. Villas in the Mountains; Small Farms near Rome 457
388. Great Estates in the Hills: Pliny’s Tuscan Villa 458
389. Charming Location of Pliny’s Villa 460
390. Terraces of the Villa: the Porticoes: Summer-Houses
and Bedrooms 462
391. The Baths: the Rear Apartments: the Riding Course 464
392. The Fountains and Luxurious Pavilions in the Gardens 465
393. Life of Sensuous Luxury at Such a Villa. Contrast in
Human Conditions under the Roman Régime 466
Chapter XXIII. The Return of the Emperor
394. Character of Hadrian: Prosperity and Good Government
of His Reign 468
395. Return of Hadrian to Italy 469
396. Imperial Procession Entering Rome 470
397. Hailing the Emperor 472
398. The Donatives, Fêtes, and Games 472
399. A Christian Gathering 473
INDEX 475
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
Interior of Great Public Baths in Imperial Rome _Frontispiece_
Map of Rome in the Days of Hadrian 6
Capitoline Hill and Temples as seen from Palatine 8
Typical Temple Front 12
Arch of Constantine 13
Street in Pompeii 16
Stepping Stones across a Side Street 17
Street Scene before a Cook-Shop 19
Shrine at the Crossways 20
Monument of a Wine Seller 28
Tenants Paying Rent to a Landlord’s Agent 38
Atrium of House in Pompeii 41
Plan of a Roman Mansion 43
Interior of a Roman Mansion 44
Scene in a Peristylium 45
Roman Type of House at Pompeii 46
Corner in a Garden in Rear of a Roman House 48
Portrait Bust--Pompey the Great 52
Typical Roman Portrait--Marc Antony 53
Roman Lamps 55
Altar with Design of a Curule Chair 56
A Roman Matron 62
Wedded Pair with _Camillus_ 76
Seated Noblewoman 77
Romans wearing the Toga 81
A Roman Matron: showing the _stola_ and _palla_ 87
Scene before a Barber’s Shop 91
Roman Female Heads 92
Sandals 95
Roman Jewelry and Ornaments 96
Roman Banquet Scene 101
Grist Mill turned by Horse 103
Nine Guests in a Triclinium 116
Roman Serving Forks 117
Drinking Cup 118
Slaves working in a Bakery 131
Clients gathering in the Rain, before their Patron’s Door 149
Invalid with Attendants 162
Scene along the Appian Way 178
Pyramid--Tomb of Gaius Cestius 179
View along the Appian Way showing Funeral Monuments 180
Street of the Tombs at Pompeii 181
Boy Studying 194
School Discipline 196
Grammarian instructing Two Upper Pupils 200
Wax Tablet with Stilus Attached 207
Writing Tablets and Stilus 208
Book Cupboard 209
Book Container 210
Double Inkstand 210
Pen and Scroll 211
Book Scroll 212
Old Forum, looking towards Northern Side: restoration 216
Tradesmen’s Scales and Balances 224
Monument of a Hostler 231
Gateway at Pompeii: present state 232
Cheap Grocery and Cook-Shop 235
River Boat Loaded with Hogsheads of Wine 241
Distributing Bread 243
Oven and Grist Mill in a Bakery 245
Environs of Rome 247
General View of Old Forum and Capitol 254
Old Forum: present state, looking towards the Capitol 255
The Heart of Rome; the Fora, the Palatine, etc. 261
Spoils from Jerusalem: Arch of Titus 263
View through the Arch of Titus 264
Old Forum: looking west. Restoration 266
Old Forum, looking towards Capitol. Restoration 267
Old Forum, present condition, looking east 270
Interior of a Basilica: restored 273
The Tarpeian Rock 275
Forum of Augustus and Temple of Mars the Avenger: restored 277
An Imperial Forum, near the Column of Trajan. Restoration 279
Interior of the Pantheon. Restoration 281
Arch of Titus 287
Palatine and Palace of the Cæsars. Restoration 289
Roman Urn 290
Cæsar Augustus 298
Ruined Aqueduct in the Roman Campagna 302
Prætorian Guardsmen 310
A Slinger 315
Roman Siege Works. Restoration 316
Storming a City with the _Testudo_ 317
Catapult 318
Cuirass 319
Javelin: _pilum_ 320
Sword 320
Helmet 321
Shield of the Legionary 322
Military Trumpet 323
Legionaries 324
Roman Officer 325
Light-Armed Soldier 327
Storming a Besieged City 331
Coop of Sacred Chickens 341
Cicero denouncing Catiline before the Senate 346
Plan of Roman Public Baths 363
Castle of St. Angelo: Tomb of Hadrian in its present state 371
Tomb of Hadrian. Restored 372
At the Theater Entrance 376
Theater at Pompeii 379
Circus Maximus. Restoration 385
Race in the Circus Maximus 388
Flavian Amphitheater (Colosseum): present state 395
Boxers 400
Gladiators saluting the Editor 402
Defeated Gladiator Appealing for Mercy 403
Maison Carrée, Nîmes 408
Farmer’s Calendar 413
Circular Temple, probably of Goddess Matuta, Rome 415
Roman Altar 425
A Military Sacrifice 427
Roman Altar 428
Vestal Virgin 430
Archi-Gallus, Priest of Cybele 441
Shrine of Cybele 442
Mithras the Bull Slayer 446
Mithraic Emblems 447
Traveling Carriage (_Reda_) 454
Roman Bridge 455
Roman Spades 458
Ruins of Hadrian’s Villa at Tivoli (_Tibur_) 459
Ruins of Hadrian’s Villa at Tivoli (_Tibur_) 460
Villa of Pliny the Younger; restored 461
Roman Garden Scene 463
Marble Urn or Garden Ornament 464
Hadrian 469
View in the Christian Catacombs 473
A DAY IN OLD ROME
CHAPTER I
THE GENERAL ASPECT OF THE CITY
=1. The Prosperity of Rome in the Reign of Hadrian= (117–138 A.D.).--In
the year 134 A.D. the great Emperor Hadrian was turning his steps back
to Rome after three long journeys of inspection over his enormous
dominions. Never before had that Empire seemed so prosperous. No
serious war was upon the horizon. The Parthian king and the Germanic
chiefs were only too happy to keep beyond the Euphrates or the Rhine
and the Danube, highly respectful before the disciplined power of the
guardian legions.
In the provinces there was generally loyalty and contentment, save
only in unhappy Judæa where the Roman generals were stamping out
the last embers of a desperate rebellion, undertaken by those Jews
allowed to remain in Palestine after Titus’s capture of Jerusalem
(70 A.D.). The imperial government created by Augustus and
strengthened by later emperors appeared an unqualified success, while
the tyrannies of Nero and Domitian were becoming things merely of
frightened memory.
All over this vast Empire with a population and area nearly equal to
that of the United States there reigned the blessed _Pax Romana_.
Robbers had been cleared from the roads and pirates from the seas.
Commerce went to and fro with surprisingly little interference from
customs barriers or provincial boundaries. The same coin was current
from the cataracts of the Nile to the Caledonian Wall across Britain.
A scientific system of law, on the whole administered with remarkable
firmness and justice, prevailed between the same wide boundaries.
The central government was, indeed, in essence a despotism, but it was
a despotism infused with an extreme intelligence, and it left many of
the forms of liberty, especially of local liberty, in the municipal
matters which touch men nearest home. The Emperor Hadrian, himself,
although sometimes guilty of eccentricities and even harshness, was, in
the main, a ruler singularly intent upon benefiting his subjects. In
all his constant travels he had showered favors upon the communities
which he visited. It was as if he (and his great predecessor Trajan)
had set out to justify monarchy as an ideal government by showing how
much good monarchs could do to the governed.
=2. Increasing Glory of the Imperial City.=--All this prosperity
had inevitably reacted upon the city of Rome itself. In a most literal
sense of the word “all roads led to Rome,” not merely the vast network
of government highways and the paths of maritime commerce, but those of
intellectual, artistic, and moral influence. Rome was incomparably the
best market for the merchant, it provided the largest audiences for the
philosopher or rhetorician, the wealthiest patrons for the sculptor. It
had, in fact, become the common center and crucible for everything good
and bad in the huge, teeming Mediterranean World.
Outwardly the city was near the summit of its architectural perfection.
In Cicero’s day it could not compare in the elegance of its squares
and avenues, and the magnificence of its buildings with Alexandria,
Antioch, or several lesser cities which lay at the mercy of the
legions; but with the coming of the Empire there has been an incessant
process of demolishing, rebuilding, and extending. “I found Rome
built of brick; I leave it built of marble,” Augustus had boasted when
near his end (14 A.D.). However, even after him, there had been only a
gradual transformation until the great fire of Nero in 64 A.D. Terrible
as has then been the devastation, the calamity has at least required
a general rebuilding of almost half of the city usually upon a much
handsomer and more artistic scale. Since then each succeeding Emperor
has tried to leave some great architectural memorial behind him.
Vespasian and Titus have built the Flavian Amphitheater (Colosseum),
Trajan a noble Forum, and Hadrian is now completing a magnificent
“Temple of Venus and Rome.”
After this time there will perhaps be a few more remarkable structures
erected, _e.g._ the Baths of Caracalla and of Diocletian and the
Basilica (Court House) of Constantine, but for practical purposes
imperial Rome has now been created. In 134 A.D. it is already
architecturally what it will be in 410 A.D. (except then for a certain
decadence) when Alaric’s Goths knocked at the gates. There is,
therefore, hardly a better time than this year, 134 A.D., to visit
the “Eternal City,” if we would discuss the best and the worst, the
strength and the weakness of that Roman society which is to hold men
fascinated across the ages. Let it be assumed, therefore, that on a
warm spring morning we are being guided about the enormous capital of
which bronze-skinned Arabs and blond-haired Frisians alike speak in
awestruck whispers; the city apparently ordained by the gods to be the
center and ruler of the conquered world.
=3. Population and Crowded Condition of Rome.=--Before entering
such a metropolis it is a fair question to present: “How large is
Rome, at this time of our supposed visit?” Unfortunately the imperial
government will fail to transmit to later ages its census statistics,
and the conjectures of learned men will vary most seriously. By
taking into account some data as to the number of citizens receiving
grain doles, by adding to these the known size of the garrison, by
establishing the extent of a great colony of resident foreigners and
the still greater hordes of slaves, assertions can be made that the
population exceeds 2,000,000, and again that it is barely 800,000.
Both reckonings may be quite wrong. It seems reasonable to suppose
that in Julius Cæsar’s day the city lacked considerably of 1,000,000
inhabitants, but these probably increased with the rising prosperity
of the Empire. Hadrian’s “City Praefect” perhaps has to administer the
peace for some 1,500,000 people. In later generations, however, the
population will again slowly dwindle with the wave of the imperial
system.
However, this million and a half produces a sense of immensity greater
perhaps than that in a later New York or London. Rome is, roughly
speaking, some three miles long and nearly the same in breadth, no
remarkable area as American cities will go;[1] but, as duly explained,
population within these limits is extraordinarily congested. The
streets overflow with pedestrians to the exclusion of most wheeled
traffic. There are no “rapid transit” cars, no taxicabs, no telephones,
and even no public postal service.
If, therefore, you have the slightest business across the city, you
must walk the entire distance, or be borne in a litter or send a
messenger--methods taking about equally long. As will be seen, even
the use of horses and carriages is largely prohibited. Besides, the
mild climate and method of building the houses compel people to spend
a great fraction of their day in the streets, or in the public plazas
and buildings. Human life teems everywhere. One is overwhelmed by
the jostling multitudes even in the remoter quarters. Everything
(including many personal acts which other ages keep in strict privacy)
seems going on in public. There is, in fact, no city where it is easier
to be “lost in a crowd” than in Rome; no city where the good and the
bad, the divine and the bestial in humanity are so incessantly in
evidence and in such abrupt contact.
=4. The Country around Rome.=--Rome is some thirteen miles from the
nearest seacoast, but the distance down the twisting “yellow” Tiber to
Ostia (“River Mouth”) is nearly twice as great. The city itself lies
near the northerly end of that broad plain later called the Campagna
which stretches southeasterly for nearly seventy miles but whereof the
width betwixt ocean and Apennines seldom exceeds twenty-five. Looking
off from any of the heights of Rome towards the east, the whole horizon
from north to south seems traced by a continuous chain of mountains
about ten to twenty miles distant. Very beautiful they are when seen
through a soft blue or golden haze beneath the Italian sky; and by
facing straight north one can discover the round isolated peak of
Mount Soracte (2420 feet high), made famous by the poets, near whose
southeastern base the Tiber winds on its tortuous progress towards the
sea.
Then following the line of mountains southward one can notice the chain
of the Sabine hills, some with peaked and lofty summits, and next is
discovered the spot where the Tiber rests embosomed in its gray olive
groves. More southward still are the hills on whose slopes rests “Cool
Præneste,” and then, running over a horizon of four or five miles and
ending in the plain, is beheld the noble form of Mount Albinus, the
isolated volcanic peak sacred to the Latin Jupiter and at whose base by
tradition lay Alba Longa, the parent town of Rome; after that the view
takes in nothing but the undulating plain, which at length sinks off
into the sea.
[Illustration:
Map of ROME
in the Days of Hadrian
about 135 A.D.]
=5. The Tiber and Its Valley.=--Near at hand, of course, is the
Campagna itself, a series of gentle ridges, covered at this epoch with
one long series of delightful suburban villas and thrifty produce
farms, sometimes grouped into rich little villages.[2] In a general
direction of north to south the Tiber flows along the western skirts of
Rome, with only a minor settlement on the western banks. If it ran by
a less famous city, the Tiber would pass for a rather ordinary stream.
Its yellow, turbid waters come with such force from the Apennines
that there can be little navigation for part of the year beyond the
point where the Anio flows into it from the east, about three miles
above Rome. Grain and timber can, however, be floated down on barges,
and when the mountain snows are melting the river swells to a truly
dangerous size, flooding all the lowlands near the city and sometimes,
despite a careful system of dykes, causing freshets which are simply
ruinous to large sections of the metropolis inhabited by the very
poor. The Emperors Augustus and Tiberius set up a regular board of
“Tiber Commissioners” to keep the rebellious river in bounds, but their
efforts are still often vain.
Between Rome and Ostia the Tiber is indeed navigable at most seasons
for the smaller kind of vessels, but, as will be seen, Rome is scarcely
a first-class seaport; however, special river craft easily bring up
heavy freight from Ostia--an enormous economic advantage for the great
city.
=6. A View over Rome from the Campus Martius.=--Before descending into
the city it is well to ascend some height or lofty building well to the
western verge of the _Campus Martius_ (“Field of Mars”) at the great
bend of the Tiber as it sweeps by its levees. Before the onlooker there
spreads what seems at first an indescribable confusion of enormous
buildings, gilded roofs, stately domes, serried phalanxes of marble
columns and far-stretching porticoes, some on level ground, others
upon the summits or clinging to the slopes of several hills. Mixed
with these are an incalculable number of red-tiled roofs obviously
covering more humble private structures. Here and there, mostly on
the outskirts, are also broad patches of greenery, public parks, and
private gardens.
After more study, however, the first confusion begins to adjust itself
into a kind of order. It is possible, for example, to recognize
directly in the foreground a small and comparatively abrupt hill
crowned at either end by temples of peculiar magnificence. This is
the _Capitol_, particularly the seat of the fane of _Jupiter Optimus
Maximus_ (“Jupiter Best and Greatest”), officially the chief temple
of Rome. Beyond it at a certain distance rises a gray cylinder of
enormous bulk. That, of course, is the _Flavian Amphitheater_, and
in the hollow between it and the capitol but nigh concealed by many
structures stretches the _Old Forum_ of the Republic--the most famous
spot in Rome. To the south of the Forum, and in no wise concealed,
lifts another hill covered with a vast complex of buildings, which,
even when seen in the distance, is of extraordinary splendor. This is
the _Palatine_, the present residence of the Cæsars and the seat of the
government.
[Illustration: CAPITOLINE HILL AND TEMPLES AS SEEN FROM
PALATINE: restored according to Von Falke.]
Just to the south and right of the Palatine there runs a long hollow,
the edges of which flash with settings of marble; it is the _Circus
Maximus_, the chief race course. These are the structures or
localities that stand out clearly at first glance. Close at hand,
in the Campus Martius itself, is a perfect labyrinth of covered
promenades, dome-capped public baths, theaters, and circuses, as well
as the remarkable _Pantheon_ and other far-famed structures, the
details whereof can wait. Behind the onlooker is winding the Tiber,
spanned by at least eight bridges; and across the river, before the
view wanders off into the hills of Etruria, are seen numerous suburban
settlements and heights whereof the most conspicuous is that around
_Mount Janiculum_ crested with verdant gardens. But our attention
must be centered upon Rome itself. Before descending from the coign of
vantage it is needful to distinguish her Seven Hills.
=7. The Seven Hills of Rome.=--The two most famous of these hills (the
_Capitoline_ and the _Palatine_) have been named already, but they
have five distinguished rivals. Probably in prehistoric days all these
“mountains” rose like separate islands from a treacherous marsh or
even from a lake connected with the Tiber; but long since they have
silted down, and presently man came to add his drains and channels.
They are now, therefore, connected by valleys which are crammed with
habitations, although in any case the most desirable residences are
near the summits of the hills and the humble folk are compelled to live
in the gulleys. Each of these hills has a history: for example, the
Aventine is alleged to have remained apart from the others for long
after the founding of the city, merely as a fortified outpost for the
protection of shepherds; but we cannot stop to recite pleasant legends.
The “Seven Hills” of Rome have really become eight, as the city has
extended. Not one of these is lofty, but they give a diversity to the
city that prevents the great masses of blank walls and of ungainly
tenement houses lining most of the streets from becoming too ugly,
and they secure light and air to many quarters that are grievously
congested.
These hills can be thus catalogued:
1. _Capitoline_, about 150 feet above sea level.[3]
2. _Palatine_ (S. E. of Capitoline), about 166 feet high.
3. _Aventine_ (South of Palatine), about 146 feet high.
4. _Cœlian_ (East of Palatine), about 158 feet high.
5. _Esquiline_ (North of Cælian), about 204 feet high.
6. _Viminal_ (North of Esquiline), about 160 feet high.
7. _Quirinal_ (N. E. of Capitoline), about 170 feet high.
To the familiar “seven” ought to be added the hill of the great
northern suburb.
8. _Pincian_, or “Hill of the Gardens” (North of Quirinal),
about 204 feet high.
Highest of all rises the _Janiculum_ beyond the Tiber, 297 feet
high; commanding a noble prospect over the city and the whole Campagna
beyond. It formed, therefore, in the olden days, a very proper place
for the fort with its watch-tower and its sentinel, when Rome dreaded
an Etruscan raid from the north, and when the citizens dropped their
tools to seize their weapons the minute the “flag on Janiculum” was
struck as signal that the foe was at hand.
=8. Building Materials Used in Rome.=--The most cursory view of
the city gives an overwhelming impression of the _enormous quantities
of building material_, as well as of the expenditure of human labor
which has gone into the creation of Rome. Strabo the geographer[4]
has wisely observed that it is lucky that the city can get a constant
supply of stone, timber, etc., on account of “the ceaseless building
which is rendered needful by the pulling down of houses and on account
of the great fires and constant sales of [house] property,” everybody
being incessantly scrapping old buildings, erecting new ones, and
speculating generally in real estate.
Of course, the great public buildings are erected with extremely
durable materials which will defy the assaults of time, but the
vast districts of ugly tenement houses are often thrown together
in as flimsy a manner as those in the least elegant quarters of
American cities of another age. However, there are almost no wooden
houses in Rome; and for the better structures there is provided most
excellent building stone. The standard masonry is of _tufa_,
a soft red or black stone needing a stucco to protect it from the
weather; for superior work there is dark brown _peperino_, golden
_travertine_, and last but not least, for the finest buildings,
white and many colored _marble_. The marble trade, as will be
explained, is, in fact, one of the greatest commercial activities of
the city.
=9. The Great Use of Concrete.=--Going about Rome one is led to
imagine, however, that many very pretentious structures are of solid
brick. This is seldom the case. Bricks and tiles are often in evidence
because they can be worked into the face of naturally ugly concrete to
disguise the nakedness of its surfaces. _Concrete_ has really made
it comparatively easy to create Rome as an enormous city. If concrete
has not been invented by the Romans, they are at least the first great
people to put it to a very general use. In their neighborhood can
be found huge quantities of _pozzolana_,[5] a volcanic deposit
which can be readily worked up into admirable cement. It is this very
practical material which makes the vast domes, cupolas, and other
architectural triumphs possible. Many a pretentious temple or residence
flaunts a marble exterior; this, however, is a mere shell and covering;
strip it away, and within is an enormous mass of concrete.
This material can be handled by comparatively small labor gangs,
rendering it feasible to erect huge structures without mobilizing such
wholesale man-power as was needed for the great monuments of Egypt.
It is very durable, almost nothing can destroy it. Indeed it will be
written later that “This _pozzolana_ [for concrete] more than any
other material contributed to make Rome the proverbial ‘Eternal City.’”
[Middleton.]
=10. Greek Architectural Forms Plus the Arch and Vault.=--Every
building by the Tiber apparently bears the impress of Greece. Greek
architects are said to have designed many of the finest public
edifices, while Greek artists have chiseled the statues or painted the
pictures which all the Roman world admires. The “orders” of the columns
everywhere in evidence are the Doric, Ionic, or Corinthian that one
might find at Athens, although it can be complained that the Romans are
over-fond of the most ornate form--the florid Corinthian.
[Illustration: TYPICAL TEMPLE FRONT.]
In general, lovers of the purer architectural types of Hellas may
allege that Roman architecture and ornamentation is too elaborate and
extravagant. There are too many scrolls and floriated designs. Every
possible surface is covered with statuary or bas-reliefs, often in
decidedly inferior taste. There is too garish a display, also, of blue,
green, white, and orange-colored marble. The whole effect of most Roman
buildings is, therefore, _grand rather than beautiful_. It is the
architecture of a civilization apparently growing a little weary and
striving to startle itself by remarkable effects.
[Illustration: ARCH OF CONSTANTINE: typical of many
triumphal arches: date about 315 A.D.]
Nevertheless, this borrowing from Greece has not been slavish.
Romans, if not great artists, are master adapters. Perhaps they have
not invented the _arch_ and the _vault_,[6] but in any case they
have utilized them in connection with the Greek system of columns to
produce magnificent effects whereof Argos and Ephesus never dreamed.
By concrete vaulting can be made those enormous substructures which
sustain the great palaces, and again, the lofty domes of such splendid
creations as the Pantheon. By the arches can be upheld the tiers of the
Flavian Amphitheater, the pretentious company of theaters and circuses,
and last but not least the long arrays of stately aqueducts which bring
the great water supply so many miles to Rome. Underground also the
arch system is upbearing the vast network of sewers which has redeemed
the city from a quagmire. In the _fora_ and across many avenues are
thrown in their turn the imposing _triumphal arches_, crowned with
heroic statues or with prancing chariots which are unmatched by
anything in Greece.
Having taken in the generalities, it is now proper to go down from our
viewpoint and plunge boldly into the vast city. The wise man should
not, however, visit at first the Fora, the Palatine, and the other
“show places” which officious guides here as everywhere are always glad
to display to visitors. More helpful it is to examine at the outset
certain typical streets first in a poor and next in a more aristocratic
quarter, to enter the houses, and to penetrate the daily lives of the
masses of the people. Then with better understanding can one approach
the famous “Heart of Rome.”
CHAPTER II
STREETS AND STREET LIFE
=11. The Regions of Rome: Fashionable and Plebeian Quarters.=--The
great Augustus divided the capital into 14 _regiones_ or “wards” and
these in turn into 265 _vici_ or precincts. Obviously some of these
districts are more select than others. No citizen of decent tastes
will, unless compelled by dire poverty, live in the network of hovels
beyond the bridges and under the brow of the Janiculum, where a great
colony of Jews and other Orientals exist in what is alleged to be
extreme squalor. If you go south also from the Forum and Palatine, you
are likely to run into a wide complex of unlovely industrial districts
and laborers’ quarters, especially along the Tiber, although there are
still some very good residential streets upon the Aventine.
In general the northern end of the city is the fashionable section,
although the Subura, the street running out between the Esquiline and
the Viminal, is notorious for containing some of the vilest tenements
in all Rome. To live in a “Subura garret” is about the greatest
possible degradation socially. Right above this ill-favored avenue,
however, slopes the Esquiline itself, lined with the palaces of many
of the most exclusive Senators. Pliny the Younger resided there in his
lifetime,[7] and a rich ex-consul has his house at present. Rome is,
in fact, decidedly like many later cities; walk only a few blocks,
and one can pass from the bottom to the top of the social ladder.
Further north, in the regions of the parks and public gardens, the fine
residences are probably more continuous, but one can never know Rome
by merely visiting its ultra-genteel quarters. There is, consequently,
no better place to begin an investigation than near the Esquiline,
let us say where the disreputable Subura runs northeast towards the
somewhat more select “Patrician Street” (_Vicus Patricius_).
[Illustration: STREET IN POMPEII: present state.
Note the pavement, the stepping stones, the wayside fountain,
and the numerous subdivisions into small houses or shops.]
=12. A Typical Short Street, “Mercury Street.”=--We may wisely take
our stand facing somewhat southward, with our backs to the Viminal and
with the domes of the huge Baths of Trajan partially in sight upon the
heights ahead. It is a little after dawn on a warm spring morning; but
all Rome, we shall discover, rises very early, and normally goes to
bed correspondingly early. Even the sedate “Conscript Fathers” of the
Senate are supposed to convene at _prima luce_,--gray morn. What can be
seen?
To any later judgment this “Mercury Street” (so named from a local
temple)[8] is very narrow, not over fifteen feet from housewall
to housewall. Although the sun has now risen the way is still
uncomfortably dark, because the houses pressing on either side rise
to at least thirty or forty feet. The roadway, one discovers, is
skillfully and durably paved with heavy lava blocks, and since it forms
a regular thoroughfare it has been swept reasonably clean; although to
right and left in the semi-darkness can be descried impossible alleys
barely ten feet wide winding off between the tall buildings, and these
side passages are more than dirty. This street, like the great majority
in Rome, is comparatively short. You come to an abrupt turn, or perhaps
to an ascending flight of stone steps worn slippery by innumerable
sandals, and immediately enter into a quite different quarter.
[Illustration: STEPPING STONES ACROSS A SIDE STREET:
a gentleman followed by personal slave with umbrella.
_After Von Falke._]
There is a very narrow stone sidewalk but it differs slightly before
each house, every owner being required to make his own repairs. In
the pavement broad ruts have been worn by the wagons, despite the
restrictions (presently stated) upon wheeled traffic. Very few streets
of Rome are wide enough for two carts to pass freely; and every driver
has to look ahead and frequently to wait at corners to let other teams
get by. Upon the pavement and especially at intersecting crossways are
set groups of four or five large oblong stepping stones; these seem
needless at present but can be a veritable godsend in the rainy season
when every “Via” and “Vicus” in Rome seems converted into a raging
torrent.
=13. The House and Shop Fronts.=--Looking upward now, one is instantly
confronted by a long expanse of stuccoed walls--some pink, yellow, or
bluish, but mostly an ugly brown. The lower story, quite on the street
level, is broken either by the petty shops which open their shutters
and thrust their counters clear out upon the pavement, or else it is
merely a solid blank space with only here and there a doorway, or a
few small windows, mere peepholes for fear of burglars. The second
and upper stories, however, are less solid. There are many larger
windows set with window-boxes displaying bright flowers, or even with
projecting balconies which reach out so far that neighbors in opposite
houses can sometimes clasp hands above the hurrying life below.
Shops abound almost everywhere. In the great commercial quarters by
the fora, the Tiber and the Campus Martius, will be found the splendid
establishments which cater to wealth, but no quarter of Rome is
too mean for its bakeries, vegetable stands, wine shops, and cheap
restaurants. In fact, the absence of a speedy means of interurban
communication makes a multiplication of small shops absolutely
necessary. Most of these retailers do business on the pettiest scale,
and a glance reveals that nearly the whole stock in trade is spread
on the counter facing the street. As for the shopkeeper, ordinarily
he lives and sleeps either in a dark cell just in the rear or in an
equally narrow chamber directly above his business. “Born over a
shop,” snobbish people say when they wish to brand some person as a
nobody.
[Illustration: STREET SCENE BEFORE A COOK-SHOP.
_After Von Falke._]
=14. Street Shrines and Fountains.=--Nevertheless, commonplace and
darksome as this street may seem, there are clear tokens both of an
active religious, also of an artistic life. On the flat wall, beside
a grocer’s stand, two serpents are crudely painted in yellow--emblems
of the guardian genii of the place. Opposite, by a money-changer, is
painted a fairly presentable Mercury, the god of Gain. As one goes
about the city the painted snakes appear almost everywhere, and also
pictures of Jupiter, Minerva, and Hercules.
[Illustration: SHRINE AT THE CROSSWAYS.]
At the nearby crossroads, however, is something more important. Set
against the side of a building is a little niche let into the wall
in lieu of an altar. Upon this pious neighbors can deposit small
articles of food for the “Gods of the Street Crossings” (_Lares
Compitales_), and above is a low relief of two youthful deities,
male and female. Early as it now is, an old woman has already stolen up
to deposit a small crust--for the little neighborhood Lares are good
and trusty friends; they will never be forgotten.
Opposite this shrine, however, a group of laughing, chattering girls is
mustering around a gushing fountain. Romans are justly proud of their
excellent water supply. Every house of any pretentions has its separate
faucets, perhaps in great number; but the poor tenement dwellers must
depend upon the street fountains. Pure, clear water is shooting from
a metal pipe into a broad separate stone basin. The stream is issuing
from the sculptured head of a Medusa executed with admirable detail and
vigor, although this is only one of thousands of similar fountains all
over the city. At the next corner the water is spouting from an eagle’s
beak; at another from the mouth of a calf, or the head of a Mercury.
The surplus water overflowing the basin trickles away in a streamlet
down to the middle of the street, and although this adds to the
inconvenience of pedestrians the pitch of the ground makes the flow
carry away much of the rubbish (often very filthy) which is thrown
out recklessly from the shops and even from the upper windows. It is
thanks partly to this admirable water system that Rome is not even more
scourged by epidemics, than is unhappily the case.[9]
=15. Typical Street Crowds.=--So much for the inanimate objects in
Mercury Street; what now of its surging humanity? A wise law of Julius
Cæsar has indeed forbidden the ordinary use of wheeled vehicles in the
city streets between sunrise and the “tenth hour” (4 P.M.).
This is a blessed regulation considering the narrow width of even
the finest avenues, but, nevertheless, the wagons that were allowed
to enter by night bringing heavy building materials to the Senator
Rullianus’s new mansion have now to be suffered to depart, and also the
wain that had rattled up in the darkness with flour for the nearby
public bakery. Also one may possibly see a Vestal Virgin or one of the
superior priests exercising their special privileges and driving in a
chariot.
The street, however, is crowding with life, even if not a horse is in
sight. The most conspicuous are literally dozens of men, each with
a heavy toga wrapped carelessly around him, hurrying frantically in
every direction. In other cities and other ages they might be “making a
train.” Here they are in fact “clients,” duty bound to be at the doors
of their patrons early every morning to pay their respects and seek
their bounty (see p. 149)--but almost every other type of humanity is
represented. Great numbers of boys and girls are trudging reluctantly
along to their schools, the poorer bearing their own packages of
writing tablets, the better dressed each followed by a sedate male
attendant, a pedagogue, bearing the weapons of learning.
In and out there also go youths in humble attire, often running at
breakneck speed, thrusting and jostling to make their way; they are
the slave messengers from the great houses flying on early errands for
their masters. One of them elbows aside a tall and venerable man with a
prodigiously long beard and wrapped in a trailing but none too spotless
mantle--he is a Greek philosopher on his way to some mansion where he
will perhaps expound the theories of Epicurus to a pleasure-loving
nobleman. A few steps further and there is seen a fair-haired German
clad in his outlandish costume of undressed wolf skins; hardly behind
him is a red-headed Gaul in a short tartan cloak; one can speedily
recognize also a hawk-eyed, white-robed Arab from the edge of the
deserts and presently appears a grinning negro, black as ebony and in
a splendid gilt and scarlet livery--the foot-boy probably of some rich
lady.
=16. Frequent Use of Greek in Rome.=--The bulk of the crowd, to be
sure, is Italian, with keen, olive faces, dark hair, and rather short
stature, graceful and incessantly gesturing. But the Latin chattered
on every hand is full of uncouth idioms, the _sermo plebis_ calculated
to make Cicero turn in his grave, and there is a great co-mingling of
foreign words; above all, about one person out of every four seems to
be _speaking Greek_, now abominably corrupt, now in the purest Attic,
and upon penetrating the great houses one would discover Greek to be
even more truly a familiar language.
All educated Romans write and speak Greek as Englishmen and Americans
will never learn to use French. Learned books are being written by
the Tiber in the incomparable tongue of Hellas, and only the most
ignorant Romans fail to understand simple Greek sentences. In short
Rome seems close to becoming a bi-lingual city. The reigning emperor
is so enthusiastic for things Hellenic that his foes brand Hadrian as
“the Graecule.” Athens and Corinth seem almost to have conquered their
conquerors.
=17. Clamor and Thronging in the Streets.=--As the sun rises, every
instant the street becomes more crowded. A great din is rising from a
forge just inside an alley; a second noise from a carpenter shop. As
if determined to be heard above everything else, from a second story
comes a voice bawling out some kind of a declamation--it is a rhetoric
school getting into action, and an ambitious youth is denouncing the
dead tyrant Phalaris at the top of his lungs. By yonder wall, almost
completely blocking the sidewalk, a nondescript barber has set down a
stool and is clipping a victim with huge scissors. Close by him stands
a cook’s boy guarding two braziers, on one of which are boiled peas,
on the other small sausages that are kept smoking hot. Early as the
hour may be, workmen and others who have an active day before them are
standing around and laying in a hearty breakfast. Almost upsetting this
throng comes a countryman flogging a donkey whose huge paniers laden
with garden truck project dangerously to either side.
The noise increases continually. From another lane there comes more
shouting. An auctioneer is knocking down the furniture of a poor
bankrupt, and the bidding is growing violent. All the shopkeepers are
bawling their wares to each prospective purchaser. Now there is a clang
and jangling; pushing the crowd aside march ten soldiers, five abreast,
with insolent strides, their _optio_ (sub-centurion) stalking
before them. Their gilded armor and helmets and the scarlet kilts
peeping under their cuirasses, proclaim them to be “Praetorians,” proud
members of the imperial guard. Gilded shields clatter on their backs;
they warn the slaves and hucksters away with their spear butts while
their officer’s red plume nods arrogantly.
Hardly are they gone before there comes the crash of some barbaric
music; one hears castanets, trumpets, drums, and sistra (a kind of
glorified bronze rattle), and unmelodious singing. Tossing their arms,
waving blunted swords or pounding them on light shields, along comes a
troupe of the priests and priestesses of Cybele, the uncouth Asiatic
goddess; the women, dark-skinned Syrians, whirling in wild dances with
hair aflying, the priests puff-cheeked, smooth-faced creatures, busily
pounding with their noise-making instruments. They are headed for their
temple to spend a day of orgy.
=18. The Processions Attending Great Nobles.=--Suddenly there is
a partial silence. Youths in livery are moving down the street
flourishing white wands: “Way, way for his Excellency,” they are
shouting. Instantly the word flies around, “The Praetor Fundinus!”
Hucksters cease shouting. Everybody stands still and all who wear hoods
or hats hastily bare their heads,[10] for the praetor represents “The
Majesty of the Roman People.” Behind his _viatores_ (“Way Clearers”)
a full score of toga-clad clients swing into sight marching ahead of
the great man. He rides in a blue tasseled litter borne by eight tall
Cappadocians of equal height and pace. Just in front of them march
two haughty lictors, attendants of honor, with bundles of rods, the
official “fasces,” conspicuously resting upon their shoulders.[11]
Close beside the litter walks a well-groomed man with a marked
Greek profile--the confidential freedman and man of business of the
magistrate. Behind trail more clients and a greater retinue of slaves.
Fundinus himself heeds little the incessant greetings cast at him. He
can be seen lolling on his cushions, with the little curtains thrown
back just enough to show the purple embroidery on his official toga.
A book, half unrolled, is in his hand--for it is the best of form to
affect a certain bookishness in scenes of great distraction.
As the praetor’s train advances, however, it is met by another headed
in the opposite direction. A great concourse appears of handsome
slaves, all wearing brown coats and each bearing a box or package upon
his shoulder; then follows a group of pretty Levantine slave-girls
gaudily clad, then a brown Egyptian boy carrying a pet monkey; then a
simpering Celtic maid with a large basket from which peers a small and
very uneasy lap-dog; next a perfect hedge of upper slaves and freedmen,
some carrying musical instruments, some small caskets obviously crammed
with valuables, and some conveying ostentatiously costly garments, and
then borne high by her eight slaves in light red livery comes a great
lady herself--an ex-consul’s wife, the multi-millionaire Faustina.
=19. A Great Lady Traveling.=--“Her Magnificence” (_Clarissima_) also
leans back on her cushions with a studied attitude of indifference
and boredom, letting the whole street take in the silky sheen of her
embroidered mantle, the gem-set handle of her ostrich fan, the gold
dust that her maids have sprinkled on her tall pile of brown hair,
and the great pearls that shed luster from her ears, neck, and every
finger. She is merely making one of her incessant pilgrimages between
her Viminal palace and some one of her ten country villas. She would
feel disgraced to travel with less than about two hundred slaves and
freedmen. Very likely her grandfather was a freedman himself; what
matter?--official rank yields to the conquering flash of gold.
Fundinus’s lictors lower their fasces; his litter is set down hastily.
As the trains meet the great man hastens to the side of the greater
_matrona_. Faustina is evidently in a gracious mood. She is seen
to flip the praetor’s face daintily with her fan. The magistrate climbs
back to his own litter smilingly--perhaps he has been bidden to an
ultra-select house party at Tusculum. The two trains of attendants
elbow past each other, and the street resumes its plebeian bustle.
=20. Public Salutations: the Kissing Habit.=--As the crowds thin a
little, so that the types and faces are more easily seen, several
things become noticeable. First the salutations--there are surely
advantages in being borne high in a litter. No person in good clothes
can proceed far without being incessantly beset with greetings.
Everybody seems to know everybody else. It is polite to cry _Ave!_
(“Hail”) or _Salve!_ (“I hope you’re well”) to persons of the scantiest
acquaintance, and then, when they return your salute, if there is
nothing more to add, _Vale!_ (“Good luck”).
More serious, however, is the incessant kissing. A sedate old gentleman
with a narrow purple stripe on his tunic (the token of the “equestrian”
rank) appears followed by two spruce slave boys. A nondescript fellow
immediately pushes up to him, seizes his hand, then smacks him roundly
on the cheek. Doubtless the rascal’s lips are foul and his breath
charged with garlic; it is nevertheless most discourteous for the older
man to resent it. There is no escaping the incessant attacks, unless
you can have a litter, and the poet Martial has vainly complained of
acquaintances who insisted on kissing him in December “when round his
nose hangs a veritable icicle.” Even the Emperor has to submit to the
usage, although the privilege is confined to that envied and exalted
circle known as “Cæsar’s friends.”
=21. The Swarms of Idlers and Parasites.=--Another thing becomes
obvious after a short scrutiny--_the vast number of idlers_. People are
incessantly lounging up and down the street manifestly with nothing
important to do. Hard work and common trade are, as later explained
(see p. 146), by no means genteel; and many a Roman who possesses
merely a threadbare toga and has his name on the list for corn doles
prefers living by his wits in busy idleness, fawning on the great, and
hunting dinner invitations to doing a stroke of honest labor.
Most of the idlers nevertheless are slaves. In the vast _familia_
of the palaces the tasks are all so subdivided that the average slave
has far too much time on his hands. He puts in many hours, therefore,
wandering about the sights of the city, gaming, following coarse love
affairs, and seeking tips on the circus and amphitheater contests. The
amount of worthless chatter is infinite. Even at this early hour from
the tables of a wine-shop comes the rattle of dice boxes. Another dirty
group is actually throwing dice on the pavement under pedestrian’s
heels. The law nominally forbids open gaming, but the police are very
busy men. Rome, one discovers thus promptly, is all too much a city of
“parasites.” By exploiting the world, she is able to maintain a horde
of human bipeds, bond or free, who minister nothing to her prosperity.
The gamesters on the pavement halt, however, instantly, when a tumult
arises from a neighboring vintner’s stall. A Spanish boy has tried to
steal a jar of fine old Massic, but the vessel has been wisely fastened
to a pillar with a chain. While he tugs to break this the dealer spots
him: “Stop thief!” rises the cry. Instantly appear two broad-shouldered
men, in half armor with small steel caps. They carry stout poles tipped
with strong hooks useful in fires. These are _vigiles_ (police-firemen)
of the city watch. The thief is seized and hustled off howling and
protesting, to tell his troubles at the court of the City Praefect.
Before the players can resume, they have to stand aside also for a
funeral procession--flute players, professional mourners screaming and
gesticulating, manumitted slaves of the deceased wearing liberty caps,
mourning relatives around the bier; all headed for the cremation-pyre
outside the gates.
[Illustration: MONUMENT OF A WINE SELLER.]
=22. Public Placards and Notices.=--Just as the dice are about
to rattle again a shrewd-looking fellow with a piece of red chalk is
seen stepping up to a space of blank wall. “Celer, the notice writer,”
whispers everybody. A large crowd elbows and gathers around him,
as to general delight, with quick strokes he letters the following
announcement of a gladiator fight:
IN THE AMPHITHEATER OF TAURUS
THE GAMES OF THE AEDILE BALBUS
_From the 12th to the 15th of May_
THE ‘THRACIAN’ PUGNAX
OF THE
NERONIAN GLADIATORIAL SCHOOL
Who Has Fought Three Times Will Meet
THE ‘MURMILLO’ MURANUS
OF THE
SAME SCHOOL
And The Same Number of Fights
THE ‘HEAVY ARMOUR FIGHTER’ CYCNUS
FROM THE
SCHOOL OF JULIUS CAESAR
Who Has Fought Eight Times
WILL MEET
THE ‘THRACIAN’ ATTICUS
OF THE
SAME SCHOOL
And of Fourteen Fights
_Awnings will be provided against the sun_
“_Euge! Euge!_ Bravo, Balbus!” cry the expectant idlers as they go back
to their game, and Celer hurries off to repeat his notice on some wall
in the next street.
The dice contest can be omitted. Not so with the wall inscriptions
which we now discover are scattered over almost every space of
available stucco along the thoroughfare. Some are formal notices of
games, articles for sale, auctions, tenements to let, etc., written
with some skill, although with many puzzling abbreviations, by
professional sign-writers like Celer. Thus on one building can be read
in tall red letters: “_To rent, from the first of July, shops with
the floors above them and a house in the Arrius Pollio block, owned by
Nigidius Maius. Prospective lessees may apply to Primus his slave_,”
and another sign advertises the “_Venus baths, fitted up for the best
people, shops, rooms over shops and second story apartments, in the
property owned by Julia Felix_.”[12]
=23. Wall Scribblings.=--More interesting really are the wall
scribblings of the humble. “The walls were the writing paper of the
poor,” will be declared later by students of Rome. All kinds of
sentiments are scratched upon the stucco; sometimes with considerable
care with a stylus; sometimes with merely a finger nail; sometimes
drawn with charcoal or a red crayon. There are indeed so many writings,
especially in frequented places, that we notice a wag has actually
added a word of protest:
I wonder O wall,
That your stones do not fall
All scribbled thus o’er
By the nonsense of all!
Every kind of opinion is to be found along a limited stretch of wall.
Coarse insults abound where your enemy can promptly see them: “Vile
wretch,” “Bold rascal,” “Old fool,” “I hope you’ll die!” “May you be
crucified!”--these are merely the mildest. Then other sentiments are
more friendly: “Luck to you!” “Good health to you everywhere!” “A Happy
New Year and a lot of them,” and “What wouldn’t I do for _you_, dear
eyes of Luscus” (the names of the enemy or friend involved being often
added).
Lovers also take up their tale. A girl records her frank opinion:
“Virgula to her dear Tertius--You are mighty mean.” A penitent swain
spreads forth this “personal” to his mistress: “_Do_ have pity on me
and let me come back.” A young lady announces tartly: “Where Verus
is there’s nothing _veracious_” (a pun on words). A gay philanderer
explains, “A blonde girl taught me to hate brunettes, and I _will_ hate
them if I can--but loving them would come so much easier!” And another
youth demands passionately: “My dear Sava, please do love me!” While
finally a jealous suitor has broken into verse:
If any man shall seek
My girl from me to turn,
On far-off mountains bleak,
May Love the scoundrel burn!
The prosing moralist must likewise have his say. Somebody has
sagely scribbled, “A trifling ailment if neglected can grow to be
very serious.” There are in addition conundrums and children’s
sketches--pictures of playmates, friends, foes, and especially of
popular gladiators, marked with red ochre or charcoal, and sometimes
limned with considerable vigor, but usually in the manner of the
childish drawings in all ages, with forehead and nose marked by a line
and with two dots serving for eyes. School boys have scratched down
some of the verses in Vergil and Ovid that have just been flogged into
them by their masters.
The only thing we can miss in Rome are the election notices which would
abound on the walls of all chartered provincial or free Italian cities,
entreating us to vote for soand-so for _duumvir_ “he’s a good man”; or
declaring that “all the fullers’ guild are out for ---- as aedile.”[13]
Rome, alas! has lost her liberty; the city is paternally governed by
the Emperor aided by the Senate, and popular elections are a thing of
the past.
=24. The Streets Dark and Dangerous at Night.=--One is warned, however,
not to tax the patience of the adjacent shopkeepers and linger too long
in this street. Written above a drug seller’s stand appears clearly,
“_No idlers here! Move on you loungers!_” and a little distance along
upon a wall, “_Here you! What are you loitering for?_” Indeed the
passing throngs are becoming somewhat monotonous. The hurly-burly
abates. About noon almost everybody will take first a fairly hearty
luncheon, and then a siesta. Nearly every shop will be closed. Then
the bustle will be resumed while the more genteel element will be seen
headed in great numbers towards the public baths.
By four o’clock, however, the shops will be closing behind heavy
shutters, the clamor from the work rooms will cease, and even the
humble will begin to prepare for the crowning event of a Roman’s
day--dinner, often begun still earlier. After sundown the silence
almost of the grave shuts down upon avenues which a few hours earlier
were simply swarming with life. There are no street lights. Nobody
stirs outdoors if possible, unless accompanied by friends or slaves
with lanterns or torches; and it is no harm to carry heavy bludgeons,
for despite the watch there are all too many sneak thieves, cutpurses,
and even open bandits, “dagger men” (_siccarii_), with their “your
money or your life.” Also lawless young nobles sometimes get an evil
pleasure (as did Nero and his companions) by ranging the streets and
beating up harmless and poorly guarded citizens.
=25. Discomforts of Life in Rome.=--People also tell you that
at night there is no small peril of being brained by loose tiles
which rattle down from the lofty house-tops, or less dangerous but
most disgusting, of being drenched by buckets of filthy slops flung
recklessly from upper windows into the streets. Then toward dawn your
sleep is ruined by the incessant rumbling of the wagons with timber,
brick, building stone, cement, and all kinds of food supplies which
have to be excluded from the city in the day hours. These are all part
of the general discomforts of life in Rome, along with the squalid
flat-buildings, the peril from the collapse of rickety houses, the
occasional great floods of the Tiber, the fearful conflagrations, the
ubiquitous throngs of people, and the grievous absence of privacy.
The complaints are incessant. “School masters in the morning; corn
grinders at night; and braziers’ hammers day and night” are subjects
for standard diatribes of poets like Martial and Juvenal. And they,
like everybody, first praise the quiet simple life possible in the
Italian country towns--and then they remain in Rome. The great city
with its multitudes, its ceaseless variety of all things good and bad,
its appeal to every kind of human interest holds them with so many
other mortals fascinated. They are unhappy while in Rome; but still
more unhappy until they can return to her.
So much for the merely outward side of a typical street on the slopes
of the Esquiline. We can now penetrate the homes of the people, first
visiting an _insula_, a great tenement block of the lowly, and then
investigating a more elegant _domus_, the residence of a magnate.
CHAPTER III
THE HOMES OF THE LOWLY AND OF THE MIGHTY
=26. The Great _Insulæ_--Tenement Blocks.=--Perhaps another age will
imagine that most Romans have lived in vast marble palaces, moving
through spacious halls amid stately pillars and spraying fountains.
Nothing like this is the case for the great majority. A census report
declares “there are some 44,000 tenement blocks (_insulæ_) in the city
and only about 1750 separate ‘mansions’ (_domus_).”[14] Such figures
can merely imply that an overwhelming proportion of “the toga-wearing
race, the Lords of the world” (to quote Virgil’s threadbare line) are
flat-dwellers.
Considering the extreme congestion of population, no other solution
than this is possible if Rome is to remain Rome. There is a great
profit in building these huge, ungainly “islands,” the tenement blocks.
Everywhere around the city we meet the gangs of laborers mixing the
concrete whereof the structures are mostly constructed, or setting the
wooden molds to shape the material as it solidifies; or else tearing
down and carting away the wreckage of insulæ that have begun to decay.
Such property employs a great amount of capital. Nearly every senator
has his men of business caring for his housing investments and rentals,
and the “realtor” is a very familiar personage.
Rightly is it complained also that many insulæ are put up in a cheap
and absolutely dangerous manner, and at best are dark, dirty, and
unsanitary. The very name implies that they should be built with a free
space all around them. The old law of Twelve Tables (450 B.C.) required
a passage way (_ambitus_) of at least two and a half feet on either
side, but this law was recklessly disregarded until the great fire of
Nero enabled the government to enforce a fairly scientific building
code. Even now, however, the tenement houses are often hemmed in on
all sides by miserable black alleys hardly accessible to the public
scavengers.
This struggle to use every scrap of ground is completely matched by the
effort to build as high as possible. “The immense size of Rome,” wrote
Vitruvius, about 1 A.D., “makes it needful to have a vast number of
habitations, and as the area is not sufficient to contain them all on
the ground floor, the nature of the case compels us to raise them in
the air.”
There are no passenger elevators in Rome; furthermore, the concrete
construction does not permit the safe erection of extremely high
buildings without unusual precautions, and with such narrow streets
tall structures obstruct both light and air; nevertheless, the real
estate interests grumbled loudly when Augustus limited the height of
dwellings to seventy feet. Hadrian has just vexed them still more by
a decree that if an owner allows his insula to fall into dangerous
repair, he must either sell it, or rebuild it thoroughly. For all that,
many insulæ seem to be towering rookeries, ready to collapse at any
flood or earthquake.
=27. A Typical Insula.=--Upon Mercury Street, which we have just
examined, stands a very average insula, built about forty years ago,
and, therefore, loyally named the _Flavia Victoria_ for the then
reigning dynasty. It belongs to the widow of the rich eques Gaius
Macer, and is managed by the lynx-eyed procurator, or bailiff, who
superintends her estate. Despite the fact that it is safer than some
of its neighbors, the tenants complain on rent days that the upper
stories are built so largely of wood as to be in peril of fire, and
that one of the outer walls is so cracked that it has to be propped up
with heavy timbers.
The _Flavia Victoria_ is just under the legal building height,
and contains five stories. On the street there are several shops of
the usual kind, also several separate entrances whereof the doorways,
flanked with pillars, give access to certain extra-select flats above;
but most of the tenants have to go in through the central portal under
the eyes of a porter.
Upon entering they find themselves in a fairly ample square court, upon
which open many windows of the tiers of rooms in the upper stories.
There is a fountain in the court, but the pavement below is decidedly
slimy and dirty. Quantities of half-naked small children are scampering
about in noisy play. The windows, however, like those facing upon the
streets, often have balconies on which simple boxes of flowers are
blooming. The blue Italian sky above and the bars of intense sunlight
upon the flag-stones make the filthiness of the court and the dinginess
of the yellow stuccoed walls less obnoxious. Dirt and even the numerous
fleas lose part of their terrors amid picturesque surroundings in a
mild climate.
=28. The Flats in an Insula.=--From the courtyard several staircases,
often dark and dank, rise to the tenements above. The _Flavia Victoria_
is a fair-sized insula, and just as in European flat buildings later,
can contain many social strata under one ample roof. In the apartments
on the first floor, there are really comfortable suites, each with
a series of rooms--living room (_atrium_), dining room, kitchen,
bedrooms, and the like, chambers not large indeed, but sufficient for a
modest household keeping perhaps ten slaves. The walls are covered with
bright frescoes, and the floors with very fair mosaics. Such a superior
apartment can bring some 10,000 sesterces ($400) per year, and a good
many flats rent for even more.[15]
The rentals fall rapidly as the tenants scale higher. In the second
floor the apartments are much smaller; there is merely a living room
and a few smaller chambers. The appointments are correspondingly
mean and dingy, while the annual rent is only 2000 sesterces ($80);
and between the prosperous grain factor on the third floor and the
hard-working brickyard superintendent on the fourth there is never the
least sociability.
=29. The Cheap Attic Tenements and Their Poor Occupants.=--Both unite,
however, in despising the wretched creatures who plod wearily up to the
dirty, vermin-infested sleeping pockets upon the fifth or sixth stages,
where, under the roof tiles, the hot sun beats pitilessly. If we care
to thrust ourselves into the tiny chambers of the unfortunate Codrus,
the bath attendant, we will find, perhaps “a bed too small for the
dwarf Procula, a marble slab whereon are set six small food jars and a
small drinking cup, a statue of Chiron [some decaying heirloom], and an
old chest of Greek books gnawed by the unlettered mice.”[16]
Vainly do Codrus and his wife complain to the bailiff that the roof is
collapsing over them. He merely laughs and bids them “sleep at ease,”
although a deadly crash is threatened any night. They have another
peril, because fire may at any time break out in Ucalegon’s flat below
and leave them cut off, possibly while in their beds, and with no
chance of escape after the alarm spreads.
Such poor tenants never stay in one place long. Rome is a city of
inveterate flat-hunters. The first of July (the Calends) is the
regular moving day. Every tenant who cannot or will not pay his rent,
has to go forth seeking even cheaper and more squalid quarters. There
are endless family processions bearing off the few poor chattels.
The satirists make ungenerous fun of their plight, telling how a
wretched man has to march away followed by “his carroty-headed wife,
his white-haired mother and his giantess of a sister.” Between them
they carry off “a three-legged bed, a two-footed table, a lamp, a
horn-cup, a rusty brazier, some cracked dishes, some jars of very stale
pickled fish,” also a supply of cheese and onions, and “a pot of resin
belonging to the poor fellow’s mother and used by the beldame for
anointing herself.”
[Illustration: TENANTS PAYING RENT TO A LANDLORD’S
AGENT.]
Such luckless plebeians, of course, may delude some house agent in a
distant part of the city into giving them a dark garret in the vain
hope that they can pay their rent; “but really,”--says the bailiff with
a shrug, “they belong at the Aricine bridge--the haunt of the beggars.”
Unfortunately a large fraction of Rome is little better off than this.
Poverty stalks everywhere. There are plenty of fetid insulæ which do
not contain a single family that can be sure of next week’s dinners.
Nevertheless there are mitigations; as will be seen, the government
takes great pains that in Rome nobody will actually starve; and again,
there are so many free circuses and gladiatorial shows that a man has
abundant diversion from his troubles. There is a magnificent water
supply, and the kind Italian sun prevents heavy fuel bills. Poverty,
therefore, does not imply the acute misery which it does in the North.
Nevertheless, the most fortunate insula dweller probably dreams of the
day when he can crown his inevitable ambition. “When can I cease to
live in a _cenacula_ (flat) and live in a _domus_?”[17]
=30. A Senatorial “Mansion” (_Domus_).=--Publius Junius Calvus is a
senator of ancient lineage, whose domus lifts itself arrogantly near
the summit of the Esquiline, at the head of Mercury Street, looking
down upon the tiles of the humble insula _Flavia Victoria_.
Calvus, although a member of the upper aristocracy, is not
extraordinarily wealthy. He does not, like some of his friends, possess
simultaneously three large city houses, often moving from one to
another according to season and mood. He has only four country villas,
one far in the North by the Italian lakes, one in the Etruscan hills,
one fairly close to Rome, and a fourth on the delightful Bay of Naples.
His city residence is inferior in magnificence not merely to those of
many senators but even of many equites (second-class nobles) and of
a whole cohort of rich, upstart freedmen. Nevertheless, it is a fine
mansion, which has been in the Calvian family for many generations, and
it is crammed with treasured heirlooms. Calvus, unlike certain noble
colleagues, is happily married and rejoices in two half-grown sons and
a daughter. For them a _familia_ of only one hundred and fifty slaves
suffices, although the noble Gratia sometimes complains to her husband:
“Our staff is disgracefully small.”
The Calvi are really an extremely old family in what is now becoming a
city of upstarts. Publius’s forebears have lived for centuries on the
Esquiline and their domus has been rebuilt many times. In Punic War
days it probably consisted only of a central atrium, with an opening
in the ceiling to admit light and emit smoke, and a few dark cell-like
chambers radiating from the great living room. This hall rightly
received its name of the “black place” (_ater_) from the soot from the
open hearth which was perpetually caked around the rafters. The walls
were of rubble, the floor of simple tiles or even merely of pounded
earth, and the roof was of thatch. Such a house could stow away the
many children and the relatively few servants of a senator who helped
to humiliate Carthage.
=31. The Plan of a Large Residence.=--Very different is the domus now
as we approach the lofty Ionic pillars before its portal, nevertheless,
the plan of the old house has not quite vanished in the stately
mansion. The Roman house is always (like the Greek) essentially the
typical _southern_ dwelling built around _courts_, and getting its
light thence, and with little dependence upon exterior windows. What
has happened now is that the old living room has expanded into a
magnificent light-bathed hall, with the sun streaming not through a
smoke-hole but an ample opening. The rooms leading from this court
have multiplied in number and vastly increased in size. Then through a
series of passages one enters a second court even larger and handsomer,
and with another array of dependent chambers.
In such a house the main apartments are on the first floor, but there
is a second story for the lodging of the retinues of slaves. In
the rear of all there is usually a garden. Every domus has its own
particular plan and pretentions but all conform to the general scheme
of two main courts, just as almost every house of another civilization
will demand its parlor and its dining room.
[Illustration: ATRIUM OF HOUSE IN POMPEII LOOKING TOWARDS
THE PERISTYLIUM: present condition.]
Calvus’s mansion is priced by the real estate experts at about
3,500,000 sesterces (say $140,000);[18] but there are not a few houses
of richer senators worth four times as much. The structure faces a
street which is reasonably clear of shops and where all the neighbors
are at least equites or else very wealthy freedmen. The building does
not rise as high as an insula; in fact it possesses only two stories:
the first broken by mere peepholes in the solid stuccoed walls, the
second by larger windows all heavily grated. One can guess part of the
reason for these bars from a placard hanging in the entrance:
NO SLAVE IS TO QUIT THE HOUSE WITHOUT
THE MASTER’S ORDERS. PENALTY 100 LASHES
=32. Entrance to the Residence.=--The entrance itself, however,
is handsome. The columns on either side are of fine Luna marble.
Pass between these, and you enter a vestibule, a considerable outer
chamber with fine pilasters let into the walls, where at this moment
a swarm of the Senator’s clients are mustering. Then you approach the
actual doors of the _ostium_. These stand open but every passer is
being scrutinized, and if questionable, is stopped by a janitor, a
highly responsible slave, who has a seat just inside. Many a janitor
is supported in his duty by a surly dog, but here there is merely a
life-like mosaic creature, wrought in the tiles of the pavement, with
CAVE CANEM (“Beware the dog”) written beneath him. Overhead in a gilt
cage however is swinging a tame magpie, and the creature croaks out his
“_Salve! Salve!_” as the guests press into the atrium.
=33. The Atrium and the View across It.=--The moment we are inside the
transformation of scene from the dusty, dingy street is startling. If
other persons do not obstruct the view, you can see clear down the long
vistas of the house from the entrance to the greenery of the garden.
Before us is the atrium, a magnificent court, paved with elaborate
mosaics, and with four elegant Corinthian columns in pink marble
upholding the roof around a wide light-well. Under this light-well is
a complicated fountain, where bronze tritons and dancing nymphs are
shooting great jets into a white marble basin in which grow luxurious
water plants. On the inner sides of the atrium, and on either of the
numerous doors opening into the same, stand statues, bronze or marble,
upon carved stone pedestals.
[Illustration: PLAN OF A ROMAN MANSION
(_Domus_): strictly conventionalized.]
Many of the doorways around this elegant hall are closed by heavy
curtains, of rich saffron, purple, olivine, or blue, the hues being
selected to blend marvelously with the tints of the columns. Where the
walls are not a sheen of marble, they are spread with elaborate and
wonderfully decorative frescos--of which more hereafter. On special
pedestals of honor are fine art objects, valuable bric-a-brac, tripods,
vases, silver cups, war trophies. The mosaics on the floor (could we
stop to gaze) are more beautiful than any carpet. In brilliant jewel
work, for it is little else, has been wrought out a series of pictures
showing the campaigns of Alexander. There is another series giving the
legend of Perseus. The sunlight, the spray from the fountain, the
sheen of the marbles, the brilliance of the frescos, all combine in an
effect that is dazzling.
=34. The Rooms in the Rear and the _Peristylium_.=--But this hall is
merely the beginning, not the end of the domus. In the rear of the
atrium there is the master’s office, the _tablinum_, a very large
alcove, a handsome apartment where he will receive those guests who are
come strictly on business. This and the atrium, however, are merely the
public rooms of the house; the real living rooms are beyond, although,
by a survival of old custom, the symbolic marriage couch of the master
and mistress stands on a back wall by the tablinum. The heavy curtains
have been swept aside from the broad passageways (_fauces_) which lead
into the second court--the _peristylium_.
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF A ROMAN MANSION, LOOKING FROM
THE ATRIUM INTO THE PERISTYLIUM: restored.]
Here the atrium is duplicated--but on a much more elaborate scale.
There is another column-girdled court; but the pillars are taller and
of an exquisite blue-veined marble. A huge curtain swings on its cords
ready for expansion as the sun grows hot. Beneath the light-opening,
there is not merely a second fountain, but a real plat of greensward,
a _viridarium_, with a bright bed of rare flowers and even a few
tropical plants. There is another phalanx of statues. Under the
long quadrangular colonnades around the court are spread out deeply
upholstered couches, easy chairs, small tables, and other appurtenances
for luxurious existence. The ceilings of the colonnades and of the
rooms leading thence are covered with metallic fretwork gilded in a
soft sheen, while the intense light filters down gratefully between the
columns, and sinks to a pleasant twilight in the niches and nooks in
the walls of the peristylium.
[Illustration: SCENE IN A PERISTYLIUM.]
=35. The Dining Room (_Triclinium_) and the Chapel.=--From this second
court to left and to right open doors which lead to the master’s
and mistress’s sleeping chambers, and those of their children, their
guests, and their upper servants. The rooms are small, but are always
daintily frescoed.
[Illustration: ROMAN TYPE OF HOUSE AT POMPEII, LOOKING
ACROSS THE ATRIUM: present condition.]
Far more important than these chambers is the great dining room
(_triclinium_). Calvus’s friends tell him he really ought to rebuild
his residence and provide a special “summer dining room” on the north
side of the house, and a warmer “winter dining room” on the south
side as in all the newer mansions.[19] However, his triclinium is
very handsome; with good pilasters of Hymettus marble, fine statuary,
sideboards loaded with rare old plate, and a ceiling fretted with ivory
and arranged so that it can be partly opened at the climax of a feast
to drop garlands and to spray down unguents upon the guests.
In the rear of the house there are also a smaller breakfast room, and a
special hall (_oecus_) for the display of even additional art objects,
likewise a library, and a private bathroom, both to be described later;
while in the rear of the peristylium is one of the most important rooms
assuredly in the entire mansion--the kitchen (_culina_), where Gratia’s
proudest possession, a truly superior cook, prepares dinners that atone
for the sorrowful fact that “we have only one dining room.”
Off the peristylium, too, one notes what amounts to a miniature chapel.
Before a temple front composed of short columns mounted on a kind of
table are set several little images of beautiful fairy-like creatures
of both sexes. These are the family _lares_, the honored guardians of
the old house of the Calvi. Once they stood in the atrium, but in later
days although withdrawn to the more private peristylium, they have not
ceased to be dear. Calvus discusses with his philosopher friends, “Are
there really any gods?”; but he never fails to cast his incense night
and morning upon the small gilt brazier which smokes before his family
lares. In the kitchen, also, there is a second little niche and still
other images of the lares, where they receive bits of food and innocent
prayers from all the servants--even more devotedly than from the lordly
folk in the peristylium.
=36. The Garden and the Slaves’ Quarters.=--Another passage beside
the kitchen leads us into what can be just glimpsed as one enters the
atrium--the rear garden set in by high walls. Land is too valuable
in Rome for Calvus to permit himself much more than a short graveled
walk under a few fine old box trees, but by an intensive gardening
that another age might style “Japanese” there is laid out a miniature
brooklet, a cascade plunging into a little pool containing tame
lampreys, and some small pines, which have been forced into the
semblance of a tiny forest. A broad marble seat now strewn with
cushions, a good statue of a dancing Pan, the rushing music of
the water, and the breeze rustling the foliage--all these make the
tumultuous, squalid street and the dirty garrets of the _Flavia
Victoria_ seem very far away.--In reality they are barely a stone’s
throw down the hill.
[Illustration: CORNER IN A GARDEN IN REAR OF A ROMAN
HOUSE.]
Where do Calvus’s slaves keep themselves? Undoubtedly in the very
cramped barracks of the second story, a section of which looks down
from an upper tier of columns above the court of the peristylium. Even
lordly Romans spend little time in their chambers and need only small
bedrooms. For the slaves there is extremely little accommodation; any
kind of a sleeping pocket, very truly called a “cell” (_cella_) will
answer, where a stool, a blanket, and a thin mat on the floor suffice
for all save the upper servants.
Under the house there are ordinary cellars for the storage of
provisions. Somewhere, too, is a strong room, with barred windows, and
heavy door, and inside, fastened upon the floor, a set of stocks and
manacles. Lucky is the day when, in a slave-familia of this size, this
lock-up has not at least one backsliding occupant.
=37. The Floors and Windows.=--Inquiring about certain details of such
a mansion we discover that like most other Roman houses, it is built of
concrete, faced with brick or coarse stone and stucco, and then with
as many interior surfaces as possible, covered with slabs of marble
or decorative frescos. The roof is of brick tiles; the floors in the
humbler chambers, where mosaic is unnecessary, are partly of concrete
and partly of small pieces of stone and tile roughly fitted together
and then pounded down by a rammer (_pavimentum_). Two or three rooms
most used in winter have a special and very luxurious device--part of
their floors are made of hollow tile pipes, and through these hot air
from a furnace can be forced to warm them precisely as is done at the
baths.[20]
Little thus far has been said about the windows. These open mainly upon
the courts, and they are so few that very many rooms, especially those
used by the slaves, seem disagreeably dark, although in the long, hot
season this drawback somewhat vanishes. Most of the windows are closed
merely by board shutters swinging in leaves, and rather handsomely
paneled; but shutting them results in a state of artificial night.
For certain rooms used by the master and mistress there is a much
better arrangement. Numbers of small pieces of glass are set in bronze
lattices and inserted in the windows. Glass cannot be made that is
strictly transparent, but it is highly translucent. Such rooms are
delightfully illuminated all day long. Certain other wealthy houses
use windows set with translucent talc (soft magnesium silicate), but
these openings are hardly as satisfactory. Glass is slowly coming into
general use, and the window panes will improve as glass-makers learn
how to blow larger sheets and to make their product more transparent.
=38. Frescos, Beautiful and Innumerable.=--From the house itself
we can turn to its ornamentation and furniture. The use of marble
columns and of great slabs of marble veneer has been repeatedly
mentioned. Africa, Egypt, and Greece as well as Italy have been
ransacked by Roman contractors for their treasures of stone.[21] Even
this private mansion of the Calvi boasts its green and black monolithic
pillars, as well as its ceiling of gilded fretwork.
Where the sheen of polished marble does not meet the eye almost
invariably there are bright _frescos_. These are the _Roman wall
paper_. Even in the poorest insulæ we have met them, cheap hackneyed
things, garish in color, the work not of artists but of common
craftsmen. Yet most of even these are not without a certain decorative
beauty and their number is enormous.[22] In the humble tenements the
pictures often consist of pillars painted upon the walls, with gardens
and landscapes represented as if seen between the portico, so the
lodgers may have the pretence of looking upon the greenery reserved for
the mighty.
In a fine domus, however, the frescos, infinite in number, often
approximate real works of art. There is no time to discuss their types
and history; it is sufficient to say the decorative effect is amazingly
effective. Some rooms have their walls covered with a variety of bright
conceits and patterns,--balconies, perches, tapestries of fruit and
flowers, garlanded columns and flying sprites and maidens. Another
room has pictures of all the possible handicrafts and trades; but with
cupids working the forges and wine presses, or chaffering as merchants.
Gratia’s boudoir is full of amorous scenes of brides adorning
themselves and of lovers’ meetings. In the triclinium there are elegant
pictures of still life--fishes, fruit, birds; and in the peristylium
and atrium are elaborate landscapes, scenes from Greek mythology, and a
series of pictures depicting the voyages and adventures of Æneas.[23]
There are no picture frames, but a skilful use of colored lines and
sometimes of a painted setting of columns and architectural pediments
makes each scene stand out to great advantage.
The colors of all these frescos are very brilliant but they are never
painfully crude. Where the walls are not covered by painting or marble
they are tinted a soft brown or gray; and where the columns are not of
naturally shaded marble they also are gently tinted to a neutral tone,
although the lower third is usually painted a bright red or yellow.
The numerous statues about the house are all in their turn given a kind
of flesh color, with some other hue laid upon their drapery. Perhaps
in the open, under the light of a northern summer these features would
appear barbaric and offensive; under the gentle radiance diffused from
the apertures of the atrium and the peristylium they create a scene of
marvelous beauty, fascinating, and generally restful to the eye.
=39. The Profusion of Statues and Art Objects.=--So much for the
wall decorations, and we must turn to the statues. The mansion seems
to swarm with slaves, yet they are hardly more numerous than the
sculptures in bronze and marble. Many of these are good copies of the
best masterpieces of Greece. The splendid athlete in the atrium is from
an original by Praxiteles; the Penelope in the peristylium follows
precisely the noble work of Scopas. Many others are simply graceful and
ornamental but less pretentious works by lesser geniuses, often adapted
in detail by the clever copyists.
[Illustration: PORTRAIT BUST--POMPEY THE GREAT.]
The whole quantity of art objects in such a house is enormous. The legs
and arms of the chairs and every knob and handle upon the furniture
are chased or carved with an amazing skill. The veriest knick-nacks
and articles for everyday life have been transformed into things of
beauty. In the triclinium is a long series of statuettes presenting the
myths of Bacchus--the god himself, the drunken Silenus, the satyrs,
bacchants, and all the other revelers. It would be easy, indeed, to
reconstruct a good part of the standard Græco-Roman mythology from
the statues, statuettes, and reliefs, no less than from the frescos
scattered about the mansion and garden.
=40. Family Portrait Busts.=--However, there is one lengthy array
of sculptures in the atrium that does not bear the hand of Greece.
These are the portrait busts of the Junii Calvi. There they stand, a
full score of them; all the more distinguished members of the great
house since sculpture became a facile art in Rome.
[Illustration: TYPICAL ROMAN PORTRAIT--MARC ANTONY.]
It is an array of cold, hard, yet withal terribly efficient faces.
Slightly battered is the broad homely countenance of that tough old
Calvus who was Scipio’s legate at Zama. Here also is the sharp shrewd
face of his great-grandson who was prætor under Sulla; here the more
refined and intellectual lines of the grandson of the last named
worthy who won Octavius’s thanks at Actium for gallantry with his
bireme, and afterward was a famous governor of Syria; here the high
forehead of that courageous Stoic, the present master’s grandfather,
who bade Nero do his worst, and who calmly “opened his veins” when the
centurion arrived with the tyrant’s order to commit suicide. There are
also displayed the busts of several distinguished women of the family
including that Junia who was the bosom friend of the Empress Livia.
In addition to these, there are the portrait busts of the present
Publius Calvus, of his wife Gratia, and of his three children. They
are all executed with remarkable verisimilitude and without the least
flattery. Customs with the hair often change, and the headdress of
Gratia is made detachable so that if her style of headdress alters, the
portrait may be promptly brought up to date. Young Sextus the second
boy had a birthday yesterday; his statue is still hung with wreaths;
flowers too hang around the likeness of Gnæus Calvus, Publius’s
brother, who lately died while proprætor of Bætica (South Spain).
=41. Death Masks (_Imagines_).=--The sight of these busts is a constant
incentive to both the young Calvi to remember their lordly lineage;
but they have a still prouder treasure. The enormously rich freedman
Vedius just down the street would give twenty million sesterces for
the social preëminence implied by the possession of the great cupboard
all bound with gilt and bronze bands which stands in the tablinum.
Here, carefully labeled, are kept several scores of waxen death
masks, blackened, marred, and ugly enough now, but all taken when the
successive heads of the family lay in their last slumber.
Many of these date from before the production in Rome of sculptured
portrait statues. Here, for example, is the mask of the Calvus who
helped win the consulship for the plebeians; and here of him who
seconded Appius Claudius in the Senate when he turned away the glozing
envoys of Pyrrhus. When alien upstarts complain of “noble pride,”
it is easy for a Calvus to toss his head: “Have we not something to
be proud of!”--and later, it will be duly explained how these waxen
_imagines_ appear very conspicuously at public funerals (p. 175).
=42. Couches, Their General Use.=--One cannot, however, sit or lie down
upon statues or portrait busts, and the domus is well provided with
conventional furniture. In general the Romans prefer to _recline_ when
men of a later age may prefer to _sit_. Visitors sprawl down on couches
for a little conversation, and the regular method of writing is not at
a desk but lying on a couch with the right leg doubled and the tablet
held on the knee. Long habit makes this attitude quite comfortable.
There are many special kinds of beds for reading, dining, and for
sleeping. Of course the latter are the most elaborate, and in Calvus’s
and Gratia’s chamber the wooden bed is so high that it has to be
reached by a footstool. The legs are of bronze, elaborately turned and
carved, the frame is veneered with tortoise shell and the supports at
the sides of the sloping pillow-rest are set with plates of silver.
As for the thick mattresses they are of the finest down and the ample
blankets are dyed purple and embroidered with gold thread. The couches
in the triclinium are lighter and lower although of very fine cabinet
work,[24] but they have to be made larger for they must accommodate
three diners. The reading couches (_lectuli_--“little beds”) are still
lighter and simpler, although of elegant design, and those scattered
under the peristylium are overlaid with plates of gold leaf.
[Illustration: ROMAN LAMPS: collection in Naples
Museum.]
=43. Elegant Chairs and Costly Tables.=--Excluding the couches the
furnishings of a Roman domus seem much simpler than those used in
a later age. There are few carpets, no great loss in view of the
beautiful mosaic floors, although there are rich, heavy portières
across many passages. The chairs, frequently of light and elegant
workmanship, are as a rule simple and often backless. Some, however,
are splendidly inlaid with silver, and there are a few great
_cathedræ_, ponderous arm chairs with lofty backs.
[Illustration: ALTAR WITH DESIGN OF A CURULE CHAIR.]
In the atrium, moreover, there stands an object surveyed with great
pride by Calvus’s children--their father’s _sella curulis_, the
folding, backless arm chair with a seat of leather straps which the
senator had occupied while prætor. Presently (they hope) he will sit
again thereon before the admiring Senate house, this time presiding as
the veritable consul. The “curule chair,” despite its gold and ivory
arms and cushions covered with purple Alexandrian fabrics, is anything
but a comfortable seat through a tedious official ceremony; but who
thinks of personal comfort when reckoning the glories of its public
occupancy!
Besides the chairs there are everywhere the tables. These are numerous
but low and small. In the dining room they are round and barely two
feet in diameter; but what a wealth of art and taste has gone into
their making! All are of extremely fine wood, but the three reserved
for the regular couches of the dinner guests have their legs overlaid
with plates of magnificently embossed gold, and the material upon the
tops is composed of single thin slabs cross-sawn from the trunks of the
great citrus trees (a form of cypress) on Mount Atlas.
This wood can be finished to show an exquisite wavy pattern or
curly veins--“tiger citrus,” “panther citrus,” or “peacock-tail
citrus”--the experts call the varieties. Over really fine specimens
true connoisseurs go into ecstasies, and fortunes can be wasted. A
table somewhat larger than Calvus’s has been known to sell for 500,000
sesterces ($20,000); and there is a record price of twice that figure.
The tables in the present mansion are nowhere nearly so valuable; yet
they are among the most precious objects in the house. If there is a
fire, they will be rescued almost before anything else, always barring
the waxen _imagines_.
=44. Chests, Cabinets, Water Clocks, and Curios.=--Of course there are
many other articles of furniture like the great _arca_, the master’s
strong box in the tablinum; heavily locked and riveted down upon the
stone beneath. There are the elegant tall candelabra, of bronze or
even of silver, elaborately ornamented and swinging at night with such
batteries of olive-oil lamps as to make the marbles, frescos, and
mosaics give back an alluring glitter. There is the water clock in the
peristylium, a kind of glorified hour-glass, so adjusted as to record
small fractions of time, and beside which a special slave usually
stands all day long to call off the passage of each hour to the family.
There are great cabinets, chests, and cupboards full of plate, fine
blankets, and extremely elaborate wardrobes.
In addition to all these upon a kind of sideboard there stand forth
real or alleged objects of value or antiquity, a silver cup taken
at the capture of Syracuse; a tall black and red vase signed by the
master potter Callisthenes; and a statuette of a dancing girl which
is probably a true work of Lysippus. Conspicuous, too, is a silver
bowl, battered and discolored, and of extreme simplicity. Mock it
not, however, it is “the ancestral salt cellar” (as remarks Horace),
the one silver dish possessed by the good old Calvi, when in all the
Roman Senate there was only a single complete silver dinner service
to be exchanged from house to house when high officials entertained
ambassadors.
=45. Spurious Antiques.=--Publius Calvus is happy in possessing
undeniably genuine antiques. He can afford to laugh at the collection
of the rich freedman across the way. That poor fellow, anxious to
“keep in style” and to display an art collection, has fallen into the
clutches of unscrupulous dealers. He has filled his atrium with absurd
specimens such as “cups from the table of Laomedon, a double vase
that belonged to Nestor and a tankard used by Achilles.” His citrus
tables are of very thin veneer, and in his atrium his impossible wife
has actually on display a ponderous golden box in which her husband’s
first beard is deposited. It is also gossiped about that this crude
fellow actually pretended sickness lately, merely that he might receive
condoling friends in bed and display to them the gold chasings on the
bedstead, the magnificent scarlet coverlets, and proclaim his riches by
having the mattress steeped in expensive perfumes.
=46. Pet Animals.=--One thing more must be stated about the house
of the Calvi before passing to its human denizens. There are a great
many tame animals in evidence. Over the doorway one already notes
the caged magpie. From a dark corner within a large cage blinks a
morose-looking owl. The master’s fine greyhound has a litter of puppies
which are now scrambling around the peristylium with a special slave to
look after them. Behind a column is seen gliding a slinky civet. The
children delight in a small monkey tethered now in the garden. Gratia
especially has her own beloved lap dog and its personal slave-boy
custodian. She does not, however, imitate a certain female friend who
dotes upon snakes, and who has a whole cage of the creatures which she
often twines about her neck to scare her companions.
So much for the material aspects of a Roman insula and a Roman domus.
It is time to examine their inhabitants.
CHAPTER IV
ROMAN WOMEN AND ROMAN MARRIAGES
=47. Honorable Status of Roman Women.=--Calvus is the lordly senator
when his litter swings him down to the Curia by the Old Forum to
participate in what is still the most venerable council in the world,
but in his own house his authority is divided. He is not even sure that
one-half the power is really his. In all private matters his sway is
shared by his spouse Gratia.
Many are the evils inflicting Imperial Rome, but oppression of women is
not one of them. By the age of Hadrian it has long since come to pass
what Cato the Elder sadly predicted three centuries earlier, when Roman
women were learning the way to freedom: “On the day that women are our
equals, they will be our masters.”
Roman women are, indeed, excluded from seats in the Senate and from
the long-defunct right to vote in the public assemblies.[25] They
cannot command armies nor receive governorships, although every now
and then an angry senator vainly proposes a resolution that governors
shall not take their wives along with them to their provinces, lest the
latter constitute themselves the real rulers of the district. Women do
not act as judges or jurors. Nay more: legally they are under legal
disabilities calculated to stir the rage of their “equal suffrage”
sisters of a later day. They have always the status of minors, and are
subject to the legal control of either father, guardian, or husband to
their dying hour.
All this is true, yet, what of it? The jurists have long ago devised
fictions of the law whereby the women have practically as complete
control of their property as have their brothers; and the government
of the Empire is peculiarly a government of backstairs intrigues and
of secret influence. What chance have mere men against women in such
warfare? Custom also assigns to women an amount of freedom in most
social matters which makes Imperial Rome a feminine paradise that can
only be matched by Twentieth Century America.
=48. Men Reluctant to Marry.=--Long since leaders of the bolder
sex have had to reason with their fellow citizens on the necessity
of marriage as a patriotic duty. The pragmatic old censor Quintus
Metellus in 102 B.C. delivered a kind of a lay sermon: “If we could
get along without wives, fellow citizens (_Quirites_) we should all
spare ourselves the _tedium_ of marriage, but nature has ordained that
we can neither live pleasantly with wives, nor exist at all without
them--therefore let us sacrifice our personal interests to those of
society.” After him Emperor Augustus enacted stiff laws to decrease the
alarming number of bachelors, and to give special privileges to the
parents of three children. This does not prevent many prominent Romans
from looking upon a wife as a kind of expensive bondage often to be
shunned altogether.
=49. Rights and Privileges of Married Women.=--The great majority
of all Romans are married. Even the slaves are allowed to join in a
kind of unofficial wedlock known as _contubernium_, which only a
very harsh master will dissolve. As for the free married women they
go everywhere and do almost everything. No husband’s permission is
needed when they visit the Forum or theater. They can sue and be sued
or give testimony in the courts without his intervention. They manage
their own property. Gratia, for example, is well off in her own right.
Her estates are in charge of a dapper young freedman Ephorus, who is
incessantly visiting her, and who never dreams of taking orders from
her husband. So long as Gratia is barely faithful to Calvus he has no
right to complain. He thanks his “Good Genius,” therefore, that things
are not as in his friend Probus’s house, where the mistress’s factotum
is suspected of being on altogether too familiar terms with his fair
employer.
[Illustration: A ROMAN MATRON.]
Nevertheless, this freedom is supposed to carry with it corresponding
responsibilities. Every Roman woman theoretically is responsible for
her husband’s good name and for the wise ordering of his family. No
right-minded woman dismisses the hope that at the end they will put
the great words on her tombstone: “_She counselled well. She managed
well. She spun wool._”
The control of the vast _familia_ of slaves is usually in a matron’s
hands, a duty calculated to bring out every executive quality within
her. She largely conducts the education of her sons, no less than
of her daughters. No Roman is ashamed to admit (as an Athenian in
Pericles’s day might have been ashamed) that in the great crises
of life he took the authoritative advice of his mother.[26] Roman
civilization is, therefore, for better or worse, a civilization to
which women no less than men have been suffered to apply the full
powers of their genius. _It is a “hundred per cent civilization”_;
whereas, that of Athens, considering the manner in which Athenian women
were confined and ignored, was hardly more than a “fifty per cent
civilization.”
=50. Selection of Husbands for Young Girls.=--It is a fact, however,
that in one great and vital matter Roman women are not free agents.
They usually have their husbands, at least their first husbands, chosen
for them by their parents. This comes to pass largely because usage
requires that girls should be married so young that no rational romance
on their part is really possible.
Custom amounting to law requires that a girl shall be at least twelve,
and a boy fourteen before marriage. In the case of girls this minimum
is often adhered to pretty closely, but betrothals can be arranged
still earlier. Cicero’s daughter Tullia was betrothed at ten and
married at thirteen--a very common arrangement. Nobody imagined she had
the least right to complain. Marriage involves a great shift in family
relations, and the control of the family pertains strictly to the
_pater familias_ and to his _matrona_. They will ordinarily exercise
loving pains in selecting a suitable spouse for a daughter, but the
decision must be very largely theirs.
Boys as a rule marry much later, often not until well into manhood.
They can demand inevitably a certain right of choice, although the
parents still exercise a marked authority. As for bachelors, if they
indulge in various coarse “affairs” with dancing girls, only very
peevish persons are critical. After marriage, however, they must treat
their wives with reasonable outward respect, if by no means always
with austere faithfulness. In any case a girl is likely to be married
off too young either to resist her parents’ choice or to pick out
intelligently any proper husband for herself.[27]
=51. A Marriage Treaty among Noble-Folk.=--When Gratia’s parents
decided she was old enough to “become settled” they applied to a
distinguished kinsman, an ex-consul, to help them to find a suitable
bridegroom. This noble gentleman looked over a list of his younger
friends, selected Calvus, and wrote a careful letter commending him,
praising his lineage, and his firm hopes of official distinction,
and telling how “he had a frank, open countenance, fresh colored and
blooming and a handsome well-knit figure”; in short “he was quite
the fellow to deserve so fine a girl.” The great man went on to add
that the favored candidate had a respectable fortune, for “though I
dislike to speak of the financial aspects of the matter, still one must
consider the tendencies of the day.” Not one word was said as to how
Gratia herself might want to be consulted; her consent was taken for
granted.[28]
Gratia’s parents, therefore, approached Calvus’s guardian, his uncle.
He being satisfied as to dowry and social adjustments, both young
people were informed of what had been determined for them. Gratia
and Calvus alike had always expected some such arrangement and
capitulated with reasonable grace. The ensuing marriage, founded not
on any romance, but on a cold-blooded study of what supposedly made
for domestic happiness, in this case at least has been fortunate and
fruitful. The wedded pair have come truly to love one another, and they
dwell in great harmony. In this general manner marriages are arranged
every day in Rome.
Of course these are first marriages. Let Gratia become a widow, or let
her imitate so many of her friends and divorce her husband, and her
second spouse will ordinarily be of quite her own choosing; and Calvus,
of course, in selecting again, would be completely his own master.
=52. A Betrothal in Wealthy Circles.=--Gratia’s daughter Junia
is only ten, yet her parents are already beginning to think about
betrothals; but only a block up the street there has just been the
excitement of an actual wedding. Aulus Statilius Pomponius is only an
eques, but the gods have blessed him with a hundred million sesterces
($4,000,000). He and his wife have a daughter who will inherit vast
possessions, and wealth is a splendid substitute for lineage. They have
found a young Gaius Ulpius Pollio, already in the Senate, who claims a
distant cousinship to the Emperor himself. Pollio is none too wealthy
and is already a widower, but Statilia and her mother are infinitely
delighted at an alliance with the edges of an imperial house. Nothing
has lacked, therefore, for an ultra-fashionable wedding, the talk of
the entire capital.
First came the betrothal, a great social concourse in Pomponius’s
atrium, a throng of equites and senators with their wives, jewels
flashing, countless tongues gossiping, with Statilia led in by her
father to the center of the circle to meet the bridegroom-to-be.
Statilia said not a word through the entire proceedings. All Pollio’s
dealings were with her father, and in clear voice the two men exchanged
the legal formulas: “Do you promise to give your daughter, Statilia to
me, to be my wedded wife?” said the younger man.
“The gods bring luck! I betroth her.”
“The gods bring luck!”
After that technically Statilia became a bride-elect; she was a
_sponsa_. Either side had legally the right still to break the
agreement, but it was socially ruinous to do so. Pollio presented
Statilia with various valuable toilet articles, and especially with a
ring to be worn on the third finger of the left hand, because everybody
said that “a nerve ran directly from this particular finger to the
heart.” It was the engagement ring of a later age almost precisely.
=53. Adjusting the Dowry.=--Then followed weeks of frantic
preparation: the women busy with the things which always have
made women busy over weddings long before the days of Romulus and
Remus; Pomponius and Pollio with wrestling over the very nice legal
adjustments of Statilia’s dowry. How much would the old eques give
in all, in cash, land, and banker’s securities? How much for his
daughter’s special use? How much as _dos_, the funds which the
new son-in-law could touch? How could the property be arranged so that
if the marriage ended presently in a divorce (as spiteful wagers were
already being laid that it might) the _dos_ could be given back to
Statilia without grievous loss of principal?
At one time the betrothal almost had to be cancelled, such extreme
shrewdness was shown on both sides. But finally the matter was
adjusted. Three noble friends for either side pressed their seal rings
in witness to the contracts. The day came for the wedding.
=64. Dressing the Bride.=--Family exigencies required a springtime
wedding, when there were a great many unlucky days to be avoided;
but an expert Etruscan haruspex at length found a day that satisfied
Statilia and her parents’ scruples. On the night before the great event
she laid all her playthings, her childish amulet (_bulla_), and her
childish garments on the altar of the paternal Lares whose protection
she was quitting forever. Then she went to bed in a _tunica recta_,
a fine, yellow garment woven in one piece, supposedly an article of
extremely good omen.
The next day the bride was dressed personally by her mother with
unusual care. However expensive her ornaments she had to wear this
same one-piece tunic next to her skin, the gown being held around the
waist by a band of wool tied with a complicated “knot of Hercules.”
She wore, of course, all the jewels loaded upon neck, ears, arms, and
fingers which by the contract she was to bring Pollio in her trousseau.
Her long hair had been parted according to ancient custom by a spear
into six locks, braided now with ribbons weighted down with pearls.
Her shoes were of finest white leather covered with more pearls. Over
her head streamed a long, gauzy flame-colored veil of silk--worth
very literally more than its weight in gold.[29] Pressing down this
bridal veil was a garland of flowers picked, as custom required, by the
bride’s own hand, and interspersed with sprigs of the sacred “verbena”
herbs. Pollio, when he presented himself, was in the best gala costume
of a senator, but there were no special “wedding garments” for the
bridegroom, corresponding to the bridal veil.
=55. The Marriage Ceremonies.=--The afternoon was at hand, and the
insulæ in neighboring quarters emptied their plebeian throngs to gaze
at the gilded litters which went swinging up to the house of Pomponius,
the armies of scarlet-clad running footmen, the pompous freedmen
marching beside their patron’s sedans, the bravery of purple robes,
the flash of gold and of jewels. Of course, the atrium had been hung
with garlands. The air inside was heavy with the perfumes of flowers,
of costly unguents, and of the finest Arabian incense, while the noble
guests elbowed and pushed one another to get near the altar near the
tablinum and win the best sight of the happy pair.
Roman marriages are pretty strictly civil ceremonies. There is no legal
requirement for any religious rites. Hardly anybody now is married
according to the stale old formula of the _confarreatio_, when the
betrothed couple became wedded by eating a cake which had just been
consecrated by the Pontifex Maximus. A much simpler form is now used,
but before the ceremony there always has to be the sacrifice.
Amid a decently pious hush a sheep is led to the side of the water tank
(_impluvium_) in the atrium; the shrewd-eyed old haruspex, trailing his
long robe and muttering jargon that passes for Etruscan, is aided by
two skillful assistants in killing the creature promptly and avoiding
disgusting gore; then in ripping open its belly and examining with
expert eye the still quivering entrails. (See p. 429.) It is proper now
for Statilia to turn pale and clutch the arm of her mother. What if the
signs were unfavorable? “Whoever heard of bad omens being discovered
at a great wedding?” cynically whispers a senator. “_Bene_--good!”
announces the haruspex with a leer. “_Bene! Bene!_” echo all the
guests. The soothsayer retires. The wedding can proceed.
The final ceremony is very simple. First the tablets of the marriage
contract and the transfer of the dowry are produced, read, and, if not
already witnessed, are signed by the proper attestors. Then a young
matron-of-honor, Statilia’s _pronuba_, leads the bride up to Pollio.
She thrusts out her hand from under her great veil and takes the hand
of her husband-elect. Everybody listens while he, and not any priest
or official for him, puts the direct question: “Will you be my _mater
familias_?” “Yes,” answers Statilia, perhaps a little too readily; and
then she asks him openly: “And will you be my _pater familias_?” “Yes,”
and immediately there is a general shout of congratulation.
These decisive words once spoken, Pollio, his bride, and her parents
unite in placing a cake of coarse bread upon the altar, uttering brief
dedications of the food to Jupiter and Juno, and also to the quaint
rural gods Tellus, Picumnus, and Pilumnus who will bless the estates
of the new couple. The cakes are presented in a basket held by a
young boy, Statilia’s cousin, her _camillus_, both of whose parents
are required to be living. The company now redoubles its cry of “Good
luck! Good luck! _felicitas!_”--and everybody is assuredly in excellent
appetite for the ensuing wedding feast.
=56. The Wedding Procession.=--This is not the place for describing a
great banquet (see p. 113); it is enough here to state that Pomponius
is obliged to justify his wealth by a prodigal hospitality. Vain has
proved Augustus’s law limiting the cost of wedding feasts to one
thousand sesterces ($40). Such regulations win only laughter!
As the climax after the dainties comes the distribution of pieces of
the huge wedding-cake (_mustaceum_), made of fine meal steeped in
new wine and served upon bay leaves. By this time everybody has drunk
enough good Massic and Falernian to be excited and talkative, it has
become twilight in the street, and Pomponius’s chief freedman (the
master of ceremonies) gives the signal: “The procession!”
In the vestibule musters a squad of flute players and torch bearers.
As the music strikes up, good form requires Statilia to cast herself
into her mother’s arms and weep and scream violently. Good form
equally requires Pollio to tear her thence with playful violence--“a
remembrance,” people say, “of the Romans’ rape of the Sabines.”
Statilia promptly ceases struggling and submits cheerfully to being led
through the door.
The wedding procession is an indispensable part of the ceremony.
Probably if Pollio lives in another city, some family friend will
now loan his residence for “leading home the bride.” As it is, the
bridegroom fortunately possesses a handsome house about a mile distant
on the Quirinal. For all her wealth Statilia has to walk the entire
way.
First go the flute players bringing the crowds out of all the insulæ
when they cross the Subura; then long files of the younger guests of
both sexes, talking vivaciously, and flourishing white-thorn torches;
then the camillus and a youthful assistant bearing ostentatiously the
bride’s spindle and distaff, token of the household labors presumably
ahead of her; then the bride herself, led on either hand by a boy both
of whose parents are living, while a third of like good fortune carries
a special torch of honor. Pollio himself walks just behind the bride,
and is kept busy tossing walnuts to all the children in the crowd
in token of the fact that he has now (for the second time) put away
childish things. After them, with more flambeaux and in merry disorder,
taking pains to exhibit their fine robes and jewels, follow all the
older relatives and friends of both parties. The torchlight, the music,
the brave colors, and gems gleaming out of the darkness make the scene
bewitching. No wonder all the gaping crowds join in the marriage shouts
“Io Talasse!”[30] or in the oft-repeated “Felicitas!”
=57. At the Bridegroom’s House.=--The guests and many of the spectators
fail not also to raise the “Fescinne songs” proper for marriage
processions; old folk songs very coarse, and interspersed with
extremely broad quips and personalities. At last the house of Pollio is
reached. It is a blaze of light from vestibule to garden, and all the
_decuriæ_ (squads of ten) of slaves are mustered to greet their new
_domina_.
At the entrance Statilia stops to wind the door pillars with bits of
wool, and to touch the door itself with oil and fat, the emblems of
plenty. She is then promptly _lifted_ over the threshold to avoid
an ill-omened stumble, and is immediately confronted by her husband who
has slipped in before her and who now presents her with a cup of water
and a glowing fire brand, token that she is entitled to the protection
of his family Lares. Statilia accepts these and in clear voice repeats
the very ancient and famous marriage formula, “Where thou art Gaius, I
am Gaia” (_Ubi tu Gaius, ego Gaia_).
The invited guests now sweep inside and there is more elbowing while
Statilia produces three silver coins; one of these she gives to her
husband as emblem of her dowry; one she lays on the altar for the
Lares of her new home; one she casts back into the street, a gift to
the “Lares of the Highway” who guarded the door. Then her marriage
torch is blown out, and tossed away to be scrambled for as emblem of
supreme good luck by all the younger guests. The matron of honor has
already arranged the luxurious marriage chamber, and the happy pair
are led inside and the door shut upon them, while all their friends
join in the rollicking “nuptial song” just outside the portal. There
is nothing left now for the guests to do but to go home; all being
invited, however, to return to Pollio’s house the next day to join in
a second great feast, with Statilia this time presiding as mistress of
the establishment.
=58. Honors and Liberties of a Matron.=--Before her marriage Statilia
had been a mere girl, completely controlled by her parents, unable to
appear in public save under severe restrictions, and apparently with
hardly a will of her own. The day after entering Pollio’s house she
finds herself become by one act a noble _matrona_, with the destinies
of a huge retinue of slaves and freedmen at her disposal, enjoying a
great property, meeting her husband’s friends as their equal, going
where she pleases, saying what she pleases, almost (within wide limits)
doing what she pleases.
Abroad in crowds, her dress, the _stola matronalis_, secures
the young married woman extreme respect. Every March, she, with
all the other honorable wives in Rome, enjoys the honors of the
_matronalia_, an official festival, kind of “Mother’s day” devoted
to celebrating the virtues of the gracious heads of each household.
On this day no less than on her birthday, she receives presents from
her husband, her family, and all her dependents. Finally, being a
Senator’s wife, when she comes to die, she probably will be entitled
to a great state funeral, with a formal eulogy in the Forum as if she
were a public personage. No wonder that Roman girls yearn eagerly for
marriage! It is their astonishing emancipation.
=59. Unhappy Marriages and Frivolous Women.=--Will a fashionable
alliance like that of Statilia and Pollio turn out happily? There
are scoffers even among the friends who bore the torches. Nobody
expects Pollio (a gay young aristocrat) to prove an example of austere
faithfulness, although he must never do anything to insult his wife
publicly. As for Statilia the cynics about the fair sex are very many.
Long ago Ovid has written, “Every woman may be won if only she’s
rightly tempted.” If a young wife is light-minded, she has plenty
of opportunities to acquire lovers, and at the great festivals and
banquets, at the theaters, gladiator fights, and circuses women have
every chance to meet intriguing men without interference by their
husbands.
The very fact that as unmarried girls Roman matrons were denied
all chance for lawful romances, now makes devious love affairs
seem all the more racy. Any number of fine ladies have indulged in
unwise “friendships” with dissolute actors, public dancers, or even
gladiators. In many a mansion there is a handsome freedman or even a
slave who can become extraordinarily familiar with his mistress. There
are said to be coarse-grained mothers who actually teach their married
daughters how to push intrigues and to smuggle in or out love-letters
under the very noses of their husbands; and there are plenty of young
men, rich, “noble,” and very idle, who spend their time philandering
with married ladies.
With every deduction and allowance for scandal the number of such
unsteady women is very great. “What snakes are driving you mad,” cried
Juvenal, “that you think of taking a wife? Why not leap from a high
window or from the Æmilian bridge rather than submit to a she-tyrant?”
However, even if women lead lives that are outwardly respectable, there
are plenty of minor charges against Roman ladies. Some are utterly
extravagant; haunting the fine shops along the Via Lata and running
up ruinous bills. Some are laughed at for taking up music, poetry, or
Greek antiquities as shallow fads and “chattering in a mixture of Latin
and Greek, and making their tongues go incessantly like a gong.” Some
are said to take fencing lessons and to waste their days practicing
on a dummy antagonist with a foil, and learning to handle a shield
as if intending to join the army. Others are never happy unless they
know all the latest news: “What the Thracians and the Seres (Chinese)
are doing”; “Who has just married a notorious widow”; “Whether a
comet threatens the King of Parthia.” Others are utterly selfish and
heartless; they will weep at the loss of a pet sparrow, but treat their
slave girls with hideous brutality, and “let a husband die to save a
lap-dog’s life.” Worst of all are certain women actually suspected of
giving their unloved husbands a dose of poison when various reasons
make a divorce inconvenient.
=60. Divorces, Easy and Frequent.=--However, divorce is the regular
outcome of very many unlucky marriages. Every Roman girl, when her
parents tell her “We have chosen for you--”; knows in the back of her
mind: “Marriage will give me freedom. If this wedlock isn’t a success,
my next husband will probably be my own choosing.”
The first divorce mentioned in Roman history was in 231 B.C. when a
certain Ruga put away a truly beloved wife, out of a high sense of
public duty--because she bore him no children. The public was shocked
at such action then, but soon it was shocked no longer. Under the later
Republic lucky was the nobleman or noblewoman who was not divorced at
least once. Cicero divorced Terentia after a long wedded life seemingly
because he wanted a new marriage portion; Cato the Younger (immaculate
Stoic) repudiated his wife to please a friend, then calmly took her
back again at the friend’s death.
Under the Empire things hardly seem to have become any better. “Trial
marriages” are not a recognized institution; but surely they exist. It
is direfully easy for either a man or woman to take the initiative.
No court proceedings are necessary. “Take away your property!” spoken
formally and before witnesses is sufficient to break up the household,
although the more usual method is to “_send a messenger_”; _i.e._
dispatch a delegation of friends to the other party to break the news.
Vainly did Augustus try by legislation to make divorces less prompt and
convenient. The whole proceeding is still grievously popular and simple.
Of course, divorced persons are under no stigma in the fashionable set.
Many a time a couple has separated, married elsewhere, separated again,
and then resumed the old wedlock. Women are charged with “flitting
from one home to another, wearing out the bridal veil”; and indeed,
spicy instances are cited of ladies who boasted “eight husbands in
five autumns, a fact worthy of commemoration on their tombs”; or of
reckoning the years not by the annual consuls but by their annual
husbands.
=61. Celibacy Common: Old Families Dying Out.=--Under such conditions
what wonder many a rich Roman prefers celibacy! They often proclaim the
“advantages of childlessness.” Old men of property without children
are fawned upon with offers of every kind of service. Social and even
public honors are thrust upon them. Their atria are crowded every
morning with genteel visitors; their least wishes anticipated--all in
the desperate hopes that “when their tablets are opened” they will have
remembered the swarm of lackeys in their wills. Indeed, adventurers
have been known to go far in Rome by making a false show of wealth,
concealing the fact they actually have children, and “seeming bilious
and complaining of indigestion.” Everybody apparently will give them
favor or credit. It is a familiar scandal.
Under such circumstances what wonder most of the old Republican
families have died out by the age of Hadrian, that the Calvi feel very
isolated; and that of the strictly patrician families only the famous
Cornelii appear now to survive.
=62. Nobler Types of Women.=--But do the above stories represent
the true moral condition of most women in Rome? Certainly not, or
society could not exist. In the first place such women represent the
rotten crust of the nobility; the ordinary equestrian and middle-class
women are still relatively modest and moral, efficient managers, good
mothers, and, if they are poor, hard workers. In the second place, even
among the upper Senatorial nobility, there are plenty of matronæ of the
very best type; true props to their husbands, wise mothers to their
children, kindly mistresses to their slaves. Gratia has many friends
whose households are schools of virtue, and many a Roman, from the
Imperial Augustus down, has confessed that his wife has been his tower
of strength.
=63. Famous and Devoted Wives.=--People still talk of the famous Arria,
wife of Cæcina Pætus, who, when the Emperor Claudius ordered him to
commit suicide, and he could hardly pluck up courage for a manly exit
from life, as an example plunged the dagger in her own breast, then
held it out to her husband, saying, “Pætus, it doesn’t hurt me.”
Her own daughter, the younger Arria, and Fannia, the wife of the
philosopher Helvidius Priscus, grossly murdered by Nero, won hardly
less reputations for fortitude. Pliny the Younger has recorded a more
humbly born Italian dame, who, when her husband was suffering from
incurable ulcers, but lacking the hardihood to kill himself alone, tied
herself to him and with him jumped into the lake at Larium so that both
were drowned.
[Illustration: WEDDED PAIR WITH CAMILLUS (Boy
Attendant).]
Fortunately the days of tyrannous emperors seem long since over. Wives
usually can show their virtue by living for their husbands and not by
dying with them. Rather lately there passed away an old man, Domitius
Tullus. Vast was his wealth but it brought him no pleasure; he was so
crippled and racked in every limb “that he could only enjoy his great
riches by looking at them. He was so helpless that he had to get others
to clean and wash his teeth.” He had a young and a very pretty wife;
but so far from neglecting him or trying to hasten his end, she kept
him alive for years by extraordinarily faithful personal care. Lately,
too, the venerable Senator Macrinus has lost his wife, “who if she had
lived in the good old days would have been counted an exemplary woman.
They lived together for thirty-nine years, with never a single quarrel
or disagreement.”[31]
[Illustration: SEATED NOBLEWOMAN.]
These are simply random cases. Of course, many people know the tribute
Pliny the Younger paid to his own wife Calpurnia, much younger than
himself but absolutely devoted to her husband: “She has a keen
intelligence, she is wonderfully economical, and she loves me.” He went
on to add that she read all his literary effusions most carefully,
sat behind a curtain to listen when he gave public recitations before
a male audience, and that when he had to argue in court had relays
of runners to keep her informed as to how well he was impressing the
judges. When the twain were separated she “would embrace his letters as
though they were himself,” while he (if he got no new letters from her)
“would read over her old letters and take them up again and again as
though they were new ones.”
=64. The Story of Turia.=--One day when Gratia had caught young
Junia overhearing a very uncanny story of a rich old lady who kept a
whole troupe of profligate actors for her own private amusement, she
took her out upon the magnificent avenue of stately tombs along the
Appian Way to visit the memorial to a venerated ancestress,--a certain
Turia who had lived in the troubled days of the Second Triumvirate,
and who by her rare courage, fortitude, and intelligence had saved her
husband the noble Vespillo from disgrace and death.
Turia’s husband in a long inscription recited how she had saved his
life in the Civil Wars at sore peril to her own, and how she had lived
with him afterward in perfect affection and harmony, although, being
childless, such was her devotion to him that she actually offered
to let Vespillo divorce her that he might have children by a second
marriage, promising very literally “to be a sister” to his new wife.
But her husband repudiated the strange idea with anger: “That you
should have ever thought it possible we could be separated save by
death was most horrible to me. The one sorrow that was in store for me
was that I was destined to survive you.”
And thus the tablet concluded: “You were a faithful and obedient wife;
you were kind and gracious, sociable and friendly; you were assiduous
in your spinning; you followed our family and national religious rites
and admitted no foreign superstitions; you did not dress conspicuously,
nor make any kind of household display. Your management of our house
was exemplary; you tended my mother as carefully as if she had been
your own. You had innumerable other excellencies, common to the best
type of matrons, but these I mention are peculiarly your own.”[32]
Turia has been dead over a hundred years, but there are still high-born
women in Rome who are her equals. One of them, Calvilla, has a fine
young son now about thirteen, who owes an infinite debt to his mother,
and whom the Emperor will presently select as the heir presumptive to
the throne. History will call him Marcus Aurelius.
CHAPTER V
COSTUME AND PERSONAL ADORNMENT
=65. The Type of Roman Garments.=--How is it possible to mention Roman
women and Roman weddings without thoughts also of Roman costume and
personal adornment? Seldom, indeed, has there been or will there be
an age in which fine wearing apparel, and jewelry, and elaborate hair
dressing can occupy so great a place in the thoughts of both sexes as
it does in this era of the Roman Empire.
Good clothes and fine rings are in fact so important that if you do
not possess them, on many social occasions you must hire them. There
were several guests at Statilia’s wedding who appeared in gala robes
with handsome jewels to match. With them went attendants who passed
for confidential freedmen; yet it was whispered they were actually the
agents of costume purveyors charged to see that every hired banqueting
gown and topaz-set ring was promptly returned.
Roman garments are like the Greek: they are usually _wrapped on_,
they are not like those of a later age which must be _put on_. Pins,
buckles, and brooches usually take the place of buttons. Sometimes,
however, costumes of a different type can be met with in the
cosmopolitan crowds in the fora. Occasionally are seen Persians and
Parthians wearing tight-fitting leathern casings around their lower
limbs, like the articles that another day will style “trousers”; and
more frequently are met blond or red-headed Gauls wearing _caracallæ_,
close-fitting garments with long sleeves, slit down in front and
reaching to the knee.[33] Such dresses are, however, exceptional.
Loose shawl-like apparel prevails in Rome just as with nearly all the
classical Mediterranean peoples.
[Illustration: ROMANS WEARING THE TOGA.]
=66. The Toga, the National Latin Garment.=--But Roman tailors have
never been servile imitators of Sparta or Athens. Long before Greek
costumers became familiar visitors by the Tiber, the Latin folk had
found their own national garment--the _toga_. Every true Roman is
proud of the right to wear this distinctive garment, and its use
is prohibited to non-Romans, however princely or wealthy. A group
of ex-slaves has just come from the prætor, where their master has
emancipated them--thereby making them Roman citizens. In a body they
are flocking to the clothiers’ stalls whence they can emerge as
arrogant _togati_--lawful members of the imperial race. An unfortunate
senator has lately been condemned for malfeasance in office and
sentenced to banishment. It is not the least of his penalty that
he must also divest himself of his toga: it can never be worn by a
degraded exile. Clients have to wear this gown _de rigueur_ when they
visit their patrons in the morning--he would feel insulted if they
omitted it.
Anybody also having the least official business at the palace must
wear the toga; and the reigning Hadrian has just issued an edict
commanding all senators and equites to wear the garment on the city
streets at all times except when returning from dinner parties; while
the distinguished rhetorician Titus Castricius has lately delivered a
public lecture,--probably by imperial request, on “the proper costume
for senators walking about Rome,” urging obedience to the law. The toga
in short occupies a place in Roman manners hardly equaled by any other
garment in any other nation.
Nevertheless, many a client or nobleman, as he dons this mantle,
inwardly curses the folly of the men of “the good old times” in
selecting the toga as the national garment. It is very hot, very
clumsy, very hard to drape around one’s self without expert assistance.
Everybody knows the story of old Cincinnatus, how when he was out
plowing and the committee of Senators suddenly appeared to say, “You
are named dictator; make haste to save the imperilled army”, would
not receive them until his wife had run and fetched his toga and he
was suitably clad. In his day, however, the toga was almost the only
garment worn and was hardly more than a small-sized woolen shawl. Now
one always wears a _tunica_ as a house and undergarment, and the
toga has been growing ever larger and more elaborate. Dandies still
wear togas so huge as to justify Cicero’s sneer: “They wrap themselves
in _sails_ not in togas.” But even for decent citizens the
garment is disagreeably complicated. The use thereof is one of the
penalties for the splendid right to boast, “Civis Romanus sum!”
=67. Varieties of Togas.=--The normal toga is always of wool and is
usually of a dull white, the natural color of the wool; but in the
Republican days seekers for election to public office would have their
togas bleached to a conspicuous snowy whiteness, and hence their name,
_Candidati_--“extra-white” men. Boys wear the _toga prætexta_, a toga
with an elaborately embroidered purple hem. When they put this off on
reaching manhood (fourteen to sixteen) they proudly assume the pure
white toga, inwardly hoping, however, that they can some day reappear
in the _prætexta_--for it is also the official robe of the high
“curule” magistrates.
More glorious still is the _toga picta_ entirely of purple and with
gold embroidery, which can be worn by great officials while they are
presiding over public games, and which is used by the Emperors on
all state occasions. Quite different, of course, is the gloomy _toga
pulla_, dyed to some dark color, and worn as mourning or to excite
sympathy in some threatened calamity; _e.g._ if one is the defendant in
a dangerous lawsuit.
=68. Draping the Toga.=--The plain white toga, however, suffices
in most cases for most Romans. Of course, there is a vast difference
between the dirty shawls not without moth holes, which some of Calvus’s
clients have thrown around them the morning we visit his mansion, and
the garment which his special valet, Parmenio, drapes about him when
presently the Senator announces, “I must visit the Forum.”
Parmenio has to be assisted by no less than three other slaves while
he literally winds the soft white mass of fine Milesian wool around
his master. When skillfully draped, the toga appears to be an easy and
elegant garment, leaving the right arm at liberty, and flowing around
the person in noble lines implying dignity and deliberation. Well can
it be called “one of the handsomest dresses ever worn by man”; but who
can tell the pains required to get the huge semi-circular fabric into
shape.[34]
Every fold has to settle with precision; every corner has to trail to
exactly the right length; and the whole has to be so adjusted that
Calvus can walk easily without fear of dislocating his toga, although
it is without brooches or other fastenings. When at last, however, all
is ready, the results justify the effort. Its wearer appears every inch
a Senator: one of the leaders of the arrogant imperial race.
=69. The Tunica.=--The toga has to be worn everywhere in public,
but the instant he is back from the hot Forum, Calvus is more than
glad to fling it off. Indoors he, with all other Romans, wears the
_tunica_. The tunic is a comparatively new garment in Italy. In
early Rome probably the toga was the only clothing worn at all except
a simple undershirt or loin cloth. The tunic in fact resembles closely
the Greek _chiton_,[35] and is made much the same for men and
for women. It is a kind of long shirt fashioned by sewing two pieces
of cloth together, with holes for the arms or with short sleeves, and
secured around the waist by a girdle. Long sleeves (Gallic style) are
not unknown but they are accounted very effeminate. Without the belt
the tunic falls well down to the ankles, but it is easily shortened by
drawing the cloth up through the girdle and letting it tumble around
the waist in a loose fold.
In warm weather the tunic is often the only garment that a Roman wears
indoors. In cold weather he will put a second tunic (or two or three
extra, as did Augustus) under his outer one. Like the toga the tunic is
ordinarily made of white wool, the finer the better, but, unlike the
toga, if the wearer is of the nobility, the tunic is never plain. When
the owner is an eques a narrow strip of purple (_angusticlavia_),
if a senator a broad strip (_laticlavia_), runs down the entire
length of the garment both behind and in front. This is the official
token of his rank, that all men may reverence his nobility, and one of
the chief tasks of a great man’s valets is to hang the toga so that the
purple strips on the tunic will always peep out conspicuously from the
undergarment.
=70. Capes, Cloaks, and Gala Garments.=--The toga and the tunic are
the two standard male garments in peace times, but they do not meet
every requirement. On festival days, unless the imperial edict is very
strictly enforced, most of the younger citizens will be seen streaming
to the theater or circus in the _lacerna_. This, at first, was merely
a short sleeveless mantle of light stuff thrown over the toga to
protect against dust or rain. Presently it was made into a more festive
garment, usually of brilliantly dyed wool, and was substituted for the
toga outright. There is a hood usually attached and it is convenient,
therefore, to wear the lacerna if one is not anxious to be recognized
on the streets; it is so very easy to conceal one’s face.
In bad weather, and with poor country people in general, however, the
_pænula_ is more useful. This is much like the lacerna, a sleeveless
(“Shaker”) cloak or cape, also provided with a hood, but always made
of coarse heavy material. Most travelers wear the pænula, and it is a
common garment for the slaves.
Like the pænula in turn is a third type of swinging cloak, but usually
cut shorter,--the _sagum_, issued to soldiers. Sometimes it is of
rough material for the severest purposes, sometimes it is a truly
elegant garment for officers, floating in bright colors over flashing
armor. The generals wear a special sagum of conspicuous red, the
_paludamentum_. The sagum is, in fact, so decidedly the military cloak
that the phrase “changing the toga for the sagum” has become a regular
way of saying “being suddenly called to arms.”
One can see many Oriental and Greek-style garments in Rome, but
native gentlemen have only one other article of apparel that must
be mentioned. Everybody ought to keep a gauzy and brilliantly dyed
_synthesis_ for indoor wear at formal dinner parties, to wear over
the tunic. It can never be worn outdoors except during the jolly riot
of the Saturnalia, but indoors it is light, comfortable, and a fine
contrast to the heavy togas. Saffron, amethystine, and azure are the
favorite colors, and at ultra-fashionable parties it is good form for
a male guest to rise between courses and put on a new synthesis of a
different hue, held ready by his slaves.
=71. Garments of Women: the _Stola_ and the _Palla_.=--Calvus, of
course, keeps many specimens of all these garments in his wardrobe.
The average poor citizen gets along with a toga, a tunic or two, and
probably a pænula. Gratia’s clothes chests and presses are inevitably
more ample than her husband’s, but the garments of a Roman lady
resemble those of a Greek--they are far more like the masculine
garments than are those of women of a later age. Gratia really seldom
wears any save three kinds of garments: her tunics, her stolæ, and her
pallæ.
Roman ladies anxious about their figures cannot squeeze themselves
with corsets, but sometimes they do wear bands of soft leather pressed
tightly around their bodies. Then comes the tunic, extremely like the
inner tunic worn by the men, but it fits the body rather more closely;
sometimes it has no sleeves, and it falls only to the knee and it needs
no belt. Over this single garment is the essential dress of the Roman
matrona, her _stola_. It is decidedly more elaborate than the outer
tunic of the men. In the main it is not sewn, but is held together by
a whole series of clasps and pins--giving an admirable opportunity for
the display of gem-set buckles. There is a girdle, passing high, above
the waist; the many folds tumble to the feet, but at the very bottom
there is an embroidered flounce or hem, and with noble women at least
this flounce is always of purple as is the border around the neck.
[Illustration: A ROMAN MATRON: showing the
_stola_ and _palla_.]
Like the toga, the stola is an extremely ample garment, giving its
owner a chance to display innumerable graceful folds; and like the
toga, good taste requires that it should usually be of clear white. To
wear the stola is the proud privilege of Roman matrons, and in it no
woman of light character is permitted to flaunt herself.[36] Girls put
on the stola immediately after their marriage, and even more than the
toga it is a garment of grace, permitting beautiful poses of statuesque
dignity.
Outdoors a Roman lady will wrap herself in her _palla_. This is merely
a large shawl, although often with elaborate arrangement. Gratia’s
maids usually throw one third of its length over her left shoulder,
letting the end trail almost to her feet, while the remainder is
carried behind the back and wound skilfully around the wearer, although
if a head covering is needed, one can draw up some of the cloth and
form a loose and convenient hood.
Every woman in Rome possesses a palla; and the wealthy, of course, own
whole arsenals of them in every possible size, weight, material, color,
and embroidery, suitable for all purposes from winter travel to snaring
susceptible youths beside one in the theater.
=72. Materials for Garments. Wool and Silk.=--So much for the types of
garments. Needless to say that their fabrics and details are infinite.
_Wool_ is still the standard material. Even now “in these degenerate
days” the best Roman matrons keep the spindles and distaffs working
with their maids in the peristylia, and make up a large part of all the
coarser garments needed by the household. Calvus takes pride in wearing
and exhibiting a really handsome toga and in telling his friends “my
Gratia made that”; but various other senators can utter like boasts,
their wives merely imitating such empresses as Livia, who wove all
Augustus’s everyday garments.
On the great villa estates the slaves are kept from busy idleness in
winter by weaving cloth, not merely for themselves, but for their
masters’ families in the city. But such fabrics, ordinarily, are
decidedly coarse. There are really fine woolens made in southern Italy,
but the very best comes from the East. “Milesian wool” is a trade name
in every market, though very likely much of it actually is from Tyre,
Sidon, or Alexandria. A good deal of linen is woven up into comfortable
house dresses. Enough cotton comes in from the Orient to make it no
rarity for superior garments, but it is too scarce for any common use.
What every Roman of fashion dotes upon, however, is _silk_.
Far away in the East is a half-mythical land, _Serica_ or _Seres_.
Hardly any European has ever penetrated there,[37] but caravan traders
pass along small parcels of a wonderful material alleged to grow on
trees. Garments made thereof are incomparably lovely; but the material
is worth its full weight in gold or even more. As a result the stuff is
spun up into the flimsiest and gauziest gala dresses imaginable, and
these are often partly made of cotton. Seneca has written in disgust
“We see silken garments, if indeed, they can be called ‘garments’ which
neither afford protection to the body, nor concealment to modesty.”
For all that women like Statilia and her mother will be miserable if
they have not plenty of “Serician tissues” wherewith to float into the
Amphitheater or Circus and dazzle their rivals in a city where, as
complains Juvenal: “Everybody always dresses above his means.”
=73. Styles of Arranging Garments. Fullers and Cleaners.=--With
garments so simple in their sewing as togas and stolas there is little
call in Rome for exclusive tailoring establishments or for fashionable
makers of “gowns.” Practically all purchased clothing, however costly,
is “ready-made,” although the shifting styles in girding, arranging the
folds, buckles, etc., are infinite. For example, there is a special
arrangement of the toga in peculiarly ample folds known as the
“Gabinian cincture,” and this form is practically required every time a
man joins in an important sacrifice.
If, nevertheless, the dressmaker’s skill is simple, there is constant
demand for that of the _cleaner’s_, whose art is brought to great
perfection. The huge squares of fine woolen seem continually going
to or coming from the fullers’ establishments. The fullers pass for
peculiarly jovial, friendly people, and the “jolly fuller” is a stock
character in comedy.
Soap is a Gallic invention and it is just coming into fairly common
use. Garments are still cleansed, however, with “fuller’s meal,” a
kind of alkaline earth. Wherever you go around the humbler parts of
Rome you hear a monotonous song being trolled over and over, and
coming usually from a pungently smelling establishment. It is the
fullers’ _tripudium_ (“three step”), sung as they tread out the
clothes in the great vats all day long. After the direct cleaning, a
fine garment has to be recarded to bring up the soft nap, then it is
carefully smoothed in a large wooden press with powerful screws.[38]
Every household can do its own laundry work, but in no later age will
the “cleaner” reign with the supremacy which he enjoys in Rome. His
justification comes when, at great public assemblies, thousands of
togas and stolas veritably shine under the Italian sun like newly
fallen snow.
=74. Barber Shops. The Revived Wearing of Beards.=--Rome, too, is
a city of barbers. Their shops abound everywhere and are great places
for lounging and gossip. Most men have their hair clipped quite short,
although a good many dandies delight in wearing fringes or rows of
short crisped curls (as did Nero) often reeking with pomatum. People
who dislike appearing old sometimes use black hair dye; and not a few
elderly senators are said to wear wigs.
[Illustration: SCENE BEFORE A BARBER SHOP.]
The barber shops, however, have recently received a terrific blow;
and loud is the lament of the entire profession shared in by all
those private “house barbers” who care for the wealthy. Since not
long after 300 B.C. Romans have been smooth shaven, beards ordinarily
being counted the sign of rusticity or of poverty; although teachers
of philosophy wore long whiskers as a kind of professional badge. The
day when a youth shaved off his first beard was celebrated almost as
elaborately as the day he assumed the pure white “manly” toga. But to
general consternation the reigning Emperor Hadrian, in his passionate
admiration for Periclean Athens, has astonished all Rome by appearing
with a full beard. Of course, every courtier and government official
has loyally imitated him. Of course, every senator and eques has with
equal loyalty done likewise. Feminine protests have been utterly
vain. Beards, sometimes closely trimmed, sometimes long and venerable,
have blossomed on almost every manly chin across the entire Empire.
Imperial Rome will henceforth continue bearded until the era of
Constantine, nearly two hundred years, when the razor will suddenly
resume its sway. Such is the power of Cæsarian example!
[Illustration: ROMAN FEMALE HEADS: showing elaborate
arrangement of the hair.]
=75. FASHIONS IN WOMEN’S HAIRDRESSING. HAIR ORNAMENTS.=--If the
barbers are unhappy, their gentler rivals, the _ornatrices_, who
dress the hair of ladies, still reign in full glory. No Roman girl
dreams of cutting off her hair, but the modes of arranging it are, as
says Ovid, “More numerous than the leaves on the oak or the bees on
Mount Hybla.” Fashions come and go with astonishing rapidity, and we
have seen how Gratia’s statue was devised so that a new coiffure could
be substituted for the old (see p. 53).
As a rule young girls bind back their hair in simple coils or clusters
of curls, but some of the styles permitted to them from the moment
they become matrons defy easy description. The prevailing mode rather
favors building up the hair in an elaborate semi-circular mound in
front with ringlets and plaits behind; but many a lady appears with
a perfect tower-like structure that would collapse instantly were it
not an affair compacted with extreme art. Of course, such edifices put
a premium on false hair, preferably blonde from Germany, or even on
wigs. Auburn hair, however, is extremely fashionable, and many a lady
buys the expensive “Batavian caustic” supposed to bleach to the proper
shade. Even very modest women can rejoice in great treasure chests of
hair ornaments, elaborate hair pins, and combs made of precious metal
or fine boxwood, ivory, and tortoise shell; besides all kinds of snoods
and wimples usually of scarlet, amethystine, or ivory. Noble dames
will keep at least one _diadem_, a long band of golden chains set
with as many pearls and jewels as possible. On simple social occasions
they will wear their hair in a net of gold thread. As for the very
wealthy, they have one simple and favorite method of displaying their
riches--that of bidding their maids, almost every day, to sprinkle the
whole coiffure liberally with pure gold dust.
=76. Elaborate Toilets.=--Needless to say, the toilet is, to ladies
of fashion, a slow and serious business, consuming most of the
morning.[39] Statilia’s mother, for example, who is now old enough to
have to guard her complexion, has as her first duty that of suffering
her maidens to peel off the thick layer of cosmetic paste smeared upon
her face ere retiring. She complains that her husband is stingy because
he will not let her imitate Poppæa (Nero’s Empress), who took a bath in
asses’ milk every morning to improve her looks.
Such a lady, of course, requires two maids to dress her and to pile the
masses of hair upon her head; the pair being supported and directed by
an old freedwoman who “assists at the council,” skilfully improves and
flatters, and who perhaps can do something to assuage the domina’s fury
if the latter’s silver mirror reveals a misplaced curl, and she stabs
the clumsy maid’s arm with a sharp hairpin, or even shrieks out in
wrath “Bring in the whipper!”
Blessed with such “tiers and storys” upon their heads, Roman women
seldom need anything else out-of-doors except a veil or hood in extreme
heat or bad weather. There are no milliners’ shops along the Via
Lata or Vicus Tuscus. The men likewise seldom bother about hats, and
everybody on normal days goes about town bareheaded, although travelers
have the hoods upon their pænulas. Workingmen, however, who are
continually exposed to the weather, wear small conical felt hats--the
pilei; and travelers who find hoods irksome can keep off the sun by a
comfortable broad-brimmed hat, the _petasus_.
=77. Sandals and Shoes.=--Shoes, however, are more necessary and
nobody but a slave goes barefooted around the streets. In the house
nevertheless it is sufficient to wear very light and simple sandals,
mere leather soles fastened to the foot with thongs; and even these are
laid aside when you stretch out on the couch for meals. To “call for
your sandals” is the same thing as “leaving the table.”
[Illustration: SANDALS.]
Outdoors one often puts on the _calceus_, which is practically
like the shoe of other ages, although fastened not so much by lacings
as by a complicated system of straps. Women’s shoes are much like
men’s, although inevitably lighter and more often made of brightly
colored leathers. High magistrates are proud to wear red “Patrician
shoes” with an extra elaborate scheme of bands and an ivory ornament
“C” conspicuous upon the outside of the ankle.[40] Ordinary senators
wear red shoes without the “C”; and equites a kind of tall boot
recalling the days when to be an eques really implied being a horseman.
Soldiers naturally clatter about in hob-nailed _caligæ_, ponderous
sandals with such heavy straps and thongs that they become practically
marching boots. As for stockings, they are all but unknown in Rome.
=78. The Mania for Jewels and Rings.=--But what dandy and what
fashionable woman is content to appear merely with the standard
quantity of clothing? The mania for jewelry is inordinate. Teachers of
oratory have to warn their pupils as did the great Quintilian that “the
hand [of a good public speaker] should not be covered with rings, and
especially these should not be set below the middle joint.” Exquisites
of both sexes, in fact, often wear half a dozen rings at once; all with
as fine jewels as possible, and with a separate “light” set of rings
for summer, and a “heavy” set for winter.
[Illustration: ROMAN JEWELRY AND ORNAMENTS.]
The jewelry work is, of course, exquisite. In the best shops by
the Campus Martius can be seen rings of magnificent chasing and
carving, set with onyx, sard, banded agate, amethyst, ruby, and
sapphire,[41]--some plain, some engraved, and all of a beauty which
any later age can envy. Inevitably there are pendants, coronets, and
innumerable brooches, and buckles every whit as fine.
In addition, every Roman of equestrian or senatorial rank will wear
with pride one perfectly _plain_ gold ring (like a later wedding
ring) as the token of his own nobility, and as the memorial of a time
when a simple gold ring was the sign of real wealth. Every person of
consequence also will wear a special signet ring, often an intaglio cut
with some mythological character. The impression of this frequently
takes the place of a personal signature, and the illicit use of such a
ring constitutes the gravest kind of forgery.
=79. Pearls in Enormous Favor.=--Time fails to speak of the beautiful
cameos, intaglios, engraved medals, and huge engraved gems which are
the triumphs of the lapidaries, and which many rich connoisseurs put
in their collections; but one must not omit certain precious objects
which Romans seem to prize above all others: _pearls_. The more pearls
apparently that the fashionable can spangle upon shoes, dress, fingers,
and (for women) upon the hair, the better. The great jewelers will say
that they sell more pearls than all the ordinary gems put together.
The imperial councilors protest in vain at the ceaseless export of gold
to India to pay for the unprofitable imports of pearls from Taprobane
(Ceylon), but the mania for such gems continues. People still tell
how Julius Cæsar gave to Servilia, the mother of Marcus Brutus, a
single weight pearl worth six million sesterces ($240,000); or how
the inordinately rich Lollia Paulina, one of Caligula’s overnumerous
wives, appeared at a dinner party, with great pearls spangled over
her unlovely person worth all together every whit of forty million
sesterces ($1,600,000).[42] There are no such tantalizing collections
as hers now in Rome, but many a lady of modest means has in her coffers
a few pearls large and beautiful; and the cynics declare that in a
crowd “the sight of a big pearl in a woman’s ear is better than a
lictor to clear the way for her.”
=80. Perfumes: Their Constant Use.=--Nevertheless, something else is
needful for a fine toilet beyond clothes, rings, and pearls, namely,
perfumes. The old-line Italians were a coarse and hardy folk; and
later the Orientals, whom slavery or self-interest has brought into
Italy, have a truly barbaric love for powerful odors. Even modest
women, therefore, of reputed good taste like Gratia, will appear in
public charged with scents which another generation would find highly
unwelcome.
There is no alcohol in which to carry perfumery. The odorous substances
have to be dissolved in olive oil, making them at best greasy and
liable to grow flat and obnoxious after a little exposure. But
perfumery is practically indispensable. Men use it hardly less than do
women. At fine banquets vials of perfumery are passed among the guests
to pour over their heads and hands. The foppish youths who wave the
hair on their heads, and render the rest of their bodies sleek and
shiny with depilatories, simply reek with strong perfumery.
On almost every important street you can find the little shops, usually
kept by women, where are sold scented powders, fragrant oils for
bathers, and the precious bottles of gold, silver, glass, and alabaster
for the unguents, as well as the standard perfumes themselves.
Profitless it is to catalogue these last; Pliny the Elder has listed
twenty-one standard varieties mostly named after favorite flowers
(_e.g._ narcissus) or Oriental spices (cinnamon, etc.).[43] Every
funeral demands its supply of myrrh; every sacrifice a quantity of
Arabian frankincense. The perfume trade with the East is an important
factor in Roman commerce, but very many of the popular unguents are
compounded in Italy. The great city of Capua in Campania grows rich
by the industry;[44] and the “perfumery interest” is one of the prime
business elements in the economic life of the Empire. So much for the
garments and ornaments which typical Romans put upon their persons. It
is now right to ask concerning a more important matter still--what do
they have for dinner?
CHAPTER VI
FOOD AND DRINK. HOW THE DAY IS SPENT. THE DINNER
=81. Romans Fond of the Table. Gourmandizing. The Famous
Apicius.=--Seldom can there be another age when the importance of
good eating and drinking occupies the place that it does in Rome.
Vast numbers of coarse-grained people devoid of the least ability to
criticize fine bronzes or to comprehend Homer or Virgil can go into
ecstasies over superior oysters. Epicurean philosophers can argue
that “the true, the beautiful and the good” are to be as genuinely
apprehended by the enjoyment of ravishing tastes as by ravishing music.
Gastronomy has become a kind of supreme science and art, and no slaves
sell for better prices than truly expert cooks.
Repeatedly huge fortunes have been ruined merely because their
possessors wished to surpass all rivals with the extravagant
refinements of gluttony. Since 69 A.D. and the coming to power
of the simpler Flavian Cæsars there has been a fortunate decline in
many absurdities, but there are still plenty of people who admire and
envy the fame of Apicius, the true example for the gourmand.
[Illustration: ROMAN BANQUET SCENE. _After Von
Falke._]
Marcus Apicius flourished in Tiberius’s age; and he developed a
positive genius for inventing new sources of culinary delight. Every
quarter of the Roman world was ransacked to find strange objects
whereon to whet his appetite. In Hadrian’s day people continue to
eat Apician cakes and Apician sauces, such as are described in his
encyclopædic cook books. But although he inherited a hundred million
sesterces ($4,000,000), at last his steward reported glumly, “You
have only ten million ($400,000) left.” How was it possible for a true
gourmand to exist in such poverty?--Apicius, therefore, committed
suicide rather than live on commonplace fare! Many will tell you that
he showed the right spirit and that his busts stand as a kind of
inspiration for dozens of rich epicures in their marble triclinia.
=82. Vitellius, the Imperial Glutton.=--One of Apicius’s disciples,
Vitellius, rose to Empire. In his brief reign (April-December 69 A.D.)
before Vespasian’s troops killed him, he taught his subjects how truly
a man can live to eat. He had trained himself by the constant use of
emetics to devour four heavy meals per day.[45] His senatorial friends,
obliged to invite him to their houses, never dared to offer him a
dinner costing less than 400,000 sesterces ($16,000). His brother gave
him a banquet at which were served “2000 choice fishes and 7000 birds”;
but he returned the favor by giving a feast at the imperial palace in
which he served his favorites with “The Shield of Minerva”--a kind of
salad-supreme made of “the livers of charfish, the brains of pheasants
and peacocks, the tongues of flamingoes, and the entrails of lampreys.”
Warships had been sent as far as the Ægean or Spain to round up some of
these viands. It was lucky for the treasury that his reign was a very
short one.
=83. Simple Diet of the Early Romans.=--And yet these worthies
gorged and guzzled in a city whose founders had been famous for their
abstemiousness. For many a generation even prosperous Romans had lived
very largely on coarse bread or even on a coarser wheat porridge
(_puls_). Wheat porridge was what supplied the brawn and courage
to the legionaries who brought to ruin Pyrrhus, Hannibal, Philip of
Macedon, and Antiochus. They were fortunate if their meal was not made
of barley, later counted as being barely fit for inferior slaves.
Even senators, we are told, were glad to pick a few green vegetables in
their gardens to help out the porridge. On feast days there would be a
little pork or bacon from the hanging rack, and if there was a public
sacrifice the worshipers might each take home a lump of beef. Such was
the dietary of the men who originally made possible the fortunes of an
Apicius, and as late as 174 B.C. there were no professional cooks in
Rome. Now, however, there are plenty of purple-fringed exquisites who
“can tell at first bite whether an oyster comes from Circeii, or the
Lucerine rocks or clear from Britain; or at one glance discover the
native shore of a sea-urchin.”
[Illustration: GRIST MILL TURNED BY HORSE AND FILLED AND
EMPTIED BY A SLAVE.]
=84. Bread and Vegetables.=--However, there are still multitudes
who have to be content with very simple fare, and for them bread in
some form is (as with all the Mediterranean peoples) very literally
“the staff of life.” In the great mansions there is, of course, a
bakehouse for the huge familia, but the bulk of people frequent the
numerous public bakeries, near which the mills driven by patient
donkeys or by less patient slaves are incessantly grinding flour.
The standard loaves are made very flat, of moderate size, and about
two inches thick, their backs often marked with six or eight notches.
There is a cheap bread of coarse grain (_panis sordidus_) for the
humblest; a second quality (_panis secundus_) for better class
purchasers, and also the very white and sweet _siligineus_. You ask for
“Picenian bread” if you want fine biscuit, and for _libæ_ if you desire
smaller rolls. At feasts there will be wonderful structures of pastry,
and by use of honey and chopped fruits sweet “cake” truly delectable
comes out of many ovens.
Vegetables and fruits can hardly play the part that they will in
later gastronomy: potatoes, tomatoes, oranges, lemons--all these are
grievously wanting. But there are admirable cabbages, “the finest
vegetable in the world,” declared Cato the Elder, and turnips, the
favorite dish of tough old Manius Curius, conqueror of the Samnites.
Around Rome, for many miles, are long stretches of profitable truck
gardens, which send an incessant supply of artichokes, asparagus,
beans, beets, cucumbers, lentils, melons, onions, peas, and pumpkins
into the city. A visitor to Rome should promptly accustom himself to
garlic; and there is a certain fashionable rusticity about garlic
eaters, as if they were trying to bring back the flavor and odor of
“the good old times.”
=85. Fruits, Olives, Grapes, and Spices.=--Italy, of course, is
an excellent fruit country. In the markets are apples, pears, plums,
and quinces, besides an abundance of very fine nuts, such as walnuts,
filberts, and almonds. Peaches, apricots, cherries, and pomegranates
are familiar, although some of these are rather late introductions to
the peninsula from the East. Of course, in season there never fail
magnificent olives and grapes which have abounded in Italy since time
immemorial.
A great demand exists, too, for all kinds of salad greens; cresses
and fine lettuce, also edible mallows. Poppy-seed mixed with honey is
a standard dish for desserts, and such seasonings as anise, fennel,
mint, and mustard can be bought in all the innumerable little grocery
shops scattered over Rome. In the larger foodshops can be had likewise
those Oriental spices in heavy demand by the epicures; and also very
costly imported fruits, often preserved with great ingenuity in an age
that knows not the use of canning processes, refrigerating plants, or
sugar.
=86. Meat and Poultry.=--The demand for meat has been steadily
increasing with the growth of luxury and economic prosperity. Butchers’
shops abound. Poor people buy goats’ flesh, which, however, is
completely disdained by the finical. Many citizens nevertheless never
taste beef or mutton except when it is distributed in the form of a
sacrifice at some of the great public festivals; and even for the rich
beef is not in extraordinary favor.
Pork, however, is always popular. The despised Jews never seem to the
Romans to show their national folly more clearly than in refusing to
eat thereof. Pork in all forms, especially bacon and pork sausages
figure in every important banquet; and up in the Apennines in the vast
acorn forests, uncounted herds of swine are always fattening to satisfy
the incessant demands of the great capital. Poultry is on the whole in
greater demand than meat.[46] Squawking coops of common fowl, ducks,
and geese are on sale at almost every street corner. There is also
good money in raising upon country preserves quantities of partridges,
thrushes, and grouse, and even of cranes. In Cicero’s day peacocks made
a very fashionable dish, and they are still in request, although losing
their old popularity. Hares, rabbits, venison are comparatively cheap,
and everybody with a price can buy wild boar at the better purveyors’
shops.
=87. Fish in Great Demand.=--Rome, however, somewhat resembles Athens
in one particular; the butcher shops are less important than the fish
dealers’ stalls.[47] Poor people eat salt fish or pickled fish, from
little sardines to slices of the big _cybium_, as forming frequently
the only break in an otherwise vegetarian diet. They also make up salt
fish with various vegetables and cheese into a kind of fishballs. A
man of income, however, is unhappy without his fresh fish daily. This
creates a serious and expensive problem for Rome. There are a few eels
and pike of good flavor caught right in the Tiber between the bridges,
but the great fish supply must be brought from a distance--often in
warm weather without aid of refrigerating plants. Frequently along
the road from Ostia, and very often down the Via Appia clear from
Puteoli can be seen large wagons tearing in hot haste. They bring not
government dispatches but fresh fish that will frequently command
absurd prices in the city.
Often all kinds of sea-food are transported still alive in small tanks;
and sometimes the distance whence they can be imported is astonishing.
The best turbots (large flat fish) come from Ravenna on the Adriatic.
Eels can be brought in good flavor from Sicily and even from Spain.
Gourmands go into ecstasies over oysters from Circeii or Baiæ, but of
late people wishing to astonish their fashionable friends have actually
claimed to import such shellfish from Britain. The real fish for the
epicure, notwithstanding, is by common confession the noble mullet. The
flavor of the best specimens is ravishing, and, for a truly large and
perfect mullet, the prices paid are astonishing. It is a common story
that a certain Crispinus, a satellite of Domitian’s, once gave 6000
sesterces ($240) for a single six-pound mullet; “More than the cost of
the slave-fisherman!” indignantly exclaimed the outraged Juvenal.
Many great nobles, however, disdain having to depend on the public
markets. At their seaside villas they have huge salt-water tanks and
artificial fishponds; therein mullet, turbot, carp, and eels can be
bred, fattened, and brought to perfection, and on the day of a feast a
slave will hurry them up to Rome still gasping.
=88. Olive Oil and Wine: Their Universal Use.=--Supplementing
the salt fish and bread, the poor of the capital, like all genuine
Mediterranean folk, seldom fail to get their oil and wine. Olives are
gladly eaten green, ripened, or preserved in great quantities with salt
or pickle, but their greatest value comes from their oil. To Rome as
to Athens olive oil is not merely food; it largely takes the place of
toilet soap, and it supplies also the most common illuminant (see “A
Day in Old Athens,” p. 177). It is a complete substitute for butter in
the average dietary, often making dry or moldy bread palatable, and as
earlier stated (p. 98), it is the basis for most of the ointments and
perfumery wherein the average citizen delights.
As for drink, practically every Roman has his wine. There are, indeed,
beverages made from wheat and barley, and also from fermented quince
juice, but for daily purposes beer and distilled liquors never appear
at Italian banquets. Cider is sometimes drunk, and a little so-called
“wine” made from mulberries; but the enormous vineyards existing in
every part of the country testify to the importance of ordinary grape
wine.
Vintners’ stalls are almost as common along the streets as bakeries.
The drink they sell in jars, skins, or small flagons is sometimes
decidedly resinous after the Greek fashion, and in any case is
extremely sour, so that a large admixture of honey is often required
to make the favorite sweet _mulsum_. In any case only sheer
barbarians will drink their wine undiluted, and really good wine can
stand as much as eight parts of water to one of itself without losing
too much flavor.
=89. Vintages and Varieties of Wine.=--There are as many varieties
of wine as there are regions around the Mediterranean. Each produces
a vintage that is tolerable, and some are highly select. Your average
poor plebeian can get a large jug of palatable stuff for a sesterce
(4 cents). The wealthy will think nothing of paying heavily for
_amphoræ_ (tall jars) of choice old Setinian (the best wine in
Italy), or for Falernian, Albanian, or Massic which count next among
the native vintages. If, however, you are giving a formal dinner
party, etiquette dictates that at least one imported drink should be
served. It makes an excellent impression to bring in Chian, Thasian, or
Lesbian from the Ægean, or even Mareotian from Egypt and the splendid
Chalybonium from Damascus, the delight of Oriental kings.
In summer time wines, of course, are drunk cold, and at luxurious
banquets they are even chilled with snow water. In winter, however,
you will often see a kind of bronze samovar, heated by charcoal, used
for preparing _calda_, warm water and wine, heavily charged with
spices; and at the cheap eating houses the calda counter is often
thronged, especially on chilly afternoons. Common soldiers, slaves, and
plebeians of the lowest class have a special beverage all their own,
namely _posca_, which is simply vinegar mixed with enough water to
make it palatable. It probably forms a really refreshing drink, if one
can acquire the taste for it.[48]
Time fails to tell of various rare vintages which are treasured by the
epicures as if worth their weight in gold. In 121 B.C. there
was a wonderful yield of wine called Vina Opimia from the then Consul
Opimius. By Hadrian’s day the last drops of this precious liquor have
long since disappeared, but men still discuss the traditions of its
nectarous flavor. In every great house the wine cellar retains a number
of web-covered and dirty glass jars carefully sealed with gypsum, and
with labels showing that they were laid away perhaps a hundred years
ago. As for the undesirability of wine-drinking, that idea has hardly
crossed any man’s head; and Horace in Augustus’s day voiced a universal
thought when he sang that good wine, “Made the wise confess their
secret lore; brought hope to anxious souls, and gave the poor strength
to lift up his horn.”
=90. Kitchens and the Niceties of Cookery.=--With such attention
to good eating and drinking a Roman kitchen necessarily requires
an elaborate equipment. Cook stoves there are none; but there are
extensive masonry or brick hearths. The charcoal fire heats the stones
until a broad surface is glowing and ready for remarkable culinary
achievements. The head cook in Calvus’s house rejoices in a great
battery of copper utensils often of truly elegant shape; and copper
ware (more expensive than tin, but far more durable) appears in every
Roman kitchen. There are pastry molds, dippers, ladles, great spoons,
little spoons, baking pans for small cakes, in short, everything to
delight the heart of the housewife of another age.
Nobody expects us to investigate rudely the peculiar dishes evolved in
the kitchen of a genuine gourmand. Cookery, the disciples of Apicius
aver, is not a common handicraft, but the noblest of sciences. Only a
thrice-initiated epicure, a man who has carefully trained his tongue
to discriminate the least shades of taste, and his fingers to endure
hot viands so that he may pluck out the morsels at precisely the proper
temperature, can appreciate many of the refinements.
Calvus laughs, indeed, at a friend of his who lately insisted on
serving “a wild boar from Lucania caught when the South wind was
blowing,” with “honey apples picked under a waning moon,” and
“lampreys caught just before spawning.” Such people will also explain
dogmatically that “eggs of oblong shape have better flavor than round
ones;” and that “after drinking wine the appetite is better stimulated
by dried ham than by boiled sausage,” or that “it spoils the flavor of
Massic wine to strain it through linen; but you can clear it by mixing
with the lees of Falernian and then adding the yolk of a pigeon’s
egg.”[49] A new dish coming loyally into favor is that to which Hadrian
is personally so partial--a huge meat pie wherein pheasant, peacock,
sow’s udder, and wild-boar flesh are all baked up together.
Needless to say many coarse fellows who boast themselves “epicures”
really are merely gluttons. Their appetites have become simply animal.
Rome has plenty of twin-brothers to that Santra derided by Martial, who
at a banquet “asked three times for boar’s neck, four times for the
loin, then for hare, thrushes, and oysters.” After that he bolted sweet
cakes, and finally devoid of all decency hid some fruit and a cooked
dove in the folds of his gown and sneaked home with a small jar of wine!
=91. A Roman Gentleman’s Morning: Breakfast (_jentaculum_) and the
Visit to the Forum.=--However, even gluttons like Santra spend all the
earlier part of the day under conditions of relative abstemiousness.
Romans never eat three hearty meals a day; they merely stay their
stomachs until dinner, the event they ordinarily look forward to from
early morning. In Calvus’s house everybody is supposed to rise at gray
dawn. Just as the first bars of light are making darkness visible a
_decuria_ (squad of ten) of slaves under a chamberlain (_atriensis_)
brushes down the atrium and peristylium before the master and mistress
rise and are dressed by their body servants. As promptly as possible
these noble folk are served, often in their chambers, with their
breakfast, the _jentaculum_--merely a few pieces of fine bread,
sprinkled with salt or dipped in wine, and with a few raisins and
olives, and a little cheese added. If Calvus is now expecting to go
on a journey or to put in a hard day debating in the Senate, he may
however call for some eggs and a cup of heartening mulsum.
After that, the clients are let into the atrium, greet their patron
with their _aves_, receive his counter greetings, and get their
money doles for service (see p. 150). Next, upon an ordinary day,
Calvus calls for one of his second-best togas, and issues forth. If the
Senate is convening, he, of course, seeks the Curia. If not, he will
often visit his banker upon the Via Sacra to talk over investments,
will call at the mansion of a sick friend, will go to witness a will
for another friend (a very familiar ceremony), or will go to one of the
Basilicas, where still another friend is arguing a case, and expects
all his best acquaintance--the more distinguished the better--to sit
near him and applaud as he makes his points. During all these rounds
Calvus is, of course, followed by some two dozen clients and freedmen
as well as by at least as many slaves.
=92. The Afternoon and Dinner-Time. Importance of the Dinner
(_cena_).=--After that it is near the sixth hour (12 M.). All over
Rome work ceases almost automatically; the poorer classes make for
the cook shops or itinerant food venders; while people of rank either
go home or accept the hospitality of friends for the mid-day lunch,
the _prandium_. This is a real meal, although taken as informally as
possible. The food is mostly cold,--bread, salads, olives, cheeses, and
meats remaining from last night’s dinner; although sometimes there are
hot dishes, such as hams and pigs’ heads, and a good deal of common
wine is drunk.
During the next hour everybody who can possibly spare the time takes
a short siesta. Rome, in fact, in summer seems to have gone to sleep
under the glaring sun. Then for the humbler folk toil resumes;
while the fortunate classes make for the great baths where, indeed,
under the guise of sociability a great deal of real business can be
transacted. By the ninth hour (3. P.M.) Calvus and Gratia
alike have usually finished all the formal duties for the day and are
being escorted homeward preparatory to the standard climax of every
four-and-twenty hours--the dinner.
The dinner (_cena_) is always eaten at home or at the house of
some friend. It is so strictly personal an affair that there are
almost no first-class, handsomely appointed, public restaurants in
Rome, although there is a superabundance of cheaper eating houses,
yet many of these close up during the afternoon. There are almost no
other evening entertainments--no receptions, no balls, no theaters,
no concerts.[50] But Italians in every age have been a sociable,
talk-loving, gregarious people, and the dinner seems to many of them
apparently the “be all and end all” of existence.
=93. Dinner Hunters and Parasites (“Shadows”).=--Wealthy and popular
personages never have to bother about the dinner problem; every
night they can invite whom they desire, or be sure of a summons to a
congenial board. Plenty of substantial citizens are willing and happy
to join in a simple family meal in the good old style, the master
reclining on a couch, with his wife in a somewhat more conventional
attitude beside him, the younger children sitting on a lower couch, the
freedmen and more important slaves arranged on benches at a respectful
distance.
The city nevertheless abounds in shabby-genteel individuals or social
climbers who are miserable every afternoon because some senator or an
eques does not tell them, “Come home to dinner!” For example, there
is a certain ubiquitous Selius. He hangs about the law courts, and
if a pleader is rich and noble, is always interrupting with a loud
“Excellent!” or “How clever!” Some afternoons, however, he is seen
dragging about, “the picture of misery.” Has his wife just died or his
steward embezzled? Not so. He “must dine alone at home.” Thus there
develops a type of high-class parasites, “_shadows_,” men of thick
hide and nimble wit who snap at every possible excuse for thrusting
into a dinner party, and who are willing to pay for the least honored
place on the couches by becoming the butts of the jests, or by bringing
laughter on themselves by such feats as swallowing whole cheese cakes
at a mouthful.
=94. The Standard Dinner Party--Nine Guests.=--In Athens in other
days a delightful informality prevailed at banquets. The number of
guests was seldom fixed, and it was quite proper to intrude two or
three more at the last minute. Romans are more grave, methodical, and,
be it said, more commonplace. The standard size for a dinner party is
determined by an almost inflexible custom--nine. Three couches, three
guests to a couch;--that number can concentrate around a single set of
serving tables, and let everybody mingle easily in the conversation.
Of course, you can get along with fewer guests, but it is the height
of meanness to have more than three to a couch. For a larger affair
one must therefore have two or three or more triclinia,--eighteen or
twenty-seven guests, etc. Unlike Athens, however, it is perfectly
proper to invite high-born ladies to mixed dinner parties, although
not to the free and easy drinking bouts that sometimes follow; and
the women apparently recline on the couches with perfect decorum and
modesty. Nevertheless, “stag” parties are extremely common, and one
such, of a very conventional nature, Calvus gave recently in honor of a
friend, Manlius, who was just departing as _proquæstor_ (assistant
governor) of Africa.
=95. Preparing the Dinner and Mustering the Guests.=--The guests
were invited by personal greetings at the Forum or Baths of Trajan
except one who had to be summoned by slave messenger at his home.
However two places on the couches have been left vacant deliberately
to let Manlius invite any two acquaintances he desired--a frequent
prerogative of the guest of honor. The dinner was to be a strictly
decorous affair, and, therefore, it did not begin before the tenth hour
(4 P.M.). If Calvus had desired a carouse, he might have begun
at 3 P.M. in order to get plenty of leeway for a long riotous
evening; but “early dinners” are ordinarily as great a reproach in Rome
as “late dinners” will be later.
During the morning while the master-cook was tyrannizing over his
scullions in the kitchen, and evolving various triumphs in pastry, the
chamberlain, an upper-slave, was standing whip in hand over a whole
platoon of lower slaves, giving orders like a centurion: “Sweep and
scrub the pavement!” “Polish up those pillars!” “Down with all those
spider webs!” “One of you clean the plain silver ware, and another
the embossed dishes!” The whole mansion, therefore, was furbished up
thoroughly, for a few signs of dirt before dinner guests is the most
disgraceful of shortcomings.
By the tenth hour the triclinium was in perfect order. The three
elegant sofas with purple cushions embroidered with gold thread were
arranged around the finest citrus-wood table. Small pillows were
laid upon the cushions to mark the positions of the feasters and for
them to thrust under their elbows as they lay and ate. Presently the
street before the vestibule became jammed with the retinues of the
eight guests as each swung up in his litter. Calvus greeted each of
the invited friends in the atrium, while the bulk of their escorts
turned back home to return again with torches when the party should be
over; but each guest was followed into the house by his own special
valet, who took off his shoes as soon as he stretched himself out upon
the couch, and then stood by to help Calvus’s servants serve his own
master. The triclinium was thus a decidedly crowded place, with eight
strange slaves present, besides a mobilization of all the handsomest
and most efficient of the house servants.
=96. Arrangement of the Couches: Placing the Guests.=--The guests were
each in the gay _synthesis_ or other gala costume, and quite in the
mood to obey the grave _nomenclater_, a handsome and experienced slave
of the host who pointed out to each his place on the couches. This
location of feasters, however, was an extremely solemn business. How
many social feuds have been created by blunders concerning it! Nay,
if the guest chances to be a public character, a certain position is
really a matter of legal right to many dignitaries and its refusal
possibly can give matter for a lawsuit.[51] The three couches were set
around three sides of the table, the fourth being left open for the
service. Approaching from the open side that couch to the right was
reckoned the first (_summus_), then the middle one opposite (_medius_),
then the one on the left (_imus_).
The best place of all was reckoned to be the third position on the
middle couch “The Consul’s Post,”[52] and here, of course, Manlius
was consigned. Calvus by custom took the host’s place, on the third
couch, but nearest the guest of honor. The distribution of the other
places was a matter for great discrimination, but peace was kept by
placing the two African gentlemen whom Manlius brought, upon the middle
couch beside him, and setting the young eques Nepos (the junior of the
company) at the outer end of the third couch. All nine, therefore,
spread themselves out unconventionally and chattered about the newest
jockeys in the circus, while a troupe of slave-boys, half-stripped
but pomaded and curled, passed around silver bowls of water and fine
towels for washing and wiping the hands.[53] This ceremony happily
accomplished, a tall upper slave magnificently arrayed nodded from the
doorway to Calvus that the cook had declared himself ready, and Calvus
nodded back his approval. The dinner could begin.
[Illustration: NINE GUESTS IN A TRICLINIUM.]
=97. Serving the Dinner.=--The giver of this feast only desired
a grave and conventional dinner for sedate people, and a strictly
normal order was followed without epicurean niceties or a low revel
as a climax. No tablecloths; the serving boys running to and from
the kitchen set on the beautiful polished surface of the table before
the guests first a preliminary course, the _gustatio_, supposed
to stimulate the appetite. On silver dishes were served some choice
crabs, salads, mushrooms, and also eggs. The guests ate these without
forks, dexterously picking up the food in their fingers. The handsomely
embossed silver cups were handed about filled with sweet mulsum
properly diluted in order not to befuddle the intellect; after that
followed the formal dinner itself.
[Illustration: ROMAN SERVING FORKS.]
At really elaborate feasts there would be six or even seven courses,
but Calvus had merely ordered the orthodox number of three--a
succession of daintily cooked meats and fish tastily garnished with
vegetables, but with no rarities such as heathcock from Phrygia or
sturgeon from Rhodes. The honor of the house, however, required that
every viand should be arranged carefully on its dish, and every dish
upon its tray by a special slave, the _structor_, a true artist, who
also acted as master carver, cutting up a roast of boar with his knife
keeping time to a flute-player. The mere fact, however, that one man
was allowed both to arrange the dishes and then to do the carving was a
sign that Calvus was among the less ostentatious senators.
Between each course water and towels were again passed about, and the
guests washed their hands. Finally for dessert there was brought on
a great quantity of curious pastry--artificial oysters and thrushes
filled with dried grapes and almonds; and a great dish whereon stood
an image, made of baked dough, of the orchard god Vertumnus, holding a
pastry apron full of fruits, while heaped around his feet were sweet
quinces stuck full of almonds, and melons cut into fantastic shapes.[54]
[Illustration: DRINKING CUP.]
=98. The Drinking Bout (_Comissatio_) after the Dinner.=--This
concluded the regular dinner, but Calvus had invited his friends (since
Manlius had much to talk about) to stay to a _comissatio_, a social
drinking spell afterwards. The nine guests rose and adjourned to the
host’s private baths, whence, after they had refreshed themselves and
taken a turn around the colonnades in the peristylium, they returned to
the triclinium to find that the slaves had changed all the couch covers
and pillows, had swept the floor, and had actually brought in new
tables. It was now quite dark, beautiful silver lamps gleamed on high
against the fretwork of the ceiling and on the tall inlaid sideboard
stood two great silver tankards; one was filled with snow;[55] the
other had a charcoal brazier beneath it and steamed with hot water.
If Calvus’s party had now been composed of younger merrymakers, some
one would have called out, “Let’s drink in the ‘Greek style’ and elect
a king”; and everybody would have joined in throwing dice to select
the _rex_, or lord of the revels. That potentate would have been
obligated to decide how much water was to be mixed with the wine, and
how many cups must be drunk to the health of each feaster’s lady love,
and to arrange the forfeits, riddles, and practical jokes inseparable
from a jolly evening. If the party had been still more uproarious,
Spanish dancing girls might have been provided by the host, or a corps
of pantomimes, acrobats, or farce players, and the whole scene could
have ended in a very coarse orgy.
In the present case Calvus had decided to let his friends merely drink
enough to loosen their tongues and to exchange their best wit and
wisdom. The slaves, therefore, brought in with decent solemnity the
little images of the family lares, and a small smoking brazier, and
Calvus cast a trifle of meal and salt and a few drops of wine upon
the fire. “The gods are propitious!” announced a slave in loud voice,
after which the guests preserved a reverent silence for an instant, to
be followed by vigorous conversation the moment the divine images were
carried out.
=99. Distribution of Garlands and Perfumes. Social
Conversation.=--While one corps of slaves was passing about the wine,
asking each guest whether “Hot?” or “Cold?” others were distributing
wreaths of fragrant flowers, to put on the forehead and even around
the neck (by their odor supposedly preventing drunkenness) and also
little alabaster vials of choice perfumes which the guests immediately
broke and poured upon their hands and hair. Then followed long
conversations, grave or gay according to the mood. Calvus had not
provided any professional entertainers, but all through the drinking
a good flute-player and a good harpist hid behind a curtain kept up a
soft pleasing melody.
While Manlius and the older guests discussed the control of the Moorish
tribes of Numidia, young Nepos and one or two others found much to say
about a new “Thracian” who had just fought at the Flavian Amphitheater,
and presently all the others pressed the host (knowing him to be a
little vain on the subject) to show some new moves in “robbers”
(_latrunculi_, a board game with men extremely like checkers) which he
had evolved with peculiar pride. It would have been good form also to
have played at making impromptu verses, or at matching riddles, but
for a Roman gentleman to indulge in anything like singing a song, even
before a group of friends, would have been undignified; Nero possibly
shocked public opinion even more by appearing openly as a common
theater performer than he did by killing his mother!
At last the evening ended. It was only 8 o’clock by later reckoning;
but everybody had to be up again by gray dawn. The streets were already
dark and deserted save by prowlers and the police-watch. “My shoes,
boy,” called Manlius to his valet. All the other guests imitated him,
and already their retinues with slaves and torches were crowding in the
vestibule. The eight diners departed after thanking Calvus. The slaves
cleared out the triclinium, and quenched the lights. Soon the whole
domus was asleep.
=100. Elaborate and Vulgar Banquets. Simple Home Dinners.=--Such
was a very decorous and ordinary dinner. It could easily have run
off to greater follies and vastly greater magnificence, useless to
describe. Space lacks, also, to describe the magnificent imperial
banquets at the palace when all the gold, glitter, and luxury of the
capital is on display. Calvus is no great philosopher, or he might have
followed the mode and insisted upon his guests conversing solely about
the “Stoic Conception of Duty”; or the “Immortality of the Soul.”
A host of another type might have imitated certain very mean patrons
who would invite poor clients to fill up the triclinium and then
deliberately serve them with cheap wine and coarse scrappy food,
while the best was being set before himself and the guests of honor.
Such great men were also equal to pettiness of stationing special
slaves behind each less-favored guest to watch lest the latter
should with his finger nails pick out the gems set in the drinking
cups. Pliny the Younger has already recorded his emphatic opinion of
noblemen who will not serve dependents with as good fare as they get
themselves,--declaring that if the host _must_ economize, he should eat
and drink nothing better that night than what he gives his clients and
freedmen.
Of course, many an evening meal is far simpler than the one just
described. If the triclinium is not full, Calvus and Gratia may
sometimes offer their near acquaintances merely “some lettuce, three
snails, two eggs, spelt mixed with honey and snow, olives from Spain,
cucumbers, onions, and a few like delicacies.” Old Roman simplicity
still--but every dish will be perfect of its kind, and the cookery
excellent; and even the modest Calvi are none too fond of this diet
praised by the philosophers. Rome is not merely the mistress of the
world, she is the citadel of the gourmands.
CHAPTER VII
THE SOCIAL ORDERS: THE SLAVES
=101. Enormous Alien Population in Rome. The “Græcules.”=--Rome,
as already discovered, is a city with an enormous cosmopolitan
population, and in that population is a sadly large proportion of
drones, parasites, and selfish purveyors to the vices or luxuries of
the rich. The influx of aliens, of course, impresses one at every turn,
be the visit to obscure Mercury Street or to the famous Old Forum.
“The Syrian Orontes (quoting lines of Juvenal hackneyed already) has
long since poured into the Tiber, bringing its lingo and its manners,
its flutes and its timbals, and its coarse girls who hang around the
Circus.”
A large fraction of these invaders, however, are not confessed
Orientals, but olivine-featured, nimble creatures of very Levantine
morality who like to be called “Greeks.” The poet, just cited, has
other familiar lines deriding their suppleness, servility, and
willingness for any shift promising favor or reward. The self-same
adventurer is ready to be “grammarian, orator, geometrician, painter,
trainer, rope-dancer, augur, doctor, or astrologer,” or if you bid
“‘Græculus’ to mount to heaven--why, to heaven he’ll go!’” They squeeze
out tears or split with laughter at a sign, and, of course, they
readily sell themselves for any well-paid villainy.
Do these creatures prosper? If so, Roman citizenship comes next. They
change their names, assume the toga, and their sons or at least their
grandsons will be borne along in their high litters toward the Senate
House. There is another large group of “Conscript Fathers” who,
Calvus angrily tells Gratia, are only crude Celts from Spain, Gaul,
or even distant Britain. Another group can only speak Latin with a
pronounced North African accent. There is even a certain dark-skinned
“Julius” (a good Roman name surely), who wears his broad purple stripe
proudly enough, but who,--every one swears,--was born far up the Nile
in Egypt--“How did he get the Emperor’s favor!” At first thought,
therefore, Rome seems one of the most democratic cities socially in the
world.
=102. Strict Divisions of Society. The Régime of _Status_.=--But
closer acquaintance discloses the fact that Roman society is utterly
undemocratic. Wealth to be sure can surmount many barriers, but even
a hundred-million sesterces plus imperial patronage cannot _quite_ do
everything. The whole Roman Empire is founded not on the basis of human
brotherhood and equality, but on “_piety_.” “Pious Æneas” is the hero
of the national epic poem. But what in fact is this piety? Not the
rendering of due homage to the gods merely, but the bestowing of exact
justice upon every man according to his _status_--the great stratum
in society in which the law has placed him, and whence he can neither
rise nor fall without important formalities. Are you brought into
court? Instantly the question is, “What are you?” And on that answer,
regardless of guilt or innocence, your fate will largely depend.
The Roman Empire in reality is essentially _a régime of status_--giving
to every man a certain social and legal due. This accent on _status_
has been increasing ever since Augustus founded his dominion; and it
will intensify even more rapidly down to the very end of the Empire.
In the 1,500,000 odd people in Rome, there are these six well-defined
social classes, each with a distinct legal condition: I. _Slaves_; II.
_Freedmen_; III. _Free Provincials_; IV. _Ordinary Roman Citizens, or
“Plebeians”_; V. _Equites_; VI. _Senators_. In Rome the third class,
of course, is necessarily small, being made up solely of visitors and
resident aliens, some of whom, if notables from such free allied towns
as Athens, enjoy excellent protection and privileges. Nearly all the
freedmen are technically Roman citizens but are still under certain
civil and social disabilities. The Plebeians, Equites, and Senators
are all reckoned officially as “majores,” persons with superior legal
rights, however much the two upper orders may scorn the one inferior.
Socially, however, there are many cross sections, with the upper slaves
of rich noblemen despising the petty tradesmen, who wear moth-eaten
togas, and the higher “Cæsarians” (slaves at the imperial palace) have
been known to patronize equites and even senators.
=103. Vast Number of Slaves. Universality of Slavery.=--The slaves,
however, are always officially at the bottom of the human ladder. Their
number is great, making up close to half, if not quite half, of the
population of Rome. They are not required to wear a special dress.[56]
Some years ago it was proposed to order this in the Senate, but the
motion was voted down: “It would be dangerous to show the wretches how
numerous they really were.” Ordinarily they go about in sad-colored
tunics and long cloaks like most of the common citizens, or else they
wear some bright livery devised by their masters.
Only a few of these unfortunates have Italian countenances and can
speak Latin without some foreign accent. Plenty of alien adventurers,
it is true, drift to Rome as willingly, but probably the great bulk
of the cosmopolitan multitudes everywhere observable, even if free at
present, come to Latium involuntarily--as slaves imported to wait on
the masters of the world.
Almost no one has questioned the rightfulness and necessity of slavery.
Seneca, indeed, has written that no man can be enslaved beyond a
certain point--his body is his master’s, but his mind is his own.
Horace has written grandiloquently “Who is truly free? The wise man
alone; who is stern master of himself.” This sounds well but does not
alter the practical results of a situation wherein, for example, all
farm implements are solemnly classified in the handbooks under three
heads: I. _Dumb tools_--plows, mattocks, shovels, etc.; II.
_Semi-speaking tools_--oxen, asses, etc., that can bellow or bray;
III. _Speaking tools_--slaves useful as farm hands.
=104. Power of Master over Slaves.=--Until very lately, before
Hadrian’s time, these “Speaking Tools” have had rather less legal
protection than may be granted to horses by the “humane” legislation
of later civilization. The reigning Emperor, however, a remarkable
innovator, and tinctured with the Stoic philosophy, has lately issued
an edict that a slave cannot be killed outright by his master without
some kind of consent by a magistrate.
Every owner of human bipeds has probably grumbled that “discipline is
now made impossible,” but the new law is of little practical help to
the slave. His master can still order a punishment so brutal that death
is certain, and if he should murder a servant, slave witnesses can give
no valid testimony, and almost no citizen will turn traitor to his
class and prosecute. Half of Rome, therefore, continues in the absolute
power and possession of the other half.
=105. The City Slaves and the Country Slaves.=--Calvus and Gratia have
a familia of about one hundred and fifty slaves in their city house.
Scattered upon their villas there are always at least as many more,
but between the _city slaves_ and the _rustic slaves_ there is a great
gulf fixed. The first class utterly despises the latter. The city
slaves are mostly soft-handed ministers to their owners’ luxuries. The
country slaves are toiling farm hands often under extremely severe
discipline. When the master, attended by a great retinue from his town
house, sojourns at a villa, squabbling and even fights between the
two contingents are extremely probable. Let a serving boy become too
insolent, or a tiring maid fail in her duty--the master or mistress can
simply order, “Send him or her to the villa!” The wretch will then beg
instead to be flogged in sheer mercy. Banishment to the rustic slave
colony seems a mere death in life.
=106. Purchasing a Slave Boy.=--In any large city familia, the purchase
of new slaves to replace vacancies caused by death or otherwise is
an everyday occurrence. Very lately a new errand boy was wanted by
Calvus, who could not condescend to purchase such a menial in person;
and he left the task to a competent freedman, Cleander. The latter
conscientiously went through the great slave bazaars near the fora and
especially along the Sæpta Julia, the great porticoes lining the Via
Lata.
Here any quantity of human bipeds were on sale as in a regular cattle
market. There were numbers of little stalls or pens with crowds of
buyers or mere spectators constantly elbowing in and out, and from many
of them rose a gross fleshly odor as from closely confined animals. At
the entrance to these pens notices, written on white boards with red
chalk, recited the nature of the slaves inside, and sometimes the hour
when they would be sold at auction. Every nationality was represented
among these vendable commodities--Egyptians, Moors, Arabs, Cilicians,
Cappadocians, Thracians, Greeks and alleged Greeks, Celts from Gaul,
Spain, and Britain, and a good many Teutons, fair-haired creatures
from beyond the Rhine. They were of both sexes and of all ages, but
with youths and grown-up girls predominating. As Cleander went about he
heard a crier announcing that a new coffle of Jews was just being put
on sale, the results of the latest success of the Emperor’s generals in
capturing one of the last rebellious strongholds in Palestine.
=107. Traffic in the Slave Pens.=--It avails not to dwell on the
hideous brutality and degrading character of many of the scenes. The
slave-dealers were men counted the scum of the earth socially, but the
vast gains from lucky speculation in human flesh drove many shrewd
scoundrels into the trade. At last Cleander found the stall he desired.
Several boys from the Black Sea region were about to be knocked down.
They did not seem so very miserable. Truth to tell their barbarous
parents had probably sold them in way of regular trade, and the boys
looked forward to entering a fine Roman familia as a great adventure.
The lads stood in line on raised stones, stripped almost naked and with
white chalk on their feet as a token that they were for immediate sale.
Cleander and other would-be purchasers examined them as they might so
many cattle; felt of their muscles, examined their teeth, and made them
converse enough to be sure they could speak fair Greek and a little
Latin. Another buying agent was accompanied by a physician to give the
proffered merchandise a regular physical examination, and Cleander in
his turn interrogated the selling clerks very specifically: “Did they
warrant the health of a certain boy, especially his freedom from fits?
Was he thievish? Was he prone to run away? Did he get despondent and
attempt suicide?”[57]
One ill-favored youth was standing with a tall felt hat on his head.
That implied he was being sold “as is,” without the least warranty; “An
incorrigible thief” went the whisper, and the great welts on his back
betrayed repeated whippings. If the sellers failed, however, to “cap”
their chattels, they had to answer all queries truthfully, and take
back the slave if he developed various defects within six months. Such
a liability, however, was hard to enforce. A slave trade involved all
the points of shrewdness, hard bargaining, and smooth prevarication of
the proverbial horse trade.
=108. Sale of Slaves.=--At last a bell rang. A boy whom Cleander
had inspected approvingly was stood on a higher block. The glib
auctioneer began his patter to the little group before him: “The
lad’s clear-skinned and well-favored from head to foot, a well-bred
fellow carefully trained for good service. Has a smattering of Greek
learning--you can educate him for a secretary if you want to. He can
also sing a bit at dinners--not professionally, but enough to make
you jolly over your wine.--All this is sheer and simple truth. You’ll
wait long for another such bargain. Just one point (with a deprecatory
smirk) I am obliged to warn about--once he _did_ have a lazy fit,
and hid himself for fear of a lashing,--Well, he’s yours for a mere
8000 sesterces.” [$320.][58]
“Take 2000,” stolidly retorted Cleander, naming the standard price
for male slaves of no extra qualities. Counter bidding and much
chaffering followed. All ended when “Crœsus” (slaves were often given
fancy oriental names) was knocked down to Cleander for 4000 sesterces
($160), a very fair bargain if the youth had not been praised too
extravagantly. On the same errand the freedman also purchased for
his master a stout Gaul, needed as an expert muleteer on one of the
farm villas,--such a fellow if at all capable was well worth the 6000
sesterces asked for him.
The next day, however, it was announced by Gratia that she required
a first-class lady’s maid, a girl not merely versed in all toilet
mysteries, but comely to look upon should she have to appear with her
mistress in public. Such damsels commanded a high price, and Gratia and
Calvus together condescended to do the shopping. Along the Sæpta Julia
they visited special booths, from which vulgar idlers were carefully
excluded, and where human chattels of the superior grades were shown to
bona fide purchasers.
The dealer whom they visited had handsome slave boys to act as
statuesque cup bearers and worth up to 100,000 sesterces ($4000)
apiece; he also had a truly competent physician at the same price; a
good private schoolmaster; two very expert dancers, and a remarkably
fine cook just thrown on the market by a bankrupt ex-consul. Girls
fit for kitchen service could be had in the common stalls as cheap as
1000 sesterces ($40); but Gratia and her husband had to pay a round
25,000 ($1000) for a truly pretty little Greek, who was a dexterous
hair-dresser and who could read aloud to her mistress with a good Attic
accent.
=109. Size of Slave Households (_Familiæ_). Slave Workmen.=--Thus the
_familia_ of the Calvi has been made up. People complain that owing
to the surcease of great wars the supply of cheap slaves fit for farm
service is running down. Great landowners are actually being driven to
fall back on free hired labor or a system of tenantry; but kidnapping,
the sale of children by their barbarian parents, the ceaseless petty
wars in Africa, Asia, and along the Rhine, as well as the sale of
slaves born and bred on the Roman farms or mansions themselves[59]
keep up a sufficient supply for domestic service.
The very poor plebeians are, of course, slaveless and servantless, and
plenty of small tradesmen or minor officials get along with only two or
three slaves-of-all-work; but it is impossible to be a “somebody” and
to exist in Rome without _at least ten slaves_. The social ladder
and the size of the familiæ ascend together until we find senators and
very rich equites who boast many more than two hundred in their city
houses alone. “How many slaves has he got?” is the regular formula
for asking “What’s his fortune?” In Augustus’s day there was a very
wealthy freedman who owned 4116 slaves, although the majority of these
were scattered on his numerous farms; but well known is the story of
Pedanius Secundus, City Præfect under Nero: One of his slaves murdered
him, and by the harsh old law making the entire familia liable for the
killing of its master by one member, all of the slaves in his Roman
mansion, almost 400 in number, were actually put to death, although his
farm slaves were spared.
There are many slaves, however, in Rome that are not strictly servants.
They act as craftsmen and tradesmen of every kind, sometimes hired
out by their masters to contractors, sometimes working on their
own account. Custom, though not law, entitles them to a part of
their earnings; this is their _peculium_ (“special property”)
and only a very harsh owner will deprive them of it. Indeed it is
clearly understood that an intelligent slave cannot be expected to
do his best without a personal incentive. You can even find savings
banks and really large commercial enterprises run by slaves, often
put in positions of great trust, but such persons undoubtedly have
an understanding about being manumitted if they are faithful and
successful.
[Illustration: SLAVES WORKING IN A BAKERY.]
=110. Division of Duties and Organization of Slave Households.=--In
Calvus’ house as in every other great mansion one is impressed with
the multitude of attendants. The master, mistress, and their friends
are dependent on every kind of menial service. Before Calvus rises
from bed, he is massaged every morning by an expert masseur, and some
of his more effeminate friends insist on having not walking sticks but
handsome slave boys of convenient height always at hand, on which to
lean as they move about. In a well-ordered mansion, indeed, it seems
needless really for the master to do much more than feed himself and
draw his own breath--the servants can do all the rest for him!
A familia of one hundred and fifty slaves, such as Calvus’s, requires
a semi-military organization. Everything should run smoothly. At
the head of all are the upper slaves, proud, arrogant beings with
their own body servants, the commissioned officers of the army. The
_procurator_ (sometimes a freedman), who does the purchasing and
outside business; the _dispensator_, who manages the storerooms;
the _atriensis_, who acts as general chamberlain, and especially
the _silentarius_, who enforces “silence” and general discipline
form the heads of this category. They are often petty tyrants, and the
newcomer Crœsus will have far more to fear from their harshness than
from Calvus, who will hardly know him by sight.
The staff at large is carefully split up into _decuriæ_ (squads of ten)
each under its special chief. There are the house cleaners, the table
retinue, the kitchen force, the chamber boys and maids, the keepers of
the wardrobes, the master’s valets, the mistress’s maids, the special
attendants of Calvus’s children, the litter bearers, the corps of
messengers--each forming a separate contingent. The master, too, has
several secretaries, expert copyists and readers, and a librarian.
There are several slave physicians although their duties are largely
confined to the familia; the masters will call in fashionable free
professionals for their own serious ills. The two sexes are about
equally divided, and a great many slaves are respectably if informally
married,[60] although a familia is anything but a school of social
virtue.
=111. Discipline in a Well-Ordered Mansion. Long Hours of
Idleness.=--In such a mansion the master and mistress have little
acquaintance with the lower run of the human beings over whom they
possess absolute power. Calvus, however, knows his upper servants, his
favorite valets, and his first secretary, and being a genuinely kindly
man has come to esteem them and trust them familiarly; and it is the
same between Gratia and her confidential maids.
The other slaves they treat fairly humanely, all things considered,
but absolutely impersonally--their presence is to be taken for granted
like articles of furniture, and their personal problems are ignored.
In the peristylium there is always posted a bulletin board informing
the slaves of the nights when their master is going out to dinner,
and although Calvus does not imitate certain very haughty individuals
by trying to give all his orders through signs and never addressing
a menial, it is good breeding to speak to ordinary slaves as seldom
and then as curtly as possible, just as one should not waste words
addressing a yoke of oxen.
Roman house-slaves have their sorrows but they need not ordinarily fear
two mortal evils--hunger, or overwork. They have, of course, their own
dining quarters and are kept on sufficient, if simple rations of meal
cakes, salt, oil, common wine, and a little fruit. Butcher’s meat they
seldom touch, except as the kitchen staff get the leavings from the
banquets, although the upper servants naturally fare more sumptuously.
As for slaves’ working hours, they are absurdly short. Every servant
has some limited appointed task. When that is finished nothing else
is expected of him, and to require other duties would not merely make
the master unpopular with his servants, it would stamp him before his
equals as an extremely mean and sordid man. Thus, on very many days,
Calvus’s six litter bearers have absolutely nothing to do. On the many
nights that he and Gratia dine out the great kitchen staff is concerned
mainly with the dice-box. The boudoir maids are usually idle from the
time their mistress is dressed until she must dress again for dinner.
All this makes for gossiping, gaming, and for the worst kinds of busy
idleness.
=112. Inevitable Degradation Caused by Slavery. Evil Effect upon
Masters.=--Are these “speaking tools” very miserable? Calvus’s
familia is not exceptional in that a tolerably kindly relation often
exists between owner and owned. The Stoic philosophy is making its
impression, and there are plenty of theoretical arguments that “a slave
is also a man” and entitled to humane treatment. A master or mistress
who is habitually cruel is frowned on socially as might be a man
accustomed to abuse his horses.
Nevertheless, the status of a slave is always morally degrading. He
feels himself a mere chattel. Whatever he enjoys, he enjoys merely on
suffrance. Any sort of iniquity is condoned in his mind “if the master
orders it,” and he is likely to be honest and faithful more through the
fear of harsh punishment than because of any high ethical motives.
On the other hand just because slavery has perforce its brutal,
soul-destroying elements, it is almost equally evil for the master.
It is seldom good for a man to have the lives often of hundreds of
fellow beings in his power; or to be relieved of every possible kind of
honest exertion by a swarm of officious menials. Furthermore, slavery
being inevitably so brutal, masters often live in terror of a mutiny by
the brutes themselves. “_So many slaves, so many enemies_,” is a
standard maxim; not always true, but true enough to excuse many horrid
practices.
The slave revolt led by Spartacus in 73 B.C. is now half forgotten
in history, but that rebel gladiator had later several almost as
successful imitators. Every now and then something happens which makes
senatorial blood run cold. Only in Trajan’s day there was one Lagius
Macedo, an ex-prætor, a cruel and overbearing master, indeed, who was
beaten to death by his slaves while he was bathing at his Formiæ villa.
The wretches were all crucified, of course, but (as wrote Pliny the
Younger just after it happened): “You see what we masters are exposed
to; and nobody can feel safe because he’s an easy and mild master; for
it’s sheer villainy, not premeditation, that prompts our murder.”
Another danger, especially under evil emperors, comes from the
incessant presence of slaves at the most private affairs of their
lords, their willingness to tattle, to assist informers, and often to
help ruin their masters outright in return for freedom and reward.
“The tongue is the worst part of a bad slave,” runs a familiar saying,
and even an honest and high-minded man must shudder at the idea of
having all his intimate doings passed on to delight his enemies.
=113. Punishment of Slaves.=--Under these circumstances, and with
so many slaves who are undoubtedly by origin and nature unreliable if
not incorrigible, every large house has its small private dungeon, and
also a low-browed wolfish creature who serves as jailer and official
“whipper.” Even in Calvus’s house he finds occupation, for in so large
a familia some luckless boy or maid is often caught loitering or
pilfering, and gets a dose of the many-lashed scourge--at the orders of
the upper-slave managers.[61] Under-slaves, indeed, think nothing of a
lashing beyond its mere pain; there is no disgrace, it is all part of
one’s lot in life.
There can be much worse things than this in many houses. Servilia, one
of Gratia’s acquaintances, often beats her tire-women cruelly with the
flat of her bronze mirror for the most trivial offenses. Ambustus, the
new ædile, lately ordered a boy to get one hundred stripes merely for
being slow in bringing hot water. The rich widow Lepidia so enjoys
having her slaves flogged, that she makes the whipper actually do his
pitiless work in her dressing room, while she is reading the “Daily
Journal” (_Acta Diurna_, see p. 282) and having her face rouged.
Many a slave has been whipped to death because of some small folly
which sent his master or mistress into a rage, and noblemen have been
known to keep huge flesh-eating carp in their fish ponds, and to toss
in a recalcitrant slave occasionally to improve the flavor of the fish,
although such actions disgust all decent people.
=114. Branding of Slaves. _Ergastula_--Slave Prisons.=--If a slave’s
offense is too great to be rewarded by a mere whipping, and yet does
not provoke the death penalty, there are plenty of intermediate
punishments. Toiling around Calvus’s atrium is an ill-favored lad with
the scars of branding barely healed on his forehead: “FVR” he is marked
(“Thief”)[62]. He is taking the place of another youth who, to cure
extreme laziness, has been sent for a month to the “mill gang”--chained
to the great lever which turns the grist mill and forced to toil all
day like a hard-driven ass--an excellent cure for idleness.
This fate is not so bad, however, as what befell one of the eques
Pollio’s valets, a bright clever lad, who foolishly became too pert
to his master. In a fit of anger Pollio ordered, “Give him six months
in the _ergastulum_.” The soft-handed boy was, therefore, not merely
shipped off to severe farm labor, itself utterly repulsive, but was
obliged to work in the fields in a chain-gang along with the very
scum of slave-criminals; always in fetters, lashed by brutish keepers
themselves slaves, and confined at night in underground prisons
(_ergastula_) that were mere kennels.
=115. Death Penalties for Slaves. Pursuit of Runaways.=--If
a slave really deserves death, there are, of course, two standard
methods of capital punishment, both very degrading as well as fearful.
Everybody knows about crucifixion with its hours and perhaps days
of hideous agony; but more common and nearly as painful is death on
the _furca_.[63] The victim’s head is placed at the opening of
two “V”-shaped beams and his arms tightly lashed upon them; then the
professional floggers strike the wretch with their loaded whips, the
leaden balls worked into the thongs making them a terrific weapon,
until death comes as blessed relief. It has been a long day since there
has been an execution at Calvus’s house, but some years ago a Spanish
boy who murdered an upper-servant perished thus under the lash. There
is, however, a much simpler way of disposing of criminal slaves, one
bringing a certain return to their masters,--namely, to sell them to
the givers of public shows to train as gladiators or merely to set in
the arena to give sport to the bears or lions.
Of course, under such conditions slaves will often try to run away.
They seldom really succeed, however, unless they are persons of marked
intelligence and can make off with considerable money. The Roman
Empire is one vast police unit, unattached strangers are everywhere
scrutinized carefully and when a slave disappears a reward is promptly
offered. Only now a crier has gone down Mercury Street, with a crowd
after him, as he proclaims: “_Disappeared from the public baths, a
boy aged about sixteen. Free and easy habits. Curly hair. Good-looking.
Answers to name of Giton. A thousand sesterces to anybody haling him
back to Aulus Sulpicius near the Temple of Ops, or to anyone who will
betray his whereabouts!_”[64]
If Giton is retaken, he can thank the gods if he is merely flogged
almost to death, and is not also given a year in the ergastulum.
Naturally slaves can only testify in court by their master’s consent
and under torture, although the reigning humane Emperor has just issued
a decree limiting its use to the last resort. Hadrian, also, contrary
to the usage in Nero’s day, has ordained that if a man is murdered by
his slaves, only the slaves near the actual scene of crime are to be
tormented, and he has actually banished a certain matron, Umbricia, for
“abusing her slave girls most atrociously for trivial reasons.” All
this perhaps dimly foreshadows a new day; but what human chattel can
wait to see the abuses of slavery whittled down by the law across the
centuries?
Have the slaves along Mercury Street any nearer hope? Possibly. The
other day many of them saw in the front benches of honor at the
Circus a man of dignity. His hands glittered with sardonyx rings; his
lacerna was of Tyrian purple; his shoes were scarlet, his hair reeking
with costly essences; a great train bowed and cringed to him. But
his forehead was covered with “numerous white patches like stars”;
“sticking plaster,” everybody whispered, to cover up the FVR once
branded on his countenance. He was an ex-slave, an exalted freedman,
who, a couple of decades before, had stood on the auction block, but
now was a mighty power in Roman high finance.
CHAPTER VIII
THE SOCIAL ORDERS: FREEDMEN, PROVINCIALS, PLEBEIANS, AND NOBLES
=116. Manumission of Slaves Very Common.=--A Roman slave’s legal
position may be miserable, but usually he is not under that fearful
stigma of race and color weighing upon the slaves of another era. His
complexion and his brain power do not differ essentially from his
master’s.[65] If he is a Greek or Levantine, often his mental acuteness
may be greater than that of his lord. An intelligent slave under not
too harsh a master will devote himself to the latter in every possible
way, expecting pretty certainly the great reward for faithfulness and
zealous service--freedom. Of course, many dull hardened wretches,
especially upon the farms, will die as the toiling chattels they have
lived; but freedom comes often enough to make manumission something for
which to hope eagerly.
Often the death of a master is the signal for a grand enfranchisement
of all the older members of his familia. It costs nothing thus to
reward faithful service at the expense of your heirs; and it is a fine
thing to have a long file of newly created freedmen, all wearing the
tall red caps of “liberty,” march in your funeral procession. Everybody
will praise your “generosity,” and the freedmen can be expected to
cherish their lord’s memory. Incidentally, also, there are few better
ways of punishing a generally incompetent slave than having him
ostentatiously _refused_ freedom when all his comrades go about
rejoicing.
=117. The Ceremony of Manumission.=--Nevertheless, many slaves need
not wait for their masters to die. They are perhaps suffered to work
at a trade, and accumulate their “peculium,” and then very likely
to purchase their own and their wives’ and children’s liberty. With
rich masters of the better sort, it is also a gracious act at certain
intervals to select a few extra-deserving slaves and say to them the
blessed words, “Come with me to the prætor!”
When they are all before the magistrate a solemn legal formality
is gone through. One of the official lictors steps forward, gives
a light tap with his rod upon the head of each slave and says
loudly, “I declare this man is free!” The master laying hold of the
slave and turning him around, replies, “And I desire that this man
should be free!” adding a slight blow on the cheek; whereat the
magistrate declares officially, “And I adjudge that this man is free.”
This completes the “manumission”; then home the happy “freedman”
(_libertinus_) goes to be greeted with the congratulations of his
former fellow-slaves, showers of sweet cakes, dates, and figs and all
kinds of humble rejoicings.
=118. The Status of Freedmen. Their Great Success in
Business.=--Henceforth, the ex-slave is the freedman of his former
master. He takes the first part of his master’s name; thus that
Cleander, manumitted a few years ago by Publius Junius Calvus, now
swells about proudly as Publius Junius Cleander. His children will
henceforth be Junii, no less lawfully than Calvus’s children; with a
result that the gentile names of some of the proudest houses in Rome
are now also borne by families perforce acknowledging swart Africans or
tow-headed Batavians as very near ancestors.
Once escaped from actual slavery a great career in life can open before
an energetic freedman. If his ex-master is a Roman citizen, he also
is now a Roman citizen without any naturalization process. True he
is under a social stigma. Not merely he, but his children also, are
excluded from the Senate and all the higher offices of the state; but
an ex-slave is not likely to suffer from thinness of skin. Compelled in
his youth to use his wits and put forth all his energies, he now often
possesses abilities, often not very refined or delicate, which carry
him far in trade, general business, and finance.
Usually before a master manumits a slave it is arranged that he shall
remain in the mansion as some kind of an invaluable “man of business”
for handling a large estate. Many a senator is like Cicero, in all
private affairs completely at the mercy of a confidential _alter
ego_, a freedman like Cicero’s able and beloved Tiro. Practically
every dignitary in Rome will refer his business matters to “my
freedman,” a shrewd consequential fellow, probably of Græco-Levantine
origin, who has the right to use his patron’s seal ring, and who knows
all the family secrets. Supple, obsequious, and indispensable, he is
certain of a great legacy when his patron dies; and if the patron is
childless, he often becomes his heir. There are, indeed, plenty of
cases where a slave-boy who entered a house as a valet, first earned
freedom, then became a general confidant, and ended not merely with
inheriting the house itself but with marrying the late owner’s widow.
=119. Humble Types of Freedmen.=--Of course, the bulk of freedmen
have no claim to such expectations. They are petty shop keepers or
skilled craftsmen. They make up the great bureaus of upper clerks in
the huge government offices on the Palatine. Everywhere they compete,
as a rule very successfully, with the free born, and, of course, they
add to the cosmopolitan multitudes in Rome.
An ex-slave cannot avoid becoming substantially the client of his
former master. He is supposed to show his patron and his patron’s
family constant respect and usually a certain amount of service
without compensation. Thus a while ago Calvus manumitted a very
faithful slave-physician. It was stipulated that he should continue
to physic the familia without charge. For a freedman to show himself
neglectful of these obligations, above all to do anything to injure
his ex-master, is the depth of depravity. The legal penalties for such
“ingratitude” are very severe, and in extreme cases the actual act of
manumission itself can be cancelled.
=120. Wealth and Power of Successful Freedmen.=--Nevertheless,
top-lofty freedmen abound. Their ready wits bring them riches--the
power before which all the Empire bends. Once more Juvenal describes
an obnoxious type: “Though I’m born on the Euphrates, a fact which
the little windows [holes for earrings] in my ears would prove if I
denied it--yet am I the owner of five shops which bring me in 400,000
sesterces [$16,000] per year. What better thing does a senator’s robe
bestow? Therefore, let everybody give way to one who but yesterday
with the chalked feet of a slave entered our city.” Freedmen, of
course, get ahead marvellously because nothing is too sordid if only
it promises gain. “He [a certain freedman],” says Petronius, “started
with an _as_ [large copper coin], and was always ready to pick a
_quadrans_ [farthing] out of the filthy mire with his teeth. So
his wealth grew and grew like a honey comb!”
Very probably, the ideal set before this species of persons is that of
becoming all-powerful imperial freedmen, such as that pair, Pallas and
Narcissus, who literally ruled the Roman Empire through their patron,
Claudius. Trajan and Hadrian have, indeed, greatly reduced the power of
freedmen around the Palace, turning the great secretarial offices over
to equites, but there are still ex-slaves in the service of “Cæsar,”
who have only a little less influence than that mighty Claudius
Etruscus who died of old age under Domitian after having served six
Emperors. He began life in Rome as a slave boy from Smyrna. Tiberius
manumitted him. He rose to become practically the head of the Treasury.
His wealth was great, but his integrity matched his vast power, and
few senators had such commanding influence in the government as he
possessed.
=121. Importance of Freedmen in a Roman Family.=--In such a house
as that of Calvus there are neither imperial ministers nor miserly
speculators. The freedmen are honored and trusted members not of the
slave familia but of the actual “family.” When they are sick Calvus and
Gratia are greatly concerned, as was Pliny the Younger over the illness
of his beloved reader, Zosimus. If there is any domestic crisis, their
counsel is sought and they take a zealous interest in the education of
their lord’s children.
On the other hand, on the nearby Flora Street spreads the huge garish
palace of the ex-slave Athenonius, who won his freedom by catering to a
foolish master’s worst passions, and then gathered enormous wealth by
speculating in Egyptian corn. “_Freedmen’s riches_” have become a
proverb. Not all freedmen are by any means wealthy, but enough of them
have risen to the seats of the mighty to make every toiling slave dream
dreams and see visions of something better than a dishonored, servile
grave.
=122. The Status of Provincials. The Case of Jesus.=--All freedmen
are Roman citizens, albeit citizens under a formal handicap, but in a
city like Rome there are always many free persons who are not citizens
at all--visiting provincials. Every year the Emperors issue some edict
granting the franchise to a new group of non-citizens, but the numbers
of the latter in all the provinces of the Empire is still great.[66]
At Rome their position is ordinarily comfortable enough, although if
arrested, they are liable to a more summary trial than Roman citizens
and in case of famine or public disturbance they are liable to sudden
expulsion from the city (as Claudius expelled the Jews) without any
redress. The real disadvantage which they endure is that they cannot
be appointed to any kind of public office under the Roman government.
They are also sometimes under a legal handicap in making and enforcing
commercial contracts; and last but not least in their own provinces
they cannot “appeal to Cæsar” (if in an “Imperial” province) or to the
Senate (if in a “Senatorial” province) against the decision, however
arbitrary, of the Roman governor.
If you search the public records at the great _Tabularium_ (Public
Record Office) by the Forum, you can find for example the report of the
trial of a certain Jew, one Christus, who was accused of sedition in
Judæa, about a hundred years before our visit to Rome. The procurator
Pilatus yielding to popular clamor had him executed ignominiously by
crucifixion. This was, of course, within Pilatus’s legal authority.
Christus was only a provincial and he could take no appeal.
The status of the provincials depends much on whether their communities
enjoy any treaty with or charter from Rome. Athens and a few other
favored places are nominally “equal allies” with full rights of
self-government, and their citizens can claim a favored position among
the mass of provincials. Other places possess charters giving great
privileges but revocable in case of gross abuse.
The bulk of the provincials are mere “stipendiaries,” often permitted
local self-government, but subject to Roman taxation, and to the
complete jurisdiction of the Roman governor. Under the Empire these
governors are only by exception corrupt and arbitrary, but their
decisions must usually be final.
=123. Great Alien Colonies in Rome.=--Apart from the great alien
slave population there are inevitably large groups of resident aliens
in various parts of the capital. There is a Little Syria, Little Egypt,
Little Spain, and a Little Greece as surely as in certain great cities
of a later civilization, but the most famous and conspicuous is the
great Jewish colony.
This exists mainly in the Trans-Tiber district under the shadow of the
Janiculum, although Jews are allowed to settle and to do business in
any section of the city. The total number of free Jews in Rome has been
set at 35,000 in Augustus’s day, and it received a great reinforcement
through the captives of Titus, many of whom regained their liberty. The
Jews are obliged to pay to the Capitoline Jupiter that tribute which
they formerly paid to their Temple in Jerusalem, but otherwise they
are not harassed by the government. For the most part, however, they
are very poor; few of them are great bankers or merchants, but nearly
all the rest are petty shopkeepers and peddlers--also a great many are
alleged to increase their living by fortune-telling and by like dubious
arts.
=124. The Roman Plebeians, the “Mob” (_Vulgus_).=--Greatly surpassing
the resident aliens in number are inevitably the ordinary Roman
plebeians. It is a fine thing in the provinces to boast, “_Civis
Romanus sum_,” but in the capital many a freedman, many an upper-slave
of a magnate even, looks down with scorn on a large fraction of this
“common herd” (_grex_) that still claims to form “the Roman People.”
However, if you are really a Roman citizen entitled to wear a toga,
and to share in the grain doles and other public distributions, you
can really live on very little. Somehow you must find means for the
rental of a sleeping garret in an insula, but the daytime you can spend
hanging around the fora, porticoes, or the entrances to the circuses
and gladiator schools, playing _morra_ and checkergames (see p. 205);
idling in the great public baths; frequenting every possible public
exhibition in the theater or amphitheater and often getting a bare
income by toadying most abjectly to the rich.
Everybody despises this Roman “mob,” and yet cringes to it. Its yells
across the circus send the blood from the cheeks of very tyrannous
emperors. The mild Italian climate renders an existence amid dirt and
sunshine, eked out by very little labor, decidedly tolerable.[67]
Assuredly very many of these “citizens” are simply honest thrifty
industrialists, trades people, or professional men, holding their
own stubbornly against the competing slaves, freedmen, and aliens.
Nevertheless, the proportion of undesirables is dangerously great. Many
of the idle plebeians are the sons of freedmen, who have inherited
their parents’ non-Italian vices but who have not been under their
necessity of hard work and faithfulness; and when one examines the
moral and social qualities of the alleged heirs of the virtuous
old-time plebeians the idea of “restoring the Republic,” still
sighed after by a few aristocratic philosophers, appears absolutely
laughable.[68]
=125. The Desirability of Roman Citizenship. The Case of St. Paul.=--It
is as contrasted with the status of provincials that Roman citizenship
still preserves its remarkable value. A citizen can, indeed, no
longer go to the Republican assemblies to elect magistrates and vote
on proposed statutes, but he has his personal and property rights
protected by the best kind of “Quiritian” law. The government is
never, indeed, iniquitous enough to enact that, as between Roman and
provincial, the judge must always decide for the former, nevertheless
the advantages of the citizen are great.
A Roman can command all sorts of protection not open to provincials.
The judge will almost inevitably be a little prejudiced in his favor.
If arrested, a citizen can ordinarily demand the right to give bail. It
is a gross outrage to “examine him by scourging.” He cannot be put to
torture. If he is finally sentenced to die, he cannot be crucified, but
ordinarily must be beheaded--a very merciful end. Particularly, unless
the case is extremely clear, in matters touching his life and status as
a citizen he can appeal from the decision of a provincial governor to
“Cæsar” or to the Senate (if in a province governed by that body).
If we visit the Record Office again, this matter is clearly
illustrated. About twenty-five years after the crucifixion of
Christus, one of his followers, a certain Paulus, was also arrested
in Jerusalem on much the same charges of attempted sedition and
inciting disturbance. But Paulus, when arrested, promptly pleaded his
Roman citizenship. Vainly the local mob clamored for his life even as
they had demanded that of Christus. When the local procurator Festus
hesitated to set him at liberty, the prisoner demanded to be sent to
Rome--and thither at great trouble and expense he had to be shipped;
to be tried ultimately before the Prætorian Præfect sitting as Nero’s
deputy; and the charges were dismissed and he was set at liberty.[69]
If he had not been a Roman, assuredly the weak-kneed governor of
Palestine would have sacrificed him “to please the Jews” just as
Pilatus sacrificed Christus.
=126. Clientage: Its Oldest Form.=--Between the poorest classes
of plebeians, sleeping within porticoes and despised by the superior
slaves, and those dignified well-to-do gentlemen who have almost the
means to pass as equites, there are, of course, an infinite number of
social strata. The most important section of the better plebeians is
undoubtedly to be numbered among the _clients_.
Clientage is a very old Roman institution. The kings and nobles of
Rome in the very twilight of history had their clients. Those were
the days when poor plebeians had little or no legal protection unless
they enlisted the patronage of a magnate. They entered his _gens_
(inner-clan), followed him in war, voted (when they obtained the vote)
in his interest, assisted him in certain money matters, in short,
became members of his household although very much better off than the
slaves. In return the patron was bound to defend their legal rights
in the courts and to protect them from all forms of outrage. Men were
proud to confess themselves as clients of a Fabius or an Æmilius. But
by the end of the Republic the institution had practically disappeared
in its original form. There was little legal discrimination then
against poor citizens, and about all the real clients who now remained
were freedmen, who, as just seen, were bound to be loyal and helpful to
their _patroni_.
=127. The New Parasitical Clientage: the Morning Salutation.=--Now,
however, a new and wholly parasitical clientage has come into being.
Early every morning the clients can be seen hurrying down Mercury
Street in their hastily donned togas. Sometimes a patron lives a great
distance across the city; sometimes a fawning myrmidon hopes to visit
_two_ patrons in the same morning and get a double reward. Calvus
does not rejoice in a great horde of clients, but being a senator his
dignity requires that he should maintain perhaps a score of them.
These clients are an assorted lot. Some are merely cheap hangers-on,
some are adventurers visiting Rome and expecting to prosper by earning
the favor of the great, there is also a mediocre poet who hopes for a
tidy gift some day because of laudatory verses about his “Rex” and the
latter’s family, there are several distant relatives of the Calvi, poor
relations to whom the doles are a form of pension; and finally there
are two or three men of good family and tolerable incomes who actually
dance attendance on Calvus just to get a little extra pocket money.
[Illustration: CLIENTS GATHERING IN THE RAIN, BEFORE
THEIR PATRON’S DOOR.
_After Von Falke._]
The clients gather in the vestibule at dawn, rubbing their eyes,
rearranging their hastily donned togas, and each trying to induce the
not very civil porter to permit him to enter first. At last the word
is passed to the door that, “The patron is ready.” The valves open;
the clients swarm inside together. Publius Calvus dressed for the
morning is standing in the rear of his atrium, just behind the pool of
the impluvium. At his elbow is his nomenclator, the slave who “knows
everybody,” to whisper a name in case he should not connect it promptly
with a face.
“_Ave, patrone, ave!_” cries each client coming up in turn. “_Ave,
Marce!_” or “_Sexte!_” or “_Lucie!_” answers Calvus with a more or less
formal smile.
If his mood is very gracious, each client is allowed to seize his hand,
and two or three in extra favor are suffered to kiss his cheek. The
nomenclator meantime prompts him in undertone, “Ask about his wife,”
“Congratulate him on his niece’s marriage,” etc. And if that evening
there are not more important guests in view, the senator will delight
the souls of several by saying affably, “Come to-night to dinner.” The
clients in any case congratulate themselves that their patron is not
like some of those very haughty parvenus, who simply hold out their
hands to be kissed and never speak a word, and who like to be called
“dominus,” as if their clients were merely slaves.
=128. The Dole to Clients (the _Sportula_).=--After the clients will
appear more pretentious visitors--equites and fellow senators--who
call to see Calvus on business. Their own clients are probably waiting
listlessly in the street, while Calvus’s dependents have to stand
respectfully near their lord until an upper slave beckons them toward
the office--the tablinum. He has a list in his hand and checks off all
present as might a master the pupils in his school, and then comes
the reward which brought all these toga-wearing gentry thither, a
distribution of money.
In former years every client had received an actual portion of
victuals, known as _sportula_ from the “little basket” which everybody
brought to bear the viands hence. But this custom of distributing
actual food was inconvenient, and far more pleasing is an actual
gift of money. Only regularly listed clients can receive this; and
no client, sick or lazy, can send a deputy.[70] He must appear in
person or stand his loss. At length, to every lawful retainer present
is carefully counted out a hundred _quadrantes_, small coppers (rather
under 25 cents), and besides the clients entertain a few hopes of a
fairly liberal present at New Year’s Day, and at some other festivals,
and as seen, in a kind of rotation they are invited at broad intervals
to dinner.
=129. Attendance by Clients in Public. Insults They Must
Undergo.=--After the sportula has been paid, the clients look anxiously
toward Calvus. Will he tell them, as he does about half of the time,
“Nothing more to-day,” and let them scatter down the streets? Not so;
“My litter” he orders. The clients are obliged to march before and
behind, along with the slaves, helping to elbow aside the crowd, while
the senator visits other senatorial houses, next his banker at the
Forum, and then the law courts for a consultation, and so goes his
round. If he detains the clients through the noon hour, he is obligated
to give them some kind of luncheon; but he can command the attendance
of them all even up to the tenth hour, when he may turn them loose to
refresh themselves in the public Baths of Titus, after they have left
him perhaps at the more select Baths of Agrippa.
As for the clients invited to Calvus’s dinner, if the fare is plainer
than on the night of a high banquet, there is at least no insulting
discrimination. A decent patron and patrona are bound to show
themselves “friends” of their clients and to keep up a pretence of
democratic manners. But as stated earlier (see p. 120), many a vulgar
plutocrat, feeling that he has paid good money to get a proper retinue
to follow him to the Forum, delights to insult his clients’ feelings
when he invites them. The host enjoys his fine white loaf, while the
client’s is almost too hard to break; the host a splendid lobster
garnished with asparagus, the client “a crab on a tiny plate hemmed in
by half an egg”; the lord “noble mushrooms,” the client “toadstools of
doubtful quality,”--and all other treatment is to match. Yet such is
the servility and pettiness of many that they will endure all this and
worse merely in order to boast the next day of “last night when I dined
with my friend the senator----!” “You think yourself a citizen and the
guest of a grandee,” cries the indignant poet. “_He_ thinks, and
he’s nearly right, that you’ve been captured by the fine smell from his
kitchen.”
Clientage then is a typical institution of imperial Rome--a means for
letting rich men flatter their desire for a huge company of obsequious
attendants by trading on the wretched ambition of so many to appear
to be on familiar terms with the great. It multiplies the horde of
shabby-genteel persons around the city, and the vast number of those
who flee from their greatest aversion--honest work.
=130. The Decurions: the Notables of the Chartered Cities.=--Above
the run of clients or even of the better plebeians is the actual
nobility. Strictly speaking only the senators and equites are reckoned
in this group, but always in Rome are sojourning a certain number of
other men who hold themselves decidedly better than any plebeians--the
_decurions_ from the enfranchised towns covering all Italy and
dotted over the entire Empire.[71]
The decurions are the notables of the smaller chartered cities. In
their own communities they are local senators and enjoy in a small way
the position of an actual Senator in Rome.[72] Nobody can be elected
decurion without a reasonable property qualification, in many cities
100,000 sesterces ($4000), and from their body of wealthy dignitaries
the local public assemblies still elect (even under the Empire) city
magistrates, duumvirs, ædiles, etc., who take the place in each
community of the old consuls and censors of Republican Rome.
Since the loyalty of the population and the popularity of the imperial
régime often depends on this very influential class of decurions, the
government makes much of them; allows them high-sounding titles and
tinsel honors, and any who visit Rome are given social precedence
directly behind the actual equites. Furthermore, many high Roman nobles
themselves are proud to be enrolled as patrons and _honorary_
decurions of the Italian towns, looking after the interest of their
client communities in the capital, and, if they visit the smaller
cities, being received as particular guests of honor. The number of
decurions, however, in Rome itself is always small, although their
importance everywhere else in the Empire is vast, and they virtually
form a third order of nobility.
=131. The Equites: the Nobles of the Second Class.=--Everywhere
around the metropolis you meet the second-class nobles--the
Equites.[73] This “Splendid Order” dates, of course, from the oldest
days when to keep a cavalry horse implied having considerable property.
The equites sank to unimportance in the prosperous era of the Republic,
but were revived to great power by Gaius Gracchus; they were later
reorganized and made an effective part of the new imperial régime by
Augustus.
The dividing line between Senators and Equites is not always sharp.
Young men of senatorial family who renounce a political career have to
“make narrow their purple stripe,” as did Ovid, and without disgrace
appear henceforth as second-class nobles. Supposedly no persons but the
sons of free-born men are eligible for enrollment as equites, but the
members of the old-line families fume vainly at the way the Emperors
(who have complete dispensing power) will grant “the right of the
gold ring,” not merely to the sons of freedmen, but sometimes even to
downright ex-slaves. There are in truth very few equites in Rome who do
not reckon a slave among their not remote grandparents.
The equites are all carefully enrolled in a public bureau under
imperial control, and one of the surest holds which the Emperor
possesses upon the government lies in the fact that he can refuse
enrollment arbitrarily to any young man and thereby practically exclude
him from any kind of high public office except in the municipal towns,
or from any military rank above that of centurion. The senators, all
the more important officials, and all the commissioned officers of the
army are equites, although their greater honors cause them to ignore
the lesser, while if the Emperor has an eligible son or heir, he is
often proclaimed the _princeps juventutis_ (“Chief of the Roman
Youth”) and is nominally the first member of the Equestrian Order.
=132. Qualifications and Honors of the Equites.=--To be enrolled
as an eques one must possess besides unstained birth (with exceptions
above noted), a good public reputation, and taxable property worth at
least 400,000 sesterces ($16,000); sufficient therefore to pass for
a tolerably rich man. The honor comes for life, subject to demotion,
however, for disgraceful conduct, or lapse into poverty. A son normally
inherits his father’s status, if his own share of the patrimony comes
to over 400,000 sesterces; and of course, to make up that magic figure
many plebeians pinch and slave.
The honors of an eques are great in any age laying such stress on
outward praise and glory. Besides the right to the plain gold ring,
the narrow purple stripe running down the front of the tunic proudly
proclaims the fact, “I am of the nobility.” The equites also enjoy
fourteen rows of seats in the public games and theater directly behind
the four front ones reserved for the senators. They provide a large
fraction of all the jurors in the great civil tribunals which handle
most of the litigation.[74] Very many of the great imperial ministries
and superintendencies are reserved for them, for the Emperor does not
like to trust the senators too implicitly, and some of the smaller
provinces have equestrian “Procurators” as their governors, as also
does the enormously wealthy province of Egypt.
The majority of the equites, however, are in private life. Senators
ought not (except through convenient middlemen) to engage in
commerce and trade. Not so the equites--the powerful bankers with
whom the imperial treasurer may confer; the owners of the peaceful
armadas that enter Puteoli or Ostia; the proprietors of the finer
retail establishments along the Sæpta Julia as well as of the huge
wholesale houses; the directors of the vast brickyards, and other
highly developed industries; the owners of so many of the squalid but
profitable insulæ--nearly all will show their “Angusticlave”--their
narrow purple stripe. Equites appear at banquets with senators
without the least awkwardness; and they like to be addressed by fine
booming titles: _insignes_, _primores_, _illustres_, or, if holding
high office, _eminentissimi_, but in most cases as _splendidi_; and
“splendid” they appear to the envious slaves and plebeians.
=133. Review of the Equites. Pretenders to the Rank.=--The equites
are still in theory a military body. Every 15th of July, unless the
review is deliberately omitted, all members who are physically able are
supposed to procure horses and take part in a grand parade before the
Emperor. Sometimes there are at least 5000 equites in the procession.
The Emperor still has the right of the ancient censors to brand a man
as a bad citizen by the public command, “Sell your horse!” as he rides
by the reviewing stand;[75] but the parade has now become merely an
unpleasant formality for portly men unaccustomed to horseback, and old
gentlemen are usually excused.
In so large a body of “gentry,” however, imposture becomes fairly
common. Nearly every Emperor issues an edict for the purging of the
order, and every now and then some adventurous nobody is divested of
his “narrow stripe.” Calvus came home lately from the Flaminian Circus
laughing heartily. Just behind his senatorial tier a perfumed and
beringed fellow set off with a splendid lacerna sat down saying loudly,
“Now at last, thanks to our Cæsar, due honors have come to the Roman
equites, and the vulgar are kept away”; but hardly had he spoken ere a
lynx-eyed usher identified him and amid the jeering of hundreds “forced
that very fine lacerna to get up!”
=134. The Senatorial Order. The First-Class Nobility.=--The first
class in the nobility is the Senatorial. The actual functioning of
the Senate which is still a most venerable and powerful council will
be told later (see p. 334); here we have to see its members merely
in social and unofficial life. They number six hundred and entrance
into their gilded circle comes usually by a kind of hereditary right.
The sons of a senator can almost always count on becoming senators
themselves if the family fortune is not too impaired and they have
not fallen under imperial disfavor. To win the honor you must either
be elected (by the Senate itself) to some one of the old Republican
offices--quæstors, ædiles, prætors, consuls, etc.,--which carried a
life seat in the Senate with them, or be appointed outright by fiat of
the Emperor. The latter, furthermore, is always pushing forward his
favorites by “inviting” the senators to elect them to office, and the
“Conscript Fathers” never disregarded such a broad hint from “Cæsar.”
=135. Social Glories of Senators.=--Senators alone are eligible
for the highest commands in the army, for the governorships for the
more important provinces, except Egypt, and for most of the other
exalted offices which do not involve a vulgar handling of money. The
Emperor himself ranks as the head of their noble body. Even when he
is at bitter odds with them, he must not forget that they share part
of his glory. Still is told the story of how one of Nero’s parasites
raised a laugh from the tyrant one day. “I hate you, Cæsar!” he
announced. “And why is that?” “Oh, just because you are a senator.”
All the senators are officially the “friends,” _amici_, of the
monarch.
These great nobles are entitled to visit the Emperor in the palace
somewhat as clients visit their patron. He is expected to extend his
hand to them; to treat them as a kind of social equals; and to allow
the more important of them to kiss him. They and their wives must be
invited to all the greater palace banquets. Finally all the better
monarchs are expected to take oath at the beginning of their reigns
that they “will never put any senator to death”--that is, that the
Senate shall be the supreme judge over its own members.
Although parvenus are promoted by even the best of emperors, the
senatorial families average much older than do the equestrian; and it
is still a very desirable thing to boast of “ancient blood and the
painted visages of one’s forebears.”
=136. The Senatorial Aristocracy Greater than the Senate.=--The
“Senatorial Aristocracy,” nevertheless, is something greater than the
actual membership of the great council itself. Not merely the sons
but all the male descendants of a senator to the third degree are
reckoned as equal socially to the actual “Conscript Fathers,” though
many such connections dress merely as equites with the narrow stripe.
This may be from “lack of ambition” or it may be from desire to engage
in trade. Gratia has two brothers. One is a senator, his wealth
invested in lands, and at present he is imperial legate over part of
Britain. The second is technically only an eques, busy with enormous
financial transactions with Alexandria; but the second is the richer
and probably the more influential man of the two. Of course, all the
wives of senators rank with their husbands, and every cousin, niece, or
nephew of the latter feels a reflected luster. The six hundred senators
are, therefore, the center of an upper aristocracy with at least six
thousand actual members.
=137. Insignia, Qualifications, and Titles of Senators.=--The actual
senators make no concealment of their honors. They have their special
shoes (see p. 95), and most important of all they have the broad
purple stripe running down the front of their tunics, the precious
_laticlave_, distinguishing them instantly from the equites. Nobody,
furthermore, can be enrolled as senator unless he possesses the taxable
fortune of at least 1,000,000 sesterces ($40,000); and this insures
that he is a passing rich man, above petty bribes and able to live with
the dignity becoming a Lord of the Empire.
The public glories of these dignitaries match their fortunes. At all
the public games and spectacles the senatorial tiers are directly
behind the Emperor’s loge. In the public feasts the senators are not
merely entitled to the seats of honor, but frequently to extra-generous
portions of the food. If a senator tours the provinces, he can command
every kind of servile attention, even if the Emperor refuses him
the “right of free legation”--the privileges of traveling with the
honors of an ambassador. Finally if he is arrested, not merely is he
ordinarily tried before his peers--in the Senate; he is subject to much
lighter penalties than the run of citizens in case of conviction.[76]
Finally the senators have a title of nobility which they are able to
command practically as a formal right[77]--_vir clarissimus_--“Very
distinguished Lord” or “Your Magnificence.” Gratia, like every
senator’s wife, is a _femina clarissima_; even her small sons can be
addressed pompously as _pueri clarissimi_. To the multitude who make
way for their litters, the rank of _clarissimus_ appears the acme of
attainable happiness.
The political power of the Senate has waned, but emperors are only
mortal individuals. They come and go; the existence of the great,
proud, wealthy, landed aristocracy seems to go on forever. Emperors
usually succeed so far as they win its loyalty and favor; they somehow
fail, and are branded across history as tyrants (often cut short by
dagger thrusts) when they earn its hate. In an Empire of nigh one
hundred millions the six thousand of the Senatorial Order form the
normal apex of the human pyramid. It is a fine thing to be a senator.
CHAPTER IX
PHYSICIANS AND FUNERALS
=138. Scanty Qualifications and Training of Doctors.=--People fall
sick in Rome quite as much as in every other great center of humanity,
but the healing art has not really progressed a great deal beyond
that in Athens in the days of Hippocrates nearly five hundred years
earlier.[78] A great proportion of even the most fashionable doctors
are freedmen, and nearly all of these have Greek (or sometimes
Egyptian) names. There is no medical examination. Anybody who has made
a failure in other callings is welcome to pose as a physician and try
to extract money from the unfortunate. There are many “surgeons” and
“therapists” around the city who, a little while ago, were shoemakers,
carpenters, or smiths, and who, perhaps, keep up their old handicraft
on the side. Six months is time enough to learn a little medical jargon
while serving as “disciple” to some experienced doctor; after that, let
the invalids beware.
Under such circumstances the glory of the medical profession suffers.
Rightly did Pliny the Elder complain of doctors: “Any voluble person
has powers of life and death over us, just as though thousands of
persons did not live on without doctoring, as Rome existed for six
hundred years [before the first physicians came].” Such gentry
inevitably, if they fail at quackery, can then drift off to something
else, and very familiar is Martial’s epigram: “Diaulus has been a
surgeon and is now an undertaker. At last he’s begun to be useful to
the sick in the only way that he’s able.”
=139. Superior Class of Physicians.=--Nevertheless, the physicians
of Rome are by no means all of them charlatans. If their theories are
grossly imperfect, many of them are men of wide experience and keen
insight. A sick man able to command the best, need not give up in
despair unless his case is really complicated and difficult. Great
cures are recorded, as that of Augustus, whose life was saved in a
most critical illness by the “cold-water treatment” ordered by his
doctor, the wise freedman Antonius Musa--a cure which by saving an
all-important life affected the world’s history.
Whatever their qualifications, physicians, if not highly educated,
assuredly abound in large numbers. Every chartered city maintains
a corps of them for the free treatment of the citizens, and keeps
up public _hiatreia_--well-lighted, spacious halls for offices
and dispensaries.[79] Every cohort of the army has four physicians
attached, with superior medical officers over the larger divisions, and
camp sanitation has been worked out excellently by the Roman military
experts.
In the Imperial Court, the _archiater_ (“head physician”) is a
well-paid and very important dignitary. Between him and the miserable
slave doctors who bleed and physic their fellows in the private familia
there are any number of gradations. Most of the doctors, of course,
practice for fees, although in Rome, too, a system of free clinics and
dispensaries is coming in, with a special public physician for each of
the fourteen regions of the city.
=140. A Fashionable Doctor.=--A doctor of the superior kind is
Symmachus whom Calvus summons whenever any of his own family are
seriously ill. He has one of the most fashionable practices in Rome,
and his annual income is not much under that of Quintus Stertinus
whose fees in Claudius’s day brought him 600,000 sesterces ($24,000)
per year. A high-grade physician does not render a monthly bill. He
expects to be paid once annually--on the first of January. Besides he
counts on receiving a substantial legacy whenever a regular patient at
length escapes him and dies. Lower grade doctors, however, are less
delicate. They are charged with being greedy for unreasonable fees and
with prolonging illnesses easily curable, demanding outrageous sums for
common medicines, and taking every sordid advantage of the needs of the
sick.
[Illustration: INVALID WITH ATTENDANTS.]
Symmachus is apparently above all such _gaucheries_. He has been
trained to bear himself as a polished gentleman. His visits are long
or short according to the desires of his patients. He never blurts
out unpleasant truths and he always repeats the Hippocratic maxim,
“A cure depends on three things, the sick man, his sickness, and the
physician”; and that the physician’s business is to help the sick man
to cure himself. The result is that while his anatomical theories would
distress a later age, and some of his medicines are very crude, he
often effects excellent results especially in those cases where mental
therapeutics can avail a little.
Such a doctor possesses a set of surgical instruments quite as good
as any available in a later age until at least the time of the French
Revolution, and assuredly he knows how to use them very skillfully. He
can dull pain for operations or induce sleep by juice of mandragora or
atropin, and he can operate for cataract by distending the eye-pupil
by anagallis. Delicate surgical operations, however, he will probably
turn over to specialists. There are such surgeons who operate, no
doubt with reasonable success, for hernia and fistula, who take out
gall-stones, and deal with very dangerous fractures. There are also
lesser specialists who can remove or fill aching teeth and can banish
superfluous hair, and there is one shrewd old fellow who commands a
princely income--he can really erase the degrading marks of branding
upon slaves, after they become lordly freedmen.
=141. Medical Books and Famous Remedies.=--Symmachus affects to
be a man of professional learning. He possesses and claims to have
studied carefully the great medical treatises of Hermogenes of Smyrna
in 72 books, and that of Tiberius Claudius Menecrates in 156 books. To
impress his patients he will talk learnedly of the jangling theories
of the “Dogmatics,” and “Methodics,” “Pneumaticists,” etc., although
professing himself to be an “Eclectic.” However, his own shrewd common
sense is usually of greater avail than all his books.
A large part of a popular physician’s gains come not from regular
fees, but from supplying his patients with medicine. There are
many shops selling crude drugs in Rome but no regular prescription
pharmacists.[80] Public opinion avers that the more costly remedies are
always the best, and Symmachus does not discourage that idea too much,
although telling his select patients that cheap medicaments often are
as effective. It is often hard, however, to get pure drugs, and genuine
ingredients.[81] Even the best doctors will be deceived by oriental
drug dealers palming off false balsams, and similar commodities.
Many physicians consider it professional to keep their remedies secret,
and boast of private formulas, which they will not share with their
rivals. In Tiberius’s day there was a Paccius Antiochus who prepared
a marvellous powder, a kind of panacea for many ills. He compounded
it behind locked doors and mystified even his assistants as to its
nature; but on his death he had the decency to bequeath his formula
to the Emperor who had it deposited for inspection in all the public
libraries; and Hadrian has just done the same with some formulas left
by the great Marcellus of Side.
=142. Absurd Medicines. Theriac.=--Some of these remedies are of an
extraordinary nature and so intelligent a man as Symmachus can have no
confidence in them. Still plenty of good doctors will tell you that a
piece of hyena-skin is an excellent remedy for mad-dog bites, and that
certain very filthy substances make good poultices for swellings. The
imperial government actually employs several slaves to catch adders,
whence are derived several important medicaments; and it is claimed
that medicines to cure gall-stones must be pounded with a pestle that
contains no iron. There is no need to dwell on the absurd articles
foisted on the gullible by the quacks; pills made from dried bugs and
centipedes are among the very least obnoxious.
There is supposed to be a specific medicine for every disease, and
Symmachus’s office is crammed with little chests bearing such labels
as “_Drug from Berytus for watery eyes. Instantaneous_”; “_Ointment
for gout. Made for Proculus, imperial freedman. Safe Cure_”; “_Remedy
for scab. Tested successfully by Pamphilius during the great scab
epidemic_,” or “_Eye-salve tried by Florus on Antonia, wife of Prince
Drusus, after other doctors had nearly blinded her_.”[82] There is
also a large box of a famous compound to be used whenever diagnosis
is uncertain. _Theriac_ is a mixture of sixty-one different elements
including dried adders. Whoever takes it is sure to find at least
_one_ substance that will assist his disease; and it is prescribed by
almost every physician at the opening stages of a malady, before he can
attempt diagnosis.
=143. Fear of Poisoning. Popularity of Antidotes.=--A large part of
the doctor’s drug collection is, however, made up of _antidotes_ for
poisons. Everybody dreads being poisoned. Many peculiar deaths which
ought to be diagnosed as caused by natural illness are charged up to
venomous drugs[83] and indeed a deadly dose rather than a deadly dagger
seems a favorite means for murder. People still whisper stories of that
awful poison-vender, the woman Locusta, who probably supplied Nero’s
mother Agrippina with the fatal powder she sprinkled on her husband
Claudius’s dish of mushrooms, and then another dose to Nero himself to
kill his stepbrother, Britannicus, with a highly spiced goblet.
If a man has many deadly foes, he is likely to take a potion of the
precious theriac daily--because antidotes for so many poisons are
carried in the compound; and all histories tell how Mithridates of
Pontus, that famous adversary of Sulla and Pompeius, used to take
antidotes so constantly that he became entirely immune to the venoms
prepared by all his enemies. Symmachus, as part of his stock in trade,
therefore, keeps the proper antidotes for all such familiar poisons as
hemlock, opium, henbane, gypsum, white lead, etc., as well as for many
obscurer foods of evil. Rumor says that not long since he had to use
several of them on the old ex-consul, Annæus, whose spendthrift sons
seemed very anxious to get their inheritance.
=144. Medical Students, “Disciples,” Beauty Specialists.=--Symmachus
like all responsible physicians keeps an office on a good street,
but although patients can visit him there, the place is mainly for
the compounding of medicines by various slaves under the direction
of several “disciples.” There are no medical schools in Rome,[84]
and these young disciples follow their master about, study a little,
and learn by watching him. They are kept away from his most select
patients; but are allowed to troop into the sick room of the poorer,
feel of the pulse, examine the wounds, etc., in a manner most
distressing. People, in fact, dread to call in a doctor--it often means
being felt over not by one but by a half dozen clammy hands, usually
when one is very ill.[85]
In addition to the men of medicine are the “beauty
specialists”--persons who claim to have reduced the supplementing of
nature to a science. A court physician Crito once wrote four books of
standard authority on the compounding of cosmetics. Every physician is
called upon to prescribe skin washes, depilatories for rendering the
bodies of young dandies perfectly hairless, and formulæ for fragrances
for clothes or chambers; but it takes a specialist to know the
intricacies of rouge and enamel, and otherwise to assist the ladies.
The dividing line also between the physician and the hair-dresser is
not always easy to mark. Petronius tells about the dames who not merely
have abundant false hair, but “take their eyebrows out of a little box”
and “put their teeth away at night just as they do their silks.”
=145. Cheap Doctors: No Hospitals.=--The inferior grades of doctors do
a great deal of office work. In mere booths or small shops opening upon
the street they receive patients, sometimes even standing by the door
and bidding the hesitant “Step in!” Their surgeries are decked out with
a display of ivory boxes, silver cupping glasses, and golden-handled
lancets,--the more incompetent the leech the greater often being the
display.
To advertise their skill practitioners of this class will often set
bones and perform minor operations before a gaping crowd just outside
in the streets--actions denounced by men of Symmachus’s caliber; and
all their patients are examined with great publicity. Lower still are
the itinerant quacks who will diagnose diseases on a street corner
and vend alleged theriac and other “medicines” from a pedlar’s pack.
There are other unlovely members of the profession who grow rich
by performing criminal operations, and to whom unfaithful wives or
legacy-seekers can appeal, begging them to “put the patient out of
his misery!”--with results deliberately murderous. More legitimate of
course are the numerous women who attend to the maladies of their own
sex. Some of these women are said to be physicians of high capacity and
able to command generous compensation.
A serious handicap to medicine exists because there are no public
hospitals in Rome, although sick strangers are probably allowed to lie
around the Temples of Asculapius or of other healing deities.[86] The
control of epidemics is very imperfect. Rome has been visited severely
by the plague, and in the reign of Marcus Aurelius it will be ravaged
yet again. The age is a brutal one. Much is done to keep the populace
amused and to delight the eye; relatively little to preserve precious
human lives. In the great slave familia, however, self-interest if no
better motive impels the owners to try to keep their chattels healthy.
As already explained nearly every slave household has its special
slave physicians, men of tolerable competence; and there is also the
_valetudinarium_, the infirmary--a detached building or a large
room in which sick slaves can be properly tended, and also isolated to
prevent infection.
=146. Suicide as Escape from Hopeless Disease.=--Symmachus,
despite his reputation for “wonderful cures,” has just lost a wealthy
patient. The circumstances were somewhat unusual but by no means
unprecedented. Quintus Gordianus, an elderly senator, had been
suffering from a very painful internal disease. Symmachus assured him
the case was incurable, but that he might, nevertheless, live for
years. Thereupon Gordianus announced that he would commit suicide.
The right of a sane man voluntarily to surrender his life is undoubted.
Philosophers have written fine essays on the desirability of suicide;
only it must be entered upon discreetly and not as a cowardly means
of escaping the duties of life. Many of Nero’s and Domitian’s noble
victims obviously obeyed the mandate “Open your veins” more because
they were tired of existence than because a desperate attempt to
overthrow the tyrant would have been hopeless. Many a Roman aristocrat
has sucked all the sensual pleasure so completely out of life that the
latter has become one great boredom, and no religion commands “Live
on!” when it is evident that the remainder of existence must merely be
months or years of helplessness and pain.
As soon, therefore, as Gordianus was satisfied that his case was
hopeless he declared to his relatives that, “He would starve himself to
death.” They pleaded with him faithfully and caused most tempting food
to be always within his reach, but later they took pride in telling of
his iron will which rejected all their efforts. At last the end came,
and all his circle remarked that Gordianus died as became a Roman
senator and a true philosopher. Suicides for more trivial reasons than
the above are, of course, reported every day.[87]
=147. Execution of Wills. Numerous Legacies Customary.=--Before
Gordianus became too weak, he called in a group of friends to witness
the revision of his will. The right to execute a will is a precious
privilege for Roman citizens,[88] and the law allows wide options in
disposing of one’s property. A Roman gentleman makes his will many
times and is constantly revising or adding codicils to the same. Slaves
are not supposed to make testaments--their small _peculia_ must
legally revert to their masters; but the more decent owners allow even
slaves to bequeath their belongings to fellow-slaves.
A will implies much more than merely distributing one’s property among
near kin. Gordianus’s widow and son were in fact well content when
they found not more than two-fifths of the large estate was to pass
outside the family. It is a deadly insult--all the more deadly because
the departed are beyond retaliation--to fail to remember a familiar
acquaintance with a sizable legacy.[89]
“When the tablets are opened” all Rome knows how a man has paid his
social debts, usually to people who have no blood connection.
Was the ex-ædile Numerius angry because he only received 10,000
sesterces ($400)? And why was that ill-mannered old eques Albinus
left 20,000? And why was the banker Velocius, once such a confidant,
left nothing at all? Did Gordianus wish to brand the last-named as
a scoundrel? The list of slaves enfranchised, and also of those
specifically refused enfranchisement is carefully scanned; as well as
various legacies to certain great advocates who have evidently rendered
Gordianus service in tight lawsuits, and above all a sum of 100,000
sesterces ($4000) to “Our Lord Hadrianus Augustus Cæsar.” Gordianus
had been by no means a great intimate at the palace, but it would
have been most untactful to fail to remember the Emperor. Under bad
rulers such a slight would probably involve the actual setting aside
of the will, posthumous charges of treason, and the ruin of the heirs
by the confiscation of the entire property. Under a good Emperor such
an insertion puts the donor’s son in good odor with the government,
and insures that the imperial procurators (who guard their master’s
property) will assist in defending the will if disgruntled kinsmen
should try to break it.
=148. Regular Incomes from Legacies. Professional Legacy
Hunters.=--The granting of legacies is in fact so ordinary a part
of Roman life that distinguished men like Cicero and Pliny the Younger
can almost count on a steady flow of bequests (often from people whom
they know but slightly) as part of their income. Gordianus is leaving
a mature and proper son to take over his great name, clients, and a
good share of his property. His bequests therefore are relatively
small, and that fact robs his will of most of its interest. If,
however, he had been childless, all Rome would have been agog as soon
as people knew that he was dying. Great, if evil, are “the advantages
of childlessness.” The rich bachelor is sure of obsequious service from
innumerable quarters. The more he coughs and the paler he grows, the
more the presents he receives and the more do loudly condoling friends
press to his bedside. They reach the very depth of servility, and
sometimes they are rewarded.
Years ago Horace gave directions to the successful legacy hunter. “If
a man hands you his will to read, be sure to refuse and push the wax
tablets from you---yet take a side-glance to catch the second line of
the first table [below the preamble]. Run your eye quickly along to see
whether you are the _sole_ heir or one of many.” If the prospective
victim has a “crafty woman, or a freedman looking after the dotard,
strike a partnership with them and praise them to him, that they may
praise _you_ behind your back.” Then when the testator at last dies
lament him loudly, as a “worthy and true friend,” shed as many tears as
you can, and don’t grudge a splendid funeral.
Thus fortunes can be and often are won, but not invariably. In Trajan’s
reign there died a rich Domitius Tullus. He allowed the legacy hunters
to fasten upon him; to shower him with all kinds of favors--then he
actually left everything to a niece and to grandchildren. All Rome
was divided: “Perfidious hypocrite!” some gossips buzzed in the great
baths; but others praised him for “cheating the hopes of the rascals.”
=149. Public Bequests.=--Gordianus, besides these legacies to friends,
also makes some public bequests. This is an age when the rich are
expected to justify their good fortune by showering favors upon the
community. If the rich testator had lived in a municipal town, he would
have been expected in his life time to have provided feasts, public
games, new civic buildings, and probably to have repaired the city
walls. As it is, he leaves the cost of a good gladiator fight to an
Italian town that once elected him patron; increases the endowment for
a public library which he had earlier founded at another such town near
one of his villas; and institutes a trust fund to provide an annual
feast in honor of his “Manes” to be shared in by all the freedmen of
his family and by their own descendants.
=150. Great Funerals Very Fashionable. Desire to Be Remembered after
Death.=--Before he died, Gordianus also gave particular orders about
his funeral. Every Roman seems to look forward to his obsequies with
a melancholy, but an enormous interest. If he is poor, he hoards his
money and joins a coöperative burial society to provide for final rites
that will be long remembered. If he is rich, he will leave nothing
undone to succeed in impressing the entire city that it has lost an
important citizen. Under the Republic the funerals of great personages
were really public pageants, deliberately calculated to teach young
nobles the glory of a long career spent in the service of the state.
Under the Empire these customs are still maintained, although often
they are nothing more than vulgar displays showing forth the wealth of
the deceased.
The age does not believe earnestly in immortality. Epicureans deny
it outright, and Stoics more than doubt. Sometimes a very gross view
of death is taken, that it is merely the careless end of a round of
sensual pleasures. You can occasionally read on tombstones inscriptions
like this: “_Bathing, wine, and love-affairs--these hurt our bodies,
but they make life worth living. I’ve lived my days. I revelled, and
I drank all that I desired. Once I was not; then I was; now I am not
again--but I don’t care!_”[90] But most persons, especially grave
Stoics like Gordianus, view death otherwise. Death means a going out
into the dark; a process of being forgotten by those who once loved or
admired you. If, by a splendid funeral, you can make your memory last
a little longer, who would fail having one? Hence the excuse for very
costly obsequies, often for unimportant individuals.
=151. Preliminaries to a Funeral.=--The moment Gordianus seemed
to be breathing his last his son bent over his face as if to catch
his final sigh. Then immediately the young man called his father
three times “Quintus! Quintus! Quintus!” partly to make sure he was
dead; partly as a signal to start off all the expectant slaves and
freedmen in loud and frenzied lamentation through all the wide domus. A
messenger promptly summoned a fashionable _libitinarius_ (funeral
director) who undertook to conduct everything in the best possible
style. While the house rang with outcries, professional experts washed
the body in warm water and took immediately a waxen impression of the
features.
The dead was thereupon dressed in an embroidered toga, such as he might
have worn when a magistrate, and was placed on a gilded couch in the
atrium with the feet towards the door, beside which was set a bunch
of cypress or pine, in token of the sorrow in the house. Skillful
embalmers were available and the actual funeral could have been
delayed as much as a week. This was not necessary, however, and the
ceremony took place in two days--time enough to arrange the great pyre
and other necessary matters.
The old practice was for every funeral to be held at night, and
“funeral torches” were once about as common along the streets as the
more festive marriage torches. But under the Empire the greater display
can, of course, be made by daytime, although by a peculiar survival a
few torch bearers will solemnly march along in the procession as if to
outvie the sunlight.
The mustering of a large funeral procession calls for no mean executive
skill. If the deceased is from an old family, persons must be hired to
wear all the death masks found in his atrium, and costumes improvised
or rented so that the wearers can appear as consuls, prætors, etc.,
and all the various articles and exhibits needful for the procession
must be assembled. Above all there must appear at the house of mourning
a clever Greek actor, selected partly because of some physical
resemblance to the dead. This is the _archimimus_, who carefully
confers with Gordianus’s freedmen and even with his son to learn the
speech, mannerisms, and the personal foibles of the departed.
=152. The Funeral Procession. The Display of Masked “Ancestors.”=--At
last at a time sure to command the best attention, the criers begin
going about all the streets where Gordianus is likely to have had
friends. They shout a formula in quaint, archaic Latin. “This citizen,
Quintus Gordianus, is being surrendered to death. For those who
find it convenient, now is the time for his funeral. He is being
borne from his house!” and the procession sets forth commanded by a
master-undertaker--the pompous _designator_.
At the head marches a band of players, their flutes, lyres, and
dulcimers keeping up a most melancholy music. Then unavoidably follows
a whole platoon of professional clowns and buffoons singing ribald
songs and shouting very coarse jokes to the thronging spectators.
Next, apparently, there walks Gordianus himself--it is the archimimus
dressed like the ex-consul, imitating his gait, gestures, and voice,
and even making broad personal jests at the expense of the deceased.
Then follows the really imposing part of the display, and the bereaved
widow and her son thrill with aristocratic pride at the thought of
it. Theirs is a very old house, and a hundred actors are needed to
wear all the wax _imagines_ (often battered and blackened) from
the great cupboards in the atrium. All his “curule ancestors” going
back to the Gallic invasion seem to be accompanying Gordianus to the
grave. The spectators are checking off the “consuls” and “ædiles” on
their fingers, and at last some cry “a censor,” and presently even
more admiringly a “dictator.”[91] One can almost feel that it is no
misfortune to die, if only one can look forward properly to this moment
of posthumous glory.
=153. The Exhibits in the Procession. The Retinue around the
Bier.=--Behind the procession of death-masks come slaves bearing on
poles large crudely sketched pictures upon boards, showing incidents
in the Dacian wars where their master commanded as one of Trajan’s
legates. Gordianus also had dabbled in literature, and copies of
his essays and poems are now tied on tall rods and carried along
conspicuously by the marchers. Next comes the corpse itself--exposed to
view, upon a couch decked with purple, fretted with gold, and carried
aloft upon the shoulders of eight picked bearers. All can see that
Gordianus wears the “triumphal ornaments,” the laurel wreath as well
as the toga prætexta awarded the favorite generals in the army.[92]
After that follows the family procession. Young Gordianus is robed
in black, and leads by the hand his mother, a venerable matron, who
wears the mourning color for women, white, and who lets her gray locks
stream in disorder over her shoulders. If he had possessed sisters,
they would now tear their hair, dig their nails in their cheeks, and
utter piercing cries of grief. This clamor is produced sufficiently by
a group of slave women led by two or three professional female wailers
who, at intervals, set up a shrill chant of lamentation for the dead.
Next follow a great company of Gordianus’s more distinguished friends,
all walking with down-cast looks and clad in black or sad-colored
togas. After them is the large retinue from the familia, first the
older freedmen, then groups of ex-slaves wearing tall caps--token of
manumission by will, and trying not to appear _too_ exultant in their
new freedom, then bringing up the rear the whole group of actual
slaves, supposed to be torn with grief at the loss of “so good a
master.”
=154. The Funeral Oration in the Forum.=--The procession heads at
first not toward the place of the final pyre but toward the Old Forum.
The honor of a public funeral oration is granted to practically every
distinguished citizen, including many noblewomen. Indeed, this use
of the Forum is an extremely common occurrence. The space around the
orator’s stand (the _rostra_) has been cleared of idlers, and an array
of suitable “curule chairs” has been set out for all the wearers of the
death masks, as if they were again sitting like the magistrates of old.
After a suitable delay a kinsman of the deceased, a senator somewhat
vain of his reputation as an orator, mounts the rostra and delivers
a fulsome eulogy. It is notorious that such “laudations” never stick
closely to the truth. The audience is made to understand that Gordianus
was a very Cato the Elder in personal virtue and a Scipio Africanus in
his success as a general. When that ceremony is completed the whole
company sets forth again--this time toward one of the gates beyond
which is the funeral pyre.[93]
=155. Family Tombs. The _Columbarium_ and the Garden.=--Burials are not
unknown in Rome, but most bodies are disposed of by cremation. Even
persons of very modest means will try to provide money for a good pyre.
This is partly because the very poor, the worthless slaves, and the
lowest of the plebeians, are not burned, but their bodies simply are
dumped in hideous open pits not far from the Esquiline itself. Nothing
is done to the bodies thus exposed except to leave them to the dogs and
ravens, and only the favor of Jupiter averts from the city an incessant
pestilence in consequence. Long since, however, Gordianus’s family has
erected along the Appian Way (though another frequented highroad could
have been selected) a stately tomb, calculated to attract attention
from all passers.
Handsome tombs can take many forms; there is even a good-sized stone
pyramid, 116 feet high, erected to guard the ashes of Gaius Cestius,
a great man under Augustus. That of the Gordiani is of a more modest
character; a circular masonry tower, about fifty feet in diameter and
rather higher, surmounted by a castellated battlement adorned with
life-sized marble statues of famous members of the family. Inside there
is no huge chamber for a sarcophagus, but simply a series of arched
vaults the walls of which are honey-combed with little niches, each
intended to receive a funeral urn. This kind of interior, therefore,
is not unhappily called a _columbarium_--a “pigeon-cote”; and here
will be placed not merely the urns of all the regular scions of the
family, but (in inferior niches of course) those of all the freedmen
and even of all the better loved slaves. The ashes of the Gordiani,
mighty or humble therefore rest all together.
[Illustration: SCENE ALONG THE APPIAN WAY: showing
the tombs and the gay crowds passing.]
Outside this massive tower there is a considerable open compound, laid
out as a pleasant garden, with shrubbery, flower-beds, and a little
lodge for the slave in residence who acts as caretaker. There is even a
small but handsome building, where members of the family can meet for
the periodic feasts in honor of the dear departed. Handsome statues
and fine bas-reliefs on the inclosing walls abound, and the place in
short seems much more like a small pleasure park than a cemetery. This
mortuary compound, however, is one of the better types of inclosures.
The taste displayed in some adjacent is execrable. Already across
the Appian Way opposite, a rich freedman has purchased a large lot
and is erecting in his own lifetime a tall central statue of himself,
flinging money from a bag to the populace, with the base surrounded by
bas-reliefs showing his favorite small dog, some gladiator fights, and
deep-laden craft under full sail--to explain how he made his money.[94]
[Illustration: PYRAMID--TOMB OF GAIUS CESTIUS:
Ostia Gate of the Wall of Aurelian (built _circ._ 275
A.D.) in background.]
For many miles out into the Campagna around Rome extend these strange
cemeteries--not in seclusion, but passed by incessant traffic. Some
of the monuments are magnificent, some simple; they illustrate almost
every type of sculpture--but the object of nearly all is the same,
to remind the living of the one-time existence of the dead, and so
to provide a kind of spurious immortality often for very commonplace
persons, in an age when the immortality of the soul seems no favored
doctrine.
[Illustration: VIEW ALONG THE APPIAN WAY SHOWING FUNERAL
MONUMENTS.
_Restored after Von Falke._]
=156. The Funeral Pyre and Its Ceremonies.=--At last the funeral
procession has reached the great mausoleum of the Gordiani. The pyre
of choice wood, sprinkled with perfumes, unguents, and costly spices
is ready at a safe distance. The sides of the pile have been covered
with dark leaves, while cypress boughs have been set upon the top.
Amid these the bier and the corpse, just as they have been borne, are
now planted and various articles of clothing, jewelry, trinkets, etc.,
used by the deceased are next placed upon the pyre. If the ex-consul
had been a younger man fond of hunting, deer nets and boar spears might
have been added; or favored horses and dogs slaughtered and their
carcasses added to the pile.
[Illustration: STREET OF THE TOMBS AT POMPEII, SHOWING
TYPICAL MONUMENTS OF THE SMALLER CLASS.]
At length all is ready. Young Gordianus is handed a torch, and with
averted face he touches it to the wood impregnated with perfumed oils.
Instantly a great blaze shoots up, the smoke from the aromatic wood
smelling most sweetly. The company waits in mournful silence until the
tall pyre collapses and the bier has been utterly consumed. Then as
the fire glows away, several loyal freedmen dash forward and quench
it with great jars of chilled wine. Certain calcined bones and ashes
are collected, wrapped in fine linen cloths and placed in a superb
funeral urn, blue and white glass cut into exquisite designs, showing
boys piping and treading the grapes in a festival of Bacchus. The last
mortal remains of the departed senator are, therefore, at rest amid
scenes eminently cheerful.
=157. Funeral Monuments. Memorial Feasts to the Dead.=--The ceremony
is over. “_Vale!_”--and again “_Vale!_” cries all the company ere
departing. The urn will now be placed in one of the niches in the
columbarium; but in Gordianus’s honor they will erect a special statue,
at its base chiseled a peaceful ship gliding steadily toward a distant
shore; the son and widow evidently recalling the peaceful thoughts of
Cicero in his essay “On Old Age”--“I find the nearer I come to the time
of death the more I feel like one who begins to see land, and knows
that sometime he will enter the harbor after the long voyage.”
On Gordianus’s birthday, on the anniversary of his death, and also
for eight days in February sacred to the honored dead, his heirs and
loyal freedmen will visit the spot, deck his statue with wreaths of
roses, violets, and other flowers, sacrifice a black sheep or pig to
the “Manes,” and indulge in a feast in his honor. This will be kept up,
perhaps, until his own son is placed on the pyre and the fame of the
“great Gordianus” has sunk to the barest memory.
=158. Funerals of the Poor. “Funeral Societies.”=--We have witnessed
obsequies of a rich senator. Less favored persons, of course, are
buried with ever-increasing degrees of simplicity. There is almost no
religious element in Roman funerals. The bodies of unfortunates can be
disposed of with brutal abruptness and lack of decorum, but the great
host of plebeians and of those freedmen who cannot hope for an urn in
the columbarium of a noble family have a recourse. They often club
together in a “Funeral Society.” Everybody pays a fixed assessment into
a common chest; out of these funds space is hired in one of the great
public columbaria which are often erected as legitimate speculations.
When a member dies he is assured of a respectable procession of
buffoons and weepers (imagines being out of the question), a private
harangue in his honor, and a thoroughly adequate funeral pyre. Funds
not needed for this purpose are spent on feasts once or more a year in
which the names of dead members are solemnly commemorated.
Some of these funeral “colleges” are really elaborate affairs, with
considerable ritual, a permanent hall, and a corps of elective
officers, “prætors,” “curators,” etc., whose tinsel pomp makes the
wearers forget that most of the time they are humble plebeians or even
slaves. The collegia, in other words, appeal to those who in another
age may find a certain inferior type of “lodge” very congenial. They
are grandiloquently named for some patron god, calling themselves “The
Worshippers (_cultores_) of Apollo,” or perhaps for an Oriental deity,
“The Servants of Serapis”; but their fundamental purpose is the same;
to insure against the horrid thought of having one’s body flung into
the open pits of the potter’s field and then perhaps having one’s ghost
wander in misery over sea and land instead of finding a calm oblivion
in Hades.
CHAPTER X
CHILDREN AND SCHOOLING
=159. Theoretical Rights of Father over Children. The _Patria
Potestas_.=--When a child is born into a Roman home the father
has complete legal rights even as in Athens to determine whether it
is to live or to die.[95] If theoretically he has the terrific power
as _pater familias_ to kill his children in later life if they
merely displease him, how much more can he claim the right to decide
that “This boy will be one too many,” or “We can afford no more
girls,” or “This child will be sickly and deformed.” If his decision
is adverse, mother and nurse may beseech in vain; the babe is simply
“exposed”--that is, carried by a slave to some spot by the highway and
left to perish. This harsh old law is unrepealed.
Possibly such deserted children will be taken up by those whose homes
are desolate and who require consolation. There is a greater and
fouler chance that such babes will be carried away and reared by human
harpies who raise boys and girls to sell as victims of gross wickedness
among the rich, or who even mutilate the children to convert them into
grotesque buffoons or pathetic beggars to wheedle the coppers from
the tender-hearted. Perhaps some of those horribly deformed creatures
who cry “Give! Give!” behind the litters of the senators are blood
relations to the gilded lords themselves. This is physically possible,
if we can believe many ugly stories.
Legal right and actual custom can often, however, stand miles asunder.
No Roman gladly will see his house dying out, despite the “advantages
of childlessness.” In fact to keep up the family name, resort is
often had to _adoption_, sometimes of mature adults, to an extent
quite unknown in other ages. The upper classes under the Empire are
dwindling so rapidly, thanks to many causes, that rare indeed is the
house where a lawful child is unwelcome; and in the lower classes
fathers are fathers still. In short though the cruel old “right of
exposure” exists, it is not exercised often enough to make its practice
a wholesale evil, and a man of distinction who exposes a babe (unless
his family is remarkably large and expensive) will fall under social
ostracism; in fact the Emperor may even be advised to strike him from
the list of senators or equites as “a bad citizen.”
=160. Ceremonies after Birth of a Child. The _Bulla_.=--The birth
of a child in a good family is, therefore, the signal for no common
rejoicing, and thanks to the favored position of Roman women, girls
are not a serious discount as against boys. Then comes the grand
celebration--the _lustratio_, the name-day for the babe.
This occurs nine days after the birth of boys and the eighth after that
of girls; the idea being not to name the child prematurely lest it die
in first infancy. The ceremony takes place in the atrium. The mother
cannot, perhaps, be present, but there is a general gathering of the
near friends, kinsmen, clients, etc., before whom the nurse solemnly
presents herself and then lays her little bundle of swaddling clothes
at the feet of its father. With equal solemnity the father bends and
takes up the infant and with his formal “lifting up” the whole company
raises a shout of joy.[96] Henceforth, the babe is of undoubted
legitimacy, a member of the family, entitled to the protection alike of
the family lares and of the public law, and a new citizen of the Roman
state. Then the father, turning to the company, if the child is a boy,
announces in clear voice his prænomen, _e.g._, “Let the lad be called
Marcus!”
After these formalities are ended the kinsmen and also the favorite
slaves rush forward and throw around the neck of the infant cords
bearing little metal toys, tiny swords, axes, flowers, or even dolls,
all called _crepudia_, from the manner in which they clank together.
Most important of all, however, is the golden _bulla_, an elaborate
locket containing charms, which the father himself hangs about the
child’s neck. If the family is poor, one of painted leather may answer,
but a bulla there must be. It will never be laid aside permanently
until the proud day when the grown-up lad “assumes the manly toga,” or
when the girl leaves her parents’ house as a bride.
=161. The Roman Name: Its Intricacy.=--It is no slight thing, this
matter of the Roman personal names, and they are far more complicated
than are the Greek. Under the Republic names were so standardized among
the upper families, that those of a young nobleman were practically
determined the moment he touched the cradle. How many “Appii Claudii”
figure in the history of the Commonwealth! Omitting technicalities,
practically every Roman citizen then had three names: his _prænomen_,
a personal designation something like the Christian “John” or
“George,” his _nomen_, fixed on him by his _gens_ (special clan)
such as Cornelius, Fabius, Julius, etc., and finally his _cognomen_,
which marked the particular family of the gens to which his father
belonged. Cæsar, Sulla, Cicero, Scipio, and the like were all cognomens
corresponding closely to later-day surnames, and were anything but the
individual property of certain famous holders of the same. Thus even a
cognomen could have many bearers, and sometimes a second cognomen was
added--such as Publius Cornelius Scipio _Nasica_.
This is all very well, but how few are the options left to the parents
in selecting the prænomen! There are only eighteen regular Roman
prænomens, of which Marcus, Gaius, and Lucius are perhaps the most
common. Certain families confine themselves to a very few prænomens.
Thus no Cornelian ever names his sons anything but Gnæus, Lucius, and
Publius unless the gods bless him with a fourth boy. The Domitii were
nearly all either Gnæus or Lucius. Rare was the Claudian eldest son who
escaped being called Appius.[97]
These cases simply register what is true in most of the old families.
The rule is to name your first son always after your own father. Thus
Publius Calvus’s young Titus is the grandson of a Titus and the great
grandson of a Publius. His younger brother, however, was not thus named
by rigid precedent. He could be named Decimus.[98]
=162. Irregular and Lengthy Names under the Empire. Names of
Slaves.=--Things are far more irregular, however, since the Empire
has brought the Roman name along with the Roman citizenship to hordes
of freedmen and foreigners. They Latinize their alien names, or
they take an altered form of their ex-master’s names, for example,
Claudianus Licinianus; or often, being complete upstarts, swell around
with absurdly long names often meaning nothing at all. This is true
even of some high officers, and there is now ruling as proconsul of
Africa a senator calling himself pompously Titus Cæsarinus Statius
Quintius Statianus Memmius Macrinus, while that of the governor of
North Britain, a certain “Pollio,” has _nine_ names if you give
him his full title.[99]
As for slaves they were ordinarily called in simpler days of the
Republic merely “Marcipor,” or “Lucipor,” etc.,--“Marcus’s boy,” or
“Lucius’s boy”; but such descriptions in the days of the great familiæ
become impossible. Most house slaves are either named for Greek
deities or heroes, or else for some Oriental potentate, precisely as
“Cæsar” and “Pompey” will figure on slave plantations of another day.
“Mithridates,” “Pharnaces,” “Cyrus,” and the like appear in every
atrium. There are also plenty of handsome boys answering to such
fine names as “Eros,” “Polydorus,” “Xenophon”; or who are named for
their native country as “Syrax” for a Syrian, and “Cappadox” for a
Cappadocian.
=163. Names of Women. Confusion of Roman Names.=--When a girl is born
in an old family her chance of a distinctive name seems even less than
that of her brothers. There are really no recognized prænomens for
girls, and until lately there have been hardly any regular cognomens.
Calvus’s daughter should have been merely called Junia for her gens:
“The Junian Woman.” If it is needful, however, to separate her from
her cousins, she can be called _Junia Calvi_--“Calvus’s Junia.” If she
had a younger sister, she would be simply “_Junia Prima_” as against
“_Junia Secunda_”--Junia No. 1 and Junia No. 2.
This kind of effacement is, however, becoming very displeasing to
high-spirited Roman women. They are now asserting their personality
by demanding special names. The result is that they are getting a
kind of irregular cognomens. Calvus’s daughter is, therefore, known
as Junia _Gratia_ (from her mother), and should the house be favored
with another young mistress, she will probably be Junia _Calva_ in
compliment to her father’s cognomen.
Nevertheless, with every explanation, the names alike of men and women
at Rome are utterly confusing. Duplication seems incessant and anything
like a complete directory of the city would apparently carry many pages
of identical entries. Of course, a ready use of nicknames (constantly
invented by Italian ingenuity) overcomes the actual difficulty. Among
near friends or dependents it is quite proper to cry “Hail, Spurius!”
or “Well said, Tiberius”; but it is an impolite familiarity to employ
the prænomen except for intimates. Ordinarily the cognomen is the
proper form, used, be it said, without any “Sir” or “Mister,” and
in the Senate the archaic usage requires that the Conscript Fathers
should be summoned by prænomen and gentile name only. “_Dic, Marce
Tulle_,” “Speak, Marcus Tullius,” was the form by which Cicero was
often called before he began his great orations.
=164. Care of Parents in Educating Children.=--So a Roman child
receives that great thing, his name. What is the course of his life if
he grows to manhood? Very much the same as in other civilized lands,
where most parents are loving and where most children bring joy to
the house. Boys and girls, until school age, are largely in the hands
of the womenfolk. Gratia’s old nurse, brought with her to Calvus’s
house, is still more of a beloved mentor and tyrant to Gratia’s
children, usually bribing her charges to be good “with honey, nuts and
sweet-cakes.” But as soon as boys, at least, begin to pass out of early
childhood their fathers are expected to take them in hand, and even a
man of high rank is criticized if he leaves his sons too much to the
guidance of paid tutors and of slaves.
This paternal discipline may be harsh but it is seldom negligent. Boys
are taught to go with their fathers almost everywhere; to watch and
listen in silence, but to ask intelligent questions afterward. Thus
young Titus is already old enough to accompany his father Calvus to
the sessions of the Senate itself. On a seat reserved near the door
for senators’ sons he listens through many a solemn debate. Presently
the routine of business is so familiar to him, that he presumptuously
thinks he can correct the consul on certain points of order. He and
his companions of like rank already are playing “prætor’s court”--with
one of them on the tribunal and the others (like their parents) the
orators in the great basilica. As the good old customs have waned this
companionship of fathers and sons has perhaps somewhat waned also--but
it still remains one of the worthiest features of the Roman training.
=165. Toys and Pets.=--Roman children lack nothing in playthings.
All but the elaborate mechanical toys of a later age are at their
disposal. Little children have their rattles, balls, and carts. Small
Junia plays with very life-like dolls of ivory, wax, and painted terra
cotta, often fashioned by exceedingly skilful Greek craftsmen. She and
her brothers rejoice in swings and hobby horses, while Titus and young
Decimus also make glad in a finely painted “century” of wooden soldiers
and in tops, hoops, and marbles--such as are transmitted almost
unchanged across the ages, and they receive somewhat suspiciously (as
soon as they are of proper age) a gift of a carefully carved set of
wooden letters, a sly device for teaching the alphabet.
Much more welcome than these last are, of course, the New Year and
birthday presents of tame nightingales, talking parrots, and caged
blackbirds, of dogs, large and small, of that somewhat rare animal from
Egypt--a delightful furry cat, and best of all--when they grow a little
older--being children of a senator, each a well-broken pony--of little
use in Rome, but a splendid comrade when the family goes to its villas.
As they get older still a decent allowance of pocket money is added
and an earnest attempt is made to teach the children financial
responsibility, to add accounts, to save their sesterces, and not to
run up bills. It is not ungenteel, however, for a youth of family to
be an easy spender, and Pliny the Younger has scolded a friend as
outrageously severe for “thrashing his son because he was too lavish in
buying horses and dogs.”
=166. The Learning of Greek by Roman Children.=--Even before formal
schooling begins, the young Calvi, like all other Romans of the better
class, have begun an important part of their education--the learning of
Greek. The Athenian education was a single-language education with no
studies outside those of the mother tongue.[100] The Roman education is
a bi-lingual education.
Without Greek everybody confesses that a full half (probably more)
of the world’s entire wit and wisdom is locked away. Without Greek
not merely must a man refuse to claim the least real culture; he is
handicapped in all the professions and in most forms of business. He
can have no commercial dealings with the Levant. If he travels anywhere
East of the Adriatic, he can hardly make himself understood outside of
the governors’ prætoria and the camps. Even into the literary Latin
there have crept an enormous number of Greek terms, mostly having to
do with matters of learning or luxury. In short without the mastery of
Greek a Roman of any ambitions is hopelessly lost.
A scholar need not, however, bother about any third language.
Practically all Levantines can jabber _some_ Greek, even though
their accent be abominable, and their native tongue Syriac or Coptic.
As for Spaniards, Gauls, and Britons doubtless interpreters are needful
if you visit their crude villages, but all their upper classes are
now busily learning Latin just as they are learning the joys of Roman
baths, circus races, and cookery. With Latin and Greek you are ready to
meet the world.
Greek is taught in the schools, but hardly as a painfully acquired
foreign language. From infancy Titus, Decimus, and Junia have had
Greek-speaking attendants, and their own parents (very fair Greek
scholars) take pains to talk in good Attic part of the time while they
play with them. As the children grow up about half of all the more
elegant and refined conversation they must hear will be in Greek--and
so through all their education. The result will be that Junia may turn
out to be a learned lady like the poetess Julia Balbilla, the Empress
Sabina’s friend, who has written some very fine Greek elegiacs,[101]
“worthy of Sappho,” say her friends; or Titus if he dabbles in
philosophy, may write a long treatise in good Attic prose as well as
can his contemporary the destined emperor, Marcus Aurelius.
=167. Selection of a School.=--In the good old days a father was
expected not merely to give his son moral and practical lessons, but
actually to be his schoolmaster--to flog reading, writing, and a little
arithmetic into him; even as Cato the Elder (234–149 B.C.) boasted
that he did with his own son. But that stage has long passed, and the
main question now for every boy or girl is, “tutors or school?” No
doubt families of the highest rank find private tutors fashionable and
convenient; thus such a personage as Augustus employed the skilful
freedman, Verrius Flaccus, to teach his grandsons; but the advantages
of contact with other children of about the same social class are
clearly understood. The young Calvi, therefore, have been sent to
a carefully selected school. This arrangement is exceptionally good
because their father’s colleague, the ex-prætor Aponius, owns a
remarkably gifted slave, one Euganor, who is allowed not merely to
teach his master’s children but (by a recognized custom) to take in
others; their fees going toward his _peculium_ saved up to buy his
freedom.
=168. Extent of Literacy in Rome. Education of Girls.=--Schools
exist everywhere in Rome, and there are all sorts and conditions of
schools. There is no system of public education, and probably a good
many poor plebeians and slaves are barely literate enough to spell out
the gladiator notices and to jot down a few accounts or memoranda; but
public opinion condemns parents who deny their children at least a
little schooling, and absolutely illiterate persons are rare.[102]
Girls in poor families are rather less sure of instruction than
boys, and in superior families they seldom pass on to the upper and
the rhetoric schools; but apparently in the ordinary schools they
frequently go with their brothers on terms of perfect equality. There
seems to be no prudish separation of the sexes, although when the grown
boys go off to learn the tricks of orators and philosophers, nobly-born
girls spend the years just before their marriages under good tutors
learning the poets, and being taught a graceful proficiency in harp
playing and also enough of dancing to give them the erect carriage and
the stately, calm movements of destined matrons.
=169. Schools for the Lower Classes.=--Between the select establishment
of Euganor in a side apartment of Aponius’s great mansion and the
cheapest type of school along Mercury Street there is a great gulf
fixed. Any kind of a shelter will do for a low-grade school, and any
kind of a half-educated fellow can set up as a school teacher.
[Illustration: BOY STUDYING.]
Take for example poor Platorius who, having failed as an inn-keeper
at Ostia, is trying to earn a living by leasing a vacant shop near
the Insula Flavia. The shallow room opens directly upon the noisy
street, and the passing throngs divert the children, while the clamors
of the children distress all the semi-invalids in the big insula.
Every thrashing by the master attracts a knot of brutal idlers just
outside. Platorius’s school is of the lowest grade, but he has to make
a certain pretence of learning by setting up a few chipped busts of
Homer, Virgil, Horace, etc., and erecting a high seat (_cathedra_)
for himself. His class sits before him on long backless benches.
There are no desks, and every child holds his smudgy wax-covered
tablets uncomfortably upon his knee, as he copies or erases with his
stylus.[103]
To all the better schools the children come each accompanied by his or
her “pedagogue,” much after the Greek manner; a private slave being
especially assigned to each boy or girl, and obligated to lead his
charge to and from school, help with the lessons, guard the child’s
morals, and even assist in chastising.[104] But few of Platorius’s
pupils come from parents who can afford the luxury of a pedagogue
for their children. They appear by themselves so early in the morning
in winter time that they have to bear smoky lanterns; the most
self-sufficient of them being “the sons of centurions, with satchels
and tablets hung on their left arms, and carrying every Ides (middle
of the month) their fee of eight brass pieces each.” [Horace.] Each
boy has devoured a crust before leaving home and the school continues
without recess until noon when there is an intermission of fair length
to get the prandium or at least to buy some sausages from the street
dealers, and perhaps to indulge in a short siesta. After that the
deafening study is resumed, and there is relief in the neighboring
tenements only when the school is dismissed towards dusk.
=170. Scourging, Clamors, and Other Abuses of Cheap Schools.=--A
school is no asset to the neighborhood. Vainly do the satiric poets
implore a teacher to “be kind to his scholars” and to “lay aside his
Scythian scourge with its horrible thongs” and his “terrible cane, the
schoolmaster’s scepter.” Poor Platorius knows well enough that the type
of parents who employ him believes the old maxim “he who is not flogged
is not educated.” The Romans are a military people and the ideal of a
school is always somewhat the stern discipline of the centurion with
his vinestock (see p. 323). Precepts in many a classroom are enforced
with curses and blows, and Seneca has declared in disgust that it is a
common thing “to find a man in a violent passion teaching you that to
be in a passion is wrong.”
The children, too, are often permitted to study their lessons aloud
even as in the schools of the Orient. All this adds to the buzzing
confusion, so that it is claimed that a school causes more noise than
a blacksmith at his anvil or the amphitheater applauding a favorite
gladiator.
The teaching and the flogging keep up through a long season. The
school year begins on March 24th, when Platorius painfully counts the
entrance fees brought by each scholar, reckoning himself lucky if he
does not have to split his gains with the pedagogues who attend a
favored few of the children. There is a considerable holiday in summer
when it is too hot to study, and children of good family are likely to
be attending their parents in the country. There is another interval of
about a week at the Saturnalia and over New Year’s Day; another just
before the new school year begins in March. Otherwise, except for the
more important religious festivals, and the “Nones” (5th or 7th days
of each month), the studying and the beating go on, with rather fewer
holidays than in the twentieth century.
[Illustration: SCHOOL DISCIPLINE.]
Platorius is near the bottom of the educational ladder. His fees are
only about four sesterces (16 cents) per month per pupil, and he is
none too sure of prompt payment. The miserable room costs something
for rental. If his pupils fail to progress, their parents storm at him
and promptly shift to another master. In short he leads a dog’s life.
The green grocer and the copperpot monger who have stalls opposite the
school despise him as entirely beneath them.
=171. A Superior Type of School.=--Quite different is the atmosphere of
Euganor’s schoolroom. He is technically a slave, but a slave of very
superior class. The children come to him accompanied not merely by
extremely genteel pedagogues but by subordinate slaves, _capsarii_, who
carry their books and tablets, and the establishment has a convenient
ante-room, where all these gentry can foregather and match gossip, “My
master says”--while their charges are being instructed.
The school itself is held in an elegant chamber adorned with fine
frescos of historical events such as the campaigns of Alexander,
speaking statues of great literary figures, and, conspicuous upon the
wall, an elaborately painted map of the Roman Empire, “for,” affirms
Euganor, “the boys should have daily before their eyes all the seas
and lands, and all cities and peoples comprehended therein; for the
name and position of places, the distance between them, the source
and outflow of rivers, the coastline with all its seaboard, its gulfs
and its straits are better taken in by the eye than by the ear.”[105]
Euganor, too, has his rod and does not bear it in vain, but he never
allows his discipline to degenerate into stupid cruelty. He is, in
short, an extremely competent man who studies each of his charges
carefully and who would prove an excellent teacher in any schoolroom in
any age.
=172. Methods of Teaching.=--All Roman schools are small. The idea
of vast “graded” establishments where year after year pupils are passed
from teacher to teacher and at last “graduated” has occurred to no man.
Platorius conducts his school entirely alone. Euganor has a couple of
efficient monitors, but neither he nor Platorius tries to handle more
than say thirty pupils. Many of Euganor’s pupils came to him while
little more than babies and will only leave him when actually ready
for the rhetoric schools. He is largely responsible for their entire
elementary education, although many of the higher class children know
the Latin and Greek alphabet and can spell a little before being put
under his charge.
This is no place for a real discussion of the actual forms of
education. First there comes the mere teaching of reading, writing, and
simple arithmetic, with very little use of books, the master dictating
sentences and correcting the tablets whereon the children write them
down. Such a teacher as Platorius may have a few musty rolls of papyrus
which his charges are allowed to handle gingerly, but “First Readers”
as understood in later schools are unknown. Euganor is better off, and
a considerable library is at his disposal, although barring a few books
of fables it contains little that is directly appealing to children.
In the poorer schools the average master congratulates himself if his
charges stay long enough to become fairly literate, but the better
establishments, of course, accomplish far more. When a child can once
read with tolerable fluency, and can write the characters on his wax
tablets without wandering from the traced lines or needing too many
corrections, he begins to have the great poets, especially Virgil and
Horace in Latin and Homer in Greek, pounded into him. He is compelled
to learn very long passages of such authors by heart,[106] and as an
especially desirable exercise he is forced to translate both from Greek
into Latin and also from Latin into Greek.
Since many of Euganor’s pupils will presumably become orators, they
are furthermore aided to improve their diction also in every possible
manner, to acquire a good stock of metaphors, and to have on hand a
great supply of apt, pungent quotations. All the possible meanings
in the literary texts are explained, likewise the mythological,
historical, and geographical allusions, etc. The study of literature
thus becomes what is really a form of a “General Information” course.
=173. Training in Higher Arithmetic.=--Before the children leave
Euganor they are also taught the higher forms of arithmetic. Prior
to the coming of Arabic numerals this is pretty serious business,
yet every Roman of property must be able to keep elaborate accounts,
and not be too dependent upon his stewards. Indeed, in some superior
schools a special arithmetic teacher is called in; a _calculator_,
who is entitled to demand extra large fees, although one suspects
that most of his pupils are equites’ sons who will probably engage
in commerce. One thing, however, Euganor does not have to bother
about--physical culture. The Greeks can send their sons to the
_palæstra_ and to the harpist to learn gymnastics and music. The
Romans try merely to see that their boys get exercise enough to keep
them in good health, but they cannot grasp the practical value of a
training that neither makes the lads better soldiers nor better men of
business. Many Romans, of course, learn also about the fine arts, but
never in the regular classroom.
=174. The Grammarians’ High Schools.=--By their early teens, however,
even Euganor’s pupils begin to forsake him. They are passed on to a
higher teacher, a regular “grammarian” (_grammaticus_), who assumes
that his charges are well grounded in the fundamentals, and who
endeavors to instruct them in the real niceties of Greek and Latin
literature. Sometimes also there is a specialist in each of the
languages.
In these high schools great stress is laid on proper pronunciation
and elocution. Euclid’s theorems in geometry are studied, and a good
deal of history is fluently if not very critically taught. Much of
the learning is superficial, for it is a fine thing in many circles
to _affect_ to be erudite,[107] and more stress is sometimes laid
on absurd problems of mythology than upon learning sober facts.
Grammarians who teach the sons of the parvenu rich are liable, indeed,
to be scolded if they cannot themselves explain instantly “Who was
Anchises’s nurse?” But the better grammarians’ schools turn out pupils
who are not perhaps men of deep learning but who have a great fund of
information, who can write a clear accurate Latin (and often a Greek)
style, and generally carry themselves as cultivated young gentlemen.
Those, however, who aspire to pass as highly educated will inevitably
go on to the still higher school of the _rhetor_.
[Illustration: GRAMMARIAN INSTRUCTING TWO UPPER
PUPILS: an attendant (_capsarius_) standing at one
side.]
=175. Oratory Very Fashionable.=--Oratory seems the keystone to
success. True, the fall of the Republic makes it impossible to harangue
the assembled Comitia in behalf of favorite candidates or proposed
laws. Even in the Senate there are now grave limitations upon free
eloquence. Nevertheless, the desirability of “fame” as an orator seems
incalculable. To win your cause in the courts; to make a crowded hall
resound with applause at your set orations seems the height of peaceful
triumph. Never will another age set more store on high-soaring formal
_talk_ than this age of the Roman Empire. The actual performances
of professional orators and “readers” we can glance at later, and, of
course, space lacks for any presentation of the “Science of Eloquence”;
but mention must be made of the rhetoric schools in which by ardent
anticipation young Titus and Decimus Calvus are already winning laurels.
=176. Professional Rhetoricians.=--No slave or ordinary grammarian
can hope to conduct a rhetoric school. The masters are either Romans
of such rank that they can mingle with senators, or are distinguished
Greeks fresh from the schools of Rhodes or Athens.[108] Not many years
ago in Trajan’s reign, a certain Isæus came to Rome from Greece. He
dazzled the noblest circles by his proficiency; his diction was the
purest Attic; his sentences sparkled with epigrams. He called on his
audience to name any mooted subjects it liked for discussion and to
state on which side it wanted him to argue. Instantly he would rise,
wrap his gown around him and “without losing a moment, begin, with
everything at his finger tips no matter what subject was selected.”
Presumably his thoughts and the information behind them were very
superficial; no matter, the flow of his logic, learning, and language
set his audience into ecstasies. Calvus only hopes he can find an
equally distinguished master for his own sons.
=177. Methods in Rhetoric Schools: Mock Trials.=--Rhetoric schools are
arranged rather as halls of audience than as ordinary classrooms. The
students are expected to sit in a proper manner, “to look steadily
at the speaker, not let their minds wander or to whisper to their
neighbors, yawn sleepily, smile, scowl, cross their legs, or let
their heads drop.” The training in its earlier stages, however, seems
decidedly academic. Great models in Greek and Latin oratory are
examined and discussed. Then the young advocates-to-be are put to work
preparing their own orations. They are not, however, allowed to take
any live and fresh topic. Instead they must seek one in distant history.
Every day the streets of Rome resound with noise from the rhetoric
schools--some youth is laboriously inciting the Athenian patriots,
Harmodius and Aristogeiton, to screw up their courage and to free their
country by slaying the foul Hipparchus. Still more threadbare are the
ceaseless orations urging Hannibal to advance (or not to advance) on
Rome after his victory at Cannæ. There are a number of stock subjects
of a more private kind. Mimic prosecutors work themselves into a
passion against “The Ravisher,” “The Poisoner,” or “The Wicked and
Thankless Husband.”
Often a couple of pupils a little more advanced can be pitted against
one another in an imaginary lawsuit. Suppose a father orders a son to
kill the youth’s brother, whom the father suspects of intending to
turn parricide. The boy pretends to have obeyed the order, but the
second lad really escapes. The father at length discovers the facts and
prosecutes his first son for “The Crime of Disobedience,”[109]--what
endless opportunities now for “eloquence” either proving that a parent
must be obeyed at any cost, or that no one can be compelled to commit
fratricide!
Again it is supposed that a young girl has been kidnapped, but rescued
and her ravisher later arrested. Imagine now that the law gives her the
choice--either the kidnapper must marry her and give her the status
of an honorable wife or she can require that he be put to death. The
rhetor will put two of his best pupils to prepare counter exhortations
to the perplexed girl: “Marry the fellow to assure your social future!”
or “Let justice be done--summon the executioner!” It is all very
ingenious, but equally unreal, and it is often hopelessly artificial.
Angrily wrote Seneca of such debates that by them “we are learning not
for life but for school.”
=178. Enormous Popularity of Rhetoric Studies.=---However impractical
this study, the upper classes at Rome assuredly dote upon it. When
each youth in turn mounts the orator’s stand in the school and begins
his _suasoria_ (set oration) or his _controversia_ (pretended legal
argument) all his fellows are duty bound to cry in Greek, “_Euge!_”
or “_Sophos!_” at every booming sentiment or well-rounded climax. At
least once during the oration it is good form for them to rise from
their seats and join in a salvo of applause--they will all get like
courtesies when their own turns come.
When the young declaimer has finished the master will arise. He will
show how to gesture, making his garments fall in picturesque folds.
He will take the subject just handled and repeat the argument showing
how each point can be better developed; how new matter can be brought
in; how allusions to the gods, the worthies of old, and perhaps to
the reigning Emperor will improve the effect; how to use one’s voice
at each particular turn, etc., etc. If the only object of oratory is
to tickle the ear, the result is magnificent. The students dutifully
applaud their master even more loudly than they do their fellows, and
each goes home wondering anxiously, “When can I argue my first case
before the prætor?”
=179. Philosophical Studies: Delight in Moralizing.=--A good many
Roman nobles of intellectual type advance a step further than the
rhetoric schools. They study philosophy; and even go to Athens (now a
quiet, delightful university town) to listen to lectures by the alleged
successors of Epicurus or of Zeno the Stoic, but to Greece one need not
follow them. It is proper to say, however, that a certain dabbling in
philosophy is extremely fashionable.[110] There are plenty of stories
about noblemen who have treatises on philosophy read to them while
they are being carried to and fro in their litters under the porticoes
of their villas; or even of ladies who listen to lectures by a
professional philosopher every morning while their maids are arranging
their hair.
Such personages, needless to say, never improve upon the familiar
guesses at the riddle of human existence; but sometimes their desire
to moralize becomes worse than comical. People still repeat stories
of Agrippinus, a high-born victim of Nero. When he caught a fever he
immediately dictated a panygyric on the moral excellencies of fever. He
was ordered into exile; he wrote a treatise on the benefits of exile.
He was made a high judge; he added to the anguish of those he condemned
by giving his victims long orations to prove that he passed sentence on
them only for their own good!
=180. Children’s Games. “Morra” and Dice.=--It is a long cry from
child-rearing to philosophy. One must return to the first topic enough
to notice the games played by young Romans and also by their elders.
Tag-games, blindman’s buff and its refinements, and like sports, can be
seen in every street and dusty area in Rome. A favorite game is that
of “King”; when a group of children elects a _Rex_ who commands
them to perform all sorts of fooleries. Time fails to tell of all the
contests with tossing knuckle bones and at “odd and even,” guessing
at concealed pebbles, shells, and nuts. The later-day Italian game of
“morra” (_micare digitis_) in which both players hold out a hand
with a certain number of fingers extended, and then each one tries to
shout out the correct number of his rival’s fingers before the other
can do the like by his, is a highly popular if noisy method of killing
time. At the eating houses and taverns it is regularly used among
friends to settle who shall pay the score.
All too early boys, and likewise girls, learn also to rattle the dice
box. Some of the dice are ordinary six-sided cubes, some are oblong,
with the numbers “2” and “5” omitted from the narrow ends. Almost
always three dice of bone or fine wood are used; and the familiar
expression “three sixes or three aces” is the same as saying “all or
nothing.”
=181. Board Games of Skill: “Robbers” (Latrunculi).=--Altogether
too much time and money are wasted at dice even by fairly grave people,
while professional gamblers abound; but the Romans have two games in
which men are moved on a gaming board according to rules involving
very high degrees of skill. You can play _Duodecim Scripta_ very
much like later-day backgammon; fifteen white men and fifteen black
men are shifted about on a board marked with twelve double lines
(whence the name) according to the casts of the dice. More abstract
and learned is _Latrunculi_ (“Robbers”), a game without dice and
seemingly very much like later-day checkers or chess. Some of the
pieces are called “soldiers” and others “officers”--and the moves
are very elaborate.[111] Of course, such games are far removed from a
mere youthful sport. Consuls and Emperors delight in them, and while
playing forget everything but the problem involved. Devotees cite with
pride the story of Julius Kanus, one of the mad Caligula’s victims.
He was in prison but was allowed to have a friend visit him, and the
two were busy over “Robbers,” when a centurion came in to say he must
be immediately executed. Kanus at once arose unmoved, but carefully
counted the men on the board; then said to his friend, “Mind you, don’t
tell a lie after I’m dead, and say that you won”; then turning to the
centurion, “Please bear witness for me that I was one man ahead,”--and
so did Stoicism find its way even to the gaming table!
=182. Out-Door Games. Ball Games, _Trigon_.=--Among out-of-door
amusements, we find that young Romans and some of their elders enjoy
fairly elaborate games of ball. There are various exercises which show
that the world is on its way to handball, tennis, and even to polo, but
hardly any contests foreshadow such things as baseball, foot ball, or
cricket. The most common game is _trigon_, when three players stand at
the corners of a triangle, and at least three, or even six balls, are
kept flying around the circle with great rapidity; the points being
made on catching and throwing with as few misses as possible. The
players stand close together, and the whole sport is more a mild form
of juggling than it is any real field exercise.
CHAPTER XI
BOOKS AND LIBRARIES
=183. Letters and Writing Tablets.=--The multiplication of schools
presupposes the constant use of books, correspondence, and other forms
of writing. What are these like?
[Illustration: WAX TABLET WITH STILUS ATTACHED.]
“Tablets” are seen everywhere. Upper-class people delight in scribbling
down memoranda. The story even runs that Augustus wrote out his
intended conversations with his wife Livia “lest he should say too much
or too little,” a testimony at once to the need of circumspect dealings
with the lady and to a great mania for writing. Ordinary tablets are
made of two or three thin strips of wood joined together like later-day
book-covers, and spread over the inside with a thin coating of wax. On
this wax, often black and dingy, day accounts and business messages can
be scratched with facility. But really important fashionable letters
demand something better. The leaves can be made of fine citrus wood or
even of ivory. As for very special correspondence, love letters, and
the like, these are written on very small tablets in contrast to the
broad slabs carrying the merchant accounts.
If you want a handsome note book, you can buy one with a number of
folding leaves and with outside covers of finely chased ivory, silver,
or gold, and such handsome note books make very convenient presents
among friends. By a convention attached to the high office, when
Calvus became prætor, he presented his intimates with tablets adorned
with his own portrait in low relief on ivory, and with scenes of the
prætor’s tribunal. If he had been consul, he would have been expected
to give around bunches of tablets even more elegant.
[Illustration: WRITING TABLETS AND STILUS.]
When a letter is written no envelope is needed. The tablets are folded
over upon themselves, fastened with crossed thread and then at the
point when the ends are knotted is placed a round piece of wax, stamped
before it can cool with a signet ring. The name of the person to
whom the letter is going can be written on the outside, and then the
communication is ready. Letters can be transmitted to distant places
usually only with tedious difficulty, but around Rome delivery from
writers of any high position is extremely prompt. The carrying of
letters is one of the commonest duties for otherwise idle slaves, and
from a mansion like Calvus’s it is easy every morning to send off ten
packets each by its own hurrying messenger.
=184. Personal Correspondence and Secretaries.=--Calvus, like every man
of distinction, has a heavy correspondence. It is a fine thing to be a
good letter writer, to make your epistles seem easy, natural, gossipy,
and yet in such faultless language that they can be collected presently
and published in a book. To a few special correspondents, especially to
absent relatives, Calvus writes almost daily in his own hand. But he
dictates even more frequently. He has a couple of slave _amanuenses_
who are with him constantly; they can take down his dictation in a kind
of abbreviated long hand; then write it out in handsome script, always
submitting the final text to their master not for his signing but for
sealing. As a consequence of all this correspondence, the demand for
new tablets in Rome is prodigious. The wax, indeed, can be melted upon
letters which one does not care to preserve, and the wood used a second
time, but the waste inevitably is great.
[Illustration: BOOK CUPBOARD.]
=185. Books Very Common: Papyrus and the Papyrus Trade.=--Nevertheless,
the activity of such secretaries is vastly less important than that of
another set of scribes, the makers of books. Poor is the tenement suite
that does not contain a few musty papyrus scrolls, while a parvenu
freedman will inevitably acquire a large library (which he may never
read) just to show himself a man of fashion. Books are so common that
their divided sheets are wetted, and used in kitchens to keep fish in
fresh condition, or, if dry, to make wrappers for incense and spices.
Paper is unknown, and parchment although not unknown is used mainly for
very important correspondence, public documents, and the like, which
require extremely durable material. Practically all books are written
on papyrus arranged in rolls.[112] The papyrus is strictly an Egyptian
monopoly, and if the importation of this precious article should cease,
apparently all Greece and Italy would be doomed to partial illiteracy.
The papyrus plant grows in the swamps by the Nile to a height of about
ten feet. The pith of its tall stalks is first cut into strips; next
the latter are placed one by another upon a wetted board and smeared
over with a paste. On these there is next laid a second layer forming
a cross pattern or kind of net work. Then the whole combination is
pressed and beaten down into a solid sheet and smoothed with an ivory
knife or a shell. After that it is ready for export from Egypt and to
be put to proper use.
[Illustration: BOOK CONTAINER.]
The papyrus trade is well standardized. There are eight well-recognized
grades of the commodity. The best is _hieratica_, so called because it
is fine and firm enough to be used by the Egyptian priests for their
sacred books. The cheapest is _emporetica_, not fit for writing but
only for wrapping parcels. The intermediate qualities answer for the
run of books. When the papyrus sheets are ready separately, either they
can be pasted together at once into a long scroll making a complete
volume, or first the book can be written off and the sheets pasted
later.
=186. Size and Format of Books.=--Books can, therefore, be of all
sizes but everybody usually agrees with the Greek saying, “_Big book,
big evil!_” It is an indescribable nuisance to fumble over a roll of
more than a certain length hunting for a desired passage. Not many
volumes run over 100 pages,[113] and many are much smaller. Each sheet
constitutes a separate page (varying between six to twelve inches
high), with the writing usually in a single column, four to six inches
broad, on each page, and a blank space crossed by a red line before the
next page begins.
[Illustration: DOUBLE INKSTAND.]
It is impossible to read with any convenience writing on more than
one side of the papyrus prepared in this manner. The result is that
discarded books are often used for schoolboys’ exercises or for mere
scribbling “paper”; although, if the papyrus is very firm, often the
writing can be sponged out and a whole new work can be written over the
vanished sentences. Books being of this character, it is impossible
really to prepare the “ponderous tomes” of a later day. “Volumes” are
very short. The Iliad of Homer is ordinarily in twenty-four separate
rolls, one for each of its “books”, and the same arrangement obtains
for other standard works. Very many “books” in the Roman libraries,
therefore, are really little more than pamphlets.
[Illustration: PEN AND SCROLL.]
For writing on parchment, of course, one cannot use the stylus. Reed
pens skilfully cut may suffice, with a thick ink made of lampblack and
gum for ordinary purposes and also a red ink, rich and permanent, for
ornamental lines. In Calvus’s library, as in almost every other, are
two large beautifully wrought ink wells, made of bronze with silver
chasings, and attached together--one for the black ink and one for the
red.
=187. Mounting and Rolling of Books.= The mounting of the papyrus
long roll is a great art, especially if the book is intended for a fine
library. First, the whole long strip of papyrus is dressed with cedar
oil to repel worms--thus giving the pages a pleasing yellow tinge.
Then the last leaf is fastened to a thin cylinder of wood or of rolled
papyrus called the _umbilicus_. The ends of the roll itself are
carefully cut and smoothed with pumice stone, and the ends of the
umbilicus are often gilded. Next a strip of solid parchment bearing
the title of the book in handsome red letters is attached by a string
at one end, where it will hang down when the volume is rolled.
After the book itself is ready a neat cylindrical cover or case must
be made of parchment, colored red or yellow, and also marked with the
title. For really fine volumes additional elegancies are possible; for
example, a handsome portrait of the author can be painted or pasted
upon the first page, and the edges of the entire scroll can be colored.
Handsomely illustrated works grace every good library.
[Illustration: BOOK SCROLL.]
To read these books will seem to persons familiar only with
_codexes_ (flat opening books) extremely cumbersome.[114] You have
to take the volume in both hands, unrolling with the right while you
roll up with the left. It seems nigh impossible to “run through” such a
volume, and hard to trace down a passage; and there are apparently no
indices. However, practice can make almost perfect. Calvus can roll and
unroll his books with remarkable dexterity and by a kind of instinct
hit promptly upon almost any allusion. It will be a real gain for the
world, nevertheless, when the roll is supplanted by the many-leaved
book.
=188. Copying Books: the Publishing Business. Horace’s and Martial’s
Publishers.=--Books abound, although of course all are multiplied
by painful human effort. This is because slave copyists are relatively
cheap. Atticus, Cicero’s friend, seems to have made a real fortune in
the publishing business--that is, he owned a great corps of skilful
slaves incessantly busy transcribing manuscripts. The finest copies
must be made deliberately one by one, but ordinary volumes can be
multiplied more summarily. As you go about Rome you will perhaps come
on large rooms where a great number of scribes are seated in a kind
of lecture hall desperately following word for word some reader who,
in a smooth, monotonous voice, is giving out the text either of an
established classic or the newest essays or epigrams of the successors
of Pliny the Younger or Martial. In this way what is really an
“edition” of say a hundred or even two hundred copies can be produced
in a remarkably short time, without the aid of the printing press.[115]
The publisher, and even more the authors who try to live by their
literary genius, are, however, under a grave handicap. There is no
copyright. What you “publish” to-day, may be flagrantly recopied
and sold under your very nose to-morrow--possibly with errors and
interpolations calculated to drive an author frantic. The average
aspirant for literary fame unless he has personal means is therefore
constrained, as were Horace and Martial, to hunt up a rich patron who
for the joy of being “immortalized” will keep him from starving.
However, every aspiring author tries to find some bookseller, who will
turn his works over to a corps of competent slaves, and then vend the
products. There is a regular booksellers’ quarter in Rome down by the
Forum of Cæsar in the heart of the commercial district. Here Horace’s
old publishers, the Sosii, had their stalls; and Martial’s publishers,
the firm headed by the clever freedman Allectus, are still there in the
business.
At Allectus’s shop they will tell you how the epigramist used to drop
in with pardonable vanity to see how from “the first or second shelf
they would hand down a ‘Martial,’ well smoothed with pumice stone and
adorned with purple--all for five denarii (80 cents).” On the columns
by the entrance to this and the rival shops are plastered up long lists
of new publications--often with sample extracts to prove their wit or
learning; or announcement of new or old copies of standard works from
Homer down to that clever Greek litterateur Plutarch, who has recently
died in Bœotia; or in Latin from old Nævius and Ennius to the recent
biographies of the Cæsars by the imperial secretary Suetonius.
Considering the labor of copying, the price of books is moderate; a
small volume of poems by a popular writer can be had for as little as
two denarii (32 cents), although such a scroll would probably be only
equivalent to a thin pamphlet of later-day printing, and the works of
a really voluminous author like Pliny the Elder might appear ruinously
expensive.
=189. Passion for Literary “Fame.”=--Expensive or cheap, by men of
education a certain number of books must be had. Perhaps the Age of
Hadrian will fail to leave a great mark in the history of either
Greek or Latin letters, but that will not be because _literary fame_
is not passionately sought after. Everybody is anxious to dabble
in authorship. Everybody (in the upper circles) seems incessantly
compounding formal “epistles,” memoirs, essays, rhetorical and
sentimental histories, and last but not least great quantities of
verses which pass as “poetry.” Pliny the Younger (not long dead) was
incessantly urging his correspondents to write: “to mould something,
hammer out something, that shall be known as yours for all time.”
The same pathetic desire for immortality which leads to ostentatious
funeral monuments and to endowed funeral feasts, perhaps puts a premium
upon this mania.
The fine gentlemen and ladies who share these tastes boast that nothing
can interrupt their furious pursuit of “letters.” Senators like to
inform their friends that even while hunting boars in the Apennines
they keep their writing tablets and stylus near them when watching for
the beaters to drive the game into the nets--what precious sentences
might escape them otherwise! They like also to have freedman or
slave “readers” always at their elbows to keep up a flow of poetry
or philosophy apparently all the time when they are not eating,
exercising, or conversing.[116]
It is also a kind of etiquette for all members of the gilded literary
circle to keep sending their unpublished effusions around among their
friends with demands for “entirely frank and severe criticism”;
the response always being a long letter of praise even for very
mediocre efforts. “Terse, lucid, brilliant, stately,” or even “keen,
impassioned, graceful”--these are grievously overworked adjectives,
although perhaps at the end of the answers there are a few polite hints
suggesting a slight improvement.
The Latin-speaking provinces are said to follow Roman literary
celebrities intently. Nothing delights the latter more than to learn
that their fame has spread to distant parts. Tacitus was certainly
a great historian, but he was a man of his time and also a very
warm friend of Pliny the Younger. Oft repeated is the story of a
conversation he had in the circus, where on the front benches for
notables he met a “certain learned provincial.” The twain, without
introduction, fell into a delightful literary conversation, until the
stranger who manifestly was very up-to-date asked: “Are you from Italy
or the provinces?” “Ah,” said Tacitus, “you know me very well from
my books that you’ve read.” “Then,” cried the other, “you are either
Tacitus or Pliny!”
[Illustration: OLD FORUM: looking towards northern
side, with the Curia shown behind the high columns in
foreground; restoration by Spandoni.]
=190. Zeal for Poetry: Multiplication of Verses.=--Prose
compositions in smooth and fastidious Latin, or in very passable
Greek are common enough, but even the authors of genuinely superior
histories or literary essays, often desire to become something more
magnificent--they wish to be poets. Very famous Romans have put forth
their energies over iambics, elegiacs, or hexameters; Sulla, Cicero,
Hortensius the Orator, Julius Cæsar, Brutus, Augustus, Tiberius,
Seneca, Nerva--the list of such celebrities could be made much longer.
Of course, every loyal subject knows that the reigning Hadrian is
the author of clever epigrams, which would really deserve a certain
fame even if their author had lived in the Subura and not upon the
Palatine.[117]
Probably if there could be physical measuring rods wherewith to
determine it, the sheer quantity of Latin, and also of Greek verses,
being thrust upon the world every year would seem prodigious. At
Allectus and Company they will tell you that Romanus has just brought
out some very acceptable “Old Comedies” in the style of Aristophanes,
and some other “New Comedies” in iambics worthy to be classed with
Plautus and Terence. The noble Caninius, too, has at last completed
and published a remarkable Greek epic: “The Dacian War”--celebrating
Trajan’s victories in a manner quite worthy, let us say, of Homer and
Hesiod. True, the uncouth names of Dacian barbarians do not fit well
into the hexameters, and especially that of their king, “Decebalus,”
is metrically almost impossible, but ingenious poetical license has
overcome the difficulty. Who can doubt that Caninius’s “long poem” will
live across the ages?[118]
Such a practical man of affairs as Calvus does not take all the
smooth compliments proffered his efforts over-seriously; but even our
friendly senator can feel a thrill of pleasure when he dashes off a
dozen elegiacs in praise of his mountain villa, and hears the “_Euge!
Euge!_” (he hopes not _too_ insincere) of his guests as he
reads them at a dinner party.
=191. Size of Libraries.=--With such an affectation for books
and literary fame there are inevitably great libraries. Long ago
the old Hebrew gloomily recorded, “Of making of many books there is
no end,” and his sighs would have increased could he have seen the
collections in Rome. The small size of the volumes indeed makes it
hard to compare these libraries with those of other ages. The largest
library in the world is that at Alexandria with some 400,000 rolls,
but there are public collections in Rome not very much smaller. As for
private libraries, a certain rich and learned senator has about 60,000
rolls.[119] Calvus and his friends make no such boast, and he contents
himself with some 4000 volumes. This is respectable, but nowise an
unusual collection for a man of refined tastes, and it has plenty of
counterparts all over the city.
=192. A Private Library.=--The library in the house of Calvus is
small but sumptuously furnished. Around a large part of the walls
extend great tiers of large pigeonholes made of finely carved wood,
and in each hole is a group of rolls, either the complete works of
a voluminous author, or a collection of smaller books on a single
subject. The bright red lettering on the dangling labels, the gilt ends
of the rolling rods, the pleasing soft yellow of the end of the papyri
(if these are not also colored red) give a luxurious appearance to the
collection.
Set above the tiers of books in such a room is a long array of fine
busts in bronze and marble of nearly all the distinguished literary
figures of Greece or Italy. Calvus has just added a handsome bronze of
the comedian Menander. The careful frescos on the exposed walls have to
do with learned mythological subjects; there is also a fine life-sized
statue of Minerva the patroness of letters, and on a long shelf stand
really beautiful silver statuettes of all the Nine Muses. Along one
side of the library there are also tables where Harpocration, Calvus’s
truly learned and capable freedman librarian (_librarius_), who
assists in all his patron’s studies, can spread out rolls for patching,
rewinding, or even for recopying; also a convenient writing couch for
the senator himself when he wishes to take his tablets and compile
those fine “extracts” which the literary world delights to cull from
every possible author, or to try his own hand at original composition.
Calvus is not a virtuoso, however, and does not imitate such wealthy
enthusiasts as the poet Silius Italicus who collected all kinds of rare
editions, crammed his house with every imaginable writer, and “kept
Virgil’s birthday more carefully than he did his own.” For all that
Harpocration has been commended for hanging a small wreath around the
bust of Sophocles, this day being the reputed anniversary of the death
of the great tragedian.
=193. The Great Public Libraries of Rome.=--Into the Public
Libraries of Rome we cannot enter. They exist nevertheless as great
and beneficent institutions although probably only a favored few are
permitted to read their treasures except inside their ample halls.[120]
The oldest public library is that founded by Asinius Pollio (an officer
of Julius Cæsar) and is located on the rather distant Aventine. Cæsar
himself projected two very grand Greek and Latin Libraries but did not
live to create them; Augustus founded a very fine library in the Temple
of Apollo on the Palatine (making it virtually the imperial palace
library), and his sister Octavia created another. There is still a
fourth good library in the Temple of Peace founded by Vespasian; but
all these are now overshadowed by the relatively new “Ulpian Libraries”
established by Trajan at his new Forum. These enormous collections
of Greek and Latin rolls make Rome by far the greatest repository of
literary treasures in the entire world, barring always the famous
collection in Alexandria.
CHAPTER XII
ECONOMIC LIFE OF ROME: I. BANKING, SHOPS, AND INNS
=194. Passion for Gain in Rome.=--Much has been said about Roman
trade and riches, but this is no place for an economic survey of the
realm of the Cæsars. It is impossible, however, to ignore the outward
side of that commercial activity which is everywhere in evidence around
the imperial capital.
The desire for gold, doubtless, had its potence in old Egypt and
Babylonia, and most certainly in old Tyre and Carthage, but never has
the fierce passion burned much keener than along the Seven Hills. Go
into many a pretentious vestibule; in the mosaic pavement are set as
mottoes, “_Salve Lucrum!_” (“Hail, Profit!”) or “_Lucrum Gaudium!_”
(“Profit is pure joy!”). Hearken also to the cynical poets of society,
for example, to Juvenal: “No deity among us is held in such reverence
as _Riches_; though as yet, O baneful Money, thou hast no temple of
thine own! Not yet have we reared fanes to Money in like manner we have
to Peace and Honor, Virtue, Victory, and Concord.” And he speaks again:
“No human passion has mingled more poison bowls, none has more often
plied the murderer’s dagger than the violent craving for unbounded
wealth.”
His less sedate but not less cynical contemporary, Martial, echoes
his words. He recommends that an honest friend should leave Rome; he
cannot succeed for he is neither a rake nor a parasite; he cannot tell
lies like an auctioneer, wheedle old ladies out of their property,
sell “smoke” (“empty rumors,” in other words political, gaming, or
commercial tips), nor otherwise earn a corrupt living. Martial tells
us too of despicable misers who, as their vast fortunes increase, let
their togas become even more dirty, their tunics still worse, their
wine mere dregs, and their main diet one of half-cooked peas.
Perhaps such sordid creatures, however, are no worse than the others
who struggle for riches simply to enjoy gross material vanities;
who desire “that their Tuscan estates may clink with the fetters of
innumerable toiling slaves in order that they may own a hundred tables
of Moorish marble supported pedestals, that gold ornaments may jingle
from their couches, that they may never drink anything but Falernian
cooled with snow from large crystal goblets, and that a crowd of
clients may follow their litters; etc., etc.” And long before Martial,
Horace has asserted, “All the arches of Janus [the typical Latin deity]
from end to end teach one lesson to young and old ‘Oh, fellow citizens,
fellow citizens, _money is the first thing to seek--virtue after
money_!’”
=195. Life in Rome Expensive. Premiums upon Extravagance and
Pretence.=--With every deduction from such charges Rome is
undoubtedly an extremely expensive city to dwell in, probably the most
expensive in the whole Empire, and in all but very limited circles
the pressure for wealth is inconceivable. A typical man-of-affairs
is represented as boasting to his cronies, “Coranus owes me 100,000
sesterces ($4,000); Mancinus 200,000; Titius 300,000; Albinus 600,000;
Salinus a million; Soranus another million; from the rent of my insulæ
I get three million ($120,000); from the flocks on my pasture lands
600,000.” On any night at half the triclinia, the mighty equites
and senators can be heard talking about investments, real estate
transactions, government contracts, and foreign trade prospects, far
more vigorously than concerning either the wisdom of the Emperor’s
policy in building the wall across Britain, or the philosopher’s
doctrine of the immortality of the soul.
The very life of the city puts a premium in fact on getting and
spending. A youth inheriting a modest fortune in the provinces comes to
Rome. In a few months his patrimony has drifted away on fish-mongers,
bakers, luxurious baths, ointments, and garlands, not to mention fine
clothes, gamesters, and dancing girls. In many circles an outlay
of 40,000 sesterces ($1600) is “a mere pinch of poppy seed for an
ant-hill.” You must at least _seem_ rich or you amount to nothing.
Half the young men of fashion are therefore, good authorities aver,
up to their ears in debt; but anybody with a little ready money can
put on a bold countenance to make an impression. Many is the apparent
aristocrat who is swung along in a fine litter, his violet robes
trailing, and with a long train apparently of clients and slaves
following him, who has actually hired litter and attendants, nay, the
gown which he wears from a ready contractor--in order perhaps to carry
his part in some business conference at the Forum. And if you are to
plead a case as advocate but are unluckily a poor man, nevertheless be
sure to hire a fine toga and a couple of handsome rings to wear through
the morning, or the jurors will assume you are a nobody and promptly
vote against you.
=196. Rome a City of Investors and Buyers of Luxuries.=--Everybody
declaims against this scramble for wealth and yet joins in it. Even
Martial and Juvenal, it is peevishly averred, would have held back
their jibes if their financial hopes had prospered. Be it said also
that this struggle in Rome is probably not much more sordid than it
can become in other capitals in other ages. The standards of business
honesty are relatively high. Most bargains are faithfully kept. A great
credit system has been built up--itself a witness to the fact that most
traders are honorable.
The business life of Rome flows in many channels, but in general the
Eternal City does not compete with Alexandria, or even with certain
smaller Græco-Levantine cities, as an industrial or distributing
center. Rome _receives_ much. The great incomes from investments
in the provinces and from the expenditure in the city of the imperial
revenues, make it possible to pay for enormous quantities of luxuries
for which no corresponding articles are exported in return. There are
many petty industries but they exist mainly for local needs. Rome
exports legions and law-givers, so her inhabitants assert proudly,--is
it not right, therefore, that she should wax fat upon the tributes
of the world, when she can repay them with the blessed _pax
Romana_?[121]
=197. Multiplicity of Shops. The Great Shopping Districts.=--But
if the industrial life of the city is relatively weak, never before
has there been such a “wilderness of shops” as spreads itself along
the streets of Rome. A certain type of shops can be found everywhere;
hardly a street but has grocers’ stalls; the terra cotta plaque with a
goat, the sign of a milk dealer; the stone relief of two men tugging a
great jar slung up on a pole, the sign of a wine shop, and the like.
There are nevertheless certain great retail quarters to visit if you
are seeking for articles of _vertu_ and price. The fashionable
fish-mongers have their odoriferous stalls under the great porticoes
and basilicas by the fora; the fruit sellers are along the ascent
from the Old Forum to the top of the Velia (a spur of the Palatine
flung out toward the Esquiline); while the jewelers, goldsmiths, and
makers of musical instruments as well as the great bankers have their
headquarters directly along the Sacred Way itself. The perfumers’
shops in turn are well concentrated under the south-east brow of the
Capitoline.
In addition to these, however, there exist two grand shopping districts
for Rome outside the Fora themselves: for the cheap trade, where
elbowing plebeians struggle for bargains, we find that the little shops
are wedged all along the swarming Tuscan Street (_Vicus Tuscus_)
going south from the Old Forum toward the Circus Maximus and the
adjacent cross streets; but for the more select purchases high-born
ladies and gentlemen order their litters to take them northward along
“Broadway” (_Via Lata_), where by the Sæpta Julia and the vast
series of porticoes adjoining or opposite are the finest retail shops
in the entire world.
[Illustration: TRADESMEN’S SCALES AND BALANCES.]
=198. Arrangement of Shops. Streets Blocked by Hucksters.=--What
the inferior shops were like has been already seen in the local survey
of Mercury Street. They are almost countless in number but are very
small, the bulk of their wares being on sale upon the open counters
facing the street, and often you can make all your purchases without
going inside. The proprietor and his wife with a slave or two manage
the entire business, unless, indeed, they manufacture, let us say, the
shoes which they retail; in which case a workroom directly in the rear
keeps busy a few more slaves or free wage-workers.
The shop fronts are protected at night and on holidays by heavy wooden
shutters which, when raised, project into the street serving as a kind
of awnings. They are the more necessary to guard against thieves and
also against a riot. Shop-keepers are proverbially timid folk, and to
say “all the shutters are being closed down” is practically to say
that a brawl or a tumult seems possible. The small size of these shops
makes their owners encroach upon the streets whenever they can. The
counters thrust out over the scanty sidewalk, while pedestrians trip
over the boards with placards set in front of the shops advertising the
wares inside.
In such narrow streets a little knot of bargain hunters can readily
halt all traffic. Every now and then, indeed, the City Præfect orders
his deputies, “Enforce the shop edicts!” A few offending hucksters are
hailed into court and the rest draw back their counters. “Now the city
is Rome again and not one vast bazaar,” rejoice the poets of the hour.
Then, after a little, official zeal abates, and the streets are as
badly cumbered as before.
A great deal of the trading, however, goes on without any permanent
shops at all. In almost any cross-street or little square one can
get a license to locate a table and to set thereon a small stock of
such articles as copper or iron pots, the cheaper grades of women’s
and men’s shoes, or pieces of cloth, probably woven by the huckster
himself, not to mention all kinds of edibles, also the stands of
menders of old pots, and others of public letter-writers for the
illiterate. Through the midst of all these, beggars glide whining for
alms, and children dash about playing hide-and-go-seek.[122]
=199. Barber Shops and Auction Sales.=--An institution almost as
familiar in Rome as in Athens[123] is the barber shop. Not that a shop
is really needful. Many a dirty tonsor will put down a low stool in the
middle of the crowd in the very street and ply his shears or razor upon
any poor wight who can find a _quadrans_ (small copper). The finer
barber shops, however, are really elegant establishments, fitted to
please the fastidious. Here men of parts and fashion can meet to hear
the latest gossip, and perhaps to read a copy of the “Daily Gazette”
(see p. 282). A complete manicure service is afforded; superfluous
hairs are removed with tweezers or depilatories, and nails polished
and faces massaged very skilfully; although some inferior barbers are
railed at bitterly, and it is charged that their patrons “may count
the scars on their chins like those on an aged boxer, or those marks
produced by the nails of enraged wives.”
Another institution much frequented is the auctioneer’s room. Auction
seems at Rome an ideal method for realizing quickly upon property, and
bidding is often keen. The auctioneers are past-masters in stimulating
the bidders, and in praising-up worthless articles. An auction sale is
the normal end for the career of a spendthrift when his creditors seize
his plate and furniture. A dozen times around the city one can see
placards like the following, tactfully worded to save the pride of the
unfortunate debtor:[124]
GAIUS JULIUS PROCULUS
WILL OFFER FOR SALE
CERTAIN ARTICLES
HERE-UNDER NAMED
FOR WHICH HE HAS NO FURTHER REQUIREMENT
=200. Superior Retail Stores.=--However, besides the petty shops
and street traders there are the really magnificent stores, especially
toward the Campus Martius where articles of _vertu_ attract the
wealthy. If you have wealth, you can delight yourself in splendid
establishments offering citrus-wood tables, veneered with ivory and
gold, with other articles of furniture to match, or candelabra that are
massy works of art, or vases and mirrors of every possible style and
elegance, and where all kinds of fine pottery, plate, and bric-a-brac,
as well as gorgeous upholsteries, tapestries, and carpets, can be had
for a price.
To thrust into these places that welcome only the most aristocratic
clientele is the delight of those professional shoppers, which abound
in Rome as in many another city. Martial’s Mamurra will have many
survivors in the next generation. This worthy fellow put in his days
at the richest bazaars along the Sæpta Julia. He would force his way
to inner rooms where the handsomest and most expensive slaves were
on private exhibition. He made obsequious clerks uncover fine tables
“square and round, and next asked to see some rich ivory ornaments
displayed on the upper shelves.” He measured a tortoise-shell veneered
dinner couch five times, then sighed, “It’s not long enough for my
citrus table.” He smelled of rare bronzes “to see if they were real
Corinthian”; criticized a statue by Polycleitus, had ten porcelain cups
“set aside” to be taken by him later, examined some splendid antique
goblets, made a jeweler let him inspect some emeralds in a splendid
gold setting, also some valuable pearl ear pendants, and complained
aloud that he was seeking “_real_ sardonyxes.” At last, just as the
shops closed for the day, utterly wearied, “he bought two earthen cups
for one small coin and bore them home himself.”
=201. Numerous Banks and Bankers.=--All this trade implies the
handling of great sums of money, and for its care banks and bankers are
everywhere in evidence. The Romans naturally run to finance. It appeals
to their keen sense of the practical. Even before Cæsar’s conquest
it was boasted that rarely a large sum changed hands in Gaul without
its being entered in an Italian account book; while in Nero’s day a
serious revolt in Britain was said to have been precipitated by the
act of the millionaire philosopher, Seneca, in calling in his British
loans, thereby reducing certain tribes to beggary.
Stocks, bonds, and long-time government securities do not indeed exist,
and there is no regular stock exchange, but in many respects about
all the other financial conveniences of a later age can be found by
the Tiber. There are two kinds of money handlers--mere coin-changers,
dealing in foreign mintages and often no doubt accepting sums merely
for safe keeping in their strong boxes; and above them are the real
bankers acting under a kind of state license and doing business on the
largest scale.
=202. A Great Banker and His Business.=--The highest classes of
these _argentarii_ are men whom the Emperor will gladly consult if
the Parthians break loose in an expensive war, or great public works
have to be undertaken in Africa. They are strictly under government
supervision, their business honor is high and bankruptcy is a great
disgrace.
On this day in question Calvus must needs visit his own personal
banker, Sextus Herrenius Probus, head of the firm of the Probi, one
of the oldest houses on the Via Sacra. Probus is an eques, though
his wealth surpasses that of most senators. His father helped such
personages as the philosopher Seneca to make and to manage their huge
fortunes, but the real origin of the firm went back to Augustus’s
settlement of Egypt, when the successful liquidation of the royal
estates of Cleopatra provided enormous and lawful commissions. Probus
now is practically the Custodian of many of the noblest patrimonies in
Rome. He is all the time consulted concerning investments, and Calvus
has particularly desired to-day to ask whether his own freedmen are
wise in urging their patron (acting, of course, through themselves
as middlemen) to put 300,000 sesterces into a transaction in Arabian
frankincense.
Probus, of course, runs a regular banking business. Besides several
junior partners he has a great corps of clerks, some freedmen, and
some slaves. His office has all the signs of a well-ordered commercial
establishment. Every item of his business is entered in an elaborate
system of ledgers, which are regularly brought into court as the most
reliable kind of evidence.
Such a banker issues bills of exchange on correspondents in such places
as Athens, Alexandria, Antioch, Lugdunum, Gades, and even on distant
Londinium in Britain. Money is deposited with him, then withdrawn by
personal checks (_perscriptio_) in a manner very familiar to another
age. On long-time deposits he pays interest; and, of course, he is
always loaning money for long or short terms on what seems good
security.
On the day that Calvus comes to him Probus has just loaned 200,000
sesterces on a mortgage on a well-rented insula, at the standard
rate of 12 per cent; and also a sum to a merchant planning a trading
voyage to Spain at the heavier rate of 24 per cent until the ships are
safe in harbor.[125] Probus, too, exchanges foreign moneys at a fair
commission, although by the reign of Hadrian the coinage of all the
Mediterranean world has become decidedly Romanized; one seldom now
has to change drachmas and shekels into sesterces and _aurei_
(gold pieces), although the old Græco-Oriental coins have not quite
disappeared.
=203. Trust Business: Savings Banks.=--Besides its strictly banking
business Probus’s firm also does much that could at another time be
referred to a “Trust Company.” It makes sales or purchases for its
clients, undertakes to close up estates, attends to legal business,
collects debts, and above all conducts auctions of large quantities of
goods in the most responsible manner possible. Somewhat on the side
the firm also maintains several small savings banks to attract the
sesterces of the humble.
These modest savings institutions, paying the depositors a fair
interest, are numerous all over the city; and such concerns also
make loans for small sums on chattel mortgages--in short, doing a
business that is sometimes highly legitimate, sometimes griping and
usurious. Probus’s savings banks, like many others, are intrusted to
slave managers (_institutores_) who are expected to invest their
own _peculium_ in the business to insure their watchfulness and
honesty. The management of such small establishments is naturally held
in little social esteem, and the heads of Probus and Company affect to
ignore their savings banks just as much as possible, although the gains
from them are, perhaps, almost as great as from the dealings with the
lofty _Clarissimi_ of the Senate.
=204. Places of Safe Deposit: The Temple of Vesta.=--At all the
banks there are very strong brass-bound treasure boxes carefully
guarded and protected by elaborate locks. These boxes if not actually
“safe deposit vaults” can defy any ordinary burglars. However, objects
of great value, caskets of jewels, large sums of bullion, and the like,
can be deposited in the Temple of Castor at the Old Forum, where (under
the double sanctions of law and religion) the government undertakes
their storage for a moderate fee. There is also a second government
deposit vault at the Temple of Mars Ultor on the Augustan Forum, but
this unfortunately “lost its helmet” (_i.e._ its reputation for
inviolability) when it was successfully entered by burglars some years
ago.
There exists, however, a still safer place than the Temple of Castor,
although obviously it can only give room to protect very small packets
and highly precious documents. The Vestal Virgins in their House of
Vesta, sacrosanct and absolutely guarded, have now in their keeping
the wills of half of the Senators and of many other distinguished men.
There they are safe from tampering not merely by common criminals, but
by designing heirs and even by greedy Emperors; but this service, of
course, is only at the disposal of the aristocracy.
[Illustration: MONUMENT OF A HOSTLER.]
=205. Inns: Usually Mean and Sordid.=--The very nature of a city
like Rome presupposes an enormous floating population. The metropolis
is always full of strangers. The more distinguished of these almost
inevitably find hospitality at least as “paying guests” in some private
quarters, so that large hotels for the gentry are almost nonexistent;
and as stated (p. 112) the universal custom of either dining at home or
being a dinner guest of friends largely obviates the need of luxurious
restaurants. But all visitors cannot command noble hospitality; and
many a plebeian, freedman, or slave cannot go home from his work either
to the noon-time prandium or to the regular evening dinner. Besides
there are plenty of loose fellows who desire congenial places for
tippling and carousing. The result is that Rome is provided with inns
and with eating houses; although nearly all of both types are sordid
and held in little aristocratic favor.
The inns (_tabernæ_) usually combine the reception of travelers with
the providing of meals for chance visitors. Since driving in the city
is seldom permitted, nearly all wagons have to unload near the gates,
and around these there is a perfect sprinkling of inns primarily for
the accommodation of teamsters.
[Illustration: GATEWAY AT POMPEII: present state.
Note the small entrance for foot passengers, available after
the main gate for beasts and wagons has been closed.]
A few of these establishments are very large but the most are decidedly
small. Take for example the “Inn of Hercules,” just outside the Porta
Capena, where the Appian Way commences. It is kept by one Proxenus, a
sly-eyed, strong-limbed fellow, who pretends he is an Athenian Greek,
but who probably comes from somewhere much nearer the Orient. His inn
stands side by side with a number of competitors, all much alike. There
is a broad entrance through which wagons can drive; and on either side
of this passage are rooms, one for the proprietor’s personal use, the
others for serving meals, drinking, and idling. On the walls are coarse
frescos, showing besides the Lares (the serpent Genius of the place,
and the god Hercules) views of the wine trade, perhaps of a man pouring
wine from a large jar into a still larger earthen hogshead. In the rear
of these rooms there is a fairly large court for wagons, a stable, and
a watering trough. Near these are three small chambers for teamsters
who have to sleep near their beasts; but most of the guests are
accommodated in small, dirty cubicles in the story above the wine-rooms.
=206. Reckonings and Guests at a Cheap Inn.=--Proxenus is not more
filthy or extortionate than the majority of his kind. He takes it as
part of his perquisites to hear his tavern cursed as “dirty,” “smoky,”
“vermin infested”--or things much worse, and laughs heartily when
he finds that a departing guest has scratched upon the walls of his
sleeping chamber such doggerel verses as
“Landlord, may your lies malign
Bring destruction on your head!
You, yourself drink unmixed wine
Water sell your guests instead!”[126]
He can at least claim that his ordinary charges are moderate. His
regular bill to a driver is likely to be:
“Bread and a pint of wine 1 as;
Meat dish 2 asses;
Mule provender 2 asses;
Night accommodation 2 asses.”
The bronze _as_ is hardly more than 2 cents; and the whole charge,
including the mule, is thus about 14 cents later-day reckoning. The
real profit, however, comes when for example a burly soldier off duty
tramps in with his hob-nailed boots, swings back his military cloak,
and orders, “Come, mine host (_copus_), some really good wine with
a little water!” If congenial spirits, male and female, are now ready,
such may be the beginning of a long sousing evening, when the dice will
clatter furiously and the soldier will awake in the morning with not
one sesterce in his pouch.
=207. Noble Frequenters of Taverns.=--Sometimes Proxenus rejoices in
still more exalted company. Certain fast young nobles enjoy “doing the
rounds” of low taverns; and the Inn of Hercules has fairly regular
visitors of this very profitable type. When Proxenus sees Gnæus
Lollius, Gratia’s black sheep of a cousin, entering, he makes haste to
anoint his own locks with pungent musk, and runs to greet his visitor
as ‘Dominus’ and ‘Rex,’--while the young profligate, boasting that he
has come to enjoy a perfect “Liberty Hall” (_æqua libertas_), commands
the host at once to call in all the loose rascals in the neighborhood
and insists that they drink with him from the same goblet. At last they
are all sprawling about the tavern, the noble Lollius “cheek by jowl
with cut-throats, bargees, thieves, runaway slaves, hangmen, and coffin
makers.”[127]
All Rome has been laughing in loyal glee at the retort in verse which
the clever Hadrian has just made to a certain Florus, who wrote some
lines saying “he would rather not be Cæsar” because the latter was
always gadding off to outlandish places. Florus is notoriously a
frequenter of all-night taverns, and the Emperor instead of imitating
Nero and sending him a centurion with a death message, has hit back
roundly:
“Florus would I never be,
Now a-tramp to taverns he,
Sulking now in cook-shops see,
Victim of the wicked flea!”
[Illustration: CHEAP GROCERY AND COOK-SHOP. _After
Von Falke._]
=208. Respectable Eating-Houses.=--But not all people are teamsters
seeking a lodging, or rascals seeking a carouse. Honest hard-working
men and women must buy their meals every day. The simplest method, if
you care nothing for appearances, is to halt before one of the cooks
who station themselves in the open street with caldrons over small
charcoal fires. At the end of copper sticks they attach little cups
with which they bring up boiled peas, or some form of stew to be eaten
on the spot. Of better grade are the _cauponæ_ (eating-houses); these
are ordinarily arranged with a long counter open to the street whereon
is arrayed a tempting display of dainties, and above this are marble
shelves set with cups and glasses. We see also a place for heating
liquids over a charcoal fire.
On going inside a typical restaurant, one comes to a long room filled
with small tables and backless stools for the use of the guests. The
walls are covered with tolerable frescos showing scenes of eating
and drinking, while from the ceiling dangle strings of sausages,
hams, and other eatables. Really good meals can be ordered here, also
good wine at reasonable prices. Most of the guests are honest, quiet
tradesmen who go about their business, and every sign of a brawl is
promptly repressed. When two youths in servile dress begin to exchange
blows over a cast of dice, the strong-armed proprietor promptly gives
them a push toward the door with the firm injunction, “Please fight
outside.”[128]
=209. Thermopolia--“Hot-Drink Establishments.”=--Such places
are genuine restaurants where more attention is given to the food
than to the beverages. Hardly any eating-house, however, can really
be popular unless it does business also as a _thermopolium_, a
“hot-drink establishment.” Coffee and tea are unknown; but hard-working
folk around the city find _calda_ very refreshing especially
after the toil of the morning. Calda is a kind of diluted wine mixed
with spices and aromatic herbs, and heated up into a sort of negus.
It is in constant demand. In fact a cup of calda and a little bread
and peas make up the average poor laborer’s luncheon; therefore the
samovar (_authepsa_) is continually steaming in all the Roman
eating-houses.
Needless to say most inns and even the better restaurants enjoy such
an evil reputation among the high and mighty that the latter never
frequent them save, as does Lollius, for the naughty “experience.”
Even when traveling through Italy, so general is the custom of
extending hospitality, that only rarely will a great man like Calvus
have to lodge with his retinue at an inn. The result is that country
inns are hardly more select than those in the city, with sometimes the
additional reputation of being the holds of unabashed robbers. Ladies
and gentlemen, and even their more fastidious slaves, groan when they
have to put up at country taverns, and what Cicero, Horace, Propertius,
and other writers have thought of inns and inn-keepers has passed into
literary history.
CHAPTER XIII
ECONOMIC LIFE OF ROME: II. THE INDUSTRIAL QUARTERS. THE GRAIN TRADE.
OSTIA. THE TRADE GUILDS
=210. Industrial Quarters by the Tiber.=--We have said that Rome
was not primarily an industrial or commercial city. A million and
a half people cannot, however, exist without a great deal of local
manufacturing and an elaborate organization for importing staples and
luxuries. If we go down the Vicus Tuscus or some other streets leading
near the Tiber and toward the southern part of the city, the fine
mansions grow fewer, the insulæ become more squalid, and even these
last are interspersed with dingy structures of concrete which by the
noise and smells proceeding thence are obviously factories.
These industrial plants are for the most part small according to the
standards of another age; there is also a marked absence of complicated
machinery and a conspicuous dependence simply on patient man-power; but
some establishments are really on a great scale. The noble House of
Afer, for example, has a practical monopoly of the brick industry.[129]
Its products are used all over the city, as may be proved by the name
stamped on almost every brick, and in the Afer yards and kilns are
employed several thousands of slaves and free workers.
=211. Conditions of Industrial Labor.=--Slave labor has crowded
free labor hard but has not actually destroyed it. You can never get
quite the same efficiency from a “speaking tool” as from a man to
whom life affords honest prospects. Furthermore, the supply of slaves
is unsteady. While the legions were overrunning helpless kingdoms, it
was easy enough to buy a hundred more hands for your pottery works or
metal factory; but now the campaigns of Trajan (the last period, it
will prove, of the great conquests) are over. There are barely enough
prisoners in the slave market at present to provide a fair supply of
servants.
There are other drawbacks to servile labor: though a slave worker
cannot “strike” against terms of employment, his employer cannot cease
to feed and clothe him during slack times, when he will gladly lay
off free labor. As a result the average industry employs slaves and
free men side by side; the latter are a little more self-sufficient,
but seemingly they do not object to having slaves as fellow workmen.
In any case the hours of labor are long and the conditions hard. A
denarius (16 cents) is apparently wages enough to provide an artisan
with a few rooms in a dingy insula and to keep his wife and children
from starvation--especially if they can get the government grain doles;
greater reward he dares seldom to demand.
=212. Great Trade through Ostia and the Campanian Ports.=--But
Rome, as stated, imports more articles than she manufactures. The
commerce from the interior of Italy, down the Tiber and along the
main roads from the north, the Via Cassia and the Via Flaminia, is
not of first importance--mostly garden produce, stone, and timber.
Not so that from Ostia, the harbor town, or that coming by the famous
southern highways, the Via Appia and the Via Latina. Navigation along
the Italian coast to Ostia has its dangerous features, and a great
many merchants try to unlade at such south-Latin ports as Antium or
preferably at the busy harbor of Puteoli in Campania. The result is
that the southern roads are often black with great trains of heavy
wagons bumping over the hard pavement all the hundred and fifty odd
miles from Puteoli to Rome. However, a very large fraction of the
entire commerce of Rome passes up the Tiber from Ostia, and is set down
on those long arrays of wharves southwest of the Aventine, known as the
Emporium.
=213. The Emporium and Its Wharves: the Tiber Barges.=--The
Emporium is not the most beautiful section of Rome, but it is one
of the most important. From its murk and bustle many a lordly eques
is swung away every night in his litter for the quiet, aristocratic
Quirinal or Esquiline; but it is the Emporium trade which makes
possible his great mansion with its hierarchy of soft-footed slaves. To
reach the Emporium we go down the Vicus Tuscus past the upper end of
the tall gray masses of the far-stretching Circus Maximus, then turn
down narrow lanes where the Aventine crowds closely toward the Tiber.
Immediately the river opens before us with a scene of teeming life.
We are now below all the regular bridges and at the head of deep-sea
navigation. In truth the Tiber is too shallow and uncertain a river
to be very practical for large ships, even of the Græco-Roman type.
Only small vessels, mostly of the coasting variety, come up to Rome on
direct voyages. But the regular procedure is to unload the deep-sea
craft at Ostia and then bring up their lading along the twenty odd
miles of the crooked river, in light-draft barges. These barges--some
worked by long oars, some towed by their crews walking along the
shore--are constantly coming and going. To-day as every day the river
is alive with them, and many others are moored closely, prow following
stern, all along the magnificent stone embankments which serve as quays.
Approaching one of these ungainly flat-bottomed craft, we see it has a
little cabin on the poop, and its name, the “Isis of Geminus,”[130]
is marked in large red letters upon the black hull. The captain is
now standing by the mooring cable passed through a sculptured lion’s
mouth, directing a great gang of porters carrying sacks of grain
down a bank to the wharf, where Geminus, the owner himself, assisted
by a government clerk carefully checks off every sack upon their
bills of lading. A little scrutiny reveals that while all kinds of
commodities abound on the Emporium two take wide precedence over all
others--_grain_, from Egypt and provincial Africa; and _marble_, from
Numidia, Greece, and Asia Minor.
[Illustration: RIVER BOAT LOADED WITH HOGSHEADS OF
WINE.]
=214. The Marble and Grain Trades.=--The marble trade, indeed,
demands a special section of the wharves. For the government buildings
the imperial procurators in the marble-producing provinces are
constantly sending in valuable cargoes, and for monolithic columns and
extra large blocks specially constructed barges are used to bring them
from Ostia. Even now a great labor gang is painfully disembarking a
splendid column of Egyptian porphyry for the new Temple of Venus and
Rome.
Behind the Emporium stretches an ugly complex of offices, warehouses,
porters’ barracks, and the like, but most conspicuous and ugly of all
are the public _horrea_. These are tall gaunt storehouses for the
keeping of grain, enormous fabrics of dull gray concrete, “elevators”
in fact, carefully maintained by the government for the victualing of
the capital. There are said to be more than three hundred horrea, and
the largest are named for the emperors who built them--the Horreum of
Augustus, of Domitian, and the like. Thousands of men are employed
around them, and the state of their contents can give anxious nights to
the Imperial Council. Unlovely as they seem, they are vital to the life
of Rome.
It is no small task to provide grain for so huge a city, and that, too,
without the aid of railways or steamships. Even a top-lofty Emperor
like Domitian can fear the howls of the crowds in the circus if the
price of wheat becomes high and the customary free distributions are
not forthcoming. Hence these horrea must be large enough to supply
a large margin against possible delay in the annual arrival of the
“Alexandrian” or “African” fleets on which the provisioning of the
capital depends.
=215. The Public Grain Doles.=--All the world knows that one of
the most precious prerogatives of a plebeian in Rome is the right to
receive about 5 _modii_ (about 10 gallons dry measure) of grain
every month at government charges. Is it not only right that the
wearers of the toga should live on the bounty of the subject world?
In the past there have been, indeed, efforts to make the populace pay
_part_ of the price of their grain, with the government simply
discharging the balance. This half measure has broken down because of
unpopularity. All that the authorities can do now is to see that the
list of recipients is limited to genuine citizens, and that the alien
riffraff of the great city is strictly excluded.
[Illustration: DISTRIBUTING BREAD.]
There are now, as since the time of Augustus, about 200,000 citizens
upon the precious “Frumentary Lists.” The recipients are not paupers,
but include very many “small citizens” of the worthier kind. It is
an honor in many circles to win the precious _tessera_ (metal or
bone ticket) entitling one to stand in line at the numerous grain
dispensaries all over the city and get the monthly allowance.[131]
Every adult male Roman in the city receives this privilege, but under
some circumstances the tessera can be alienated. You hear of persons
selling theirs or even bequeathing them by will; and some of the
holders are thus not merely freedmen but even ex-criminals.
=216. Distribution of the Free Bread: Extraordinary Bonuses
(_Congiaria_ and _Donativa_).=--For a long time this food has simply
been portioned out unbaked at the numerous grain stations all over the
city; after which it has to be made into bread at home, or to be handed
over to private bakers who will return so many loaves per measure,
deducting a commission in kind. There is a growing tendency, however,
towards government bakeshops as a new means of pampering the “Sovereign
People” and towards passing out the food in the form of handsomely
baked bread.
The custom nevertheless is not yet universal.[132] The private bakeries
continue to flourish, and since each baker must grind his own flour,
no sound is more common all over the city than the rasping of the
millstones worked either by long-suffering donkeys, blindfolded to
keep them from eating, or by the most recalcitrant and sodden class of
slaves.
These distributions of free grain are part of the normal life of Rome.
Inevitably they multiply the number of parasites, busybodies, and sheer
beggars. Ever since Gaius Gracchus started the evil system, thoughtful
men have groaned over its consequences, but all have been helpless, and
the demoralization increases when an Emperor, to insure popularity at
the beginning of his reign, or to confirm it later, orders a special
_congiarium_ to all the citizens.
[Illustration: OVEN AND GRIST MILL IN A BAKERY.
_After Von Falke._]
This gift can take the form of special distributions of oil, wine,
and meat to all the lucky holders of the tesseræ; but presents even
more lavish are possible. When Trajan died in 118 A.D. and Hadrian was
proclaimed, the latter, not quite certain of public favor, put all the
insulæ to roaring in his praise by proclaiming a gift of three aurei
(gold pieces of $4.00 each) to every “frumentary citizen” in Rome. What
wonder that later _donativa_ (bonuses) become necessary at dangerously
frequent intervals to prevent even the most loyal plebeians from
praying for a new reign![133]
=217. The Trade in Sculptures and Portrait Statues.=--But it
is time to return to the region about the Emporium. Near the marble
wharves are naturally the huge establishments where all the day long
the chip, chip of many mallets and chisels indicates that great masses
of sculptured stone are being turned out--magnificent capitals,
pediment groups, bas-reliefs that are splendid works of art, for all
the needs of the government buildings and the mansions of the wealthy.
Many large concerns devote themselves to manufacturing single statues,
life-size or miniature. Standing around in their courtyards are rows
of sculptured deities, mostly copies of good Greek masterpieces,
representing the whole host of Olympus from Jupiter down to the
inferior demigods; there are also numerous statues displaying orators
posing in their togas, magistrates in their official robes, and
generals in their armor, but with the features left in the rough--to be
finished up on order at short notice to adorn some atrium or small-town
forum.
A great array of statues of the Emperor are also kept in stock. These
are needed in every government building, and the demand is constant;
but it must be admitted that Hadrian’s handsome bearded features are
often outrageously distorted by the careless journeymen, so that loyal
folk protest even as does the governor of Pontus, Arrianus, who has
just written his master, “Your statue at Trapezus [on the Euxine] is
beautifully placed, but it is not the least like you. Please send on
another at once from Rome!”
Special markets and warehouses also exist for almost every other
major commodity. Near the Circus Maximus there is the noisy, fetid
cattle market where horses, kine, and asses change hands amid coarse
chaffering very much as in the trade for slaves. There are likewise
great repositories for oil, flax, lumber, wool, spices, etc.--some
private, some under government supervision; the clang from all kinds
of smithies and metal workshops is incessant, and the factories for
manufacturing bronze statues are almost as large as those for the stone
sculptures.
[Illustration: ENVIRONS OF ROME]
=218. The Tiber Trip to Ostia: the Merchant Shipping.=--If, however,
one would learn the real sum of Roman industry and commerce, it is
needful to charter a slim swiftly-pulling wherry and to glide down
the yellow Tiber to Ostia. All the way the craft has to dodge the
enormous barges, but the shores are covered with delightful villas,
small villages, or with prosperous farms raising poultry, flowers,
vegetables, and the like for the city trade. In the distance across the
level campagna can be seen the impressive array of the solemn arches of
the great aqueducts, reaching back into the hills and bringing their
supply of pure water to Rome. Ostia itself, however, is strictly a
harbor town, with an elaborate series of breakwaters, dredged basins,
naval docks, mercantile docks, and a perfect jumble of shipping.
The vessels have come from all parts of the Mediterranean, and there
is even a battered trader that has coasted all the way from Britain
with a cargo of tin ore. The smaller craft can trust sometimes to their
oars in a calm, but all the larger must depend on their unwieldy lateen
sails which swing from two or three long yards crossing as many masts.
By far the largest merchantmen are the Egyptian corn ships, and one
of these, that is just being moved to the quay by a gang of shouting
half-naked stevedores, is of somewhat unusual size. We are informed she
is fully 180 feet long and 45 feet in beam.[134] She is provided with
elaborate and decidedly comfortable cabins for many passengers, so that
it is easy to believe the story that when the Jew Paullus (previously
mentioned) on his compulsory trip to Rome was wrecked off Malta, 276
persons were rescued from the Alexandrian merchantman whereon he and
his guards had embarked.
=219. Imperial Naval Vessels.=--At Ostia, too, can be seen a few
triremes of the Imperial Navy. Enemies to the Roman dominion have
practically disappeared from the seas, but there is still a certain
danger of pirates or local insurrection; therefore, although the clumsy
four- and five-bankers of the Punic War periods disappeared soon after
the battle of Actium, small patrol squadrons of swift triremes, pulling
about 170 oars, or of smaller craft are maintained by the government.
These ships are extremely like the Athenian triremes of the golden age
of Greece and call for no special description here.[135] The Romans are
not naturally a seafaring people. Nearly all the larger merchant ships
are manned if not owned by Greeks or Levantines; and it has been with
real satisfaction that the Emperors have felt that they could allow
their navy to dwindle down to insignificance. With the army, as will be
seen, things are very different.[136]
=220. The Harbor Town of Ostia.=--Ostia has all the accompaniments
of a busy port: a great mass of squalid lodging-houses for sailors,
innumerable taverns overrun with dirty loiterers of both sexes, a
great many uncouth faces along the quays, ear-ringed Syrians, and even
quaintly jabbering negroes. There are, however, some good houses for
the rich merchants and directors of the shipping, and a forum flanked
with handsome temples and government buildings befitting the harbor
town of the Mistress of the World.
In the outskirts of Ostia one can quickly get out into delightful
country stretching all along the seashore. The villas of city magnates
look forth upon the blue Tyrrhenian Sea, or are bowered in lush
groves surrounded by rich gardens and fruitful orchards. The melons
raised around Ostia are in demand by every epicure in the capital.
Who can believe a prophecy that this active bustling port, with its
enormous shipping, and all these villas, groves, and gardens will
some day vanish like a dream, and that Ostia will lie in a desolate
fever-stricken country,--with hardly a house in sight along the
deserted shores, and with the harbor town of the Eternal City reduced
itself to a few miserable cabins?
=221. The Roman Guilds (_Collegia_).=--Ere turning one’s glance from
the economic life of Rome it is needful to regard the organization of
industry. Nearly all free workmen are members of “guilds” (_collegia_)
which nominally exist for the purpose of worshiping some patron deity;
thus the bakeries are the special votaries of Vesta the hearth goddess,
the fullers of Minerva the protectress of wool-working, the smiths of
Vulcan, and so with others.
These “colleges” are not labor unions for the protection of the
wage-earners against exploitation; they are more like the guilds that
are to be developed in the Middle Ages. The chief members are the
employing “masters,” and paid journeymen and apprentices have little
share in the control of the organization. However, most industries in
Rome are on so small a scale and the situation is so complicated by the
competition of slave labor that the friction between wage-earners and
their employers seldom becomes dangerously acute.
The trade guilds are carefully watched by the government lest they
become the hotbeds of sedition and disturbing intrigue,[137] on the
other hand their existence is often useful in helping to mobilize
industry in behalf of the army and to keep up the public works in
general.
They have a fairly tight organization, with their own officials,
“prætors” and “presidents,” and the like, and the election to such
a post by one’s fellow craftsmen is no slight honor. The guilds,
too, have their special corporate property; and many of them possess
elaborate guild halls for their feasts and meetings.
=222. Very Ancient Guilds: the Flute-Blowers.=--Some of the colleges
are of decidedly recent origin, but eight of them boast that their
history goes back to the very early days of Rome. These are the
fullers, cobblers, carpenters, goldsmiths, coppersmiths, dyers,
potters, and last but not least, the flute-blowers, so important at
funerals and all public festivals.
From the “good old times” come many quaint stories about these
guilds, and everybody remembers especially the tale concerning the
flute-blowers. About 314 B.C. the censors saw fit to forbid these
somewhat riotous and irregular gentry from joining in the sacred
banquets to Jupiter in which they had formerly participated. In anger
the whole college struck and retired in dudgeon to the friendly city
of Tibur. Soon the Senate found it difficult to conduct the religious
rites properly without the aid of the flute-players, and endeavored to
cajole them home, but the strikers had found their fare and quarters
in Tibur very pleasant and refused any reasonable terms. The people of
Tibur, however, wearied of their guests and to get rid of them gave
the whole corporation a generous banquet, during which all the members
became so drunk that they could be loaded into wagons, trundled back
to Rome and then laid down in a helpless stupor in the very Forum. The
next morning the entire guild awoke, rubbed its collective eyes and
found a vast crowd of jeering friends pressing around. The result was
an honorable compromise. The censors relented, and the flute-players,
in return for giving solemn attention to their religious duties, were
awarded the right to three days of high carnival, with songs, dances,
and every kind of coarse gayety.
=223. Importance of the Guilds.=--The complete list of the guilds
is very long. Besides those mentioned, among the more prominent are the
barbers, perfumers, fruit sellers, garment cutters, pack carriers, mule
drivers, gig drivers, and fishermen, not to mention the great guild
of the bakers. There is as yet no formal compulsion upon a craftsman
to join a college, but in fact any “non-union” workman is subject
to discrimination and sabotage which make his life unhappy. Cases
are known of funerals being halted amid an unseemly scuffle when a
non-member of the guild of bier-carriers has been discovered helping to
carry the litter for the dead.
Certain crafts have perforce to be distributed all over the city but
inevitably fellow guildsmen like to flock together. In the industrial
quarters each craft tries to concentrate upon a certain street which is
then called by its name. Well known is the case of how Catiline’s gang
had its rendezvous at Marcus Læcas’s house on Scythemaker’s Street.
There is no annual “labor day” when all the guild members of the city
hold festival together. On the contrary each college has its own
separate festival, when the united craft is entitled to parade through
Rome with horns, pipes, cymbals, and gaudy banners; its officers
appearing in the guise of magistrates. The whole company with their
families ordinarily head for the outskirts, where, beside convenient
temples and hospitable taverns, the good people can spread themselves
for picnics under the trees, join in vulgar dances, and very often
spend the night under improvised tents of leaves--everybody sleeping
the sounder because of much strong wine.
=224. Multitude of Beggars.=--To these honest plebeians must be
added another less noble multitude. Rome literally swarms with beggars.
The parasitical habits taught by slavery and by the grain doles go
far to make begging somewhat respectable. At every turn you can run
on whining wretches often repulsively mutilated in order to excite
sympathy. They have their regular stand, however, upon the bridges,
where they crouch on dirty mats shouting their “_da! da!_” “Give!
Give!” and at the gates where travelers take or leave their carriages
they are thicker than the flies. Near Ostia and along the Emporium
may also be seen real or pretended sailors escaped from shipwreck,
identifiable by their heads, which are shaven because of vows made in
peril, and who hold out their caps for coppers while “delighting in
garrulous ease to tell the story of their perils.”
Downright thieves, professional robbers, and petty pilferers are held
in reasonable restraint by the active police, but the absence of street
lights makes it risky business to go about after dark without torches
and a good escort. Serious burglaries are often reported, and every
now and then the body is found of some wayfarer who was stabbed while
resisting a hold-up. As for certain districts going down the river
toward Ostia, or along the Via Appia toward the Pomptine Marshes, their
reputation is so bad that even in daylight a company of armed slaves is
desirable.
CHAPTER XIV
THE FORA, THEIR LIFE AND BUILDINGS. THE DAILY JOURNAL
=225. The Fora, the Centers of Roman Life.=--Hitherto in our prolonged
“day” in Rome we have carefully avoided visiting those famous quarters
or buildings which are the glory of the imperial city. These can only
take on true significance when we have first seen the ordinary life
of rich and poor. It is now time, however, to visit the “Heart of
Rome”--the splendid system of fora in that great hollow where five of
the “Seven Hills” almost come together just north of the Palatine, and
then to visit the Palatine itself with its abodes of official majesty.
[Illustration: GENERAL VIEW OF OLD FORUM AND
CAPITOL: a simplified restoration.]
The renowned and original “Forum” is known technically as the
_Forum Romanum_, or the Old Forum, and down to Julius Cæsar’s time
it was the only great plaza inside the official limits of the city.
Under the emperors it is still revered and famous, but the needs of an
enormous metropolis have caused first Cæsar, then Augustus, Vespasian,
Nerva, and finally Trajan to add other wide public squares surrounded
by buildings far more magnificent than most of those around the ancient
rallying spot of the men of the Republic.
[Illustration: OLD FORUM: present state, looking
towards the Capitol.]
All these fora are closely connected together, sometimes by no
very sharp lines of demarkation. You can start in near the Flavian
Amphitheater and follow down the Sacred Way across the Old Forum, with
one soaring edifice, triumphal arch, or memorial column succeeding
another until at the Temple of Trajan you find yourself on “Broadway”
(_Via Lata_), upon the great avenue leading through the select shopping
districts, and then past the Campus Martius, and onward to the northern
suburbs. “Going to the Forum” means visiting any place in this crowded,
swarming district, where every public and private interest seems to
have its stronghold, and where the litters of Senators go past so
frequently that nobody stops to count them.
=226. Incessant Crowds at the Forum. The Centers of Gossip.=--If
driving is impossible in the ordinary Roman streets by day, it is
doubly impossible in this congested region where only those who delight
in crowds should endeavor to force their way from one building to
another. Nevertheless, with that informality so characteristic of
Mediterranean countries, all the fora are allowed to be overrun with
idlers. Ragged boys are scampering between the columns fronting the
most sacred temples, and on the steps of the same adult idlers from
morn till eve are playing “Robbers” on boards scratched upon the
stonework,[138] or rattling dice (nominally forbidden) if the police
are not too near. The foul and the elegant therefore are often in
amazing juxtaposition.
For the average senator or eques a morning visit to the Forum, after
he has received his own callers or clients, is almost a required act
of the day. All his associates are doing the same thing; he can easily
meet almost any friend without making an appointment, he can read that
“Daily Journal” presently to be described (see p. 282), hear the latest
tittle-tattle from the palace and get all the trade reports--all this
even if he has no real business at the Senate House, the government
bureaus on the Palatine, or the Record Office on the slopes of the
Capitol.
If the great men do this, all the lesser fry and above all the genteel
idlers must do the same. The women frequent the fora almost as much
as do the men. If there is nothing else to busy one, one can always
wedge into the crowds listening to the distinguished advocates in the
Basilicas (Court Houses). It is quite a proper thing to imitate Horace
who put in many days simply wandering around the business quarters. “I
go on foot (said he) and go alone. I ask the price of kitchen-stuff
and grain. I often stroll down toward the cheating [gambling] Circus
and around the Forum; then perhaps I stop toward evening at the
fortune tellers. Presently I go home to my supper of leeks, pulse, and
macaroni.”
Across the fora will parade all personages who wish to put men’s
tongues to wagging. People laugh at a certain pretentious senator who
likes to pass for a great hunter and who is incessantly sending his
slaves around the plazas at the crowded morning hour, bearing nets and
spears and driving a mule apparently bearing home a wild boar “which
we all know,” whisper the cunning, “he has just bought in the game
market.”
Here in the fora also the magistrates with their lictoral fasces pass
so often that it is really inconvenient the number of times you have
to bow your head to them, or, if in a litter, to dismount and stand at
polite attention: and in such frequented places the kissing nuisance
takes on its greatest bane. The merest chance acquaintance, if only
he is a citizen, will thrust his damp salute upon you, little heeding
whether you have a vile cold or his own lips be ulcered and his breath
foul.
=227. Grandiose Architecture: Vast Quantities of Ornaments and
Statues.=--In viewing these great public squares and buildings
instantly one is impressed by a single fact--the grandiose character of
the ornaments and the architecture. All the enormous public buildings
are literally overladen with adornments. The architects seemed to have
abhorred the idea of blank spaces. There are no reposeful vistas.
Everything seems striving to be magnificent and ornate. Statues, singly
or in groups, occupy all the gables, roofs, niches, intervals of
columns, and even the stairways. The Triumphal Arches are surmounted
by equestrian figures or by prancing four-horse chariots. Reliefs and
medallions cover all the friezes. If there is any space that cannot be
seized for the mounting of sculptures or at least for bas-reliefs, it
can be used for painting designs in stucco or colored mosaics. Every
detail down to the gutters is highly decorated.
Very different, therefore, are these fora from the chaste elegance of
the public places in Athens. On the other hand much of the effect is
splendid as well as startling. The utilization of concrete permits the
erection of vast soaring domes, often covered with gilded tiles. The
elaborate Corinthian pillars before many of the buildings are often
simply superb polished monoliths of colored marbles. The use of the
arch (practically unknown in Greece) permits new effects often graceful
and pleasing.
The sculptures permitted in such public places are, of course, always
of the highest order. Sometimes they are original Greek masterpieces
carried as spoils to Italy. Often they are excellent copies of those
masterpieces but with small variations, not inelegant, which give the
reproductions a real character of their own. At every turn one sees
these triumphs of bronze and marble, Apollos, Minervas, Victories,
Winged Mercuries, Centaurs, Homeric Heroes, and all the legendary host
of Græco-Roman mythology--now singly, now in groups. Interspersed with
these gods mounted on pedestals or on the entablatures of the buildings
are the honorary statues of the worthies of Rome. Hardly a great leader
is absent from Romulus to the reigning Hadrian.
A mere walk about the fora with an explanation of their portrait
statues becomes therefore a detailed lesson in Roman history. Besides
the images of the truly great and good, there are so many others of
sheer mediocrities or worse that one is left wondering whether the
honor of a “statue in the Forum” is so important after all. Even in
old Cato’s day the abuse was such that he remarked sarcastically that
“he would rather that men asked why he had _not_ a statue in the
Public Square, than whisper questioning why he had one.”
=228. Use of Color on Sculptures and Architecture.=--Needless to
say, in Rome as in Athens very many of these buildings are brilliantly
painted.[139] The great columns of colored or of snow-white Carrara or
Græcian marbles are usually left in their natural aspect, but nearly
all the backgrounds, architectural members, and details are colored
in brilliant greens, reds, and blues. The nude statues are nearly all
tinted in flesh color, and the hair darkened, and there is perhaps an
overplus of gilding.
Under a bright Italian sky these color combinations make the vast
succession of enormous buildings stand out with indescribable
grandeur; and to this spectacle must be added the huge crowds
incessantly moving about the fora, great masses of soft white togas
giving to the wide areas all the exuberance of teeming life. There can
be many other great plazas in the future capitals of the world; there
will never be any more clearly marked out as the veritable center of an
enormous Empire than the succession of fora in Rome.
We are not concerned with archæological descriptions. The arrangement
of the fora in this reign of Hadrian must be sketched over lightly
or explained completely, otherwise the result is not knowledge but
confusion; here a very brief survey will suffice. If we are following
Publius Calvus’s litter as it traces the Esquiline on routine business
of a senator, a series of convenient side streets probably will bring
it past the great baths of Trajan and then down the slope to the
spot where the vast bulk of the Flavian Amphitheater rears itself
arrogantly. The baths and the Amphitheater both will be visited later
(see p. 361 and p. 394), and we can, therefore, ignore them. Then the
litter bearers swing west and slightly north--and before us lies the
veritable Heart of Rome.
=229. Entering the Series of Fora: the Temple of Venus and
Rome.=--To avoid being overwhelmed by details only the most
conspicuous objects and buildings will be mentioned. Some structures
are obvious at the very first. To the left, lifting vauntingly above
the visitors’ heads, rise tier upon tier the domes, balconies, and
pinnacles of the Imperial Palace upon the Palatine, sustained at their
base by an enormous mass of arches and buttresses of masonry and
concrete. The lords of the palace at any moment can look down from
a gilded balcony upon the Old Forum and its bustling life, and they
need only descend an inclined plane in order to mingle with the mob,
or cross the Plaza to visit the Senate House. Directly ahead--at the
end of the vista, rises the Capitol, crowned by the rebuilt Temple of
Jupiter Best and Greatest (_Jupiter Optimus Maximus_), its roof
flashing with the gold tiles; its enormous pillars proclaiming it the
most splendid fane in Rome.
[Illustration: MAP OF
THE HEART OF ROME
The Fora, the Palatine, the Capitoline etc. as in Period of
Hadrian: about 135 A.D.]
At the head of the Via Sacra (for this famous route of the great
Triumphators now opens before us), upon our right, is the new and
indescribably splendid Temple of Venus and Rome, a building just
completed by Hadrian. This edifice has been reared by demolishing the
last of the ruins of the impossibly extravagant “Golden House,” the
architectural monstrosity of Nero.
In order to get sufficient room for his new structure Hadrian also was
compelled to move the colossal statue of Nero (99 feet high) located
near the site and to set it nearer the Flavian Amphitheater. This had
been a great task, executed by the clever architect Decrianus, with
the aid of twenty-four elephants--performed to the delight of all the
idling crowds in Rome. The statue now towers upon its new pedestal,
with Nero’s unworthy head sagaciously lifted from its shoulders and one
of the Sun God substituted. The new Temple of Venus and Rome is a truly
magnificent object; rising as it does upon a terrace 26 feet high,
500 feet long, and 300 broad, and surrounded by an enormous portico
of 400 columns each 40 feet high. The versatile Emperor boasts that
he has been the architect himself, and whatever are the real facts no
vestibule to the fora could well be more impressive.
=230. The Arch of Titus: Continuation of the Sacred Way.=--With
the Temple of Venus and Rome to our right and the substructures of
the Palatine to the left we go straight ahead to the Arch of Titus.
Everybody recognizes the shape of that impressive but relatively simple
structure. Its bas-reliefs showing the spoils of Jerusalem--the “Golden
Table” and more particularly the “Seven Branched Candlestick”--are
destined to be reproduced countless times.
Old men in Hadrian’s day can still recall the Triumphal Procession
when the son of Vespasian returned in glory; how the great throng of
cheering soldiers and citizens swept up toward the Temple of Jupiter
Capitolinus, then halted at the portal of the Temple while Simon
Bar-Giora, the captive Jewish leader who had been dragged in the
procession, could be taken to a high place overlooking the Forum and
deliberately scourged to death. At the news that he had perished all
the vast company made the crags and columns quake with their brutal
“acclamation,” and Titus entered the shrine to sacrifice and to bear
witness how much mightier was Latin Jove than Palestinian Jehovah.
[Illustration: SPOILS FROM JERUSALEM: Arch of Titus.]
And now the Via Sacra turns at right angles, or, to be more accurate,
its thronging ways divide. Go to the left and you will come upon a high
street passing under the brow of the Palatine. It runs a considerable
distance toward the Capitol, receiving several sloping avenues or
broad staircases leading down from the Palatine. This is “New Street”
(_Nova Via_), the most convenient route to certain buildings on
the southern side of the Forum.
It is better, however, to follow the denser crowds which are swerving
somewhat to the right, and then by a second turn go straight onward
again between magnificent structures, with the gilded roofs of the
Capitol ever looming ahead more clearly. We are now on the Via Sacra
proper; and caught in the eddying throngs of litters, litter bearers,
running footmen, following clients, elbowing plebeians with now and
then a masterful squad of Prætorians in gilded armor, we find it
perhaps impossible to get more than the names of the structures in
passing.
[Illustration: VIEW THROUGH THE ARCH OF TITUS, SHOWING
THE FLAVIAN AMPHITHEATER IN DISTANCE.]
=231. House and Temple of Vesta: the Regia: the Temple of the Divine
Julius.=--The venerable temple near which the ways divide is that
of Jupiter Stator where Cicero convened the anxious Senate when he
delivered his great assault on Catiline. Next comes to view a long
high wall broken only by narrow doorways until you see a stately
portal at the western end, nearest the Old Forum. From above the wall
can be glimpsed the tiles and marble of an elegant mansion inside,
also the foliage trees of a really fine garden. This is the House of
the Vestals, the abode of the six sacrosanct virgins who are the most
revered personages in all Rome, hardly barring the Emperor.
As we advance there come next to view two buildings--one a small round
temple of antique and simple structure; the other a handsome arched
building of no great size. The first is the Fane of Vesta itself, where
burns the eternal hearthfire of Rome, guarded by the Vestals, and the
most sacred structure in the entire city. The second is the Regia, the
official home of the Pontifex Maximus, the head of the Roman religion,
and actually occupied (since that official is now the reigning Emperor)
by various clerks and administrative bureaus relating to the upkeep
of the State cultus. To the right of these buildings are government
warehouses and offices;[140] and then, closing off the Old Forum proper
from these structures just named, stands another extraordinarily
magnificent Temple, that of the deified Julius Cæsar.
=232. The Old Forum (_Forum Romanum_).=--We are now close upon the
actual Forum. It can be entered by two methods: you can go between the
Temple of Vesta and that of Cæsar, very likely walking through the
triumphal arch of Augustus, in which case you will see the pillared
façade of the stately Temple of Castor and Pollux (the divine helpers
of Rome at the half legendary battle of Lake Regillus), and then across
that busy shopping street, the Vicus Tuscus, before reaching the
quieter portico of the great Basilica Julia; or you can take a better
way by keeping on past the northern side of the Temple of Cæsar and
coming out pretty directly upon the Forum. In so doing you will have
the second great court house, the old but capacious Basilica Æmilia
to the north on your right. Let tribunals and litigants, however,
wait--before the visitor at last is opening one of the most famous
areas in the entire world--the _Forum Romanum_.
[Illustration: OLD FORUM: looking west towards the
Capitol. Restoration by Nispi-Landi.]
Of the Old Forum well may one say what Cicero declared of Athens, “On
whatever spot we tread we awake a memory.” There is hardly an event
connected with the long reaches of Roman history which is not also
connected in one manner or another with this public square. The first
impression, to be sure, may be one of disappointment: the whole open
plaza barely measures 300 by 150 feet. It seems the more confined
because a large part of the southern side is hemmed in by the huge
Basilica Julia, while directly above the square rise the two hills of
the Capitoline and the Palatine, their summits crowned with lofty and
noble buildings looking down upon the Forum as a kind of common center.
[Illustration: OLD FORUM, LOOKING TOWARDS CAPITOL FROM
BEFORE THE TEMPLE OF CASTOR: the building on the left,
with statues beneath its upper arches, is the Basilica Julia.
Restoration after Von Falke.]
As one advances, however, the impression deepens as to how earnestly
the Romans have tried to concentrate their whole life around this
beloved square. If statues abound elsewhere in the city, they seem here
more numerous than even the surging throngs around their pedestals.
Every kind of human activity is apparently going on simultaneously.
Along the north side, as we have seen, are the offices of those great
bankers who hold the nations in fee from the Euphrates to Hibernia, yet
pedlers are now wandering about, almost under the feet of the consul’s
lictors, hawking hot sausages, strings of garlic, and pots of eye
salve, while a snake charmer has obtained the license to exhibit two
stupid serpents on the actual steps to the Temple of Janus just beyond
the Basilica Æmilia.
=233. The Forum Area: the Posting of Public Notices.=--Walking
out into the area itself, we find it solidly paved with rectangular
blocks of travertine. The days are gone when closely packed throngs of
quirites stood for hours upon this pavement listening to the orators
bidding them vote upon peace or war, or for or against some proposed
law, as lay in their right as free citizens. Gone, too, is the day of
that great funeral pyre of garments, ornaments, trinkets, tables and
benches, which the frenzied mob heaped around the corpse of Cæsar after
Marcus Antonius had thundered his invective against Cassius and Marcus
Brutus. But not gone is the Senate House (the _Curia_), looking
out across the plaza from the northern side of the square, just beyond
the Temple of Janus. And around the orator’s stands, the Rostra, at the
western end of the area there is still another elaborate funeral in
progress; the wearers of the imagines sitting in their curule chairs,
and the orator pompously lauding “the noble departed.”
Truth to tell the Forum is frequented every morning largely to get
the news. Not merely can you meet the bearers of all sorts of public
or confidential information; you can spend an hour merely reading the
great “white boards” (_albums_) bearing official and private notices
which stand around everywhere. The “Daily Gazette” is here posted, and
we shall consider its contents presently; but apart from that, whether
you wish to know the price of grain or the day set for a lawsuit;
whether Syphax the Moor will race his four in the next circus, or
Epaphroditus the Athenian will lecture to-morrow on the nature of the
soul, the Forum placards will tell you everything. Gossip incalculable,
often of a kind which no man dare put in writing, you may also pick
up, as well as accost half of your acquaintance. A visit to the Forum,
therefore, is almost as important to a Roman of parts and activity as
in another age will be the perusal of the paper.
=234. Western End of Forum: the Rostra: the Golden Milestone: the
Tullianum Prison.=--At the extreme western end of the area, more
temples are seen rising on the slopes of the lofty Capitol. Here is the
Temple of Saturn; and higher still the Temple of the deified Vespasian,
the Temple of Concord, and the great “Public Record Office,” the
Tabularium, and the Rostra are reached just before you quit the level
area and take the winding ascents towards the Capitol.
These famous stands for the orators constitute an elaborate platform,
with a fine marble balustrade which is adorned with exceptionally good
bronze statues of notables such as Sulla and Pompeius; although all
these ornaments were added by Julius Cæsar and know not the days of
the Old Republic. Some of the original “beaks” (_rostra_) from
captured warships which gave the famous pulpit its name are still in
position, however, with others from such battles as Actium added.[141]
Even if the Republic is dead, the place remains of decided utility not
merely for funerals, but also for formal speeches on state occasions;
and sometimes an emperor will still condescend to harangue the loyal
quirites from its platform.
Close by the Rostra and near its southern end rises a tall stone pillar
coated with gilded bronze. This is the “Golden Milestone” whereon
Augustus inscribed the names of the great roads leading out of Rome,
and the distances to the chief towns along their course. “_All roads
lead to Rome_,” and leading to Rome find their convergence in the
“Golden Milestone.” It comes close, therefore, to being the “Hub” of
the entire Roman Empire.
[Illustration: OLD FORUM: present condition, western
end looking east. In foreground pillars of Temple of Saturn.]
Near the other, the northern end of the Rostra, when one goes a little
of the way up to the Capitol, there is quite a different landmark, far
more venerable--the old prison of the city, the Tullianum, prepared,
according to the story, by King Ancus Martius. It was originally
nothing but a kind of well let into the damp rock, with an upper and a
lower compartment; this second chamber is only accessible by means of
a hole in its vaulted roof through which prisoners were lowered by a
rope.
The Tullianum has long since been discarded as the public jail, but
state prisoners are sometimes confined or executed there. Familiar
is the story of how Jugurtha, the luckless Numidian, was starved to
death in the lower dungeon; and how Lentulus and the other Castilinian
conspirators were strangled in the upper. Since then, if one accepts
the story told by those very despised creatures, the Christians, their
great leader, Peter, one of the associates of Christus, was kept there
in chains before he was taken out to be executed by Nero’s orders. It
is assuredly a gloomy and fearsome enough place to strike terror even
into such “Haters of all Mankind,” as official documents assure us
these Christians must be.
=235. The Basilica Æmilia: the Temple of Janus: the Senate House
(_Curia_).=--But to return to the great buildings lining the Forum.
The Basilica Æmilia on the north side was erected as early as 179
B.C., and, though often repaired, it is a substantial monument of the
great days of the Republic. It is so like the greater Basilica Julia,
however, that one description will do later for both. Directly by this
court house stands the venerated Temple of Janus, a structure with many
arches and sacred to the most characteristic if not the greatest of
all the gods of Rome.[142] The gates of the shrine, one notices, are
standing carefully open, as a token that some petty frontier wars are
still raging. When absolute peace prevails these doors, however, will
be carefully shut. The Romans are thrifty and practical people. Why
waste good sacrificial victims and incense on the god when his help
against the foe is not needed? It would be like paying a doctor when
one is feeling entirely well.
Leading away from the Forum and this Temple is a series of vaulted
passages also called _janus_, which form a large part of the banking
district. Here, because the Sacred Way is too limited, many great
financiers have their offices; here countless clerks are busy with
their account books; here great loans are negotiated or investments are
placed hourly. It is almost a regular exchange and the scene of many
speculations. Regularly one hears of fortunes made or lost “between the
janus,” _i.e._ by the workings of high finance.
Beside the Temple of Janus rises the magnificent porch of the _Curia_
(Senate House). The Conscript Fathers are not yet in session, and a
visit to the interior can wait. The structure is very splendid, but it
is not the grand old Curia Hostilia, built according to legend by King
Tullus Hostilius, and the scene of nearly all those famous Senatorial
debates across the long annals of the Republic. That ancient building
was burned in 52 B.C. during the riots following the murder of the idol
of the populace, the demagogue Clodius. Julius Cæsar, therefore, had a
good excuse for building a stately new Senate House. This in turn was
damaged in Nero’s great fire, but Domitian carefully repaired it--and
with its fine pillars, bronze doors, and galaxy of statues, it forms a
worthy meeting place for what is still a venerable and powerful body.
=236. The Basilica Julia, the Greatest Court House in Rome; the _Lacus
Curtius_.=--The Basilica Julia on the southern side of the Forum is a
building into which it is best to enter. The structure was begun by
Julius Cæsar to meet the imperative need for a larger court house. More
important business is transacted under its roof and ample porticoes,
perhaps, than in any other building in Rome; and in bad weather nearly
all the Forum loungers take refuge beneath its ample shelter. Its
size is worthy of its important functions; it is 270 feet long and in
addition to the regular exterior colonnade has a fine inner colonnade.
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF A BASILICA: restored.]
These double porticoes are the special lounging spots of fashionable
idlers of both sexes. Young men of fashion seeking to meet congenial
ladies of easy habits have only to loiter around and stroll about a
little--their hopes are gratified. Assuredly Venus can hardly reckon up
the love affairs that here have ripened. The pavements are even more
marked up for gaming boards than elsewhere and some of the players, we
note, actually wear the equestrian stripes, while there are senatorial
laticlaves in the interested throngs standing around them. Along the
sides of the building are roomy offices, where a large corps of city
officials and clerks conduct the various municipal boards and bureaus.
The glory of the Basilica Julia, however, is its great hall, used
for the chief courts of justice, barring always those of the Emperor
and the Senate. The hall is paved with colored marbles of price; the
pillars running down either side are splendid monoliths of still rarer
marbles, and the ceiling is heavy with gilt fretting and painting.
In every possible niche rise statues of famous jurisconsults and
advocates. The light streams down abundantly through the windows in
the upper clerestory, and in this second story at the present moment
there are standing or sitting groups of very respectable men and women
listening to the orator pleading before one of the tribunals below. Any
guide will tell how the mad Emperor Caligula used to delight to stand
in these upper balconies, fling down money, and roar with delight when
the crowds trampled one another struggling to get the coins.
So large is this hall that not one but _four_ tribunals have been set
up in different quarters of the building, and litigation often proceeds
before all four of them simultaneously, although in the absence of
partitions strong-lunged advocates sometimes interfere with their
neighbors; they tell of a certain stentorian Trachalus who once while
speaking before one tribunal not merely was heard by but drew applause
from the audiences in the other three. Here Quintilian, Pliny the
Younger, Tacitus, and other orators of the generation just departed,
won their fame, and at present every windy amateur in the rhetoric
schools dreams of the day when he can wave out his toga in the Basilica
Julia before a crowded and cheering balcony.
These are some of the more famous monuments in and around the Forum
Romanum. Were one to descend to particulars the task were endless.
Perhaps there should be mentioned a certain modest altar in the
very center of the open plaza. This marks the so-called _Lacus
Curtius_. Antiquarians give one several stories concerning it, but
the accepted version is this.--Once in the good old days a yawning
gulf opened at this very spot, the portent, perhaps, of the devouring
of the entire city--when lo! the brave youth, Marcus Curtius “devoted”
himself for his country and plunged unflinchingly into the abyss. The
earth closed over him, he was seen no more, but Rome held his name in
eternal remembrance. Doubtless he had thus taken upon himself the anger
of the infernal gods and had saved the state![143]
[Illustration: THE TARPEIAN ROCK: on slopes of the
Capitol. (From this traitors were hurled in the time of the
Republic.)]
=237. The New Fora of the Emperors: the Temple of Peace.=--After
surveying the Forum Romanum we are told that five other fora--the
creations of high-minded Emperors--still await inspection. Truth to
tell, however, these great plazas--not marking the growth and events
of centuries, but the mandates of wealthy despots--give one a sense
of anticlimax. Of them it will be properly written: “The fora of the
Empire were as much superior in magnificence to the Forum Romanum as
they were inferior in historical interest and association.”
They are the work of master architects mobilizing armies of laboring
slaves, stone cutters, and artists. The eye becomes weary with the
incessant sheen of costly marble; the equestrian statues, the forests
of ornate Corinthian pillars, the great reaches of tessellated
pavements, the quantities of colored paint, enamel, and heavy gilding.
At first these imperial fora appear to the visitor as a hopeless
complex of pretentious splendor; but after a little, a clever method
appears in their arrangement by which one great plaza or system of
public buildings joins itself to another.
Four of these public squares join closely together, but the fifth
stands a little apart. This last is located near the northeast end of
the Old Forum, verging toward the Subura and the Esquiline, and is the
“Forum of Peace,” constructed by Vespasian about 75 A.D. The
open area, however, is relatively small, for its center is occupied by
the imposing “Temple of Peace.” This temple is adorned with a perfect
gallery of sculptures and paintings, nearly all of them masterpieces
by the Greeks. These works of art had formerly occupied Nero’s Golden
House until that grandiose structure was destroyed by the thrifty
Vespasian. In this Temple of Peace likewise are kept those precious
Jewish spoils shown on the Arch of Titus, and there is not merely a
fine library but a hall for the savants and scientists when they meet
for their learned conventicles.
=238. The Fora of Julius, Augustus, and Nerva.=--In dealing with
the four connected fora it profits little to multiply detailed
descriptions; one glittering marble edifice succeeds another around
each square. Nearest to the Old Forum lies the Forum Julium. Julius
Cæsar paid out 100,000,000 sesterces ($4,000,000) merely for the land
which it occupies, and its buildings are worthy of the costly soil
whereon they stand. In its center rises the great Temple of Venus
Genetrix, “mother” of the Julian line. Here at times the Senate can
convene, while the shops under the porticoes around are among the
finest in Rome.
[Illustration: FORUM OF AUGUSTUS AND TEMPLE OF MARS THE
AVENGER: restored.]
Directly north of this Forum Julium is the Forum Augustum. When young
Octavius went forth to avenge his adopted father against Brutus and
Cassius he vowed a temple to Mars Ultor (“Mars the Avenger”). Later
as the Emperor Augustus, most splendidly he fulfilled this vow. The
porticoes around the plaza are of Numidian marble, and variegated
marbles compose the pavements; the open area is covered with bronze
_quadrigæ_ (four-horse chariots), triumphal arches, and, of course,
numerous statues, some of precious metals, while the Temple of Mars
Ultor itself matches all its rivals in magnificence.
To the south-east of the Forum of Augustus and joining it to the Forum
of Peace is the smaller Forum of Nerva. This plaza was really begun by
Domitian, but when that tyrant perished ere completing the task, it was
finished and named by the eirenic Nerva. It is really a kind of broad
thoroughfare leading down from the Subura district, although upon it
fronts a fine Temple of Minerva. One of the features of this square is
a stately avenue of statues of the deified Emperors.
=239. The Forum, Column, and Libraries of Trajan.=--By far the
finest of the imperial fora, however, is that of Trajan--and all the
buildings, when we visit them, are still relatively new. It opens to
the northwest of the Forum of Augustus, and is not really a single
square but a genuine series of squares.
To get the level space for their great areas, it was needful to cut
away a whole spur of the Quirinal, excavating to a depth equal to the
height of Trajan’s Column (128 feet). On entering this precinct, if one
has been marveling before, it is right to be astounded now. First there
comes the _Forum Trajani_ proper, a square of most imposing size, with
lofty porticoes, semi-circular at the ends; and in the center stands
a remarkable equestrian statue of the imperial founder himself. Then
there is the vast _Basilica Ulpia_, the third great court house of the
city, which spreads lengthwise across the northwestern boundary of this
forum. It is 300 feet long, 185 feet broad, and five lines of pillars
divide it into four separate halls for different kinds of business; in
fact it is really a finer building than the older Basilica Julia.
Going through this enormous but very open structure, we come to a
second smaller plaza, and here rises one of the noblest sights of
Rome--a monument that will draw the admiration of all ensuing ages--the
_Column of Trajan_ itself. The bas-reliefs telling in picturesque
detail the whole story of the Dacian Wars, the 2500 human figures
executed with infinite fidelity and care, wind spirally from the top
of the 18 foot pedestal clear to the summit. This last is crowned by a
colossal bronze-gilt statue of Trajan looking down upon the sculptured
record of his military glory.
[Illustration: AN IMPERIAL FORUM, NEAR THE COLUMN OF
TRAJAN: restoration after Von Falke.]
This column is, perhaps, the worthiest monument of the whole imperial
age.[144] The marvels of Trajan’s forum-system, however, are not
exhausted. North and south of the Column are two fine buildings of
moderate size; these are the _Bibliothecæ_, the two public “Libraries
of Trajan,” one Latin, one Greek--containing on the whole the finest
collections of books in Rome; and directly facing the Column and the
Libraries across another open area of considerable extent is the
_Temple of Trajan_, where the priests daily offer their sacrifice to
the deified manes of the terror of Dacia and of Parthia.
=240. The Park System of the Campus Martius: the Pantheon.=--These
exhaust for the moment the structures we can survey around the fora:
and it were well to stop lest sheer confusion may follow. With time,
however, we could wander after the throngs again northwestward along
“Broadway” past the great porticoes and fine shops of the Sæpta Julia,
and saunter about the great park system of Campus Martius.
The public baths there located and such structures as the Theater of
Pompey and the Flaminian Circus can, perhaps, be explained later; but
a word must be spoken for the one great temple which is here situated
away from the center of Rome. The _Pantheon_, dedicated to
Mars, Venus, the deified Cæsar, and to all the other deities of the
Julian line was the erection of Marcus Agrippa, the mighty coadjutor
of Augustus. It has just been rebuilt from its very foundations
by Hadrian.[145] Its noble dome shines with the golden tiles. The
soaring rotunda inside is encircled with stately altars to the gods
the building honors. Already one can stand and look upward 143 feet
to that patch of blue 18 feet in diameter through which sun and
stars will shine down across at least eighteen centuries of changing
history--making the Pantheon the one great building, not a ruin, which
shall link the Rome of the Cæsars with the Rome of another day.
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF THE PANTHEON: restoration
according to Von Falke.]
=241. The Daily Gazette (_Acta Diurna_). How Rome Gets Its News.=--One
thing, to avoid complexity, we omitted while crossing the old Forum
Romanum. It behooves us to return and to explain it. Before a series
of tall white boards set up against certain pillars is gathered an
elbowing, gesticulating throng. Many of the company have tablets and
seem copying vigorously. The crowd is always receiving additions,
while others are departing. The white boards (“albums”) when we get
near enough are seen to be covered with somewhat fine writing. There
is a special rush and flutter in the crowd when a petty official sets
up still another white board, and a hundred styli instantly become
busy. It is easy to learn the excitement caused by these notices: they
constitute the publication of the new _Acta Diurna_.
Even without the Acta Diurna (“Daily Doings”) a city like Rome
would have its supply of news. There are professional gad-abouts
who make themselves desirable guests at dinner-parties merely
because they are “very well informed.” They have picked up all the
stories about the Parthian king, the new chiefs of the Germans,
the number of legionaries mobilized on the Rhine, and the corn
prospects in Africa and Egypt, as well as every kind of commercial
information. Other wiseacres of a less reliable cast are known
as “_subrostrani_,”--“Rostra-haunters,”--for at the Rostra all
gossipers have their tryst. These people specialize in rumors of
calamity, reports of great military disasters, of the sudden death of
magistrates, etc., and take a peculiar glee in circulating vile stories
about the Emperors--the danger of repeating such rumors only adding
spice to their game. Usually, however, they are too insignificant fry
for the government to consider worth prosecuting.
=242. Contents of the Acta Diurna.=--The Acta Diurna, however, is
issued by a government bureau, and a certain degree of official
responsibility is attached to the more formal statements. The editors,
nevertheless, are allowed to add racy anecdotes of a personal nature,
especially concerning the higher aristocracy. The relations between
the senatorial nobility and the freedmen and equites in the imperial
government bureaus are none the best; and Hadrian himself is not on
perfect terms with the Conscript Fathers.[146]
Official circles, therefore, are never careful to suppress spicy bits
about the aristocrats. The public record offices and dispatches from
the provinces supply most of the items, but some of the material can
only have come from direct reportorial activity. In any case the
interest in this Daily Gazette is enormous. Its single copy will be
multiplied many times, copies being made of the copies, and the same
sent to wealthy people in all parts of the Empire. A month from now
groups will probably be gathering in Spanish Corduba and Syrian Antioch
to read the items published to-day in Rome.
Owing to the limitations of space, despite the use of many “white
boards,” the Acta Diurna has to maintain a very dry journalistic style
indeed. The lively Italian imagination, however, can provide most of
the details, even if they are not at once eked out by quantities of
that “smoke,” oral rumor, which is passed about amid the copyists the
moment the new gazette is posted. This is a very commonplace issue, and
the albums read something like this:[147]
“Records for the tenth day of June. Yesterday ---- boys and ---- girls
were born in the city of Rome. ---- bushels of grain were landed at
the Emporium. ---- head of cattle [and other commodities specified]
were also brought into the city. On this same day the palace slave
Mithridates was ordered crucified for blaspheming the guardian genius
of his master the Emperor. At the imperial treasury ---- million
sesterces, which it proved impossible to loan out at interest, were
ordered returned to the public funds. A fire broke out in the insula of
Nasta in the Viminal district but was extinguished.”
=243. Miscellaneous Entries and Gossip in the Gazette.=--The entries
go on to give the doings in the petty police courts, the copies of
important wills with especial mention of any bequests that were left
the Emperor, the statement that a certain eques had caught his wife
in gross misconduct and divorced her; that a procurator for a large
trading house was being prosecuted for embezzlement, and a summary of
the evidence in a great violation of contract case between two marble
importers now on trial in the Basilica Æmilia. Then follow magisterial
edicts, lists of judicial appointments, and careful entries about
all the doings of the Emperor and of his progress back toward Rome.
Next is given a rather elaborate summary (evidently made by shorthand
reporters) of the latest debate in the Senate, with careful entry of
the applause and interruptions which the orators received.
All this is more or less “official”; but the newsmongers are really
more interested in “human interest stories” added by the publishers’
private authority. Thus it makes good reading to tell how a frantic
admirer of a certain “Red” charioteer who was killed in the last races,
cast himself on the funeral pyre of the beloved jockey, in order not to
survive his idol; or to relate how a citizen of Fæsule has just visited
Rome and sacrificed to Jupiter along with “eight children, thirty-six
grandchildren, and nineteen great grandchildren.”[148] Furthermore, the
report of love affairs among the noble and mighty is never omitted--how
a senator’s wife has eloped with a gladiator, and how a certain
oft-mentioned lady is about to wed an eighth husband. Finally (perhaps
the most copied of all) there are, of course, the announcements for the
coming exhibitions in the theater, amphitheater, and circus, with lists
of the actors, gladiators, and charioteers, and other data, which can
enable all Rome to arrange its wagers and its holidays.
The Acta Diurna therefore goes about as far as is possible to create a
real newspaper in the days of mere penmanship. Its vogue is immense.
Many a fine lady sends her slave or freedman to the Forum every day to
bring home a special copy. Its items will focus the conversation at a
thousand dinner tables.
Finally this publication will enjoy a certain degree of historic
importance. After each issue has served its daily purpose, fair copies
are deposited in the Public Record Office, and here they can be
consulted many years later by the learned. It is from the files of the
Acta Diurna that Tacitus and Suetonius have apparently drawn a great
many of their anecdotes about the days of the early Emperors.
CHAPTER XV
THE PALATINE AND THE PALACE OF THE CÆSARS. THE GOVERNMENT OFFICES, AND
THE POLICE AND CITY GOVERNMENT OF ROME
=244. History of the Palatine: its Purchase by Augustus.=--There
is one other great quarter of Rome, from the political standpoint the
most important of all, the Palatine.
The Palatine originally was a hill of modest height, in shape fairly
rectangular, some 1400 feet on the side. Here according to firm
tradition was that first settlement by the Alban shepherds led out
by Romulus. The hill seems to have been encompassed by its own crude
wall, and presently it figured as the earliest “Rome,” often called
from its squarish configuration _Roma Quadrata_. Time fails to
count the various memorials such as the “House of Romulus,” alleged to
have survived since this primitive time. Note should be made, however,
of certain small but very old temples such as those of Victoria,
Viriplaca, and Orbona,[149] which are now carefully preserved amid
surroundings of artificial magnificence.
After the growth of the Republic the Palatine became one of the most
fashionable residence sections of the city. Public leaders liked to
mount the roofs of their mansions and see the whole Forum with the
familiar Senate House spread out at their feet. Here were erected
the earliest of those sumptuous mansions wherein the aristocracy
invested their spoils from the great conquests. Marcus Scaurus had
his pretentious dwelling on the Palatine, and so did Catiline, and
Marcus Antonius, and Cicero. Last but not least, Hortensius the Orator,
Cicero’s professional rival, erected an extremely fine dwelling here
shortly before his death in 50 B.C., which mansion was later
purchased by Augustus when he had assumed the government and desired
a suitable residence; and thus it was that the Palatine became the
“Palace” of the Emperors.
[Illustration: ARCH OF TITUS: part of Palatine
visible to the left.]
=245. Extension of the Imperial Buildings: Central Position of the
Palatine.=--Augustus, posing merely as the “First Citizen” among his
fellow Quirites, and with a studious abhorrence of the outward forms of
monarchy, had avoided establishing anything like an Imperial court; but
he was, of course, entitled to a large senatorial mansion. In addition
to his private residence elaborate offices had also to be provided for
the great corps of secretaries and clerks through whom he governed
half the provinces and controlled the army. This corps of bureaucrats
has grown with every new accretion to imperial power; furthermore,
Augustus’s pretence of democratic simplicity has been utterly discarded
following the extravagances of Caligula and Nero.
One enormous building has, therefore, been added to another. The last
private dwellings upon the hill have been condemned, and the Cæsars now
control every inch of the Palatine, making it so completely the abode
of majesty that “palace” will remain across the centuries as the name
for any seat of princely authority.
=246. Commanding View from the Palatine Hill.=--This is the smallest
of the Seven Hills, but it is the real focus of the other six, which
“seem to surround it with their homage, as being their king.” It is
so close to the Capitol that the crazy Caligula erected a bridge (now
long demolished) leading from his mansion clear over to the Temple
of Capitoline Jove, in order that he might frequently “go and visit
his friend Jupiter.” The view from the crest of the palace structures
is superb: northward across the Forum, and all the thickly clustered
roofs on the slopes of the Quirinal, Viminal, and Esquiline, westward
to the Capitol where the magnificent temples seem within a stone’s
toss, southward across the great hollow of the Circus Maximus and then
across to the densely covered Aventine. Whether the Emperor desires to
harangue the Senate, to sacrifice to the greater gods, or to grace the
chariot races--Curia, temples, or circus are all close at hand; with
the Flavian Amphitheater to the northeast, almost equally near.
=247. Magnificence of the Palatine Structures.=--But the Palatine
itself is perhaps the most glorious sight of all. It rises above the
city two and three hundred feet to its upper parapets, lifting itself
on several tiers of arches and pillared stories which gleam with
marble below and present a perfect treasure house of gilded tiling
above. Under the morning light with the sun flashing the gold of the
multitudinous domes back into the clear azure the whole effect is
incomparable. The natural foundations of the hill are covered with
enormous substructures of masonry and concrete, and these are continued
by long tiers of many-arched buildings which house the great government
bureaus and ministries. Crowning these can be seen equally long forests
of columns, upbearing a whole complex of gabled roofs covered not
merely with the gilded tiles, but with a whole legion of gilded or
richly toned bronze statues. Here and there show forth bits of greenery
and foliage betraying the gardens and the parks reserved for the Lords
of the World.
[Illustration: PALATINE AND PALACE OF THE CAESARS:
restoration by Spandoni.]
The effect of this entire mass is overpowering. The eye wearies of
counting the sweeping porticoes, tall monoliths, colossal statues, and
quadrigas. The result is also enhanced by the use of great numbers of
huge awnings, hung over nearly every opening and window, usually made
in brilliant colors, with the imperial purple very conspicuous. There
will never be another Palatine in the history of the world.
=248. The More Famous Buildings on the Palatine: Enormous Display of
Art Objects.=--This vast residence compound--it cannot be called
a single building--can be reached by a number of inclined planes
or stairways upon all four sides. Access is easy enough and crowds
of slaves, plebeians, and nobles are incessantly coming and going,
although a couple of Prætorians loll carelessly on their spear-shafts
beside each ingress. Possibly the easiest entrance is by the _Clivus
Victoriæ_ (“Ascent of Victory”) which starts upward from the edge of
the Old Forum very near to the Shrine of Vesta.
[Illustration: ROMAN URN: typical art object.]
To find one’s way about the Palatine is, however, far more difficult
than about the fora. It is not, of course, an area but a jumble of
buildings, all splendid, but often thrust upon one another without any
real system. Augustus added extensively to the old house of Hortensius,
and particularly he built a very pretentious Temple to Apollo.
Tiberius, the next Emperor, added a new wing, the _Domus Tiberiana_,
almost doubling the bulk of the former structures. Caligula thrust
on more buildings still. Across the ages will be pointed out that
_Cryptoporticus_, the twisting underground gallery connecting parts of
the palaces, where the stout tribune Cherea struck down and slew the
insane despot, January 24th, 41 A.D., to the great profit of the entire
world. Nero added other wings and structures, some of which had to be
rebuilt after his great fire. Finally, Domitian added a whole series of
enormous halls, baths, banqueting rooms, and government offices. The
Palatine is now virtually complete: Trajan and Hadrian have erected
their monuments elsewhere, and so will most of the later Emperors.[150]
We do not propose to explore all these buildings in so vast a complex.
It is enough that one superb court or façade follows another; that
almost every hall and ante-room is of sumptuous splendor; that veined
marbles, porphyry, elaborate bas-reliefs, and profuse gilding seem
multiplied until they become commonplace. All the artificiality and
over-elaborate art of the age seems concentrated around the Palatine.
Within the great substructures and the arched terraces which bear up
the more important buildings, even in the cells for the slaves and the
offices for the toiling clerks there are fine frescos and handsome
stucco reliefs.
=249. The Triclinium and Throne Room of Domitian.=--As for some of
the special areas and chambers, they justify the praises of the servile
court poets: “Olympian” is the mildest word which they can use. Take,
for example, the porticoes of Domitian. On the inner side of their
vast length, they are lined throughout with marble so highly polished
that it shines like mirrors. What matter if the original cause for
their use was the desire of the suspicious tyrant to have a promenade
wherein nobody could glide upon him without warning from behind. The
result is indescribably brilliant. But let us go rather into the
“House of Domitian” itself, and inspect the great banqueting hall, the
Triclinium. “The gods themselves might quaff their nectar there!” cried
the enraptured Martial.
This magnificent apartment leads off from a marvelous peristyle-court
of more than 10,000 square feet in area. The chamber itself is not
huge, but is arranged so that three tables (each for nine guests) can
be placed laterally along the walls, with the third, opposite the
door of entry, for the Emperor and his chief guests. Twenty-seven
dignitaries thus can dine together. On each side of the hall five large
windows are separated by massive columns of red granite.
As the guests of majesty repose on their silken cushions they can see
between the columns still another court where water is softly gushing
from a fountain, and purling in a small cascade over steps of marble,
verdure, and flowers. The ornamentation may be grievously overdone; the
taste of some of the reliefs and wall pictures is questionable, but the
effect of the sheen from the many colored marbles, the gilding, and
the heavy fretwork around the lofty dome undeniably justifies all the
enthusiasm of the verse-mongers.
Equally striking is the Throne Room built by Domitian. It is called the
tablinum as in humbler dwellings, but it is actually used for great
state audiences. It is a hall of imposing size. You enter past the
guards, and directly across the broad area is a niche where sits “Cæsar
Augustus” upon a gilded dais and curule-chair, every whit as truly a
throne as that of the Great King of Parthia. The walls of the room are
covered with extraordinarily costly marbles, and around the circuit
rise twenty-eight Corinthian columns of intricate workmanship. Eight
large niches contain as many colossal statues wrought of adamantine
basalt, and a Hercules and a Bacchus are particularly noteworthy. The
entrance door is flanked by two enormous columns of _giallo antico_,
deep yellow marble flushed with pink, imported from Numidia. The
threshold is a single immense slab of a whiter marble brought from
Greece.
Words thus exhaust themselves describing these grandiose,
overpowering, magnificent courts, halls, and apartments. We can
perforce ignore such features as the separate hippodrome and the
luxurious gardens reserved for imperial amusement or recreation. Better
it is to concentrate attention upon the human life wherewith the
Palatine ordinarily abounds.
=250. Swarms of Civil Officials Always on the Palatine.=--All the
Palatine revolves around the Emperor. Rome is not yet governed by an
unabashed despotism, yet it would be hard to name a deed that a king
of old Babylon could perform which a _Princeps et Imperator_ could not
perpetrate if his heart really desired, although certain restraints
and decencies make this absolutism endurable save under a Nero or a
Domitian.
The thousands of persons who dwell upon or are employed upon the
Palatine are all employed with one of two things, the imperial court or
the imperial public service. Since Hadrian (despite the grumblings of
his Italian subjects) is still absent from Rome the court ceremonial
has practically ceased. A few of the Emperor’s relatives dwell in
gilded ease in certain wings of the palace, but except for the
caretakers the great army of self-sufficient slaves and still more
self-sufficient freedmen who act as valets, cooks, waiters, musicians,
chamberlains, and in every other menial capacity, can eat, play dice,
and discuss the races in idleness.
Now as always, however, the imperial public service which sends
its impulse to the remotest borders of Dacia, Syria, or Britain is
functioning actively, and most of the vast bureaus and ministries have
huge offices upon the Palatine. The Prætorian Præfect, as high judge
for the Emperor’s half of the provinces, daily mounts his supreme
tribunal. The four Imperial Secretaries for Finance, for Petitions,
and for Official Correspondence (one for the Greek provinces and one
for the Latin) direct their great corps of subordinates. The chief
Procurators (Superintendents) of the enormous Imperial Estates all
over the Empire are receiving reports and protecting their masters’
interests; and so with a great body of other high officials.
The huge administrative machine perfected by the practical Roman genius
is running steadily--so steadily that even under a very bad Emperor,
even a Nero, it will function for years with no great harm to the
governed millions. The only condition is that the tyrant will reserve
his cruelties for the nobility and refrain from tactless interference
with the secretaries instead of indulging merely in vicious personal
pleasures.[151]
=251. The Emperor Center of High Social Life.=--Into these high
political concerns we dare not enter, but the social life of the Palace
cannot be so well ignored. Already the imperial freedmen are busy
planning the great receptions and state banquets which Hadrian must
give soon after his return. In half the atria of Rome men and women
are discussing vigorously, “When ‘Cæsar’ returns will he have any new
‘Friends,’ and will he have discontinued any old ones?”
Already it is rumored that certain freedmen (supposedly in their
lord’s confidence) have received a great bribe to get them to induce
the “Dominus” (so loyal etiquette calls the monarch) to summon back
to favor a certain Jallius, an indiscreet senator whom, on his last
sojourn in Rome, Hadrian had ordered excluded from his personal
receptions. Rome is a city of rumors, but nowhere do these abound more
than about the Palatine, always centering on the doings, words, and
even the health of the Emperor. “Smoke” from the valets, barbers, and
table-servitors of the Augustus can often be sold for precious aurei.
Self-respecting monarchs punish the tale-bearers pitilessly, but the
latter can seldom be caught in the act.[152] Every Emperor knows that
he is the constant victim of outrageous tattling.
=252. Friends of Cæsar (_Amici Cæsaris_).=--But an Emperor’s company is
not confined to menials; neither does he spend all his time at council
with his ministers. Being a Roman among Romans he is forced to spend
a good deal of his day receiving the social attentions of those who
proudly list themselves as his “Friends.”
To be an _Amicus Cæsaris_, to be entitled to greet as a kind of social
equal the personage who is worshiped as a god in all the Oriental
provinces, who is (by adoption in Hadrian’s case) the son of a
Divinity, the “Deified Trajan,” and whose own “divine genius” (guardian
spirit) receives prayer and incense in every government building--this
honor seems almost dazzling. Every Emperor ranks his “Friends” in two
classes--“_First Class Friends_,” great secretaries, ministers, and
generals who must have constant access to his cabinet, certain very
distinguished members of the Senate, certain near relatives, and also
a few congenial personal companions--poets, and philosophers, with
great Emperors, or jockeys, gamesters, and debauchees with the bad; and
“_Second Class Friends_,” which great catalogue includes all the rest
of the Senate, many of the more distinguished equites, and a select
sprinkling of such plebeians as Cæsar delights to honor.
The First Class Friends, it is true, pay for their glory by a heavy
obligation--to appear at the Palace every morning usually before
daylight, and greet the Lord of the World while he sits up in bed and
is dressed by his valets.[153] Very much of state business is then
transacted, but the obligation to appear merely to say an “_Ave_” is
imperative provided the Emperor is in his residence. Sometimes merely
to avoid giving gouty ministers great inconvenience Hadrian has been
known considerately to pass the night away from the Palace in order to
dispense with the ceremonial in the morning.
=253. The Imperial Audiences.=--After the Emperor has been clad
with due ceremony, has conversed with his intimates, and perhaps has
sealed some urgent rescripts, he is ready for the morning audience. A
full cohort (1000 men) of the Prætorian Guard is always on service at
the Palace and a platoon of these without armor, but in magnificent
cloaks, stands by the entrance to the hall of state. Only men as a
rule are admitted.[154] Under certain evil or very suspicious Emperors
such as Claudius there has been the humiliating custom of searching
every visitor (whatever his rank) for weapons, ere admission; but that
abomination has ceased at last, beginning with Nerva.
In the broad courts before the audience chamber some dozens of senators
dismount from their litters every morning when the monarch is in Rome,
and sometimes the delay ere the doors are opened is so long that much
personal business can be transacted and philosophical disquisitions
indulged in. Second Class Friends do not have to appear every morning,
but it is a serious error to fail to use your entrée fairly often.
=254. Social Ruin through Imperial Disfavor.=--The process resembles
that with the clients in the noble lords’ own houses a little earlier
in the day, although with greater solemnity and formality.[155] A
group of gorgeously dressed “admissioners” (_admissionales_) keep
the doors, and scan every applicant closely, but besides the regular
Friends they frequently admit certain distinguished visitors from the
provinces, especially members of those provincial delegations that are
always junketing to Rome to proffer the homage of their district to the
Emperor, or to present some kind of a public petition.
The last day that Hadrian gave audience ere leaving Rome, when our
friend Calvus waited upon him, there was an awkward happening. A very
roistering and immoral young nobleman, Calvisius, presented himself
when the doors were opened, whereupon an imperial freedman took him
by the arm, announcing: “You are no longer admitted to the palace.”
Calvisius instantly slunk away, overwhelmed by his calamity. He would
have suffered less if he had forfeited half his fortune.
Even worse was in store for the aforementioned Jallius, who was said to
have mocked at Hadrian’s pretentions as an art critic (a tender point)
while over-drunk at a dinner party. He was suffered indeed to enter and
to approach the imperial seat: “_Ave, Cæsar!_” he called out boldly,
hoping that his indiscretion had been unnoticed. “_Vale, Jallie!_”[156]
(“Good-by, Jallius”) answered the monarch, turning his face from him.
The insult was offered in the presence of at least fifty tale-bearers
and that night it was over Rome. Under a bad Emperor, Jallius’s life
would have been in sore jeopardy, and as it was he was socially ruined;
every time-serving nobleman closed his house to him and his innocent
wife and children shared his ostracism. His only hope now is that
when Hadrian returns he can be induced to let Jallius call again, and
will answer affably “_Ave!_” to the visitor’s greeting. Then the poor
senator can hold up his head in the world.
[Illustration: CÆSAR AUGUSTUS: showing costume of a
Roman general.]
=255. Enormous Value of Imperial Favor.=--On the other hand Calvus
returned walking on air from this particular audience. The Emperor
answered his greeting by calling him “My very dear Calvus”; then asked,
“And how are your Gratia and the boys?” and actually added, “Do you
think Gallinas, the Thracian, is going to be a good match for Syrus
in the arena?”--finally, throwing in the sage advice, “These morning
frosts now are sharp if you don’t dress warmly.”[157]
When Calvus quitted the hall all his friends swarmed around
congratulating him on “the remarkable favor of the Emperor,” and
intimating that he was surely destined to be Consul within a few
years and then the imperial legate of a great province. He can hardly
persuade them that he has received no private information about the
boundary settlement with Parthia and the terms being offered the chiefs
of the Quadi. In fact the imperial looks and moods are studied as
carefully as is the weather. “Did _he_ frown or look pleased when
so and so was mentioned?” “Did he offer his cheek graciously to be
kissed by that ex-consul?” “Did he invite the chiefs of the delegation
from Provincial Asia to dinner?” “Did he cast down his eyes gloomily
when they said N---- was about to be tried to-morrow in the Senate?”
No marvel if bad Emperors are easily persuaded that they are gods on
earth, and even good Emperors have to strive hard not to allow their
heads to be turned!
Hadrian is still away from Rome, and both First Class Friends and
Second Class Friends are probably a little relieved not to have to play
the client to him. If the days of bloody tyranny seem past, the fate of
poor Jallius can still overtake almost any of them.[158] But though the
vast hall of audience stands vacant save for gaping sightseers, there
are plenty of distinguished visitors upon the Palatine come to transact
business at the imperial ministries, or very likely at the great
offices of the City Præfect (_Præfectus Urbi_), who is essentially
the Mayor of Rome.
=256. City Government of Rome: the City Præfect (_Præfectus
Urbi_).=--It was one of the greatest sins of the defunct Republic
that it permitted Rome to grow until it became an enormous metropolis
without providing any respectable police force, fire department, or
other efficient means of securing law, order, and public safety. The
old _ædiles_ (commissioners of public works) were overburdened
men, with imperfect authority, few constables, and great political
interests. In the days of Cicero great fires, great riots, and serious
crimes occurred almost daily. In self-protection many prominent men
had actually to arm their slaves in regular companies and even to hire
the assistance of armed bands of gladiators. Augustus ended all this.
Thanks to him, Rome has become one of the best policed and protected
cities in the world.
The old ædiles[159] are now supplemented and largely superseded by a
corps of officials all named by the Emperor, for indefinite terms and
removable by him at pleasure. At their head is that high “Clarissimus,”
the City Præfect. He is always a senator who has held the consulship,
and who often has governed great provinces. To be named City Præfect
is almost the highest civil honor in the gift of the Cæsars, and it
ordinarily comes to a veteran nobleman of approved experience and
integrity. He is really in part a military officer because at his
command stand the “City Cohorts,” the regular armed garrison of Rome,
four Cohorts of reliable troops, one thousand men in each, ready to
assist the ordinary police in repressing rioting.
The City Præfect is responsible for the general good order of the
metropolis; it is his business not merely to punish evil, but to
take measures to prevent it, _e.g._ by breaking up illicit
societies and assemblies, such as those of the “debased” Christians.
In conjunction with the other magistrates he also takes measures to
keep down the price of provisions. In addition he is the high judge in
most cases arising around Rome, which are not especially reserved to
other tribunals. Particularly he and his deputies have jurisdiction
over cases involving outrageous usury, betrayal of trust by guardians,
unfilial conduct of children, and disrespect shown to patrons by
freedmen. And to his court go all the charges of serious crimes sure
to arise in a great city, barring, however, lesser police court
cases--these last falling to his colleague, the Præfect of the Watch.
=257. The Municipal Superintendents and Commissioners
(_Curatores_).=--Aiding the City Præfect are several high
superintendents or commissioners usually of at least prætorian rank
among the senators. The two “Curators of the Public Works” obviously
have to look after the municipal buildings and especially the temples
and the considerable endowments often attached to them. The Præfect of
the Grain Supply (_Præfectus Annonæ_) is a magistrate who--in view of
the importance of his function (see p. 242)--will often be chosen with
almost as great an eye to his efficiency as the City Præfect.
Besides the corps of agents collecting grain in the provinces, the
special deputy at Ostia, the “Official Grain Measurers,” the “Grain
Magazine-Keepers” (_horrearii_), and the staff of clerks and porters,
all the bakers of the city also are under the Præfect of the Grain
Supply, and he can sit as high judge in all cases, criminal and civil,
where the provisioning of the city is affected. As for the Tiber, it is
so often bursting its levees and flooding the lower city that a special
board of five senators, “Commissioners for the Tiber, River-Banks, and
the Sewers,” attends alike to the care of the dikes and also to the
great sewer system which drains the capital.
=258. Excellent Water Supply of Rome.=--An official board with
duties of the first order is that of the “Curators of the Water
Supply.” There is a chief curator and two assistants, and since the
task calls for expert professional knowledge, these are not senators
but imperial freedmen, or at the highest only equites. No sinecure,
however, is their task. Justly are the Romans proud of the excellent
water supply of the imperial city. As early as Augustus’s time Strabo
the geographer warned his fellow Greeks that while they could boast
that their cities excelled the Roman in artistic adornments, Rome
rejoiced in a far better water system, in better pavements, and in
better sewers. Certain of the latter, he declared in admiration, were
“arched over with hewn stone and were so large that in some parts hay
wagons can drive straight through them!”
[Illustration: RUINED AQUEDUCT IN THE ROMAN
CAMPAGNA.]
By Hadrian’s day the aqueducts supplying the city have become wholly
admirable. Time fails us to go out into the Campagna or to the distant
hills and see how, by gravity alone, and without the aid of pumping
engines, “copious streams are conducted great distances despite the
obstacles presented by mountains, valleys, or low-lying level plains,
sometimes rushing along in vast subterranean tunnels, at other times
supported on long ranges of lofty arches, the remains of which [in
after ages] will still be seen spanning the waste of the Campagna.”
[Lanciani.]
There is difficulty in making very large iron pipes capable of standing
high pressure over long distances; and as a result the Roman engineers
prefer to carry the water in channels lined with solid cement and borne
across the open ground on a vast series of arches. Besides, most of the
good water near Rome leaves a calcareous deposit; and it is much easier
to clean out large channels than an underground piping system.
=259. The Great Aqueducts.=--When we try to understand the water system
of Rome we come upon astonishing figures for the great aqueducts.
There are nine of these huge conduits in constant use. The oldest
is the _Aqua Appia_, built in 312 B.C. by that tough old censor,
Appius Claudius, and it starts only about eleven miles from the city,
with nearly its entire bed underground; but when this supply proved
inadequate the engineers had to reach much farther back into the hills
to find powerful jets. An increasing proportion of the channels of
the newer aqueducts has also to be on arches; for example, the _Aqua
Julia_, built by Agrippa in 33 B.C., has to go back fifteen and a half
miles, and six and a half of these are on arches; while the _Aqua
Claudia_, built about 40 A.D., is no less than forty-six miles long
with nine and a half on elevated arches. There are two others, the
older _Aqua Marcia_ and the slightly newer _Aqua Anio Novus_ (taking
water from the river Anio), that are not much shorter either upon the
ground or in their elevated sections.
Once inside the city this enormous volume of water is distributed
in a most scientific manner according to a scheme worked out by the
mighty Agrippa. There are 700 public pools and basins and 500 public
fountains drawing their supply from 130 collecting heads or reservoirs.
Only the poorest or tallest tenement houses, consequently, are bereft
of a water supply, clear, sanitary, and abundant, such as most later
cities can desire in vain until close upon the twentieth century.
=260. The Police System Instituted by Augustus.=--Almost as
important, however, as the excellent water supply came the blessing of
the firm police system instituted by Augustus. There was an end at last
to the fearful riots and even private wars of the later Republic, as
when those cheerful desperadoes Clodius and Milo played at being the
“Hector and Achilles of the Streets,” and ordinary crime soon became
comparatively rare.
The city has also been divided into 14 “regions” (_regiones_) and these
into 262 “precincts” (_vici_) distributed among the “regions.” Each
vicus is in theory a religious unit. It has its own little _ædicula_
(petty temple) containing the images of the two guardian Lares of the
neighborhood plus inevitably a statue of the Genius of the Emperor.
Each vicus also has its two special curators, worthy tradesmen usually,
elected by their fellow wardsmen and clothed with enough importance to
make the office desirable. Their chief official duty is to keep up the
sacred rites at the central shrine and to help to compile the census
lists, but they are also a kind of local arbitrators or justices of
the peace who assist the police and look after the general weal of the
precinct.
=261. The Police-Firemen of the Watch (_vigiles_): the _Præfectus
Vigilum_.=--However, the actual security of Rome is not intrusted to
any such unprofessional guardians. Augustus understood clearly the
need of an effective police force apart from a mere armed garrison;
besides he had to protect the capital against the fearful and incessant
fires; as a result his new _vigiles_ (“watchmen”) were a combination
of policemen and firemen. The fourteen regions of Rome have now been
coupled together into seven police districts, each possessing a regular
police station (_excubitorium_) and two subordinate watch houses.
Each district is intrusted to a separate cohort of vigiles about 1000
men strong, thus giving Rome a total force of some 7000. The vigiles
are not actually soldiers, and not being honorable legionaries they are
recruited almost entirely from the freedmen. However, after faithful
service they can be transferred to the army. They are under a rigid
discipline, nevertheless, and are divided into “centuries,” each
under a centurion, with a tribune over the entire cohort. They have
various weapons for an emergency, but the crowd usually mocks them
for the fire-fighting apparatus with which they often hurry down the
streets--hooks, ladders, axes, simple hand-pumps, and above all, many
buckets made of rope rendered water-proof with pitch.
By their promptitude, discipline, and daring, even with such
inadequate apparatus, these patrolmen can often stop very dangerous
fires, and their familiar equipment gives them their nickname. “The
‘_Bucketmen_’ are coming!” is the yell that frequently disperses a
knot of thieves or of turbulent bullies.
At their different police stations the vigiles when off duty scribble
many things upon the walls,[160] which give a vivid idea that life “on
the force” is much the same in every age. At night these “Bucketmen” go
out in little groups bearing tallow lanterns and patrol the pitch-black
streets, rounding up evil-doers and detecting incipient fires.
At each station there is a good-sized lock-up which never wants its
unhappy occupants, also, it must be added, a professional torturer
(_quæstionarius_) to wring confessions out of slaves and other
non-privileged prisoners without any tedious “third degree” process.
Petty offenses are tried summarily before the Præfect of the Watch or
his deputies in police court at these stations; and for great crimes
the alleged offenders can be conveyed to a central jail, or admitted to
bail, prior to a formal trial before the City Præfect.
The Præfect of the Watch (_Præfectus Vigilum_), the head of this
very important organization, is really the most important municipal
official in Rome except the City Præfect. Since he has to do with
much sordid detail, he is not a top-lofty senator, but only an eques;
nevertheless, his honor and dignity are great. The subpræfect under him
is also a highly respected officer. The entire force of the vigiles,
although, of course, incessantly criticized and jeered at, is a very
capable body of men, whose faithfulness and energy go far to make life
and property better protected in Rome than in most great cities at any
age.
So with this glance at the municipal government of a metropolitan
community of 1,500,000 we quit the Palatine. A new opportunity has
presented itself: we can visit the Prætorian Camp.
CHAPTER XVI
THE PRÆTORIAN CAMP. THE IMPERIAL WAR MACHINE
=262. The Army the Real Master of the Roman Empire.=--The Romans
beyond all else have been a military people. Their great abilities
as law givers, administrators, disseminators of civilization through
Western Europe apparently would have been almost in vain if the
legions had failed against Hannibal, against Mithridates, against
Vercingetorix. Furthermore, the power of the Cæsars is primarily
that of war chiefs. Let the army revolt, and Senate, plebeians,
and provincials can protest their loyalty ever so frantically--the
Princeps, the “First Citizen,” nevertheless is a lost man.
Every Emperor knows this fact. His memory goes back to those two
fearful years 68 and 69 A.D. when first a revolt in Gaul and
a mutiny by the Prætorians in Rome overthrew Nero and set up Galba,
then a second mutiny of the Prætorians set up Otho, then a revolt of
the Rhine legions set up Vitellius, then a counter-revolt by the Danube
and Syrian legions set up Vespasian; with the civilian population
looking on helplessly, and being almost as helplessly plundered, while
decidedly small bodies of professional swordsmen settled the fate of
the Empire. Still later they remember how after Domitian’s murder, the
Prætorians (whom that despot had caressed and corrupted) forced his
successor Nerva to punish the very conspirators to whom Nerva himself
owed the throne.
Hadrian, in turn, who passes for a very “constitutional” ruler, when
his kinsman Trajan died (117 A.D.), allowed himself to be “proclaimed”
immediately by the soldiers in the East where he then was. Next he
wrote with studious modesty to the Senate begging the Conscript Fathers
to “excuse” the zeal of the army and to ratify its action in choosing
him Imperator. Every senator knew the blade might soon be at his own
neck if he openly opposed confirming the mandate of the legionaries.
The army, in short, is the final authority in the Roman Empire.
Presently there may even be an Emperor [Septimus Severus about 210
A.D.] who will give his sons direfully blunt and effective counsel:
“Enrich the army and then you can do anything.”
=263. Army Held under Stiff Discipline and Concentrated on
Frontiers.=--Nevertheless at present the army is under a tight rein.
Trajan and Hadrian by a mixture of donatives and severity have restored
firm discipline. The Roman world functions freely and normally behind
the frontier barriers held by the legions, with the great chaos of
barbarism tossing harmlessly outside. Furthermore, this army, if very
formidable, is, we shall see, decidedly small. It is distributed mainly
along the northern and eastern frontiers, with a sizable garrison and
guard-corps at Rome.
In the arrangement of the army, most of the provinces seem absolutely
divested of regular soldiers save those in transit, and their governors
only require a good constabulary to arrest brigands and rioters. The
collapse of the Jewish insurrection has practically ended the last
serious attempt to cast off Roman authority, and the provinces submit
not simply because of fear, but because they are now bound to the
imperial régime by great cultural and economic interests.[161] In
Rome itself, thanks to the presence of the imperial guard, soldiers
are frequent sights upon the streets, but in many other great cities
of the Empire they are comparative rarities. Their duties are in the
frontiers, and their officers know well the demoralization wrought by
keeping their men in city garrisons.
When Augustus found the world at his feet he also found himself with
armies which were very expensive and somewhat ready to mutiny against
him. Very promptly, therefore, he reduced his 45 legions to only about
18. This number proved too few, and by the end of his reign they had
risen to 25; these in turn have been gradually increased to 30; and
this will be the ordinary number for a good while longer.[162] The
legionaries are the regular troops of the line, on whose disciplined
fighting the safety of civilization may well depend. There are,
however, no ordinary legionaries stationed in Rome, although we can, of
course, obtain full information in the capital about them. Their place
is taken by a magnificent and arrogant guard-corps--the Prætorians.
=264. The Prætorian Guard of the Emperors.=--The Prætorian guards
are the successors of the old _Prætoriani_, picked men, who guarded
the Prætorium (general’s residence or tent) in the armies of the old
Republic. But the new Imperators were entitled to a much larger and
more permanent guard, and they also desired to have a reliable body of
troops always in or near Rome to protect against an uprising. Augustus,
therefore, organized nine “prætorian cohorts,” although keeping only
three directly in Rome; his successor, Tiberius, however, boldly
concentrated them all in the imperial city, and built for them an
enormous camp behind the Viminal hill, on the northeast side of the
metropolis.
[Illustration: PRÆTORIAN GUARDSMEN.]
Here they have remained as the dreaded engine of the Caesars. Disguise
the fact as he may, every senator knows in his heart: “If the Senate
defies the Emperor, the Prætorians can and will sack the Curia.” So
long as the Prætorians are obedient no Emperor need tremble overmuch
at stories of a provincial uprising. When the Prætorians desert he had
better, as did Nero, slink away to commit suicide.
The guard-corps is jealously regarded by the frontier legions who
sometimes turn against it, but thanks to its position at the capital
its power is tremendous. Even the privates walk down the streets with a
confident swagger--can they not make and unmake Emperors? If the army
really controls the Empire, the Prætorians go far to control the will
of the army.
=265. The Prætorian Præfect and the Prætorian Camp.=--Such being
the case, there is one high official whom the Cæsars will always select
with greater care than any other--the _Prætorian Præfect_. On this
general rests responsibility for the military efficiency and loyalty
of the corps. If he is a scheming bloody man, he can, like Tiberius’s
præfect Sejanus, almost place himself upon the throne; and if he is
simply a faithful competent officer, his public services excel that of
any civil functionary.
Since curiously enough the Emperor usually intrusts to the Prætorian
Præfect the task of hearing legal “appeals to Cæsar” from the imperial
half of the provinces, it is not unusual to name two præfects,
nominally of equal authority but with one of them often a trained
jurist, and the other more concerned with the military management of
the corps. This has the additional advantage of making it harder to
start an insurrection,--each Præfect will keep watch upon his colleague.
Inasmuch as the Emperor is now absent from Rome a detachment of the
guard is away with him, but the world being in general peace there
is no need (as in a major war) for the entire corps to go forth to
reinforce the frontier legions. The Prætorians are therefore on duty
as usual; one cohort at the Palatine, the remainder barracked at their
great camp.
The _Castra Prætoria_[163] is more than a mere cantonment; it
is a real fortress, only to be stormed after desperate fighting. We
enter it from the central gateway (_Porta Prætoria_) which looks
straight westward upon the city. A lofty wall of masonry, brick, and
concrete, crowned by suitable battlements, surrounds a vast rectangular
area about 1400 feet wide, and 1100 feet deep. The greater and lesser
gates are crowned with fine marble sculptures almost worthy of the
Palatine. In the center of the area rises a mass of office buildings, a
residence for the Præfect and a small temple to the military gods such
as Mars, and especially to the deified emperors. The side walls of the
inclosure are extended on the inside by an enormous system of arches
and vaulting, making many deep chambers where thousands of men are
easily barracked.
In the open area fountains are playing, and the sun is sending a flying
glory from the burnished armor of a cohort standing at rest, while
certain officers affix medals of honor, or bestow spears and banners of
honor upon various men who have lately distinguished themselves during
some detached duty in Mauretania. Everything about the place betrays a
perfect “police”; all commands are executed with extreme promptness;
and every individual seems absolutely to know his part, as being one
cog in an enormous war machine, into the making of which has entered an
almost inconceivable amount of skill and energy.
=266. Organization and Discipline of the Prætorians.=--The Prætorians
are organized much as the ordinary legionary troops with certain proud
modifications. The regular legions can be recruited from all over the
Empire; the Prætorians are still drawn only from Italy. They receive
twice the pay of the legionaries, and their term of service is only
sixteen years as against twenty with the regulars. Besides these
advantages, and the joy of living near to the pleasures of Rome, their
discipline is said to be much easier.
The emperors, who fear the mutterings of the guard-corps much more than
they do those of the Senate, often shower special bonuses upon the
Prætorians. Their centurions and still more their tribunes are welcome
guests in the most aristocratic houses in Rome. Their weapons are the
same as the legionaries’, but, of course, their armor is of the finest;
and on gala occasions when the whole corps is ordered out with gilded
or silvered helmets and cuirasses over purple military cloaks, the
sight of these thousands of tall powerful warriors marching in perfect
rhythm is astonishing beyond words.
In one important respect the organization of the Prætorians differs
from that of the regular legionaries: their nine cohorts number 1000
instead of 600 men each and the whole guard-corps therefore amounts
to about 9000 men. Considering that these troops are chosen for their
splendid physiques, and are trained for years in every military
accomplishment, remarkable will be the foe of like numbers that can
withstand them. As for the city of Rome, its whole raging populace is
like mere chaff and straw if the trumpets sound through the camp, and
the centurions thunder down their files, “Open the gates and clear the
streets!”
=267. The City Cohorts (_Cohortes Urbanæ_).=--The Prætorians, however,
have some humbler comrades in Rome, in addition to police-firemen, the
vigiles. Sometimes the guard-corps must follow the Emperor on campaign,
but nevertheless the capital needs a fixed garrison. The City Præfect
(see p. 300), therefore, commands four additional cohorts (_cohortes
urbanæ_) also of 1000 each, in a special camp in the northern part
of the metropolis. These “City Cohorts” are organized much like the
Prætorians, and in a grave emergency would act with them; but they have
longer terms of service, lesser pay, severer discipline.
It is far less of an honor to belong to this force than to the
Prætorians, and there is little “fraternizing” between its members and
the haughty guard-corps. However, they make 4000 more armed men always
available for the defense and control of the city. Added to these
can, of course, be the vigiles (7000 strong), easily changeable into
genuine soldiers in a crisis. This makes the total garrison of Rome,
while the Prætorians are in the city, around 20,000 men, plus usually
some marines detached from the squadrons at Ostia and Misenum.
The frontiers are far away, but the central direction of the great
imperial war machine is inevitably at Rome. From the Prætorian barracks
issue those orders which can set the legions marching against the
Caledonians of North Britain or the Arabs of the Syrian deserts. There
can be no better place, therefore, for inquiry about the organization
and discipline of that grim efficient engine which maintains the
Pax Romana and makes possible the splendid, artificial Græco-Roman
civilization.
High officers are constantly passing through Rome. Some of these men
have had long and distinguished careers, and among them is a certain
Aulus Quadratus, a gray and grizzled veteran, now in the capital for
honorable retirement, after an unusual term of service. By tracing his
experience, a good insight can be gained into the organization and
duties of the legionaries.
=268. A Private in the Legions: the Legionary Organization.=--Quadratus
was born in South Gaul (_Gallia Narbonensis_), a country that has
already been well Romanized, and from which the government draws many
excellent legionaries.[164] He was a poor free laborer on a great
estate, but when he was only about eighteen an enrolling officer
appeared and demanded a certain number of recruits of his master.
The latter naturally suggested taking several of the youngest and
least valuable of the hands. Quadratus was strong, courageous,
and adventuresome, and he did not object to this informal type of
“selective draft.” Thus he soon found himself a private in the camp of
the “Second Augustan Legion” (_legio secunda augusta_) stationed in a
great fortified camp guarding the Rhine somewhere near later Mayence or
Strassbourg in “Upper Germany” (Alsace and the Rhenish Palatinate).
Once enlisted, Quadratus realized that at least twenty years of
unremitting service lay ahead of him. Home life and marriage were
forbidden the soldiery, and their whole lives revolved around the army.
The Roman discipline caught each man, and each became a valuable and
contented soldier only so far as he submitted to this discipline and
merged his personality in the vast organization.
[Illustration: A SLINGER.]
Quadratus was, therefore, promptly “put under the vinestock,”
the stout cudgel of twisted vine twigs with which the centurions
vigorously corrected their tyros. At first he was a very ignorant and
unimportant part of the “Second Augustan,” but soon he understood its
organization and became proud of its history. Every legion consisted
of ten _cohorts_, each in turn divided into six centuries.[165]
Each century contained in theory a hundred infantry, making 6000 for
the entire legion. Besides these, there was a small cavalry force for
scouting attached to each legion, four _turmæ_ (squadrons) of 30
horsemen each. The various contingents, however, were seldom quite
full. When the Second Augustan went to battle it reckoned, therefore,
somewhere under 6000 men.
[Illustration: ROMAN SIEGE WORKS: restoration of
Caesar’s siege works at Alesia.]
=269. Training of the Legionaries: the _Pilum_ and the
_Gladius_.=--Quadratus, under very severe drill masters, learned the
use of weapons. Nothing could take the place, so he was taught, of
cool proficiency with sword and javelin. It was the trained valor of
the average Roman legionary, not the skill often of his commanders,
that had given to the Cæsars the mastery of the world, and while the
discipline was strict, and the training incessant, pains were taken not
to destroy the young man’s self-respect, or those powers of initiative
which were the glory of his profession.
He was taught furthermore to despise those enemies, who, like the
old Macedonians, were so lacking in personal resources that they had
to go into battle wedged together shield to shield with long spears
bristling in front--the rigid “phalanx” formation. This is excellent on
level ground when the foe is all ahead, but often becomes a source of
danger to itself because the closely packed soldiers are deprived of
any chance to display personal valor, and are almost helpless to change
position if attacked on flank or rear. Quadratus in his training was
taught to stand five feet from his comrades on either side with plenty
of room to swing his shield and javelin.
[Illustration: STORMING A CITY WITH THE
_Testudo_.]
Long exercise made him a master of his two weapons. The heavy javelin
(_pilum_) is a devilish missile, as every foe of Rome has learned
to his cost. It is about six and a half feet long with a heavy wooden
butt and a long blade-like head, usually barbed and razor keen. Flung
by a practiced soldier at short range it can knock down any adversary
who is not firmly braced, even if it does not pierce his shield. Once
lodged in the shield it is no light thing to draw it out and not expose
oneself to a second deadlier blow.
The pilum, they told Quadratus, was what had really made the Roman
Empire possible; but it is duly supplemented by the Spanish short sword
(_gladius_). This is a weapon borrowed, perhaps, from Spain but
thoroughly Italianized. The blade is about thirty-three inches long,
two-edged, sharp-pointed, and always used for thrusting. The instant a
legionary has flung his pilum, and while his foe if not wounded is at
least utterly demoralized from the shock, he whips his gladius from his
thigh and leaps upon him. A single good thrust will disembowel a man,
and he who is thus assailed by a trained Roman swordsman should pray to
his native gods--he will need all aid possible.
[Illustration: CATAPULT.]
=270. Defensive Weapons.=--These two very simple weapons Quadratus
was taught to handle to perfection, until across the years their use
became simply mechanical to him. Meantime he was learning to march,
leap, and fight in his heavy defensive armor. He wore a stout metallic
cuirass of fish-scale plates, and a solid helmet of brass upon which in
parades and in actual battle he set a nodding plume of horse-hair. This
helmet had brow- and cheek-pieces giving very perfect protection, but
was so heavy that while marching he was allowed to carry it swung from
a strap upon his breast.
Of course, however, his chief defensive weapon was his shield. This
capital piece of armor is a rectangle of solid leather about four by
two and one half feet, rimmed with iron and with handles for carrying
on the left arm. A trained legionary knows how to fend and lunge with
his shield with marvelous agility, and by means of the solid metal
base in the center he can strike a tremendous blow. Almost no weapon
can penetrate the shield, and thanks to it and his cuirass and his
helmet, a soldier can march unscathed amid a perfect shower of arrows.
Every technical point about his armor has, of course, been worked out
scientifically. Simple as it appears, it represents a triumph of human
skill.
[Illustration: CUIRASS.]
=271. Rewards and Punishments for Soldiers.=--Thus accoutered
Quadratus gained his first experience when the Second Augusta was
ordered over the Rhine to punish a tribe of Germanic raiders in
later-day Hessen. In the fighting that ensued he so proved his skill
and courage that he received his first decoration, the right to wear
a small banderole upon his pilum when his cohort appeared on parade
ground. Discipline was severe, but rewards for faithfulness and valor
were prompt and conspicuous. He had long seen his older comrades
marching about with “spears of honor,” banderoles, and above all with
huge medals and medallions, which, upon gala occasions, they wore upon
their breasts.
Long before Quadratus’s career was ended, he, like many others, had
a perfect collection of these medals, which hung jangling over his
cuirass almost like a second coat of armor. Everybody knew the honors
awarded his comrades, and there was constant emulation to deserve like
decorations as well as more substantial rewards. No system could be
better devised to call out the valorous service of simple-hearted and
often very uncultivated men.
[Illustration: JAVELIN: _pilum_ of the
legionary.]
While Quadratus, without too many blows from his centurions’ vinestock,
was thus on his way to promotion, he could witness the punishment of
less fortunate comrades. Stripes, docking of pay, and extra duty were
the standard penalties; but sometimes there were worse inflictions.
Once a whole century acted in a cowardly manner. It was sentenced for
one month to bivouac outside the camp and to eat bread of barley,--not
of wheat, the food of brave and obedient troops.
Sometimes, of course, capital penalties were demanded. Once a private
was guilty of gross insubordination; he had to “run the gantlet”
(_fustuarium_) between two long files of soldiers who beat him with
cudgels while he dashed vainly down the line, perishing ere he could
reach the end. Once a detachment of half-drilled auxiliaries fled in
an outrageous manner before the enemy. To teach a stern lesson these
irregulars were “decimated”; being forced to stand disarmed before the
whole legion, while lots were cast selecting every tenth man, who was
forthwith dragged from the ranks and beheaded.
[Illustration: SWORD.]
=272. Pay and Rations in the Army: Soldiers’ Savings Banks.=--While a
private Quadratus, of course, drew the private’s pay, 1200 sesterces
($48) a year,[166] out of which, however, was deducted a certain part
of his upkeep and equipment. Even as it was, however, this gave fairly
ample spending money, and every soldier was required to deposit a part
of his wages in the legionary savings bank, accumulating against the
day of his happy discharge, and protected from barrack-room gambling
and squandering. Besides this, brave service often won an increase of
stipend, more valuable than many medals; and Quadratus was presently a
_duplarius_, a “double-pay man,” to the great envy of certain comrades.
Army rations would have seemed to another age extremely monotonous, a
mere succession of huge portions of coarse bread or of wheat porridge.
There were also distributions of salt pork, vegetables, etc., but the
legionaries did not care greatly for meat. There were even cases when
they protested against “too much beef and too little wheat.” As for
drink, everybody in camp enjoyed plenty of _posca_--the dilution of
cheap wine and vinegar.[167]
[Illustration: HELMET.]
=273. The Training of Soldiers: Non-Military Labors.=--Drilling
went on incessantly. Even soldiers versed in their spear play seemed
forever under arms merely to keep up the camp routine and morale. Every
man was trained to be a good swimmer, to run, jump, and indulge in
acrobatic feats like the _testudo_ (when one group of men climbed
upon their comrades’ heads) so useful in storming walls. Thrice a month
the whole legion went on a forced practice march, going at least twenty
miles at four miles (or more) per hour, each man bearing, besides his
heavy armor, an elaborate baggage kit, half a bushel of grain, one or
two tall intrenching stakes, a spade, axe, rope, and other tools--a
weight of sixty pounds.
If strictly military work failed, there were endless civilian labors.
Quadratus learned to use his spade almost as well as he could his
pilum. He assisted in making and in repairing the great network of
magnificent military roads leading to the frontiers. He worked in the
legionary brick kilns, making bricks for the camps and the numerous
small _castella_ used to hold back the onthrusting Germans. He helped
also to rebuild a temple of Jupiter at the garrison town of Mogontiacum
(Mayence), and later to tug up the stones for a new amphitheater in
that city. If he had been attached to a Syrian legion, he and his
comrades might even have been ordered out to repel an invasion not of
Parthians but of the more devastating locusts.
[Illustration: SHIELD OF THE LEGIONARY.]
=274. Petty Officers in the Legions.=--All this experience came
to him while he was earning his first promotions. Everybody in the
legion--except those lowest and highest--had somebody, indeed, whom he
could command while some one else could command him, and there was a
very ingenious division and interlocking of power and responsibility.
Petty officers abounded, and having approved himself, Quadratus became
one of the _principales_ (high privates, and corporals)--first he
became a _tesserarius_, “bearer of the watchword” for his century;
then the “horn blower,” responsible often for important signals,
then the _signifer_, the bearer of the small red flag (_vexillium_),
surmounted with a small image of Victory, which was the standard of
the cohort; then he was named _optio_ (“chosen” man by a centurion), a
centurion’s deputy and assistant, entitled to rank as a real officer
and responsible for the control of a large squad of men.
[Illustration: MILITARY TRUMPET.]
At last came one of the most important days of his life. At a general
parade of the legion the commanding general (_legatus legionis_)
announced that Quadratus was appointed centurion and solemnly intrusted
him with the terrible vinestock. There was no danger he would show
mercy to the raw recruits!
=275. The Centurions: their Importance and Order of
Promotion.=--Quadratus was now a member of that group of officers to
which the Roman army owed the greater part of its entire discipline,
morale, and efficiency. There were sixty centurions in every legion.
They were usually self-made men, sturdy peasants’ sons like himself,
who had risen from the ranks and then been selected by the general on
account of merit.
The six military tribunes of each legion were, indeed, of higher rank,
but they were often untested young noblemen, obliged to get a certain
“military experience” before returning to Rome to sue for seats in the
Senate and the favor of the Emperor. The centurions, however, were
a permanent body. They had enlisted in the legion, and their whole
life was tied up with it. If their methods were harsh, they prided
themselves on showing an example of daring yet scientific valor in
every battle. They were intensely devoted to their corps, its honor,
and the honor of their comrades. With good centurions a motley host of
raw recruits soon became formidable legionaries; without them the most
skilful general might strive in vain to organize an army.
[Illustration:
LEGIONARIES (REGULAR TROOPS-OF-THE-LINE): one
soldier is carrying his equipment upon a “Marius’s Mule,” a
staff arranged to serve as a knapsack, invented by Marius
about 110 B.C.]
As centurion Quadratus found a straight line of promotion before him.
He was obliged to begin as the sixth centurion of the tenth cohort,
and by process of seniority he was entitled to rise to first centurion
of the first cohort. He was making fair progress but advancement was
discouragingly slow, and he might have ended (as did most of his fellow
officers) only part way up the ladder before he reached the retiring
age, when a great good fortune came to him.
While only a private he had won the “civic crown” (_corona civica_)
of oak leaves for saving the life of a comrade in battle; he had also
gained the golden “mural crown” (_corona muralis_) for being the first
in a desperate storming party over the parapet of a crude fortress
held by the Germans. But now, while acting as senior centurion of a
large detachment, with the commanding tribune absent, he learned that
a Roman garrison somewhere in the heart of the Black Forest region
was hard pressed by a horde of Chatti. He led up his men suddenly and
skilfully, broke through and dispersed the Barbarians and saved the
garrison when it was at last gasp. For this he was awarded the “siege
crown” (_corona obsidionalis_), a remarkable honor given by the rescued
garrison, and plaited out of grass and weeds plucked on the spot of
battle,[168] to the leader who had saved them.
=276. The _Primipilus_: the Great Eagle of the Legion.=--This
distinction made it inevitable that when the post of first centurion in
the legion fell vacant, Quadratus should be jumped over the heads of
many others and made _primipilus_ (“first javelin”)--the head of the
whole corps of centurions, entitled to participate with the tribunes in
a council of war, and--being, of course, now a man of great practical
experience--allowed to speak very openly to the Legate of the Legion
himself. Quadratus was now in some respects the most important man
in the Second Augustan. His war pay was considerable, and he added
to it by the permitted usage of taking fees from the men for certain
exemptions from duty.
[Illustration: ROMAN OFFICER.]
As primipilus he had the weighty responsibility of taking charge of the
great golden eagle of the legion. In battle he would sometimes pluck it
from the ordinary bearer (_aquilifer_), and electrify his comrades
by dashing ahead with the full-sized golden eagle with outspread wings,
surrounded by brilliant streamers, now borne on its pole high above his
shoulders. Where the eagle went, there honor and devotion made every
legionary follow with the fury of a man possessed. In a certain shrewd
tussle with the Hermunduri, the valor of the whole phalanx of those
Barbarians was snuffed out when they saw the glistening _aquila_
bearing down on them heading a six-thousand-man wedge, with all the ten
cohort flags like obedient retainers thrusting on behind, and when next
came the pitiless beat of the pila succeeded instantly by the rush of
the expert swordsmen.
=277. Locations and Names of Legions.=--Having become primipilus
while still a fairly young man, Quadratus was not at the end of his
promotion. He had carefully saved his money, and presently he gained
official nobility as an eques. Now he was appointed to an independent
command not in the legionary regulars, but in the “auxiliary cohorts.”
Only about one half of the imperial forces are in the legions. These
are for the heavy fighting; they are kept in large garrisons and are
used for secondary work as little as possible, nor are they moved from
province to province except in serious emergencies.[169] The Second
Augustan has always been in Upper Germany and there presumably it will
stay for generations more. The same is true of the Third Augustan in
North Africa, of the Fourth Scythians on the Danube, of the Twelfth
Thunderers in Syria, and of a good many others. The result is that
each legion, largely recruited in the nearby provinces, has small
desire for distant service; and there is little love between, say, the
“Twenty-first Ravagers” in Upper Germany and the “Sixth Ironclads”
stationed along the Euphrates.[170]
[Illustration: LIGHT-ARMED SOLDIER.]
=278. The Auxiliary Cohorts: the Second Grand Division of the
Army.=--But it is absolutely necessary to have a mobile force,
composed of troops of many kinds, especially cavalry, archers,
slingers, and light spearmen for scouting. These men are often enlisted
in the un-Romanized provinces, and are allowed to keep their native
arms and discipline. As a rule they are organized in unattached
cohorts, either in “large” cohorts of 1000 men with ten centuries, or
“small” cohorts of 480 with six so-called centuries. Their commander
is regularly a “Præfect,” commonly an officer who, like Quadratus, has
graduated from the stern school of the centurion in a legion.
Auxiliary cohorts are often embodied and disbanded, they have no
such glorious history and traditions as the legions, but they have a
distinctive name and a number. Quadratus was assigned to the command
of a new “large” cohort made up of tall blonde Germans who were glad
to forget their feuds with the Romans, cross the Rhine, and take the
Emperor’s pay, swearing to him the great oath of implicit military
allegiance (_the sacramentum_). The government is far too wise,
however, to leave such aliens too near their homes. Quadratus was,
therefore, promptly ordered to march his “Sixth Nervan” (so named in
honor of the then Emperor Nerva)[171] to the Danube.
The day the new Præfect quitted his old comrades of the Second Augustan
he drew from the legionary chest all the savings from his pay, plus
the sums deposited there after each bonus or donation wherewith the
Emperors were always conciliating the army. He had also long since
joined a self-help organization among the officers whereby he was to
receive a fixed sum for his outfit whenever he received promotion.[172]
He thus started upon his career as an upper officer a tolerably rich
man.
=279. The Præfect of the Camps and the Legate of the Legion.=--As
Præfect of the Sixth Nervan he won the good opinion of Trajan in both
of the desperate Dacian Wars and then in the campaign against Parthia.
As the next step, he was appointed by imperial patent “Præfect of the
Camps”--the second in command of a legion, not responsible, indeed,
for its conduct in battle, but with almost complete authority over
its management and discipline while in its great permanent garrisons,
subject only (in extreme cases) to the final authority of the
commanding legate.
This was as high ordinarily as even a very fortunate soldier, who
had enlisted as a mere private, could advance. Even as Præfect of
the Camp Quadratus was looked down upon socially by the six young
military tribunes, scions of senatorial families, who hung around
the headquarters (_prætorium_), wrote verses, patronized the
centurions, and boasted of how “they commanded the legion.” But
Quadratus was, we repeat, an extraordinarily lucky officer. Grizzled
now and battle-scarred, he impressed Hadrian as absolutely to be
trusted. The Emperor, therefore, raised him to the rank of “Legate of
the Legion,” which carried with it a seat in the Senate, and for the
past few years accordingly Quadratus has been on the Rhine in chief
command of that same Second Augustan where once he had “submitted to
the vinestock” as a raw recruit.
He has now returned to Rome to be honorably retired and to end his
days in a luxurious villa in the hills, having enjoyed every honor
possible in the Roman army save that of being Imperial Legatus over an
entire province, a post ordinarily combined with the command of several
legions. It is men like Quadratus, hard and fit soldiers of absolute
faithfulness, coolness, courage, and efficiency; steeped in the
traditions of the army, and obeying automatically the call of military
duty, that have been the soul of the Roman war-machine. Perhaps some
day there will be degeneracy in the camps, even as in the luxurious
city. Then the perils of the Empire will draw nigh--but not in the
reign of Hadrian.
=280. Care for Veterans: Retiring Bonuses and Land Grants.=--Few
enough of Quadratus’s messmates kept near to him in his upward career.
To the average recruit, the most to be hoped for is that, before the
end of his twenty years’ enlistment, he can be somewhere near the rank
of centurion. But many men learn to enjoy the military life even as
privates, and when the time for honorable discharge comes, will often
be glad to reënlist in picked corps of _veterani_, bronzed and
hardened warriors who make invaluable scouts and bodyguards for the
upper officers, and who have quite forgotten the modes of civilian life.
If, however, they elect to be mustered out, not merely are there
accumulations of pay and donations given them from the legion’s savings
bank, but along with the _honesta missio_ (honorable discharge)
they receive either a grant of land for a modest farm, or a lump sum
(some 3000 sesterces--$120) to start them on a peaceful career. If they
become sick or disabled while in service, reasonably good care is taken
of them. In any case the constant award of honorary spears, pennons,
and medals appeals to the soldier’s vanity, and helps to reconcile him
to a very long enlistment and an equally stiff discipline.
=281. Barrier Fortresses; System of Encampments; Flexible Battle
Tactics; Siege Warfare.=--Into the details of the Roman war machine
we cannot enter. We cannot discuss the wonderful system of barrier
fortresses along the junction of the Rhine and Danube upon which
the northern tribes beat in vain, nor the newly completed “Wall of
Hadrian” sundering peaceful and guarded Britain from the stark savagery
of Caledonia. We cannot explain the scientific system of temporary
encampments, whereby every night--when a legion is on the march,--it
occupies a square of ground fortified by solid palisades and with
every tent in precisely the same spot as in the old camp of the
preceding night--a method insuring that every camp becomes practically
a fortress, almost impregnable in case of a defeat in the field. We
cannot visit the permanent garrison towns, such as Colonia Agrippina
(Cologne) on the Rhine, or Vindobona (Vienna) on the Danube, where
extensive cities, with all the paraphernalia of civilization, have
grown up around the cantonments on the very edge of raw barbarism.
It is still less possible to offer here a discussion of the flexible
legionary battle tactics, whereby each particular foe is met with
the formations most formidable to his special arms and weaknesses;
and of the carefully adjusted order of march whereby an army can move
with all its baggage train through a hostile country defiant of any
ordinary harassment and flank attack. We must pass over also the system
of siege warfare, and the use of long-range casting engines--a genuine
artillery; and finally the wonderfully scientific engineering service,
building high-roads through deserts, and throwing strong bridges even
across such mighty streams as the Rhine, and--on Trajan’s Dacian
campaigns--the Danube.
[Illustration: STORMING A BESIEGED CITY: casting
engines in foreground.]
=282. Limited Size of the Imperial Army: its Great Efficiency.=--Two or
three things about the army, however, call for particular comment. The
size of these forces seems decidedly small, considering the vast extent
of the Empire, the slow communications, the careful demilitarizing of
the provincials, and the absence of any reserve corps or efficient
militia. The thirty legions (5000 to 6000 men each) reckon perhaps
175,000 troops of the line. The Prætorians at Rome, the heterogeneous
and scattered auxiliary cohorts, the small naval force, and other armed
groups at the command of the government, in all reckon, perhaps, as
many more; 350,000 men, however, is a very limited number when spread
out from Britain to the confines of Arabia and the Nile cataracts,
although only along the Rhine, the Danube, and the Euphrates are there
now enemies creating serious military problems.
Except at Rome, we have seen that the bulk of these troops is held
in the frontier garrisons, with all their corps kept on edge in full
battle efficiency. Let a frontier be in real peril, however, and there
is no means of reënforcing the local legions save by calling off other
legions from posts at great distance. Governmental policy has not
merely disarmed the provincials, it has systematically discouraged
maintaining the military virtues.[173] If the frontiers are forced
and the legions fail, the civilian population of the Empire (possibly
some 80 to 100 millions) will be nigh helpless before a Parthian raid
or Germanic invader; they can only call on the gods and the distant
Emperor for aid.[174]
However, as yet, the legions have not failed. The Roman armies, never
large, but unsurpassed in quality and composed of highly expert
soldiers steeped in martial tradition, and organized, and commanded
with scientific skill, lie as a solid barrier around the Mediterranean
world, and in Hadrian’s day they are holding back possible invaders
by the mere terror of their name. When one looks, marveling, upon the
huge, luxurious, sophisticated capital, let it not be forgotten that
Rome is imperial Rome because far away on the frontiers thirty brigades
of iron-handed men night and day keep watch and ward.
CHAPTER XVII
THE SENATE: A SESSION AND A DEBATE
=283. Apparent Authority and Importance of the Senate.=--Powerful
is the army and powerful its Emperor, yet there is a body to which
they both pay lip-service, and which still enjoys a prestige and moral
authority that stamps itself upon the imagination of every man in the
Roman Empire--the “venerable Senate.”
Theoretically the Senate shares the government with the Emperor,
controls the state when there is a vacancy in the palace, selects
the new ruler and bestows on him the “proconsular” and “tribunician
power,”--the legal bases of his authority. It must be consulted by him
in every important act, and when he dies it decides whether he is to be
deified as a god, or suffer the awful “damnation of memory” (_damnatio
memoriæ_) branding him for all time as a tyrant. It can also declare
him suspended or deposed from office, set a price on his head and
order the armies to refuse him obedience. Its formal decrees (_senatus
consulta_) constitute, now that the old public assemblies have been
abandoned, the most binding kind of law.
The Senate also governs directly all of those provinces (about half of
the whole Empire) which do not require any army for defense or control.
It has its own treasury, and it can strike copper money, although gold
and silver are reserved to the Emperor, making a considerable profit on
the seignorage. It acts as supreme court of appeal on all cases which
rise in the provinces under its government. By the vote of its members
are elected all those “old Republican” magistrates from consul down to
_quæstor_ (treasury supervisor) which carry along with the temporary
glories of office the right to a life seat in the Senate itself--making
the latter practically a self-perpetuating body. A good Emperor swears
at the beginning of his reign, “I will never put any senator to
death”--_i.e._ the Senate shall judge all capital charges against its
members, even those involving treason.
Besides these prerogatives senators alone are eligible for the highest
military commands and the governorships of all the larger imperial
provinces. As already stated (see p. 156), the senators in addition
constitute the highest aristocracy; they must each possess at least
1,000,000 sesterces ($40,000) taxable property, and they enjoy all
the influence that comes to vested prestige and wealth in an age that
cringes to titles and fortunes. On this showing, the 600 senators
apparently constitute the most powerful organ in the government.
=284. Actual Weakness of the Senate.=--Unfortunately much of this brave
showing is only a glittering mask. The Senate has not one swordsman
in Rome or in any of its provinces to obey the summons, “Resist the
Emperor and his Prætorians.” It ordinarily has to stand helpless while
the army decides who is to be the next Cæsar in case of a contested
succession.
After Caligula’s murder in 41 A.D. the Conscript Fathers debated
earnestly: “Shall we restore the Republic? If not that, which aspiring
nobleman can we elect as Emperor?” Meantime, the Prætorians, pillaging
the palace, found the terrified and demoralized Claudius hiding in a
closet; they dragged him forth and discovered a survivor of the Cæsars
whose dynasty they greatly wished to perpetuate. “_Ave Imperator!_”
rang their shout. Soon the senators were informed that their debates
were unnecessary--Claudius was being proclaimed in the Prætorian Camp.
The Fathers made haste to bestow on Claudius full imperial powers and
to congratulate him on his succession. Nobody doubted after that where
the real power lay.
Besides all this, without mentioning the army, the Emperor has every
senator personally within his grasp. He can strike any member from the
_album_ (Senate List) by use of his irresponsible Censorial Power.
Through that same power he can appoint any favorite to the order by his
mere fiat. In the elections held within the Senate, he can control the
choice for any office by announcing that he favors the aspirations of
such and such a friend; the “Candidates of Cæsar” are always elected.
In the debates it is a bold senator who dares to face the unpopularity
of opposing the Emperor’s suggestions;[175] and once let the monarch
indicate the slightest wish, a whole pack of servile favor-seekers
will instantly champion the proposition with fervent loyalty. Finally
by his “tribunician authority” the Emperor can veto any senatorial
proposal which he dislikes. The power of the “venerable Senate” seems,
therefore, to have vanished in thin air.
=285. Amount of Power Left to the Senate.=--This last is not quite
true, however. The Cæsars do not, as yet, represent an unvarnished
despotism; they need a cover for their autocracy,[176] and they have to
leave to the Senate a certain show of power. No new Emperor’s throne
furthermore is secure against pretenders until, after the army has
proclaimed him, the Senate has confirmed him, and no Emperor likes to
feel that his sole refuge is with the irresponsible swordsmen.
Besides all this, the moral prestige of the Senate is still so great
that even a Nero or a Domitian hesitates to flout that famous body
too openly. Finally, be it said, the task of governing the enormous
Empire is a tremendous burden. A reasonable monarch is glad enough to
throw upon the Senate a great many problems over which the “Fathers”
can exhaust their eloquence and which they probably can settle quite
as wisely as he. If they fail and the case is then dutifully referred
back to “Cæsar,” his own importance becomes all the greater. If they
succeed, he gains a reputation for moderation and liberality. The
senators, on their part, have long since ceased to dream of restoring
the old Republic. Since the accession of Nerva, 96 A.D., an era of good
feeling and equilibrium on the whole has existed. The Senate therefore
still vaunts itself as a coördinate branch of the Roman government.
=286. Organization and Procedure of the Senate.=--The Senate of the
Empire exists in form and procedure very like its predecessor under
the Republic. Its debates are the talk of the capital and are duly
reported in the Acta Diurna; and at present, with Hadrian out of the
city, its supreme presiding officers, the two consuls, affect to be the
most powerful personages in Rome, although some of the great permanent
ministers on the Palatine, and especially the Prætorian Præfect, have
firm doubts on the subject.
When Publius Junius Calvus is compelled to attend sessions of the
Senate, he has ordinarily been informed a couple of days in advance
by a _viator_ of one of the consuls bringing a personal notice to
his home, although urgent meetings can be summoned on much shorter
notice merely by sending forth a crier. There is no fixed quorum for
the Senate; although there are 600 lawful members, many of these are
high government officials absent in the provinces, others are retired,
elderly dignitaries very loath to quit their luxurious ease in their
Etruscan or Campanian villas. Since the post of senator is ordinarily
for life, the body contains an undue proportion of superannuated,
doddering old men who will only appear on great occasions.
Sessions can thus be held with only a very thin number, say fifty,[177]
although if the gathering is disgracefully small, those attending
can shout to the presiding officer, “_Numera! Numera!_” (“Take the
number!”) and insist on adjournment until the consul’s tipstaffs
and bailiffs have rounded up a respectable fraction. On this day in
question, however, there is no danger of a slim attendance. Every
member in Rome is sure to be present, including certain invalids who
have to be helped out of their litters and led inside by their freedmen.
Sextus Annius Pedius, ex-proconsul of Asia has been impeached by
Publius Calvus and a fellow senator, Titus Volusius Atilius, for gross
extortion and malfeasance in his government. The case has been referred
to the Senate by Hadrian as lying within its special competence. Pedius
is of the highest aristocracy, but like most great men has made plenty
of enemies. Every possible social influence has been mobilized for and
against him. A great state trial, with an abundance of soaring oratory
is consequently in prospect. Every senator is in his element.
=287. The Curia (Senate House) and Its Arrangement of Benches.=--On
days when the Senate convenes, the clients can stream into the empty
atria of their noble patrons, collect their money doles and depart--the
patrons themselves have set off at first dawn for the council,
accompanied very probably (if it is not summertime) by link-boys to
guide them through the still darkened streets. They gather thus at
_prima luce_ in the rebuilt Curia at the Forum, although sessions can
be held in almost any other duly consecrated spot, and Pompey built a
special Curia near his own mansion in the Campus Martius for use when
he wished to deliberate with the Fathers.[178]
The Curia Julia has a magnificent hall with tiers of comfortable and
highly carved benches (_subsellia_) curving in a semi-circle not unlike
the legislative chambers of other times. The six hundred senators sit
fairly close together, so that the debates can be in easy voice. At
the entrance the consuls’ viatores and lictors check off the Fathers
entering to exclude interlopers, but there is no real secrecy. The
doors are numerous and stand wide, and a curious crowd is permitted
to linger around them; especially are the young sons of a good many
senators seen there, eagerly following all the proceedings wherein they
hope soon to have a part. (See p. 190.)
Facing the benches rises a low dais whereon is a line of curule chairs
for the consuls and prætors, also a long solid settee whereon ten
of the younger senators sit down solemnly together. These ten are
the tribunes of the Plebs,--shorn now of nearly all their ancient
authority, but still maintaining the “shadow of a great name,” a name
surviving from the time when, as in the days of such personages as
Gaius Gracchus, a tribune could be mightier than a consul.
=288. The Gathering of the Senators.=--The Fathers drop into their
seats. No law adjusts their precedence, but etiquette gives the front
row to the ex-consuls, the next banks to the ex-prætors, behind them
the former ædiles, tribunes, and quæstors with the _pedani_[179]
(senators who have never held elective office) modestly in the rear.
The defendant Pedius attended by several distinguished senators, his
relatives, all clad in the gray togas of distress and mourning, and
also by his two advocates both in conventional white, take seats in the
front benches. As they do this it is noted as of ominous significance
that several ex-consuls, who had come in first, promptly shift to the
other side of the hall.
At the center of the platform is observed a majestic, gilded statue of
Victory, with expanded wings, flowing robes, standing upon a globe, and
stretching forth a laurel crown.[180] Before it, upon a little altar,
a few coals are smoking. Presently a door at the side of the platform
opens, and a lictor signs with his fasces. The chatter across the now
crowded hall ceases instantly; all the toga-clad figures rise together,
while the presiding consul, Gaius Juventius Varus,[181] leads in the
array of magistrates, each in the ornate toga prætexta.
=289. Opening the Session: Taking the Auspices.=--Gravely this official
company seats itself in the curule chairs; gravely Varus casts a
handful of incense upon the altar before the Victory, and a cloud of
fragrance fills the hall. Then Varus, a tall and very majestic figure,
signs to the senators; they also are seated, next his voice sounds
clearly: “Bring forth the chickens!”
Not a lip twitches in all that sedate audience as two attendants
appear upon the platform setting down a small coop containing a few
barnyard fowls. The consul rises and stands beside them; next to him
takes station an elderly senator also wearing the prætexta and holding
a staff with a peculiarly shaped spiral head, a _lituus_--the badge
of office of an _augur_, lawfully entitled to proclaim the will of
the gods. In a dead hush the servitors pass a small dish of grain to
the consul who carefully scatters the grain within easy reach of the
chickens. The latter, carefully starved since yesterday, snap up the
grains eagerly. They even devour so fast that the wheat drops from
their bills, a most excellent sign. The augur bends forward intently,
watching their action, then motions with his staff: “_There is no evil
sight nor sound!_” he announces in solemn formula.
[Illustration: COOP OF SACRED CHICKENS USED IN
DIVINATION.]
A mutter of relaxation passes around the Senate. The servitors carry
out the chicken coop. The consul shakes his great draperies around
him with studied dignity and turns to the waiting assembly. “Affairs
divine” have been attended to; “affairs human” can now begin.
=290. Presentation of Routine Business: Taking a Formal Vote.=--Even
under the Empire it is a glorious thing to be consul, with the twelve
lictors, the temporary colleagueship with the Emperor, and the right to
preside over the most magnificent council in the world. Varus carries
himself with the dignity of a nobleman who has enjoyed a long career
in the Senate and now is at the summit of his aspirations. Every
tradition of the ancient body has been cherished; and the solemn forms
still differ little from those in the great conclave that piloted the
overthrow of Carthage.
The chief business of the day is the trial of Pedius, but a certain
lesser matter demands prior disposition. The consul has received a
dispatch from the proprætor of Sicily (a “senatorial” province) asking
if he can be empowered to remit the taxes of certain peasants near
Agrigentum, whose crops have suffered from the blight. Varus begins
with the time-honored formula, “That it may be well and fortunate to
the Roman people, the Quirites, we refer this thing to you, _patres
conscripti_.” Then in well-chosen words he gives the substance of
the governor’s request, and reads certain correspondence explaining the
plight of the peasants; having thus finished his _relatio_--the
“presentation of the problem”--he ends with another formula, “What is
it your pleasure to do concerning this matter?”
If the business be contentious, now might begin a vigorous debate; but
the governor’s request, based on wise policy, is not worth questioning
and almost everybody wants to proceed to the trial. The consul,
therefore, after a pause, demands, “Is it your will to grant this
thing? Let then all the Conscript Fathers favoring pass to the right!”
One garrulous old senator anxious for a chance to speak, indeed
begins shouting “_Consule! Consule!_” (“Take counsel!”--_i.e._ start
a debate.) If many others join him, Varus can be forced to permit a
long-winded discussion; but the troublemaker is without a second. The
senators with one accord seem rising and passing to the right side of
the Curia. Nobody ventures to go to the left. The motion thus carries
unanimously. The company resume their seats; then all eyes are again
upon the consul when with clear voice he commands: “Let the accusers of
Sextus Annius Pedius stand forth.”
=291. Presenting an Impeachment at a Senate Trial.=--Publius Calvus
rises from the front benches opposite the defendant, allows the many
folds of his toga to fall magnificently around him, thrusting them back
just enough to reveal the purple laticlave running down his tunic,
and carefully adjusts a ring so its great emerald will give precisely
the correct flash as he gestures. Directly behind him, inconspicuously
garbed stands a favorite freedman, avowedly to pass him papyri and
tablets which he will read, but really quite as much to whisper, “Drop
your tones!” “Speak louder!” or “Not so shrill!” and like promptings as
the oration progresses.[182]
The Senate, of course, cannot be expected to put in weary days
listening to intricate and sordid testimony. All this has been taken
before a special board of judges, and on their report there is no real
doubt of Pedius’s guilt. He has taken a bribe of 300,000 sesterces
($12,000) to banish a Roman eques from his province and has put seven
less-protected provincials, friends of this eques, to death; worse
still, he has taken still another bribe of 700,000 sesterces ($28,000)
for committing the unspeakable outrage of causing yet a second eques
to be first beaten with rods, next hustled off to the mines, then
actually strangled in prison. The prominent provincials from Asia have,
therefore, presented an absolute case against their evil ex-governor.
The lesser culprits have mostly confessed and received appropriate
penalties--and the only question really before the Senate is fixing the
punishment of Pedius.
He is a great noble with great connections. Ought a senator who has
held the consulship be banished and ruined even if he _has_ misgoverned
his province, taken bribes and done to death an eques--one of those
upstart half-nobles whom every true senator should scorn? Pedius
does not lack friends who have told him to brazen it out, and that
no severe penalty can befall him; and he glares defiantly across to
Calvus as the latter begins his argument.
=292. The Water Clocks; Methods of a Prosecutor; Applause in the
Senate.=--Just as the chief prosecutor commences, the servitors
reappear and set close beside him a large glass vessel upon a wooden
stand, perforated to empty slowly into a second vessel beneath, and
when thus emptied the upper container is promptly refilled. Calvus
has been informed he can have “only four water clocks” (about two
hours)--an outrageously insufficient number in his opinion, when many
an advocate can get twelve--but time must be given the other orators
and after that the Senate must discuss and vote.
Speedily Calvus warms to his task, and in long periods of sonorous
Latin his voice resounds through the Curia. He delights to expand upon
the enormity of the crime of putting to death not a mere provincial,
not a simple Roman plebeian, but a Roman eques. His speech abounds with
elegant and apparently impromptu allusions, metaphors and similes--duly
practiced half a month before. He goes out of his way to pay an
extended and fulsome compliment to the benignity and liberality of the
Emperor in condescending to let the Senate settle the issue. Words at
length almost fail him when he calls on the Fathers in the name of
Justice, Virtue, Heavenly Vengeance, and all the other guardian deities
of the state to punish the hideous misdeeds of such a criminal as
Pedius.
As he proceeds the Senate kindles at his eloquence. First his personal
friends who are sitting directly behind him begin to shout “_Euge!_”
and “_Sophos!_” Then the applause re-echoes from all over the hall.
Presently the occupants of the curule chairs on the platform begin to
clap, the consul half rises from his seat as if transported by the
oratory, and even Pedius’s own advocates politely join in that applause
which Calvus is professionally bound to return with interest as soon
as they begin to speak in turn.
Soon, all too soon, for the orator, and for those senators who love
“the good old times,” when an advocate could thunder all day long, the
four water clocks are exhausted. Calvus subsides, to be immediately
surrounded by his friends who compare his efforts to those of Cato,
Hortensius, Cicero, and such later masters as Cornelius Tacitus; while
the freedman immediately speeds off to inform Gratia of the “wonderful
triumph” of her husband--a triumph of oratory, whatever be the actual
verdict.
=293. Speech for the Defendant: Methods of a Professional
Advocate.=--After order is restored a grave old senator--Quintus
Saturius--arises to answer the prosecutor. He is a professional
advocate of fame, but evil report has it that in his youth under
Domitian he was a _delator_ (professional accuser), and won a fortune
by prosecuting the innocent victims of that bad Emperor’s disfavor.
Since then he has never been squeamish in accepting doubtful causes.
The law only allows him 10,000 sesterces ($400) as the fee from each
legal client, but the latter has plenty of indirect means of showing
his “gratitude,” and Saturius’s wealth now is enormous. This morning he
has carefully smeared eye-salve above his left eye--a token that he is
to speak for the defendant, not over the right as if for the plaintiff.
His toga also floats in billowy folds, his hands flash with costly
rings, and his powerful voice soon booms through the Curia.
[Illustration: CICERO DENOUNCING CATILINE BEFORE THE
SENATE: painting in modern Senate House in Rome.]
Saturius does not waste time denying that many of Pedius’s misdeeds
have been proved, but he praises at great length his client’s
“glorious ancestry” and distinguished social connections. As for
the accusations,--what if he did abuse his office? Was a member of
the great house of the Annii to be held down to the sordid rules
befitting mere plebeians and freedmen? What if an eques _had_ been
wrongfully done to death? Was not the fellow by birth a Phrygian who
had gained first citizenship and then the “narrow-stripe” merely by the
use of his wits? How could so great a man as the Proconsul of Asia be
expected to live on a beggarly salary of 1,000,000 sesterces ($40,000)?
At this point Saturius’s voice begins in fact to tremble with pathos.
How can the Conscript Fathers bring themselves to disgrace all the
defendant’s distinguished relatives who just now are sitting behind
him in the gray togas of public mourning? Think of his distressed wife
whose father and all three uncles were at least prætors! Think of his
brother who had been killed bravely fighting the Parthians! Think of
his two sons whose public careers would be blighted by the disgrace of
their father! Think finally of the Senate itself--what contempt upon
the “Venerable Order” if one of its most prominent members should be
ruined on the testimony of mere provincials and upstarts! etc., etc.
=294. Concluding Speeches; Interrupting Shouts; Personal
Invectives.=--Saturius, ere concluding, works himself into a fine
passion. He also gets sallies of applause--mostly from the self-same
men who have just cheered Calvus. But at some of his assertions there
are murmurs of dissent, and even open shouts such as “Drop that
argument!” “Don’t insult our intelligence!” Finally, however, he
sits down, having exhausted his four water clocks. More cheers, more
congratulations, everybody swears to his neighbor the day is proving an
intellectual feast.
The consul proclaims an interim; and the Conscript Fathers adjourn
to stretch their limbs, snatch a hasty collation provided by their
attendants and discuss the arguments. Then all resume when Marcus
Petreius, Pedius’s junior advocate, continues for the defense. The
hostile attitude of the Senate has impressed the defendant’s counsel,
and Petreius enters into an elaborate appeal for mercy, with many fine
invocations of the “Divine Clemency,” and reminders of how any senator
might some day find himself in Pedius’s horrid predicament. Petreius
is allowed “less water” than Saturius; he gets considerable applause,
however, when he finishes, but knowing members shake their heads: “They
cheer his oratory and not his cause.”
In fine mettle therefore Titus Atilius, Calvus’s associate, next sums
up for the prosecution. Atilius is a relatively young man, as yet only
an ex-quæstor; and to-day is his glorious opportunity. Carried away
on a flood of invective, he allows himself, as is permitted by usage,
to cover not merely Pedius but even Pedius’s advocate with a storm of
bitter personalities. When he thunders against Saturius’s sycophantic
career there are wild shouts of applause from all over the Curia; and
more applause follows when he ridicules certain physical infirmities of
the miserable defendant.[183] Pedius rises with supplicatory gestures
and appeals loudly to the ten tribunes, “Oh, very noble tribunes
protect me!”--but the ten sit stolid and silent upon their bench and
he subsides with blenching cheeks. His advocates, exchanging knowing
glances, are seen to be gathering up their tablets.
=295. Taking the Opinion of the Senate.=--At last Atilius’s “water”
has likewise ended. Amid another whirlwind of applause and rush of
congratulating friends he takes his seat. The consul Varus rises with
extreme dignity, and beckons with his hand. Every senator instantly is
tense and silent.
“We do now,” proclaims Varus, “take the opinions (_sententiæ_)
of the Conscript Fathers concerning that which it befits should be
done in the case of Sextus Annius Pedius this day arraigned and tried.
You have heard his accusers and his advocates. I shall call the album
of the Senate.” He holds up tablets whereon are listed the senators
in order of official rank and precedence; then turns to the members
seated directly before him, the magistrates-elect for the ensuing year,
summoning first the senior consul designate, Appius Lupercus:
“_Dic, Appie Luperce!_”
Appius Lupercus, an elderly aristocrat, the head of an ancient family,
rises amid a portentous hush. The “right to speak first,” possessed by
the Emperor when present, is invaluable. All the orators for either
side have really aimed their best arguments toward Lupercus, knowing
his prerogative, but his “cold looks” toward Pedius have already fallen
as ice upon the friends of the defendant. His voice now carries through
the expectant Curia.
“Conscript Fathers:--It is true that Sextus Pedius is a man of exalted
birth; the more shame, therefore, that he has disgraced the name of
a _clarissimus_ of the Venerable Senate. It is true his victims were
either provincials or citizens of provincial origin:--the law is
impartial, the Roman Empire has been established upon the inflexible
rule of ‘piety’ giving alike to gods and to men that which is lawfully
their due. If he has outraged provincials the case is clear; long ago
the Emperor Tiberius expressed the ruling policy when he said, ‘A good
shepherd shears his sheep but does not flay them.’ If Pedius has also
outraged citizens, much more equites, wherein lies the boast ‘_Civis
Romanus sum!_’, if these men, whatever their original birth, cannot
demand lawful vengeance at our hands?
“My opinion, therefore, is this: let the defendant’s ill-gotten bribes
be confiscated to the treasury, and let Pedius himself be banished from
Rome, and Italy; let his lesser confederates be banished from Rome,
from Italy, and also from the Province of Asia. Since also Publius
Calvus and Titus Atilius have pleaded the cause of the provincials
with diligence and fearlessness, let them receive the thanks of the
Senate. Such is my opinion!”
A great murmur rises--applause with some shouts of dissent. “Hangman!”
“Butcher!” rise from the little knot of Pedius’s relatives. Then Varus
calls on the second consul designate, Atticus, who, rising stiffly,
says with clear voice, “I agree with the most noble Lupercus,” and
promptly takes his seat.
One by one the ex-consuls, each summoned by turn, announce that they
also agree with Lupercus, until one cynical old aristocrat, the
ex-consul Gavius, notorious for his own sensual life and the manner
whereby he enriched himself in Africa, yet powerful through his vast
wealth and influential connections, announces that he is confident
the Senate should show mercy. “Let Pedius disgorge the money and
forfeit the priesthood of Mars which he holds--that will be punishment
enough. A good lesson has been taught and the unfortunate man has been
disgraced enough already.”
=296. An Uproar in the Senate: an “Altercation.”=--Instantly the Senate
is in an uproar. The shorthand reporters[184] can hardly take down
all the interrupting shouts that are tossed back and forth: “How now,
Marcus Æmilius Gavius, will you let such a scoundrel go?” “What are
those provincials but scum anyway!” etc., etc. A violent “altercation”
follows, several senators rising and demanding that Gavius explain
himself. The old reprobate however cleverly stands his ground, and is
vigorously cheered by many who will not actually support his proposal.
At last the house cools down. The taking of the opinion now proceeds
among the prætors-designate and the ex-prætors. No senator can
speak twice, but each man, when on his feet, has great liberty of
action--several of the younger men half ironically support Gavius, and
one senator earns unpopularity by insisting on his right of the floor
and calling attention to the embezzlements reported in the African
municipality of Utica--a matter quite beside the question. Two or three
long and eloquent speeches are delivered in favor of Lupercus’s stern
proposal. It is growing late and nobody wants to call on the ex-ædiles
and other junior senators,[185] and cries are rising, “_Divide!
Divide!_”
=297. Taking a Vote of the Senate. A Sentence of Banishment.=--Varus
again rises, “Conscript Fathers: you have heard the opinions of these
very noble men of consular and prætorian rank. Two propositions are
before you. Those who favor the penalties for Sextus Pedius proposed by
Appius Lupercus let them walk to the right! Those the lesser penalty
proposed by Marcus Gavius to the left.”
The hundreds of togas rise together. Gavius is not without a certain
minority of supporters who start with him to the left, but most of
these, seeing how many ex-consuls of birth and character are following
Lupercus, desert Gavius, who is left with only a trifling band around
him. There is no need for Varus to count the result. Even while the
Senate is dividing the luckless Pedius, with his kinsmen and advocates,
is seen gliding through a side exit. It is the defendant’s right thus
to anticipate sentence and to slip away with as little ignominy as
possible into exile.
At a word from the consul the senators return to their seats. The long
shadows of evening are stretching through the doors of the Curia, as
Varus announces that Sextus Pedius having been convicted of high crimes
is banished from Rome and from Italy. He must quit the city to-morrow.
He must quit Italy in twenty days. Should he tarry or return he will
be “cut off from fire and water,” and dealt with “after the ancient
custom”--_i.e._ he will be scourged with his head in a forked
stake, then sewed in a bag with a cock, a dog, and a viper, and flung
into the sea.
Everybody is anxious to be gone. In the great mansions six hundred
expensive cooks are fuming over the delay to six hundred expensive
dinners. The terrible fate of Pedius will make talk for all Rome
through ten days. Varus raises his hand and at length pronounces
the sonorous ancient formula, “_Nihil vos moramur, patres
conscripti_”--“We detain you no longer, Conscript Fathers.”
Publius Calvus and Titus Atilius are escorted homeward by groups of
fellow senators as if they were triumphant generals. Their skill,
eloquence, pathos, and legal learning are praised to the skies. Each
is assured that “he has rendered himself and his friends immortal!”
Each to-morrow will begin rewriting his speech, introducing many
fine arguments which he has had no time to utter.[186] These will be
embalmed in his published works which will be presumably carried some
day, tied to poles, in a conspicuous place in his funeral procession.
So ends a typical meeting of the Senate under the Empire; noble forms,
much dignity, a perfect river of eloquence, a judicial decision in
this case conforming with justice, but handling no great issues of
diplomacy, high finance, or peace or war. Already Pedius’s friends are
consoling him, as he drearily prepares to retire to Macedonia: “In a
few years at worst we can get your pardon from the Emperor.”
CHAPTER XVIII
THE COURTS AND THE ORATORS. THE GREAT BATHS. THE PUBLIC PARKS AND
ENVIRONS OF ROME
=298. Roman Court Procedure Highly Scientific.=--If Publius Calvus
does not have to attend the Senate, two places will assuredly devour
a great part of his normal day--the court-house and the public baths.
Even if he is not plaintiff, defendant, or witness, like every man of
his class he delights in listening to oratory, and etiquette requires
that, whenever one of his numerous friends argues a case, he, with as
many other senators and equites as possible should sit in the front
of the audience, to “lend their distinguished influence,” to lead the
salvos of applause, and even to stand up conspicuously behind the
orator at critical points in his argument.
Roman courts are not like the Athenian dicasteries, huge juries of
many hundreds,[187] with tumultuous appeals from the letter of the
law to the emotions of the members. Personal influence has its part,
but everything is regulated, orderly, scientific. Cases which do not
involve the safety of the state or the fate of distinguished personages
are usually argued coldly, and with a nice attention to technicalities.
Your Roman jurisconsult (expert in the law) is as much superior to
an Athenian in developing the science of formal justice, as another
Athenian might be to a Roman, in breathing life into chiseled marble.
The administration of law is intricate. There are courts behind courts,
with final appeal either to the Senate (as we have just seen) or to
the Emperor.[188] The “law’s delays” are perfectly well understood by
adroit advocates; and Martial records a case that took twenty years
while dragging through three successive courts--to the ruin of both
sets of litigants.
=299. The Great Tribunals in the Basilicas.=--If we visit the great
basilicas, we find two kinds of tribunals steadily functioning. For
much civil business there is the great “Court of the Centumviri,” a
board not of “One Hundred” but actually of one hundred and eighty
distinguished citizens, who sit sometimes all together, sometimes
divided into four groups for conducting trials simultaneously. Their
stronghold is the Basilica Julia. It is a great honor to argue before
the Centumviri, and every advocate exhausts his wiles to induce the
grave judges to pay him the highest compliment (as they did to Pliny
the Younger) by “suddenly leaping to their feet and applauding him as
if they could not help themselves.”
The most of the higher litigation, however, goes before _judices_. A
_judex_ may be one of the great panel of 4000 citizens,--senators,
equites, and plebeians of substance who can be called upon to serve as
a kind of jury for ordinary trials of importance. The size of such a
jury depends on the nature of the case as provided by statute,--you can
have from 32 members up to a full 100. There is a high judge over the
entire body, either the prætor, or a professional expert in the law,
the _judex quæstionis_, who controls the presentation of evidence and
the strictly technical parts of the trial.
After the evidence has been submitted, orally or in writing, and the
orators have exhausted themselves, the jurors take small wax-covered
tablets and vote, each man marking simply letters: A = _absolvo_, “Not
guilty,” C = _Condemno_, “Guilty,” N.L. = _Non Liquet_, “No verdict.” A
bare majority can either acquit or condemn, but, of course, no man is
condemned on a plurality, and a tie means acquittal. If “No verdict”
is the decision, the case can still go to another trial. Roman juries,
therefore, do not have to be locked up for days to compel them to agree.
However, this jury system is often inconvenient and does not adapt
itself to that very technical justice in which the Roman jurisconsults
increasingly delight. More and more cases are being tried by a single
_judex_, or a small bench of _judices_, men highly trained in the
law, and especially appointed by the prætor or other high official,
to investigate a given case and report their findings. Under the
later Empire the large juries will disappear altogether, and a few
professional judges will become arbiters alike of the law and the
evidence--an excellent system from the standpoint of scientific
jurisprudence, but not so excellent if these judges become corrupt,
pliable, or subject to class prejudices.
=300. Great Stress on Advocacy.=--Whatever the tribunal may be,
great is the stress laid on the arts of the advocate. Calvus has served
a long probation arguing in the basilicas before his day of glory
came in the Senate. All the young Ciceros in the rhetoric schools
dream of the hour when they can stand in flowing togas before the
high raised platform of the judices, wave their arms, throw out their
voices, and plead the cause of some widow, or arraign some embezzler
or extortioner. The mere fact that senatorial speeches have to be
extremely careful, lest they trench upon imperial prerogative, puts
a greater premium upon private argument in the courts where usually
“Cæsar” has no interests.
The rewards of successful eloquence are great;[189] and if the legal
fees are small, rich clients, at least, never fail with big New Year’s
presents, and with legacies in their wills. Besides there are no
governmental prosecuting attorneys. Criminal actions can be started by
any citizen against any possible offender. To reward such zeal, a good
part of the fines or confiscated property of convicted criminals goes
to the self-appointed prosecutor. It is thus easy to see how, under
Tiberius, Nero, and Domitian, the delators (“professional accusers”)
grew fat prosecuting wealthy senators for “treason.” These good days
for the profession seem over, but the incomes of certain of the
leading advocates are princely, some almost vying with those of the
earlier Vibius Crispus and Epirius Marcellus, who had over 200,000,000
sesterces ($8,000,000) apiece.
=301. Cheap Pettifogging Lawyers.=--On the other hand Rome is infested
with starving pettifoggers, pretentious wretches, sleeping in dirty
tenements, and with hardly a decent toga to wear when they argue on
petty cases in the præfect’s court. Sometimes they get a better class
of client, hire a good robe and ring to wear at the trial, and win the
case in the Basilica. Their client will very likely decorate the stairs
to their tenement with palm leaves, but as the only fee[190] send them
a quantity of uncertain edibles--“a dried-up ham, a jar of sprats,
some veteran onions, or five flagons of [very cheap] wine that has
just sailed down the Tiber!” If any money is actually paid, lucky the
advocate who does not have to split his fee with some agent who has
secured the case for him!
=302. Character Witnesses; Torture of Slave Witnesses.=--One thing
more concerning these trials must be noted: the testimony of Roman
citizens carries much greater weight than that of aliens, and the
unreliability of Græco-Levantines is notorious. Freeborn men, Roman or
provincial, testify under oath. Only accusers have the right to compel
the attendance of unwilling witnesses, but the defense can bring not
merely voluntary witnesses to the facts, but can present as many as ten
_laudatores_, character witnesses, and if men of high standing are
vigorous in their friends’ praises, their opinions will offset very
many ugly facts in the testimony.
Frequently enough, however, the statements of slaves have to be taken.
These wretches, having little better status before the law than
animals, can only testify under torture. No master, nevertheless,
except in cases of treason, can ordinarily be compelled to let his
slaves testify _against_ him, but it is assumed that torture is
necessary if a master voluntarily offers his slave as witness,--for
what slave would dare uncompelled to say anything unwelcome to his
master in view of the terrific flogging waiting after he gets home?
The situation in short as to slave testimony is substantially as in
Athens.[191] This use of the rack and flogging post is one of the worst
blots upon the highly scientific and usually reasonable and humane
judicial system of Rome.
=303. Written Evidence; High Development of the Advocate’s Art.=--On
the other hand much weight is given to reliable written evidence.
Public documents from the record office, and the careful entries on
bankers’ ledgers are continually being introduced as testimony.
Much of the forensic oratory also is of a high order. The rhetoric
schools have not taught their better pupils in vain; despite much
silly display, “appeals to the emotions,” and artificiality, the art
of advocacy has never completely lost touch with the promotion of
justice; and usually the verdict goes still to him who best meets Cato
the Elder’s pungent definition of the true orator, _vir bonus, dicendi
peritus_ (“the good man versed in the art of speech”), and who recalls
that great republican’s classic injunction for all advocates--_rem
tene, verba sequentur_ (“Grasp the subject and the words will
follow”).[192]
In all matters not touching certain high interests the Roman courts are
perhaps as disinterested and clean as human tribunals can well be, and
the average _judex_ is charged with a passionate desire to do that
which is formally right. In the courts the spirit of Rome is often to
be seen at its best.
=304. Popularity and Necessity of the Baths.=--As the afternoon
advances, however, unless the case is extremely urgent, or the
advocates unwontedly skilful, the impassive toga-clad figures upon
the high seats of the tribunals begin to show signs of uneasiness.
The pleaders themselves reach in turn a suitable climax, as the
last filling of the water clocks runs out;--if necessary they can
finish their castigations or their excuses to-morrow. The courts are
adjourned, and judges, litigants, advocates, spectators, all hasten
from the Basilicas possessed with the thought which is common to nigh
every man in Rome not of the most unfortunate class--“To the Baths!”
The warm Italian climate makes frequent ablutions not merely
comfortable but necessary, but in the stern old days of the
earlier Republic Seneca specifically assures us that the fathers
of Rome were not wont to wash all over oftener than once a week
(_nundinæ_).[193] Long before the age of Hadrian, however, a daily
bath became a personal necessity. No dinner can be enjoyed without it.
No respectable man can feel comfortable deprived of it.
As the bathing habit grows, its luxury and elaboration grow
correspondingly. The daily bath becomes a social ceremony, and the
bathing place becomes almost as indispensable as the forum, or the
triclinium. Other peoples and ages may equal or surpass the Romans in
actual cleanliness; none can develop institutions really corresponding
to the enormous public _thermæ_ scattered over the capital.[194]
=305. Luxurious Private Baths.=--Probably every senator and all
the more pretentious equites have sumptuous private baths in their
own mansions. Here they can go when visits to the public thermæ are
inconvenient, or to refresh themselves between the long courses of
their great dinner parties.
The luxury of these private baths can be so prodigious as to afford
constant texts for the Stoical philosophers. Seneca has waxed almost
frantic telling how an aristocrat feels somewhat poverty-stricken
unless “the walls [of his bath] shine with great costly slabs, and
marbles of Alexandria tricked out with reliefs in stone from Numidia,
and with the whole ceiling elaborately covered with all varieties
of paintings, and unless Thasian marbles inclose the swimming pool,
and the water gushes out of silver taps”; likewise “how many a rich
freedman adorns his baths with fine collections of statues and a
multitude of pillars supporting nothing but serving only as ornaments.”
Essential, too, are such private baths for those so devoted to the
enjoyment that they insist on bathing several times a day.
=306. Government and Privately Owned Public Baths: Both Very
Popular.=--Even great nobles, however, enjoy the society and
recreations afforded by the public establishments; and there is often
no better way for a rich senator to display pomp and circumstance than
to enter one of the huge thermæ followed by a long train of slaves,
freedmen, and clients. Men of business, and, of course, mere toilers
must visit the baths when their duties give temporary leisure, but for
everybody who can control his time there is one preferable period--the
eighth or ninth hour, two or three P.M. It is around this time
that the bath attendants heat all their huge tanks to boiling and make
ready with an endless supply of anointing oils and “strigils” (metal
scrapers) to care for the onrush of the multitudes.
There are about sixteen enormous public baths in Rome owned by the
government, although often their care is leased to contractors. Small
baths, privately owned, opened to anybody at a tolerable fee and
managed solely for profit, exist in addition all over the city, and
nearly nine hundred stand licensed on the City Præfect’s books. Some of
these privately owned baths are elegant establishments, offering great
luxuries at corresponding prices.
The keepers of a bath-house (_balneatores_) rank low in social
estimation, for many of their places are the scenes of gross reveling
and debauchery; but there is excellent money in the business. Their
baths have names something like inns, and going about the metropolis,
we have noticed the “Baths of Daphne,” “The Æolian,” “The Diana,” “The
Mercury,” or they are simply called from the names of the owners, as
“Faustinian Baths” or “The Crassian.” On a signboard one can read
that the “Thermæ of Marcus Crassus” offer both salt- and fresh-water
baths.[195]
=307. The Great Baths of Trajan: Baths, Club-House, and
Café.=--However, if one would see and meet the world, a visit to the
great public baths is absolutely necessary. Some of these are located
on the outskirts of the capital; for example, the magnificent Baths
of Agrippa stand near the Pantheon in the Campus Martius; but only a
short distance from Publius Calvus’s mansion on the Esquiline rise what
are, perhaps, the finest public thermæ as yet existing in Rome, those
of Trajan, which were rebuilt on the site of a similar establishment
earlier erected by Titus.[196]
The Baths of Trajan constitute more than a vast establishment where
perhaps a thousand persons can bathe in the various tanks and pools
simultaneously. They supply many of the needs which another age
will meet partly by the club-house and partly by the café. They are
frequented by women as well as men, although the former are expected
to make their visits particularly during the morning hours and certain
special rooms are set aside for their use. These rules, however, are
often violated, and scenes can take place at the Baths of Trajan which
from the standpoint of a later time are simply indescribable.
=308. Heterogeneous Crowds in the Great Baths.=--One of the glories of
the great thermæ is their apparent democracy. Any freedman is entitled
to make use of them, although there are doubtless special recreation
and reposing rooms reserved for the rich elect. In theory the public
baths are free, but except on gala occasions when the Emperor wishes to
win popularity, there is usually a standard charge for admission of a
_quadrans_, a small copper coin (about ¼ cent). This simply covers the
expense of the attendants who look after one’s clothes, and provides
the oil for anointing--the use of the magnificent building goes for
nothing.
In such a place persons of every station can be seen mingling
together, social barriers partially break down, and a delightful
informality prevails. It is recorded of Hadrian that when he is in
the city, he proves his “liberal” habits by frequenting the public
baths and bathing in the great pools along with the meanest of his
subjects. Every afternoon, therefore, the thermæ are the scenes of
intensely bustling life. The noise rising from their great halls is
terrific--the shouting, laughing, splashing, running, exercising, going
on continuously.[197]
The Romans are preëminently a sociable people. They delight in the free
and easy contacts of the baths. What place has witnessed more financial
bargains struck, quarrels started or abated, lawsuits arranged,
marriage treaties negotiated, philosophical theories spun, artistic
points discussed, or even matters of imperial policy promoted than the
thermæ of Trajan? At the thermæ are continued all those matters you
talked over in the Forum this morning and which you will finish on the
supper couches to-night. The place, however, to a stranger is utterly
bewildering in its hugeness, its noise and the hurrying of its crowds
and its complexity, and few scenes in Rome could be more novel to a
visitor from another civilization.
[Illustration: PLAN OF ROMAN PUBLIC BATHS: partly
conjectural.]
=309. Entering the Thermæ.=--We can follow Calvus as he approaches
by the great southern portal which looks down from the slopes of the
Esquiline upon the great gray cylinder of the Flavian Amphitheater.
Before us stretches an enormous portico, fronting a high masonry
wall, of course crowned at many points with statues. The entrance
is relatively narrow in order to control the thousands of persons
streaming inside, each passing his copper to the attendants at the
gate. But once past the barrier, we see before us the vista, apparently
not of a bathing establishment, but of an ample, inclosed park, girded
on every side with handsome porticoes, scattered with trees, bright
shrubbery, and groups of sculpture, but with the domes seemingly of a
magnificent palace rising from the middle of the area.
This park is teeming with life; young men in the scantiest of costume
are running races on a long sandy track, others are tossing ball,
others engaged in a wrestling contest, Greek fashion, before a crowd
of spectators wedged upon seats along a kind of stadium. In a kind
of kiosk, or small temple, in a remote corner behind the shrubbery a
venerable man with the long beard of a philosopher is expounding the
theory of atoms to a small but select audience. We are told that there
are also _aulæ_ for learned conventicles, likewise excellent
libraries within the central building.
=310. Interior of the Baths: the Cold Room (_Frigidarium_).=--This
building itself is an enormous mass of brick and concrete, formed into
correspondingly enormous vaulted apartments and domes, their entire
surface covered with polished marbles or at least with brilliantly
colored stucco. At every point there are statues, singly and in groups,
historical and mythological, in the round or in high reliefs, in stone
and in bronze. Particularly to be noted is a marvelous if overrealistic
Laocoön group destined to be celebrated through the coming ages.[198]
It boots little to describe all the special chambers and features of
the Baths of Trajan; we can only notice those prime features common
to all public thermæ even in the provincial cities. The great mass of
visitors makes for the hall of the _frigidarium_ (“cold room”), a vast
unheated space, albeit comfortable enough on a warm Italian afternoon.
Here they toss off their garments, to their own personal slaves if they
are visitors of consequence, although there is a great force of regular
attendants (_capsarii_) whose prime business it is to take charge of
togas and tunics. For all their pains, thefts of clothes in the baths
are very common and give rise to frequent uproars.
Once stripped, even the gravest and oldest visitors are likely to
indulge in all kinds of gymnastics and horseplay. If they do not go
outside to limber themselves with tossing ball at trigon (see p. 206)
or with amateur races in the stadium, there are plenty of diversions
in the frigidarium itself. One can behold the “Very Noble” Varus, the
presiding consul, forgetful of all official dignity, competing with an
imperial legatus, both with their hands tied behind them and trying
by leaning backward to touch their heads against the tips of their
toes; while a prætor, an hour earlier an austere judge in the Basilica
Æmilia, is leaping up and down “murdering a good song by trying to sing
it.”[199]
=311. The Great Swimming Pool and the _Tepidarium_.=--All this
is usually preliminary to a splashing plunge into the clear cool
_natatio_, the great swimming pool of unheated water, which is nearly
200 feet long by 100 broad, and in which scores of Rome’s noblest
dignitaries now are to be seen splashing, swimming, and cavorting, with
perfect self-respect beside a much greater number of the plebeians. For
the many who do not prefer a warm bath, this is sufficient refreshment
on a summer day, and presently they will call their attendants to
bring towels, strigils, and ointments and hasten home. But your true
_habitué_ makes almost as much of his baths as of his dinners. He
delights in hot baths and all the refreshments that go with them.
“People want to be parboiled,” once declared Seneca disgustedly.
A hot bath involves an elaborate process. Often one will omit the
frigidarium with its cold shock, or take it later. In any case one
goes on to a second enormous chamber, perhaps the finest in the whole
building. A majestic dome soars over broad pavement. The pillars and
the fretwork on the ceiling and vaulting groan with heavy gilding. The
groups of statues flanking each of the huge marble-incrusted piers are
themselves of heroic size. The light streams down over the polished
marbles of the walls and pendentives, upon hundreds of persons lolling
about on stone benches, conversing, or lazily meditating. A warm mist
is rising; one feels as if in a plant house of tropical exotics, while
the elaborate mosaic designs are pleasantly warm under one’s bare feet.
Such luxury of course is enjoyed in the _tepidarium_ where the bathers
are gently warmed before the actual hot bath. It is an oblong hall,
nearly as large as the great cold swimming tank,[200] and, as stated,
the decorations are almost overpowering in their richness. Anybody will
explain that the floors are composed largely of hollow tiles through
which warm air of just the right temperature is being continually
forced from the great system of charcoal furnaces (“hypocausts”)
located in the substructures of the thermæ.
=312. The Hot Baths (_Caldaria_): Their Sensuous Luxury.=--At intervals
some person rises from the couches and hastens away to one of the
smaller chambers located at the four corners of the tepidarium. These
are the actual _caldaria_ (hot baths), wherein a perpetual fine steam
is rising. The water here is so hot that only experienced bathers can
find a plunge in the large porphyry tanks enjoyable. If one can endure
the heat, however, soon it becomes a kind of stupid bliss to lie back
motionless in the heated water, gazing upward to the vaulted ceiling
which is skilfully painted in a deep blue interspersed with trees,
foliage, birds, and gilt stars, as if one were dropping off to slumber
in the forest some summer evening! If the acme of life is merely
sensuous enjoyment, what can existence offer greatly surpassing this!
After you have lain quiescent in the caldarium until its pleasure has
begun to pall, the proper thing next is to pass to the _laconicum_.
Here the hypocausts have heated the floor and walls with an intense dry
heat. The bathers loll again upon marble slabs, and first are dried off
and then burst into a profuse perspiration. The ceremony of the bath is
at last over.
Your slaves or the regular attendant now will scrape you down with
the thin flexible bronze strigils, rub you thoroughly with towels,
and anoint you with unguents, the more costly and highly perfumed the
better. In the numerous small chambers around the great laconicum, open
for special fees, there is a greater luxury still;--here such elderly
magnates as Varus, or even young noblemen of the more effeminate type,
will be elaborately massaged and finally rubbed down with very soft
woolen blankets, by at least three expert masseurs working together.
After such an experience surely body and mind ought to be prepared for
the pleasures of the dinner party.
=313. Restaurants, Small Shops, and Sports in or around the
Baths.=--Very much more might be added about the Great Baths. For
those people who wish to linger until the edge of meal time, there is
no need to go hungry. Close by the entrance are numerous restaurants
(_popinæ_) of more than ordinary elegance. Here you can send your
slave for sweet cakes, slices of toasted honey bread, sausages, eggs,
and like viands; and in the great frigidarium and tepidarium the
peddlers from these restaurants are always going about with trays of
such food, crying their wares and making the ordinary bedlam so much
the greater. Directly in the thermæ themselves are small shops for
the sale of fine perfumes and unguents; and often in the corridors
and antechambers you can find crowds gazing at special displays of
paintings, or of new statuary--for the public baths are practically the
art galleries of Rome.
As for the frequenters of the baths, here even more than in the fora
are the trysting spots for parasites. Let an approachable nobleman be
seen lolling at ease in the tepidarium and he is instantly spotted by
some dinner hunter. Innumerable are the attentions that can then be
paid him. Does he wish to play handball?--The parasite retrieves for
him. Does he lay aside a fine garment?--At once “his remarkable taste”
is praised to the skies. Does he lie perspiring in the laconicum?
His “friend” tries to anticipate the slaves in wiping the sweat from
his brow. No act is too obsequious--all in hopes of hearing those
delightful words, “Come home and dine!” In the halls of the women
similar scenes are enacted, but we cannot pursue them.
At last the sun dials that stand in every open spot around the thermæ
indicate that the afternoon is well spent. From the laconicum the
refreshed bathers return to the milder tepidarium, to recover from the
shock of the intense heat and to resume their garments. Then the crowds
all hasten out again. Some of the privately owned bathing-places may
remain open all night, but the great thermæ, lately the scene of such
boisterous life, stand vast, dark, and empty.
=314. The Great Porticoes along the Campus Martius. The Park System
towards the Tiber.=--The public baths are not the only places for
daily enjoyment which a solicitous government has provided for the
quirites. The fora are limited and the city proper is very closely
built, but around its outskirts and especially to the north and west
there is a genuinely magnificent park system. The beginnings of this
are reached after you go through the Forum of Trajan and follow along
“Broadway.” Here are the great porticoes and promenades of the Sæpta
Julia. The famous stores (see p. 228) are mostly on the east side of
the avenue verging off towards the slopes of the Quirinal, but the west
side, going clear across the broad Campus Martius to the Tiber, is more
strictly public property.
This wide level area formed by the great bend in the river has
long since ceased to be a mere parade ground for the army. There
are broad masses of greenery, grateful shade trees, spreading over
neatly graveled walks, as well as literally miles of lofty porticoes
stretching in every direction and giving comfortable places for
strolling in bad weather. The greatest of these porticoes is, of
course, the long Sæpta Julia, but there is a succession of others, so
that you can almost wander from the Column of Trajan across the Campus
clear to the Ælian Bridge completely defiant of any rain.
In the open pleasure grounds there are always people exercising without
the restraints inevitable at the thermæ, playing ball, wrestling,
exhibiting horses and chariots, as well as very many children chasing
about with hoops. If legionaries are passing through the city, their
leathern tents probably stand here, and here, too, can be held all the
vast open-air pageants which cannot accommodate themselves inside any
building.
=315. Public Buildings upon the Campus Martius.=--Out of the lofty
trees, however, there rise still loftier structures. Two of the great
public thermæ, those of Nero and Agrippa, are here upon the Campus
Martius. In this region, also, are three of the principal theaters,
that of Pompeius, accommodating some 25,000 people, and two others
(Theaters of Marcellus and Balbus) only slightly smaller. Here is the
Flaminian Circus and the Amphitheater of Taurus for those horse races
and gladiator fights which do not demand the huge Circus Maximus or
Flavian. Here again is the golden-roofed Pantheon and a great number
of other temples to such ill-assorted gods as the Egyptian Serapis
and Isis, Neptune, Minerva of the Campus, and the old Latin goddess
Juturna. Notable, too, are the triumphal arches raised across several
of the broad avenues.
You can in fact wander on across this region from one marvelous
structure to another until the eye and brain become weary trying to
enumerate, much more to comprehend the succession of buildings every
one of which is a triumph of marble and of sculpture. Pressing on to
the marge of the Tiber itself, the river above the commercial bridges
is seen covered with gay pleasure skiffs plying about under bright
flags. The shores are lined with handsome little houses, usually
decorated in the doors with potted shrubs or boughs of foliage.
Innocent they look in the day time but at night when their windows
blaze with lamps they will be veritable traps of iniquity for the
enjoyment and then the ruin of the unwary.
=316. The Tombs of Hadrian and Augustus.=--Across the river near
its main bend, can be noticed the green slopes of the hill of the
Vatican uncrowned as yet by any temple of fame, but with the suburban
Circus of Nero stretching along its slopes. Directly across the
current, also, is rising the enormous circular mass of the Mausoleum
of Hadrian, with the derricks and staging still above it swinging to
place the last of that galaxy of statues which will look down upon the
Tiber.[201]
[Illustration: CASTLE OF ST. ANGELO: Tomb of Hadrian
in its present state.]
We do not cross over to the new structure, but proceeding along the
bank to the point where the Via Flaminia continuing “Broadway” bears
down beside the river, we see before us the older but very majestic
Mausoleum of Augustus. It lifts itself fully 220 feet in the air, its
base composed of a vast cylinder coated with sculptured marbles, above
which there is heaped a conical mound of earth, planted with evergreen
trees, while on the summit stands a colossal statue of its mighty
builder himself. Within repose the urns not merely of Augustus, but of
nearly all the worthier members of the imperial families.
[Illustration: TOMB OF HADRIAN. _Restored after
Von Falke._]
These are only some of the features of the Campus Martius which foreign
visitors such as Strabo acclaim as the most remarkable section of
Rome, if not the one most charged with her past history. Time fails
to visit the other great public pleasure-grounds upon the slopes of
the Pincian--the “Gardens of Lucullus” and the “Gardens of Sallust,”
or that other wide park northeast of the Esquiline, the “Gardens of
Mæcenas,” presenting yet other vistas of shrubbery, groves, promenades,
and green lawns, interspersed with pleasure pavilions. It behooves us
now to return to Rome and to visit some of the most important centers
of its life--the theater, the amphitheater, and the circus.
CHAPTER XIX
THE PUBLIC GAMES: THE THEATER, THE CIRCUS, AND THE AMPHITHEATER
=317. Roman Festivals: Their Great Number.=--One thing only, besides a
long session of the Senate, ordinarily will keep men of the class of
Publius Calvus away from the great thermæ--the celebration of one of
the greater Public Games.
The _Ludi Publici_, around which so large a part of Roman life
revolves, like the Pan-Hellenic games and similar Greek festivals,
always have religious origin; they are in honor of some god or group of
deities. But the secular has long intruded into their routine. Nobody
worries greatly about the fact that the _Ludi Apollinares_ are for the
glory of Apollo, save perhaps as one adds an extra fervent invocation
of the Delphian god during the placing of wagers. The time consumed by
the Public Games represents a period of recreation and festival, which
other ages will find in Sundays and Saints’ Days.
Altogether there are some 76 days per year normally set aside for these
great _Ludi Sollemnes_, including such prolonged periods as those of
the _Ludi Romani_ or _Magni_ which extend from September 4th to 18th,
on a stretch, with several others for six days and more. When to these
periods are added various extra or very special holidays, during which
the ordinary life of the city is broken up, the courts are closed, and
only the most necessary labors of commerce and industry are conducted,
it is plain that the plebeians and even the slaves get pretty ample
respite in their year of toil. Without attempting a close study of the
official lists of holidays it is safe to say that the average Roman
gains many more periods of lawful vacation than the laboring classes
can enjoy in other ages,--another factor which tends to make the
metropolis abound with idlers and parasites.
=318. Passion for Public Spectacles: Mania for Gambling.=--Besides
the great public theaters, amphitheaters, and race courses (circuses)
there are many smaller private establishments. Good money can be made
from gladiator fights and chariot races, and they are often given by
speculators, although more frequently in a provincial town than in Rome.
The passion for such spectacles and contests is incredible;--no
“baseball” or “football” of another era can so monopolize the popular
mind. The wagering on all kinds of contests is incessant in every
insula, shop, or mansion, and, of course, ordinarily it is entirely
lawful. Only the few select spirits cry out vainly against the passion,
although Juvenal’s famous protest will echo across the centuries, “The
Roman people who once gave commands, consulships, legions, and all
else now yearn simply for two things--_free bread and the Public
Games_!”
The government doubtless encourages this tendency. If the multitude
is engrossed with the merits of two charioteers, so much less is the
scrutiny upon strange doings at the Palatine; yet even excellent
emperors give very elaborate spectacles as a kind of lawful tribute
to the multitudes of that city which affords them their right to the
purple. After the conquest of Dacia, Trajan celebrated his victory by
giving contests which lasted 123 days, during which 10,000 wild and
domestic animals were said to have been killed and 10,000 gladiators
fought, although probably most of the latter were allowed to survive.
So incessant in fact are the contests of some variety, that rare is the
day when a thunderous roar does not reverberate over the city telling
that the “Blue” or “Green” jockeys have won, or a favorite gladiator
has plunged home his trident.
[Illustration: AT THE THEATER ENTRANCE. _After Von
Falke._]
=319. Expenses of Public Spectacles to Great Officials.=--Naturally
the cost of these contests is enormous. The presidency and supervision
of them is distributed around among the magistrates, with the chief
glories and burdens falling usually upon the consuls and prætors.[202]
The State gives each official a respectable sum to pay for the
spectacles, but this falls far short of the actual cost. The glory of
presiding in the central box at the Flavian Amphitheater or Circus
Maximus is so great that a magistrate is bound to sacrifice a good
share of his entire patrimony in order to make a fine display, to win
the “Ave!” of the populace, and to hold up his head among his noble
rivals. When Hadrian was prætor, his kinsman, Trajan the Emperor, gave
him personally 4,000,000 sesterces ($160,000) towards the cost of those
games which the prætorship demanded.
Our Publius Calvus, with no imperial connection, deliberately saved
and economized for years prior to his elevation to the prætorship,
and during his term of office he spent almost as much energy in
corresponding with a friend who was legatus of Numidia to get African
leopards, and negotiating with certain racing interests to secure a
very desirable jockey, as he did in settling a certain great lawsuit
before his tribunal. One good set of chariot races can cost 400,000
sesterces ($16,000), and some of Calvus’s richer colleagues have found
the prætors’ games coming to a dozen times as much. He congratulated
himself, therefore, on getting out of office for about half their
outlay; as it was he had to live very sparingly for the next two years,
and sell off a villa.[203]
=320. Indescribable Popularity of the Games.=--Everybody in Rome
attends the games. Once slaves were forbidden to be present, but that
law had broken down several generations ago. Few are the masters that
risk the unpopularity of refusing to let their familia frequent at
least the more famous contests. The waiting litter bearers, the idling
foot-boys, all the parasitical menials about the great mansions discuss
every coming event most frantically and wager all the coppers which
their masters give them upon the outcome, and their zeal is matched by
the ragged plebeians who infest the fetid insulæ, or sleep under the
porticoes.
Seemingly half of Rome exists only from one chariot or gladiator
exhibition to another. Every contest is a display of social
importance. The front seats are assigned to the magistrates, who occupy
curule chairs in the order of their rank; there are other seats of
honor for the senators, others directly behind them for the equites. If
the Emperor is present, he sits in a special box (_cubiculum_),
which Trajan with democratic condescension caused to be thrown wide
open that all the spectators might see him.
These seats of honor are free, but the great multitude of well-to-do
spectators are expected to purchase tickets for all the better ranges
behind the tiers of the equites.[204] The prices ordinarily are low,
but concerning these tickets there is a complaint not unknown in
another age: that the box-officers (_locarii_) in charge buy up many
reserved seats for the more popular games, then sell them over again
at an outrageous advance. However, behind these reserved seats there
are still a certain number of others thrown open free to the first
comers, and behind these is a wide space where plebeians and slaves can
stand as a gesticulating, shouting, steaming mass, gazing down on the
spectacles below.
=321. The Theater Less Popular than the Circus or Amphitheater.=--The
public exhibitions are three general kinds,--the theatrical
performances, the circus races, and the gladiatorial combats.
For the great masses, the theater can never have the same vulgar appeal
possessed by its two rivals; on the other hand some men of intelligence
and rank do not hesitate to dismiss the latter as “for the mob” and
affect a great contempt for charioteers and “Thracians.” Even the most
sophisticated Romans, however, never are true Athenians. Tragedies
dealing with profound human problems, such as won trophies for Æschylus
and Sophocles, would fall absolutely flat beside the Tiber.[205]
There is even a growing distaste for the better kind of comedies.
What delights the Roman audience in the theater most is some kind of
elaborate horseplay.
[Illustration: THEATER AT POMPEII.]
The stage as a rule is long and narrow, some 120 by 24 feet, and is
raised only about three feet above the orchestra where a chorus can
dance and parade.[206] The rear of the stage has a fixed background
painted to represent the front of a palace; it is pierced by three
doors, and is adorned with columns and niches for the inevitable
statues of the Muses, of Apollo, and of like deities. A large curtain,
not dropped from above but rolled up from the bottom, can uncover the
most amazing spectacles upon this stage. Long ago Horace complained
of how a Roman audience would depart discontented if the play did not
require in its middle “either a bear or a boxing match.” For four hours
and more the curtain is “kept down” while “squadrons of horse and
bodies of foot are seen flying, while luckless kings with hands tied
behind their backs and chariots of all kinds and even ships go hurrying
along, and while spoils of ivory and Corinthian brass are borne by in
state.”
There are, however, two kinds of performances more certain to crowd the
theater than these very cheap spectacular plays--they are the mimes and
pantomimes.
=322. The Mimes: Character Plays.=--The mimes are a native Latin
product, although they have a certain kinship with the Greek “New
Comedy.” They are character plays of everyday life without the actors’
masks and buskins; and they are always coarse, vulgar, and in the
nature of roaring farces. The language is often exceedingly gross
and the situations frequently match the language. The actors wear a
kind of harlequin costume, extremely grotesque, and along with the
chief _mimus_, who takes the leading part, there is usually a second
actor who draws thunderous applause from the upper benches. He is the
_strepidus_ or _parasitus_, a kind of pantaloon, a clown with puffed
cheeks and shaven head, who has to stand a great amount of boisterous
slapping from the chief actor.
Other parts can be taken by women, who are forbidden to appear on the
stage in “legitimate” tragedy and comedy. Often the dances and postures
of these actresses are indescribably vulgar, and their reputation for
easy conduct is too well established. For all that, their presence
brings unsteady youths to the theaters like flies, and affairs with
actresses are quite normal things with a type of young bloods. Once
Cicero was defending a free and easy client, a certain Plancus. “He’s
accused of having run off with an actress?” declared the advocate. “Why
_that’s_ just an amusement excellently sanctioned by custom!”
The stories portrayed by the mimes correspond with their general
character:--a robber chief befooling the clumsy constables sent to
take him, a lover surprised by the return of a jealous husband and
forced to hide in a large box, a beggar who suddenly stumbles into a
fortune, a descent into the world of ghosts, episodes revolving around
the introduction of a very clever trained dog, etc. Some of the acting
is of high order, but there are few mimes which do not abound in lines
and situations extremely gross,--for all that the open-air theaters are
packed from morn until sunset.
=323. The Pantomimes: Their Real Art.=--All considered, the pantomimes
represent a higher degree of art. Here we have only one actor, who,
with the aid of a chorus and a great orchestra of lutes and lyres,
undertakes to tell a whole story merely by his dancing and rhythmic
motions. A really great _pantomimus_ wins and deserves the favor of
highly cultivated aristocrats. Pylades and Bathyllus in Augustus’s day
had the fashionable world practically at their feet, and Paris was one
of the prime intimates of Nero.
The greater the skill the fewer the words that need to be spoken; the
chanting of the chorus while the pantomimus is changing his costumes
giving hint enough of the characters he is portraying. The music,
florid and descriptive, keeps the audience in mood for the dancing.
All sorts of subjects can thus be portrayed, including those of old
Greek tragedies, the actor slipping from one character to another with
consummate art:--now he is Agamemnon, now Clytemnestra, now Orestes.
He can take male or female parts alternately, delineate the deepest
passions, and tell a whole story with what his admirers call his
“speaking hands,” and his “eloquence of dancing.”
To see a great pantomimus, clad perhaps in fleshings of soft light
red Canunian wool, setting off perfectly his graceful figure, dance
through the story of how Achilles disguised as a maiden was discovered
by Ulysses and summoned away to the Trojan War, is a joy to the most
sophisticated and intellectual. The dancer can take many parts--the
fair youth concealed in the palace of Lycomedes, the embassy of Ulysses
and Diomedes, the young warrior betraying himself by his interest in
the helmet and cuirass concealed in the mass of gifts intended for
women;--the whole impersonation in short may be wonderful.
Not all the dances, however, are so innocent. Many of the coarsest
stories in Græco-Roman mythology are acted out on the stage, and the
grosser they are often the louder the applause of the groundlings.
Nevertheless, the leading pantomimi rightly have the entrée to lordly
houses, enjoy great incomes, and are among the most admired personages
in Rome. They are outdistanced, however, by two sets of more vulgar
rivals--the charioteers and the gladiators.
=324. Extreme Popularity of the Circus.=--When a series of superior
contests is announced for the Circus all Rome seems to become racing
mad. Words fail to describe the excitement, the tense discussion of
the charioteers and their fours, the wave of betting from the inner
Palatine to the most sordid insula, and then the exuberant joy or
immoderate grief over the results.
Superior folk try in vain to appear disdainful of these contests.
Thus Pliny the Younger has recorded his deep disgust that “so many
thousands of men should be eager, like a pack of children, to see
horses running time after time with the charioteers bending over their
cars.” “The multitude,” he asserted, “were not interested in the
speed of the teams or the skill of the drivers, but solely in the
‘_racing colors_.’” “If in the middle of the race (he added) the
colors were changed, the enthusiasm of the spectators would change with
them, and they would suddenly desert the drivers and horses whom they
now recognized afar and whose names they shouted aloud. Such is the
influence and authority vested in one cheap tunic!”
=325. Popular Charioteers (_Aurigæ_): the Great Racing Factions.=--It
is all very well to write this, but neither Pliny nor anybody else
can prevent the greatest charioteers from enjoying temporary incomes
surpassing those of a majority of the senators. Many of these lucky
_aurigæ_ are Moors, dark-skinned, hawk-eyed rascals, with sharp white
teeth and sinews of iron; but a considerable sprinkling of them are
Spaniards, as was that Diocles, whose heirs proudly recorded on his
tombstone that in a professional career of twenty-four years he drove
in 4257 races, and conquered 1462 times, with total winnings of nearly
36 million sesterces (say $1,440,000). He, however, was not the most
fortunate--there are drivers on record who boast of at least 3500
victories, though, of course, many of these were probably won in the
provinces.
No sport will ever be more thoroughly standardized and professionalized
than that of the chariot races in Rome. When a magistrate or other
seeker for applause decides to give a series of contests he appeals to
the great circus syndicates (“factions”). There were originally only
the Red and the White; then the Blue and the Green have been added, and
finally the Purple and the Gold. Each faction maintains huge racing
stables with expert drivers, grooms, trainers, and veterinaries, as
well as many superb “fours” of horses.
The donor of the games has to arrange with these organizations how
many contests he will require, each “faction” entering a chariot in
each race. Ten races a day is the minimum; twenty-four the ordinary
maximum. After the contracts have been signed and the programs posted
all over the city, anxious days follow for all concerned to insure an
honest race. The wagering is always so general and so reckless, that
infinite precautions are needful to keep the horses from being drugged,
the drivers from being bribed to throw the contests, or (if they prove
incorruptible) the charioteers from being poisoned enough to make them
lose. The tricks of the race-track will simply endure across the ages.
=326. The Circus Maximus.=--After such preparations and excitement
no wonder that people complain that the Circus Maximus is sometimes too
small. This long narrow depression between the Palatine and Aventine
has provided an excellent natural race course since the days of the
Tarquins. At first the slopes of the hills were simply lined with crude
wooden benches. By Julius Cæsar’s time many of these benches were made
of stone, and in all could seat at least 150,000 spectators. After a
great fire in 36 A.D. Claudius presently rebuilt the whole
structure so there are now seats, partly of marble and partly of wood;
and Trajan added still more tiers and more marble ornaments. At present
the Circus Maximus covers the enormous area of 600 by 2000 feet, and
it is declared that there is at least standing room, if not seats, for
385,000 spectators--a good fraction of the entire adult population of
Rome.[207]
=327. The Race-Track: Procession before the Races.=--Inasmuch as horse
races are not peculiar to the Imperial Age let a brief description
of the Great Circus and its contests suffice. The long reaches of
seats are, of course, portioned off to give the senators and equites
the coigns of vantage. There is a lofty imperial box (_pulvinar_) on
the northern side leading directly down from the Palatine. Here the
Emperor and his suite can refresh themselves, and from a wide terrace
command a marvelous view over the long area of the immense hippodrome.
[Illustration: CIRCUS MAXIMUS. _Restoration by
Spandoni._]
Down the center of this area runs its central “backbone” (_spina_),
forming a long low wall separating the outward and inward tracks,
adorned with an unusually elaborate set of statues, columns upholding
trophies, and even with one or two tapering obelisks imported from
Egypt. In a kind of open pavilion at either end of the spina can be
seen seven huge marble eggs and as many marble dolphins. One of each of
these will be removed as each lap is finished, there being seven laps
normally in every race.
The great yellow race-track on gala occasions can be sprinkled with
some powerful perfumes, and with glittering particles of mica or with
red lead. When at last the multitudes have gathered, the contestants
enter in solemn procession by the Triumphal Gate at the extreme eastern
end of the Circus, and ahead of the array of chariots first of all
there goes the magistrate giving the games, himself in a magnificent
car and surrounded by a brilliant hedge of attendants on horse and
foot. Very likely he is then followed by certain priestly colleges in
pontifical vestments, by statues of deities piously borne on gilded
litters, by bands of trumpeters and harpists raising their clangor, and
then last, but not least, come the racing cars themselves.
=328. Beginning a Race in the Circus.=--The master of the games takes
his seat in the _podium_, the center of the reserved benches near
the end of the track. The chariots disappear in the great line of
_carceres_, “prison houses,” the carefully closed stalls at the western
end of the Circus. After due waiting, fidgeting, chattering, wagering
along the mountainous slopes of the benches, all the trumpets blow
together. Silence for an instant grips the tens of thousands, while the
president rises in his lodge and waves out a broad _mappa_, a white
cloth visible far up and down the entire circus.
Instantly the doors of the carceres fly open; the six chariots[208]
dash forth at full bound. The aurigæ, in tight-fitting tunics of the
colors of their factions, stand erect in the light cars, the reins
looped around their waists, snapping the loose ends over the flying
horses. Instantly they have dashed to the three tall pillars of the
nearer goal (_meta_), and only by miraculous chance is a disastrous
collision avoided at the outset. Then the whole circus rises and shouts
together. The familiar figure of Scorpus the Moor, a brown giant in the
tunic of the Greens, shoots ahead. His magnificent _quadriga_ of bays
have taken the wall at one leap. The flying dust cloud, as the other
five cars dash after him, almost dims the sight of the race. The noise
from the benches is deafening. The backers of the trailing cars are in
an agony.
=329. Perils of the Races; Proclaiming the Victors.=--Scorpus’s chariot
whirls around the lower goal like lightning and comes tearing back on
the opposite track, while each one of the balls and dolphins is removed
to indicate the progress of the race. The other cars press hard; and
as the teams gather speed it is a marvel how the drivers keep their
stand with the cars leaping hither and thither under them, their wheels
barely touching the flying track.[209]
Five times around they go, with Scorpus gallantly maintaining his lead.
Then at the sixth turn the “Gold” driver reins too sharply. His chariot
crashes over in a complete somersault, but, by a desperate maneuver
just as he is thrown, he whips out the knife held ready in his belt and
cuts the reins about his waist. By a miracle he is flung out sprawling
upon the yielding sands, yet escapes death under the car racing just
behind. The spectators, therefore, escape the brutal and familiar sight
of an auriga trampled or crushed to death by the rushing chariots and
horses. Meantime Scorpus losing not an instant has hurried again past
the upper goal; a frantic attempt by Cresconius, the “Red” driver just
behind, fails to head his steeds, and amid a deafening tumult he sweeps
past the president of the games to victory.
The official _jubilatores_ immediately stride out into the track
crying with loud voice the name of the winner, and the news is soon
flying all over the city. Nay, some of the outlying towns are speedily
informed of the general results, for a certain sports-loving senator
has come with a cage of homing pigeons, each colored to match one of
the factions. The instant Scorpus is acclaimed, green pigeons are
released to tell all the gamblers in Ostia and Præneste that the
“Green” cars have won the first round.
[Illustration: RACE IN THE CIRCUS MAXIMUS.]
After the noise has subsided, the trumpets blow again, another set of
chariots is ready and the whole excitement is repeated. So the contests
keep up through the day. If there is a long interval between the
races, rope-dancers, acrobats, and trick-riders are ready to amuse the
populace. Probably at the end there will be the crowning and decisive
race between the winners of the preceding contests. If Scorpus can
triumph in this also, he will carouse with his companions, doubtless
more praised and fêted for one glad night than even the Emperor.
=330. Gladiatorial Contests Even More Popular than the Circus.=--Yet
Scorpus with all his adulation and ephemeral wealth turns green with
jealousy toward a rival for fame--the victorious gladiator in the last
combats in the Flavian. The sports of the arena perhaps excite greater
favor with the mob, betting more reckless, passions more frantic than
do even the contests of the Circus.
The gladiatorial games are peculiar to Roman civilization; nothing
exactly like them will follow in later ages.[210] They illustrate
completely the pitiless spirit and carelessness of human life lurking
behind the pomp, glitter, and cultural pretensions of the great
imperial age. True it is that persons of intellectual tastes sometimes
affect greater contempt for these contests than they do for the Circus.
“No doubt the gladiators,” such men as Seneca write to one another,
“are criminals deserving their fate, but what have _you_ done to
deserve being compelled to witness their last agonies?” No matter;
nothing will gain “popularity” for a ruler or for a magnate sooner than
announcing a fight in the arena.
The very best Emperors arrange elaborate series of combats--perhaps
with a sigh in their hearts, as colossal and bloody bribes which must
be thrown constantly to the mob; and Imperator, great officials,
senators, priests, nay, the Vestal Virgins themselves, will all be
on hand in the reserved front benches. There is even given out a
philosophical justification for the butcheries, namely, that the
spectators become hardened to the sight of death and are, therefore,
the more courageous when their own hour comes. The reigning Hadrian
considers the arena combats to be useful also for keeping up the
military spirit; in short the whole Latin half of the Empire delights
in them, although they never have become very popular in the Greek
portion.[211]
=331. Gladiator Fights at Funerals.=--Gladiatorial fights claim an
Etruscan origin, and in Rome they were first exhibited at funerals of
the great, possibly with the idea that the spirits of the slain would
serve the dead lord in the underworld. It is still very fashionable
to give a sizable gladiator fight as the aftermath of any pretentious
funeral, but this is perhaps more common in the provincial towns than
in Rome, where the government likes to control such martial spectacles.
We actually hear of the populace of one small city that would not
let the funeral procession of a distinguished lady proceed through
the gates until her husband had promised them some public combats.
Pliny the Younger’s friend Maximus presented a gladiator fight to the
citizens of Verona “in honor of his most estimable wife,” a native
of the place, but the exhibition was not quite a success because “on
account of bad weather the numerous African panthers he had bought
failed to arrive on the expected day.”
=332. Gladiator “Schools” (_Ludi_): Inmates Usually Criminals.=--There
are four great imperial “schools” (_ludi_) of gladiators in Rome
maintained as public institutions. These can be drawn upon for the
regular public games; but there are plenty of private “schools”
maintained by speculators who can often supply quite as good fighters.
If, as a magistrate, or as a bereaved kinsman or widower, you decide
to give some combats, and if your purse is full, the rest is easy. You
merely contract with the _lanista_ (keeper and trainer of a school) for
so many contests upon specified terms; although, in really pretentious
affairs, gladiators from several rival schools can be pitted
together--this adds to the excitement. When the fight is over the free
gladiators are paid off, the slave fighters are returned to their
owners and indemnification is given the owners of the slain--all on set
business terms. There is great expense in training good gladiators and
slain champions cannot fight again; and this solid fact often prevents
combats from being _too_ destructive, while wounded survivors may be
carefully nursed just as a sick race horse may be cared for.
Anybody will tell us that no pity need be wasted on gladiators. Many a
low-born criminal is dragged from the præfect’s court with a relieved
grin on his felonious countenance; the magistrate has not ordered “To
the cross with him!” but merely “Train him for the amphitheater.” Many
an incorrigible slave has been sold to a lanista by his master instead
of being promptly whipped to death.
Not a few unfortunate prisoners of war and kidnapped persons, however,
if they have stout physiques, find their way also to the lanistæ
instead of to the ordinary slave markets, and brutal masters will
sometimes sell perfectly innocent slaves if the latter appear likely
to make good swordsmen. On the other hand many plebeians of the baser
sort are caught by the glitter and glory of the arena, and submit
voluntarily to the discipline of the “schools,” while under the
tyrannous emperors even men claiming noble rank have fought upon the
sands to truckle to the whims of an evil Cæsar.
=333. Severe Training of Gladiators; Their Ephemeral Glory.=--The
lanistæ’s discipline is terribly severe, as is perhaps needful
considering the wretches placed under it. The gladiators are kept in
prison-like barracks. Nothing is omitted to brutalize them and to make
their whole life center around mere skill with their weapons. They are
fed upon great quantities of meat. Cruel floggings follow the least
breach of discipline, and in every _ludus_ is a lock-up, with a long
line of stocks and shackles, which never wants its many occupants.
On the other hand many a stupid wretch is made to forget the doom
probably awaiting him in the next combats, by dreaming of the glories
promised a truly successful gladiator. If he can emerge victorious from
a series of combats, he is more talked of than even the most daring
charioteer; great nobles will visit his quarters to watch his training
and feel of his muscles; his owners will do everything to pamper
such a valuable piece of property; innumerable women, even among the
silken-robed _clarissimæ_, will dote upon him; and perhaps he can
actually elope with a senator’s wife.
Not merely the youths but all the girls in Rome will sing the
champion’s praises and dream of his valor. He will be named in
countless wall-scribblings as “The Maiden’s Sigh,” “The Glory of the
Girls,” “The Lord of the Lasses,” or “The Doctor (_medicus_) of the
Little Darlings.”[212] If he has lost an ear, if his face is one mass
of disfiguring scars, the women run after him all the more. “Never mind
_that_,” scolds Juvenal, “he is a gladiator.”
The end of this glory ordinarily comes speedily and tragically, but
sometimes the very fortunate and skilful fighter will win such favor
that, at the popular demand, the giver of the games will present him
with a wooden sword--the token of honorable discharge. If he is not a
slave-criminal, he can now quit the _ludus_ with plenty of money and a
merry life before him, but the taint of his “profession” will always
stick to him. He can never become a Roman citizen, much less can he be
enrolled as an eques whatever the extent of his wealth.
=334. Normal Arrangements for an Arena Contest.=--Strictly speaking the
amphitheater is used for two kinds of entertainments--wild beast hunts
(_venationes_) and direct combats between men. Each form is extremely
popular, although human gore appears a little cheap and ordinary
compared with that of an expensive tiger, panther, or lion. It always
makes a hit with the crowd to turn, for example, a tigress and a fierce
bull-elephant loose on the sands and watch the two brutes rend one
another.
It is true nevertheless that nothing can really take the place of
a sustained combat between two thoroughly trained pupils of the
“schools.” Ordinarily the management will have the hunts in the morning
at the amphitheater and the human contests in the afternoon. That will
send the myriads away happily satiated after a day spent amid the
perpetual sniff of gore.
No scene visited in our prolonged “day” in Rome can be more repellent
to non-Roman tastes than that of the amphitheater, but to complete the
picture it must not be omitted, although horrid deeds will be dismissed
with few words and still less of moralizing. Publius Calvus’s friend,
Decimus Cluentius, this year is Prætor. He is a wealthy senator and has
been saving money carefully for “his games.” He has already made a good
public impression by his program of races in the Circus; now he will
“add to the luster of his fame” by a day of contests in the Flavian.
Already the notice writers have distributed the list of the gladiators
that he has engaged, in every eating-house and wine-room in the city.
The impression thus made has been excellent: “Cluentius is living up
to his riches. Many of his gladiators are freemen--the finest blades,
no running away, the kind of fellows that will stand right up and be
butchered in mid-arena. Besides, he’s been lucky enough to get from the
præfect a farm steward who was caught insulting his master’s wife--a
good dinner for the lions. These fights won’t be as when that miserly
Norbanus exhibited--his gladiators were such a cowardly, feeble lot
they’d have fallen flat if you breathed on ’em.”[213]
=335. The Flavian Amphitheater (Later “Colosseum”).=--Such an
exhibition can only be held in the Flavian Amphitheater, the vast
structure known to later ages as the “Colosseum.” In Republican days
gladiator fights were held in the open Forum or in the Circus, but
these were ill-adapted for the purpose. To see the fine points of the
combats the audience must be concentrated around the contestants as
closely as possible; hence the “amphitheater”--an immense oval of seats
looking down upon a central arena.
The building of such a quantity of seats out of permanent materials is
very expensive and wooden structures were largely used until about 70
A.D., when Vespasian and Titus began their vast “Flavian” (dedicated
in 80 A.D. by an enormous beast hunt), now among the chief wonders of
Rome. Common report has it that thousands of Titus’s Jewish captives
had to toil first on the masonry and then for the most part to lose
their lives fighting one another in the opening games.
To avoid prolixity any description of this vast structure must be very
brief: it stands an oval cylinder, its outer major diameter 620 feet;
and the greatest diameter of its inner arena 287. Its innumerable
blocks of travertine are bound together by metal clamps; the exterior
is faced with marble and adorned with hundreds more of those statues
which populate Rome. The structure rises 157 feet in four stories. The
lower three of these tiers are composed each of a series of eighty
arches backed by piers. In the first story the flanking columns are
Doric, the second Ionic, the third Corinthian. The fourth story has
no arches but merely windows and pilasters of the “composite” order.
Between these upper pilasters project stone brackets which hold lofty
wooden masts for the great awnings that stretch over the arena. These
masts and awnings (red, blue, and yellow) when spread out under a
brilliant sky, make the Flavian look somewhat like an enormous galley
under a cloud of sail--the effect, of course, being heightened by the
sheen of the marbles of the exterior and the garish paint and gilding
covering the statues.
[Illustration: FLAVIAN AMPHITHEATER (COLOSSEUM):
exterior, present state.]
=336. Exterior and Ticket Entrances to the Flavian
Amphitheater.=--Outside of the Amphitheater is a wide circular area
whereon converge many thoroughfares. This open space is scattered
with huckster’s booths and with small ticket stands much like those
around many amusement places in another age.[214] Here one can place
wagers, purchase programs for the day, obtain food to consume between
the events, and very probably buy or hire cushions in case the stone
benches prove too hard.
Also on the outside and close to the foot of the main structure runs
a high wooden palisade. This is to aid in controlling the crowds. You
go in at one or two entrances, showing your tickets, then circle the
masonry until you reach one of the staircases, located under every
fourth arch, and next you can promptly mount to your reserved seat in
one of the seventy-six sub-sections (_cunei_).
=337. Interior Arrangements of the Flavian.=--Once inside, the
admirable arrangements of the structure impress the visitor no less
than its enormous mass. Everything converges upon the central arena;
even from the topmost seats one can see all the details of the contests
below. The seats are divided into three great terraces, so easily
accessible by the stairways and corridors that the fifty thousand
spectators can pass in and out with the minimum of confusion. The
lowest tiers, made of marble and comfortably cushioned, are reserved
here as elsewhere for the senators; and for the _editor_ (the
giver of the contests), his fellow magistrates, the chief priests,
and the Vestal Virgins, there are seats of peculiar honor directly
upon the _podium_, the crest of the twelve-foot wall girding the
arena;--seats which are protected alike from chance missiles and from
the leap of desperate beasts by a heavy trellis-work of gilded metal.
Above this podium like the billows of a frozen ocean rise the enormous
tiers of masonry seats; first those for the equites, then the great
mass for the paying spectators, then the space crowded with wooden
benches for the slaves and least select plebeians. An open gallery
runs around the entire summit of the benches and here alone, by a
restriction doubtless often lamented, women are allowed to watch the
contests from afar, unless they are Vestal Virgins or ladies of the
Imperial family, with the special privilege of the podium.
All the arches, stairways, sections, and tiers are numbered. If you
have a ticket, it may read “VIth section (_cuneus_), lowest row, seat
No. 18,” marked upon a round or flat piece of bone. The attendants are
lynx-eyed for impostors, but legitimate visitors are quickly seated.
A detachment of sailors from the fleet of Misenum shifts the enormous
awnings so that the thousands[215] can sit comfortably in the shade
while a full blaze of sunlight falls on the arena.
By the middle of the morning the multitudes are in place; Cluentius
the Prætor, with full official magnificence, is in the central box of
the podium; and strong detachments of Prætorians have been quietly
distributed in certain half-concealed guard inclosures near the lower
railing--for gladiators _have_ been known to mutiny and desperate
lions can leap very high.
=338. Procession of Gladiators.=--Presently now trumpets and cymbals
announce the procession which files through one of the four gates
leading directly into the arena. The gladiators, some forty in number,
march two and two, nearly naked save for their glistening armor;
knitted foreheads, white teeth, wolfish scowls, magnificent physiques
are displayed by all of them. From far up the applauding benches they
can be recognized, and many favorite _retiarii_ and _Thraces_ are met
with a storm of cheering.
The company marches solemnly down the arena led by an enormous lanista,
one of their trainers, the scarred hero of all the youth of Rome.
Before Cluentius on the podium they halt and flourish their weapons
defiantly. Everybody knows that they have just taken their fearful oath
“to be bound, to be burned, to be scourged, to be slain, and to endure
all else required of them as proper gladiators, giving up alike their
souls and their bodies.”[216]
=339. Throwing a Criminal to the Beasts. The Animal Hunt.=--However,
the contests do not begin immediately; there is a preliminary spectacle
in store. The Prætor’s friend, the City Præfect, most luckily has
handed over to him a vicious freedman caught maltreating his patron’s
lady. The wretch, of course, deserves death:--how proper, therefore,
that he can be made to amuse more honest folk by his very exit! Into
the middle of the arena they lead him, a pitiful gibbering object,
half-dead already with fright. The guards strike off his fetters,
thrust a cheap sword into his hands, and themselves hastily retire into
one of the numerous caged chambers lining the arena. A tense stillness
for an instant holds the Flavian.
Suddenly the rattle of chains is heard. In the very center of the sands
(part of which are over wooden substructures) the arena opens; a cage
appears lifted by pulleys, and then is opened by some mechanism. Forth
bounds a tawny lion, lashing his tail and growling with hunger and
rage. The unskilled victim has been given a sword with the vain promise
that if he can actually kill the lion his own life will be spared. His
chances are infinitesimal, but a few desperadoes have thus actually
saved themselves.
Will the prisoner fight? To the infinite disgust of the thousands he
collapses upon the sands in sheer terror before the lion can so much as
strike him. The beast finishes his life almost instantly. The multitude
hoot and curse--they have been cheated of their passionate desire to
see a human victim struggling in desperate combat with the great beast.
Fortunately, they remind themselves, this is only the beginning of the
performance.
If one need not moralize, one need not linger. After the sacrifice
of the criminal there are more beasts turned loose in the arena. Of
course, no Prætor can be expected to show the hundreds of animals which
an Emperor will exhibit in his greater games, but Cluentius has done
the thing very respectably. He has in all ten bears, eighteen panthers,
five lions, and six tigers.
First the animals are goaded on to fight one with another. A bear is
torn to death by a lion, but kills the lion in a last mortal hug.
Then the trumpet sounds--some of the gladiators rush into the arena.
The arena is now covered with frightened, snarling, reckless beasts.
Even with keen weapons and skill, it is desperate work to slay them.
One fine young German slips as a tiger bounds on him. His life is
crushed out at the very foot of the editor’s stand. One panther, driven
frantic, with a terrific leap almost clears the trellis directly before
a Vestal Virgin; there is a general scream and recoil from the podium
as the luckless beast drops back upon the spear of a hunter.
=340. Interval in the Contests: Scattering of Lottery Tickets.=--At
last the _venatio_ is over. All the beasts have been killed with
reasonable skill, and barring only the German, with no accidents. It
is now noon and a comfortable intermission follows. Food has been
brought by many, or is passed about by hawkers. Cluentius, with great
condescension, remains in the editor’s seat, and dines in public so
that everybody present can go home boasting merrily, “We have been to
prandium with the Prætor!”[217]
After hunger has been appeased the spectators begin to grow restive.
It is the immemorial privilege of the crowds to shout out whatever
they wish in the Circus or Amphitheater. An unpopular Commissioner of
the Grain Supply is seen rising in the podium; instantly the great
awning quakes with the hootings. There is even a volley of date and
olive stones; when, luckily for the Commissioner, the Prætor orders the
attendants to begin scattering lottery tickets along the benches.
[Illustration: BOXERS.]
Instantly all else is forgotten; dignified men scramble over one
another. In the free benches there are several genuine fights and many
a torn toga or lacerna. The winning tickets to-morrow will draw jars of
wine, packages of edibles, or even quite a few denarii in cash; but if
the editor had been the Emperor the prizes could well have been fine
jewelry, pictures, beasts of burden, tidy sums of money, or even--as
the grand prize--a small villa.
This distribution silences all the discordant howlings; and the people
are further amused by a kind of theatrical pageant, some popular
pantomimes giving the Judgment of Paris in a clever and not inelegant
manner, without scenery in the broad arena. After that two ostriches
are unloosed and the crowd is put in an excellent humor while four
Moorish riders on shining desert steeds chase down the speeding,
doubling birds and finally lasso them. All is at last ready for the
real business of the day--the gladiators.
=341. Beginning the Regular Gladiatorial Combats.=--The hunters of the
beasts, duly reënforced by many others, reënter the arena again in grim
procession. Approaching the editor’s seat on the podium they can be
seen passing up their weapons for Cluentius, to let him satisfy himself
that every edge is sharpened beyond the possibility of shamming.
He hands back each spear or sword with a nod, then the long file
straightens and every combatant lifts his right arm: “_Ave, prætor!_”
sounds the deep chant, “_morituri te salutamus!_” “_Ave!_” answers
Cluentius gesturing haughtily. “Low-browed scoundrels,” mutters Calvus
to a fellow senator; “Most of them are lucky to end up this way and to
escape the cross.--Ah! they begin.”
First, however, to get well limbered, wooden swords are handed about,
and the troop fence with one another skilfully yet harmlessly; but
the people are waxing impatient--“Steel! Steel!” rings the shout from
the whole amphitheater, and the dense array of women in the upper
gallery is calling it as fiercely as the men on the ocean of benches.
A terrific blast of trumpets sounds from mid-arena, and a gigantic
lanista acting as a kind of umpire motions with his spear. Soon every
heart in the myriads is thrilled by the clash of weapons.
Cluentius (an unoriginal though free-spending magistrate) has arranged
a very conventional series of combats. First two Britons dash about in
chariots pelting each other with javelins. Their armor turns the darts
for long, then one of the horses is wounded and while his driver is
struggling to control him another missile strikes through a joint in
the warrior’s armor. He totters in the car while all the amphitheater
rises and yells together “_Habet!_” “He’s got it!”--and then as the
poor wight tumbles back into the sands, “_Peractum est!_” “He’s done
for!”
[Illustration: GLADIATORS SALUTING THE EDITOR BEFORE
JOINING IN MORTAL COMBAT.]
Immediately there appears a grotesque figure, arrayed as Charon,
the dead man’s ferryman. He bears a hammer wherewith he strikes the
body of the victim to see if he is counterfeiting death. The fallen
chariot warrior stirs not--and “Charon” with a long hook drags away
the corpse into one of the dens under the podium. The benches are now
leaping, gesticulating, and yelling--the noise is indescribable, and
Cluentius’s friends hasten to tell him that the combats have started
admirably.
=342. Mounted Combats: the Signals for Ruthlessness and Mercy.=--The
surviving charioteer disappears amid plaudits. In his place ride out
four horsemen; and two mounted duels can thus take place at either
side of the arena. One pair contend evenly and stoutly, but the other
contest soon ends--the less skilful rider is dashed from his seat
by his opponent’s sword, and is so hurt he can barely lift himself
upon the sands. The victor leaps down and stands over him waving his
reddened blade, while his disarmed victim in sheer helplessness raises
the right hand, the fist clinched except for one upraised finger--the
demand for “Mercy!”
[Illustration: DEFEATED GLADIATOR APPEALING FOR
MERCY: spectators, with Vestal Virgins in front seats,
turning “thumbs down.”]
The conqueror obsequiously looks toward his employer Cluentius upon
the podium, and the Prætor, bound to be gracious to the populace,
motions somewhat inquiringly toward the spectators--let them decide! If
the defeated gladiator had fought more gamely and had striven to rise
and renew the fight, possibly enough white handkerchiefs--the token
of mercy--would have been waved to warrant the editor in flourishing
his own also;--but the fellow had collapsed too easily and the mood
of the crowd demanded blood. “_Occide! Occide!_” “Kill! Kill!”
is the yell; and thousands of thumbs are ruthlessly pointed downward.
Cluentius’s own thumb is pointed down likewise. The victor raises his
weapon and without scruple plunges it in the breast of the vanquished,
who sustains the honor of his profession by receiving the mortal blow
without flinching.
Again the Charon enters with his hook and clears the arena. In the
interval the other mounted duelists, cool and experienced warriors,
have partly suspended their combat and now they profit through their
comrade’s death by the umpiring lanista’s declaration of a draw. The
people are sated for an instant and Cluentius nods approval as the two
ride out; he is inwardly glad to spare them, because the owners of dead
gladiators have to be indemnified.
=343. Combats between Netters (_Retiarii_) and Heavy-Armed Warriors
(Thracians).=--So combat follows combat, while the sands grow red and
one warrior falls simply by slipping upon the gore. The suffocating
fumes of blood rise through the bars of sunlight under the great
awning. The people grow more and more excited. There will be hundreds
of beggars to-night in Rome on account of the reckless wagering.
At last the trumpets sound for what is always the crowning feature of
the exhibition--the chief thing which the multitudes have really waited
all day to see--ten _retiarii_ are to fight ten “Thracians.” The
retiarii (“netters”) wear not the least armor. They carry nothing but
three-pronged lances and thick nets, which last they endeavor to
fling over their adversaries, entangle them, and then stab with their
tridents ere they can cut loose. The “Thracians” have heavy suits of
armor and formidable swords.[218] If a netter misses his cast, there
is nothing for him to do but to fly for dear life. The sight of a
powerful, armed Thracian toiling after the leaping, dodging retiarius
is a source of universal joy to the amphitheaters. The people rise
on the benches and join in a kind of intoxication and blood orgy.
“_Verbera! Verbera! Occide! Occide!_” “Lay on! Kill!”--rises as a
thunder to heaven.
=344. End of the Combats: Rewarding the Victors.=--It profits not
to dwell on the half hour which follows. Plenty of skill, valor, and
swiftness are shown alike by netters and by heavy-armed warriors. One
by one part of the twenty drop, and for a while the passions of the
people permit no mercy. The Charon appears several times; but there is
a young Spanish netter whose nimbleness and reckless courage win great
favor, and many are muttering, “We want to see him again.” There is
also a very experienced Thracian whose owner will demand from Cluentius
a round indemnity, if the fight is pushed to a finish and his precious
chattel is slain.
As a result when four wounded men together drop their weapons and
signal for mercy, white handkerchiefs begin waving all over the
amphitheater and Cluentius is glad to shake out his also. The combats
are over. The victorious gladiators, if they are unhurt enough to
stand, are led before the podium and to each are handed palms of
victory.
There is furthermore a crowning ceremony. One Certus, a very famous
netter, has by previous understanding taken only a formal part in
the combats. Now, while the whole multitude leaps up to acclaim him,
Cluentius himself rises and gives him the wooden sword--the sign that
he need fight and risk his life no more. Henceforth Certus will become
himself no doubt a _lanista_, and train hundreds of other brawny
youths to yield up their lives for the amusement of Rome.
The amphitheater empties from all its numerous _vomitoria_. The
crowd goes home well contented, praising Cluentius and hoping he will
be assigned a fine province to govern. True it has not been as if the
Emperor were present--then there might have been two hundred or more
gladiators, an enormous slaughter of beasts; fountains could have
played in the arena to refresh the air, and perfumes could have been
scattered from the awnings; or the arena might easily have been flooded
for a sea fight between two squadrons of small galleys.
Nevertheless, Cluentius has done very well for a mere Prætor; and he
will have to pay indemnity for about fourteen of his forty gladiators,
a very fair average to get butchered. “It has been a pleasant enough
holiday (say many) in a toiling and busy world, and the rumor goes that
for the next Ides at the Consul’s games they have rounded up a whole
gang of robbers who will all be fed to the lions!”
CHAPTER XX
THE ROMAN RELIGION: THE PRIESTHOODS, THE VESTAL VIRGINS
=345. Religious Symbols Everywhere in Rome.=--The circus races and
the amphitheater butcheries are nominally in honor of some god. It is
perhaps Vulcan in whose name Cluentius has hired the gladiators to
slaughter one another. Everywhere about Rome are imposing temples and
lesser shrines, and there are almost more statues of gods and demigods
than there are people in the swarming streets. The symbolic snakes
for the Lares of the locality or of the household, are painted upon
thousands of walls. All this would indicate that the Romans of the
Empire are extraordinarily religious. How far does this outward seeming
correspond to the actual facts?
=346. Epicureanism and Agnosticism among the Upper Classes.=--If
we penetrate the life of men like Publius Calvus and others of the
upper circle, apparently we are dealing with persons who are almost, if
not complete, agnostics. Some are cheerful Epicureans who formally deny
that there are any deities that concern themselves with mortal affairs,
and who for their own part look upon the world as a chance aggregation
of atoms, and upon life as one physical sensation after another with
nothing later awaiting a man but eternal slumber in the grave. Moral
“laws” merely exist to adjust human relationships, so that you can win
the maximum enjoyment from day to day.
Theories like this can be justified in sonorous, noble language,
as in the great poems of Lucretius, but the underlying philosophy
remains the same. Cluentius, the Prætor, whose library is crammed with
Epicurean writings, has, in fact, just been ordering chiseled on his
ostentatious funeral monument, “_Eat, drink, enjoy yourself--the rest
is nothing._”[219]
[Illustration: MAISON CARRÉE, NÎMES, FRANCE: the best
preserved temple of the Roman type in existence.]
=347. Stoicism: Revival of Religion under the Empire.=--Calvus
himself, a decidedly practical man not too fond of nice speculations,
takes greater pleasure in the theories of the Stoics. The stern
teaching that “duty” is the be-all and end-all of life, and that
true freedom and happiness come only by a scrupulous discharge of
every obligation, appeals strongly to many hard-headed Romans. It
fits in well with their old native religion, and they accept it
without much abstract philosophizing. But the “God” discussed by Zeno,
Cleanthes, and the later Stoics is only a hard, impersonal, resistless
force,--“Eternal Law” under another name. He is in nowise a merciful
Heavenly Father, any more than he is a youthful, beauteous, and very
human Apollo. Calvus, in short, is hardly more convinced than his
friend Cluentius, the Epicurean, that there really exists any personal
deity.[220]
However, religion as an outward institution, has been steadily gaining
under the Roman Empire. Probably never were there ever more unabashed
atheists than such personages as Sulla and Julius Cæsar in the last
decades of the Republic,--men not without pet superstitions perhaps
and a belief in their “stars,” but who were almost cynical in their
expressions of disbelief in any ruling Providence, and to whom temples
and worship were only convenient political engines for befooling the
mob.
Augustus nevertheless was probably somewhat more of a believing man
himself, and he grasped the enormous value of reinvigorating the old
cults, rebuilding the crumbling shrines, and finally of rekindling
the conviction that there existed a stabilizing and avenging host of
deities as a means for getting moral sanction and support for his new
imperial régime. Since the battle of Actium, temples have multiplied,
priesthoods have been carefully maintained, and solemn religious
ceremonies and sacrifices have been promoted by the government; in
short, a great and partially successful effort has been put forth to
galvanize into a kind of life that early “Religion of Numa,” which once
molded the ideals of the little city by the Tiber.
=348. Foreign Cults Intruded upon the “Religion of Numa.”=--Religious
beliefs and institutions at Rome, however, are only in part derived
from the cults and forms of old Italy, whether Etruscan or Latin. The
Greek mythology has been so taken over by the poets that often it is
hard to sift out the indigenous Italian stories from the great mass of
imported legends in which Jupiter and Juno manifestly are merely the
Latin names for Hellenic Zeus and Hera. Furthermore, there has come a
perfect influx of oriental gods: Egyptian Isis, Syrian Baal, Phrygian
Cybele, Persian Mithras--these are merely some of the more important.
The Roman attitude toward foreign deities is tolerant; provided one
keeps up the outward forms of reverence for the old native deities, it
does no serious harm if people feel happier because they burn incense
to the dog-headed Anubis, or to the uncouth gods of Phœnicia. Of course
these alien rites must not be too gross; such as were the outrageous
old Bacchanals who were broken up in 186 B.C., or the Gallic Druids
who permitted human sacrifice. Otherwise a “foreign superstition” is a
matter merely for a contemptuous shrug or sneer.
The result is that the cults seen in Rome under the Empire often appear
as a vast jumble of things Greek, Levantine, Oriental, and even Celtic.
The Emperor and Senate seldom bother themselves about matters of inward
belief; Rome has its gladiators but it has no Inquisition.
Nevertheless, the old Italian religion is still the official cultus of
the state. Its forms are carefully cherished; it is insensibly modified
but it is never repudiated. There are almost the same priesthoods, the
same sacred formulas and machinery of religion as in the days of the
Punic Wars.[221] They are kept up partly out of patriotic pride in all
survivals of the heroic past, partly because they help the government
to control the “mob” and the highly superstitious soldiery, partly (it
must in fairness be added) because very intelligent persons believe
that the ancient Italian religion somehow contributes to the safety
and stability of the Empire,--that when Jupiter Capitolinus falls the
dominion of Rome will actually fall with him.
=349. Superstitious Piety of the City Plebeians.=--As for the
multitude, the enormous population in the insulæ, if it has little
intelligent faith, it has abundant ignorant credulity. The outward
service of the gods brings good luck.
If the public rites fail and if blasphemers (like the execrable
Christians) arise, the corn ships will not get through from Alexandria,
the Tiber will overflow, the pestilence will sweep off thousands
and--almost equal calamity--the favorite aurigæ and gladiators on the
gamblers’ tablets will lose in the games. If a private man neglects the
gods, his shop or business ventures can go bankrupt, his children die,
his wife decamps with a freedman, disease can rack him, premature death
smite him, and his tomb be demolished to the complete obliteration
of his memory. Possibly even his ghost will drift about unhappily in
desert places. Every possible motive, therefore, requires governors and
governed to stand in well with the gods.
Let us, therefore, examine this “Religion of Numa” which is living yet,
as the official cultus of Rome; then a few words can be said about its
alien competitors.
=350. Roman Religion Originally Developed by Italian Farmers.=--The
old Italian farmers who shaped this religion were singularly lacking
in imagination. Very few are the myths for which the poets can claim a
non-Greek origin. The world is conceived of as being full of deities
which often are so little personified that one cannot be sure of their
actual sex: “Be propitious, O Divine One (_numen_), be thou male or be
thou female!” is the proper formula for beginning many ancient prayers.
Some of these divinities, to be sure, are well-defined and powerful
gods such as Jupiter the Sky-God, Mars the War-God, and Juno the potent
and matronly spouse of Jupiter. Such deities came with the ancestors of
the Italians when they wandered down from the North into that southern
peninsula which they occupied many centuries ago.
Other divinities are ancient adoptions from the Etruscans or from the
Greeks. Minerva, the protectress of such female arts as weaving and
spinning and later of the more masculine arts, sciences, and learning,
is pretty clearly the Minerva of the Etruscans, and has caught many
attributes from the Pallas Athena of the Greeks. Apollo came, perhaps,
via Etruria, where they called him Aplu, and not directly from Hellas,
but no temple was built to him until after Greek as well as Etruscan
influence in Rome had become very strong. Diana or Luna (“Madame Moon”)
was an old moon goddess, possibly the same as the Etruscan Losna, and
only by a late and very unfortunate identification has she become
confounded with Apollo’s Greek sister Artemis, the virgin huntress on
the Arcadian hills.
One great goddess, however, Venus, is probably a good old Italian
deity of substantial homely virtues: she is still invoked as Venus
Cloacina (“Venus the Purifier”), when it is necessary to cleanse the
great sewers; a function seldom remembered when giddy youths confound
her with the Greek Aphrodite, and beg her to help their illicit love
affairs!
351. =Native Italian Gods: Janus, Saturn, Flora. The Lares and
Penates.=--All these gods and certain other familiar deities such
as Mercury patron of trade and gain, Neptune lord of the sea, Vulcan
the clever smith, and finally, but in nowise least, Vesta the hearth
goddess, and Ceres the Mistress of the Corn, make up the official
“Great Gods” in whose honor the public games are held, and to whom
Emperors and Consuls proffer vows and sacrifice.
[Illustration: FARMER’S CALENDAR: showing festivals
each month.]
Highly important also is the strictly native Italian Janus, the
two-faced lord of beginnings and endings, probably an ancient Sun-God;
whom one should invoke at the opening of every fresh day, and in
whose honor (quite appropriately) the month of January is named with
New Year’s Day especially designated to his festival.[222] There is
furthermore Saturn, a rural deity, who has been identified with the
Greek Cronos (“Father Time”); there is Orchus who rules the underworld;
there is Liber the masculine field god, consort of Ceres and sometimes
confounded with the Greek Bacchus; there is Bona Dea (“Good Goddess”) a
mistress of agriculture, possibly only another aspect of Ceres; there
is Flora, the kindly patroness not merely of the flowers but of all
the prosaic vegetable gardens; and there also is Robigus, a malevolent
garden deity who must be propitiated with frequent offerings or he will
mildew the crops.
All these gods (except the evil Robigus) are near and dear to the
average plebeian, and especially to the farmers. In addition there
are the Lares and Penates. We have seen how they are guardian spirits
of the households--never forgotten in any mansion or upon any social
occasion.
The state has its own “Public Lares and Penates” as well as private
households; the former are the spirits of the gallant patriots of old
like the first Brutus, Cincinnatus, Camillus, and Scipio Major. The
second are the immortal “Twin Brethren”--Castor and Pollux, who have
ridden to rescue Roman armies on many a hard-fought field. No public
sacrifice can avail unless at least formal reference is made to the
public Lares and Penates along with the special god receiving honor.
Reënforcing these divinities is a whole host of special rural deities,
who, in a country still very dependent on agriculture, receive special
honor in all the profitable villas and farms crowding up to the gates
of Rome; Faunus and Lupercus are herdsmen’s gods well matching the
Hellenic Pan; Silvanus presides over the woodlands and timber-lots,
Pales is a much beloved shepherd’s god, Pomona cares for the orchards,
Vertumnus for the normal change of the seasons; Anna Perena is the
goddess of the circling year; and Terminus takes care that the boundary
stones (so important to farmers) are not disturbed.
=352. Personified Virtues as Gods: Cold and Legalistic Character of
the Roman Religion.=--However, these deities are increased by a
great host of personified moral and civic qualities. Nothing is easier
in Rome than to assume that every desirable virtue must have some kind
of a numen (divine potence) behind it. Around the city one can find
temples, _e.g._ to Honor, Hope, Good Faith, Modesty, Concord,
Peace, Victory, Liberty, Public Safety, Youth, and Fame. This is only a
minor part of the list.
[Illustration: CIRCULAR TEMPLE, PROBABLY OF OLD ITALIAN
GODDESS MATUTA: now Church of Sancta Maria del Sole,
Rome.]
It is assumed in fact that every act or process of human life has its
special numen who can be invoked to make that act successful. Thus
after young Sextus, Calvus’s son, was born, his very pious nurses first
invoked Vaticanus who opened his mouth for his first cry, then Cucina
who guarded his cradle, then Edulia and Potina who taught him to eat
and drink, Stabilius who aided him first to stand up, and Abeona and
Adeona who watched over his first footsteps “going” and “returning.”
His sophisticated parents doubtless smiled at this scrupulous piety,
but they did nothing to discourage it.
These cold impersonal divinities stand to man in a legal rather than
a theological relationship. Men and the numina have made a kind of
contract--so much prayer and ceremonial sacrifice must be offered in
return for so much good favor, prosperity, and protection. _Do ut
des_ (“I give that you may give”) sums up the whole spirit of the
Roman religion.
Numa the alleged founder of so many cults was not a prophet or an
inspired poet but a king and lawgiver. A wise man is always pious;
that is, he always gives to the gods their precise due according to
carefully set forms, otherwise the divinities may evade their part of
the contract, just as a merchant is not bound to execute a bargain in
which the other party has failed to do precisely as was stipulated.
If prayers and sacrifice fail in their purpose, it is reasonable to
suppose that the fault lies in the formula and the victims employed.
The pig, sheep, or other victim must then be sacrificed over again with
greater scrupulosity. On the other hand, willful neglect of worship is
as surely punished by the gods as willful neglect of paying one’s debts
is punished by the Prætor. The fate of the impious will be somewhat
like that of the absconding debtor, only much more dreadful.
Needless to say this “Religion of Numa” contains no more spirituality
than the hard stones which pave the Forum. It does, however, put
a genuine premium upon the rigid performance of duty, and thereby
sometimes reacts favorably upon human conduct.
=353. Priestly Offices: Little Sacrosanct about Them.=--For these
necessary ceremonies mankind requires priests, but they are not
revered interpreters of the divine will, nor are they mysterious
mediators between Providence and men; they are rather attorneys
employed by men to represent them competently in their dealings with
the divinities.
Small religious matters, the minor private sacrifices, etc., can be
attended to without a priest, just as you do not need a jurisconsult to
assist in petty purchases. Greater religious matters, private and still
more if public, however, require experts to see that the right formulæ
are spoken and sacrifices proffered. Any Roman of flawless birth and of
good character is eligible for most of the priesthoods, although there
are a few reserved for the narrow circle of the old patrician families.
Holding these religious offices does not ordinarily imply dropping
one’s secular interests or having the least philosophical belief in
the ceremonies so carefully performed. Julius Cæsar was Pontifex
Maximus while he was Proconsul of the Gauls, and while he was a firm
disbeliever in the existence of any gods at all.
Of course every small temple has to have its proper custodians whom
we may call “priests,” to attend to the private sacrifices; and there
are besides plenty of unofficial diviners and soothsayers who can
answer your question, “Is this a lucky day for the wedding of my
daughter?” or “Do the omens warn against buying this farm?” The great
public ministers of religion, however, are really officers of state,
appointed by the Emperor,[223] and usually they are grouped in famous
“Sacred Colleges” wherein the members hold office for life. Ordinarily
the persons thus honored are distinguished senators selected after an
honorable civil and military career.
=354. The Pontifices.=--On the whole the greatest official glory comes
to the fifteen _pontifices_. Not merely do they possess the general
oversight of everything concerning cultus, but they have as their chief
colleague the Emperor himself, who always holds the post of _Pontifex
Maximus_--head of the Roman religion.
Before Julius Cæsar reformed the calendar the pontifices had the
important task of settling each year what days were to be _dies
fasti_, whereon alone legal business could be lawfully conducted,
and they have still the power to interfere in almost any doings
concerning sacrifice, ritual, temple properties, etc. Their head, the
Pontifex Maximus, has particularly to watch over and control the Vestal
Virgins; and the college at large still has the custody of the famous
_Libri Pontificales_, the “Pontifical Books,” famous and ancient
volumes containing instructions for all kinds of unfamiliar religious
rites and procedure in strange religious emergencies.[224]
=355. The Augurs.=--The pontiffs, however, are really “Commissioners
for Religious Affairs” rather than actual priests, and along with them
goes another important group of “sacred” personages who seem almost
equally unpriestly. These are the _augurs_, the official interpreters
of the will of heaven; and almost every senator cherishes the hope of
being appointed to this college, notwithstanding the fact that long ago
Cicero remarked that “two augurs ought never to meet without winking!”
There are sixteen augurs, who are entitled to wear the embroidered
toga prætexta and to carry the sacred crooked staff, the lituus. The
science of augury, whereof they are supposedly the supreme custodians,
is something whereon the men of old, especially the Etruscans, expended
an enormous amount of energy.
The Italians in general put relatively little trust in astrology
and not much more in dreams as revealing the divine intentions.
What greatly matters is the flight of birds, the strange actions of
animals, monstrous births, thunder, meteors, and like prodigies. Even
in Hadrian’s day plenty of intelligent men will shudder with dread if
they behold a crow cawing on their funeral monument; or will give up a
journey if a black viper shoots across the road just as their carriage
is starting.
Sneezing or stumbling furthermore can mean much, and before many an
atrium the janitor is constantly shouting “_Dextro pede!_” “Right
foot first!” to every guest entering the vestibule. Certain signs are
very dreadful; _e.g._ any gathering at which somebody is seized
with epilepsy (a manifest token of divine anger) must be instantly
dissolved.
If, however, the gods do not speak thus openly, no public act should
be performed without at least asking the formal question, “Is heaven
favorable?” This may be done by watching the consecrated chickens
while they devour the grain as at the opening of the Senate (see p.
340),[225] but more elaborate and reliable is a careful watching of
the heavens for signs. If an augur sees ravens on the right-hand side
of the sky, the sign is lucky; but a crow in order not to forbode evil
must appear on the left. The actions of eagles, owls, woodpeckers, and
certain other birds are more complicated. Their cries, the manner of
their flight, as well as the direction whence they come all have to be
considered.
Time fails to describe the careful ritual necessary for the augurs,
when, at the request of some high magistrate, they interrogate the gods
to see if heaven is pleased at some proposed official action. It is
not necessary, however, to get a positively favorable sign; often it is
enough that during a suitable interval the augur should _fail_ to
observe any unhappy bird, any meteor, thunder claps, or the like. This
propitious interval constitutes a formal “silence” (_silentium_);
and many an augur has shown himself conveniently deaf or blind to
noises or sights that might prohibit some desired deed. Nevertheless
the solemn farce is always maintained, for when do Romans ever discard
any time-honored custom?
=356. The Flamines.=--The augurs rank with the pontiffs high in
public honors, but the most important actual priests in Rome are the
_flamines_. There are fifteen flamines distributed among the services
of the various gods, but three rank above all others--the flamens of
Jupiter, Mars, and of Quirinus (deified Romulus), with the first named,
called more particularly the _Flamen Dialis_, at their head.
It is an extraordinary honor to be named Flamen Dialis, and Gratia
reckons it among the chief of her family glories that she has an uncle
now enjoying for life this high priesthood. The Flamen of Jupiter
is entitled to a curule chair as if he were a magistrate, and takes
social precedence above nearly everybody save the Emperor and the
consuls; he also wears the toga prætexta like other exalted personages,
although it must be of thick wool woven by the hands of his wife. In
addition he has to appear always crowned with a special high pointed
cap, not unlike the “fool’s-cap” of other times, and tipped with the
_apex_, a pointed spike of olive wood wound with a lock of wool.
Old Papirius is among the most envied men in Rome, yet he complains
bitterly of the price he has to pay for his glory. He cannot mount a
horse, or even look upon an army in battle array. He cannot swear an
oath, or spend a single night away from the city, however comfortable
may be his family villas in the hot season. The cuttings of his hair
and nails must be carefully preserved and buried beneath an _arbor
felix_ (lucky tree). He must never eat of or even mention a goat,
beans, or several other forbidden objects.
Above all Papirius’s wife, the _flaminica_, whom he had to marry
with special ceremonies, is indispensable to him in many acts of
religion and he is forbidden to divorce her, although his life with
the noble Claudia is none too happy. Worse still if she should die, he
must immediately resign his office. The other fourteen flamines enjoy
somewhat lesser glories, offset by slightly lesser taboos. They are,
however, the fifteen most sacred male individuals in all Rome.
=357. The _Salii_ (“Holy Leapers”).=--Of less glory than the flamines,
but nevertheless of venerable sanctity are the twelve other priests
of Mars, the college of the _Salii_ (“Holy Leapers”). To them are
committed the twelve holy shields, the _Anciliæ_, one whereof is
affirmed to have fallen from heaven.
Calvus has an elderly cousin, Donatus, who lately was appointed by
Hadrian to the Salii. During the last Kalends of March nobody cracked
a smile when these twelve sedate and aristocratic gentlemen, wearing
their apex-crowned caps, long embroidered tunics, and brazen cuirasses,
with spear in one hand and the holy shields on the other, went through
the city stopping in many of the squares and before the larger temples
and executing violent dances, leaping, cavorting, and chanting with
loud voice “Salian Hymns”--verses in such ancient Latin that they
hardly understood their own shrill jargon. When the round of the city
was ended and they had danced and sung for the last time, the holy men
were quite exhausted.
The consolation for these holy men followed quickly, however. That
evening they held a grand corporation dinner. The augurs are famous
for their elaborate banquets worthy of an Apicius, but the Salii on
the whole surpass the augurs. A _Saliares daps_--“Holy Leaper’s
dinner”--has become the synonym for the triumph of good eating.
=358. The _Fetiales_ (“Sacred Heralds”): Ceremony of Declaring
War.=--Calvus himself belongs to a religious college of rather
waning consequence, but of great antiquity. He is a fetial.
Anciently at least no treaty was binding unless it had been ratified
with most solemn religious ceremonies. To deal with the gods in
international affairs Numa is said, therefore, to have established a
college of twenty _fetiales_--the holy heralds. Their president,
the _Pater Patratus_, represented the whole Roman people when it
came to swearing the oaths and offering the sacrifices for concluding
a treaty, and even in Hadrian’s day some of the ancient usages are
maintained. A peace has lately been made with the King of Parthia, and
in the presence of his envoy at Rome the venerable ex-consul, the Pater
Patratus, took his sacred flints, laid a special wreath of the holy
“verbena” plant on the altar, and kindled the fire for the sacrifice
that confirmed the peace.[226]
More important once was the chief herald’s duty in declaring a war;
for it seemed useless to hope for victory unless first by legalistic
formula the enemy was put in the wrong before the gods. The Pater
Patratus with at least three of his colleagues was expected to march
solemnly to the hostile frontier, next with due ceremony to recite the
wrongs of Rome and demand redress and to hurl a spear dipped in blood
across the boundary; then and not till then could the legions march
forth in any offensive war.
It is a great distance now, however, to the frontier of the Empire and
the white-headed Pater Patratus keenly dislikes to quit for months
his luxurious residence on the Quirinal; but legal ingenuity has long
since enabled him to preserve at once his bodily comfort and the good
old custom. Before the Temple of Bellona in the Campus Martius is a
bit of ground whereon stands a certain column. When recently it seemed
desirable to declare war on an unneighborly German tribe, a captive
from these barbarians was duly hunted up in the slave market at Rome,
and a legal deed was solemnly made out transferring this land to the
prisoner. The spot was now technically “hostile ground,” and the
Pater Patratus and his fellow fetials all ordered their litters and
were peacefully taken out to the Temple of Bellona. The Germans were
carefully summoned to “do the Romans right,” and no answer coming, the
head fetial with all the ancient formulas and curses flung the spear
into the column.
The war could now proceed with the gods’ full blessing--a thoroughly
Roman proceeding, and very typical of many other survivals, religious
or secular.
=359. The Arval Brethren (_Fratres Arvales_).=--There is another
“ancient and honorable” religious brotherhood--the _Fratres Arvales_.
There are twelve Arval brethren, always including the Emperor. In May
they hold a three-day festival to the _Dea Dia_.[227] Besides regaling
themselves then with an extraordinarily luxurious feast, they assemble
in the grove of the Dea Dia and offer to her two pigs, a white heifer,
and a lamb. Next they clear her temple of all but the necessary priests
and attendants, and dividing themselves into two bodies of six, tuck
up their long tunics and execute a solemn dance around the holy house,
singing meantime a kind of hymn for the blessing of the fields, a hymn
preserved in such an uncouth antique Latin that the meaning of many
words is doubtful.[228]
It is a most desirable thing to be one of these “Brothers of the
Fields.” The records of the college are kept with the greatest care and
their dinners compete with those of the Salii.
These are _some_ only of the holy colleges, membership wherein
carries marked social prestige. The fifteen “Keepers of the Sibylline
Books,” the _Epulones_ who arrange many of the banquets in honor of
the gods, and the _Haruspices_ who assist the augurs particularly in
interpreting the omens from the entrails of slaughtered victims, are
all distinguished personages. How many of them have one scintilla of
belief in the deities they address and the rites they execute it were
most unbecoming to inquire closely!
=360. Rustic Ceremonies; Soothsaying, Astrologers, and Witches.=--This
religion, then, is one purely of outward ritual coupled with not a
little superstition. In the country the farmers at the festival to the
Lemures (malevolent ghosts of the dead) still may rise at midnight,
walk barefoot through the house, fill their mouths with black beans
which they spit forth nine times without looking around, saying each
time, “With these beans I redeem me and mine.” Then they clank two
brazen vessels together and nine times shout out, “Manes depart!” This
is a sample of many similar ceremonies.
Soothsayers, who are often sheer charlatans, are very naturally in
constant demand among the unlearned to resolve such queries as, “Will
my mother-in-law recover from jaundice?” or “How long will my husband
live and keep me from my lover?” Such rascals usually tell the future
by examining the lungs of a dove. The entrails of a dog, however, are
better although much more expensive.
Among the rich, however, “Chaldæan astrologers” are somewhat
fashionable, slippery Orientals who know how to wheedle the gold out
of credulous parvenus, even if the official religion sets no great
store upon star-gazing.[229] The women are inevitably the best patrons
of these pretenders, but their husbands and brothers often refuse to
start on a journey or to begin anything else important until assured
“the horoscope is favorable.” Time fails us to tell of the employment
of Etruscan witches, or of the belief in ghosts and goblins. The latter
are dreaded by many hard-headed epicureans who will argue convincingly
that there can be no such thing as a god or immortality.
[Illustration: ROMAN ALTAR.]
=361. A Private Sacrifice.=--Nevertheless, with all its faults this
Roman religion has few truly _debasing_ superstitions. There are
practically no human sacrifices, no constant and outrageous use of
sordid ceremonies, no acts or beliefs which actually degrade one’s
manhood or womanhood.[230] All is deliberate, ordered, and, within
certain pagan limitations, tolerably reasonable.
A typical Roman sacrifice is a dignified and well standardized
procedure. Only recently Publius Calvus enjoyed a birthday, and custom
required that all his kinsmen should come to congratulate him while he
offered to the gods a snow-white lamb, in gratitude for another year
of life and prosperity. The ceremony took place at a small temple of
Juno near the senator’s mansion on the Esquiline, Juno being accounted
the special patron deity of the Junii Calvi. The victim was carefully
selected by Calvus himself, who paid an extra price for a creature
newly weaned and with horns just sprouting. Ostentatious freedmen
sometimes offered a fat bull on their birthdays, and poorer folk
merely a small pig,[231] but a white lamb was a very fitting private
sacrifice, not too mean, not too pretentious, and fell in perfectly
with the Roman idea of dealing with the gods on honorable business
principles.
=362. Ceremony at the Temple.=--On the day of the ceremony Calvus
presented himself at the temple, with his toga girded tightly around
his body in the special “Gabinian Cincture” required in sacrifices. The
groups of kinsmen, friends, freedmen, etc., all followed decorously.
The special Flamen of Juno, a friendly senator, appeared with his
vestments and apex, to direct Calvus in the technical details of the
ceremony, but, be it noticed, the actual priest was Calvus himself.
After all the company had gathered near the altar and put on chaplets
of ivy, a public crier (_præco_) commanded in loud voice, “Let there
be silence!” and a tense interval followed, every person holding
his breath lest an unlucky cough or sneeze should vitiate the whole
proceeding. Nothing ill-omened following, the elder of Calvus’s small
sons acting as camillus (acolyte) extended to his father a silver basin
of purifying water wherein the latter carefully washed his hands, dried
them upon a towel borne by his younger boy, then drew the great folds
of his toga over his head, almost but not quite concealing his face.
[Illustration: A MILITARY SACRIFICE; TRAJAN’S ARMY ON THE
DANUBE: from Trajan’s Column.]
At this juncture a flute player standing near promptly struck up
with a piercing blast, which he continued much of the time until the
ceremony was nearly over, not to supply music but simply to prevent any
ill-omened sound from being heard. Thereupon other youths led up the
lamb. Its little horns had been gilded and a heavy garland of flowers
twined about its neck. It was needful for the creature to _seem_
to approach willingly, therefore the halter had to be quite slack, but
a little fodder spread under the altar made the brute only too ready
for its fate.
Calvus approached the victim, and with the flamen at his elbow to
dictate every detail, took wine, incense, and a mixture of meal
and salt, and sprinkled a trifle of each upon the hungry creature’s
forehead. A professional attendant cut a few hairs from between the
horns and cast them on the burning altar. Then again prompted by the
flamen, Calvus prayed aloud:
=363. A Formal Prayer; the Actual Sacrifice.=--“O Mother Juno, I
pray and beseech thee that thou mayest be gracious and favorable to me
and my home and my household, for which course I have ordained that
the offering of this lamb should be made in accordance with my vows;
that thou mayest avert, ward off, and keep afar all disease visible
and invisible, all barrenness, waste, misfortune and ill-weather;
that thou mayest cause my family, affairs, and business to come to
prosperity; and that thou grant health and strength to me, my home and
my household!”[232]
[Illustration: ROMAN ALTAR WITH DESIGN SHOWING A
SACRIFICE.]
It was all very like the formulas used by the lawyers before the
Prætor. No waste of fine words, but very comprehensive and no
contingency unprovided for.
When Calvus finished, the temple attendant (_popa_) standing near
by asked in set form, “Shall I strike?” “Strike him!” ordered Calvus.
Instantly the attendant smote the lamb a single merciful blow on the
skull with a heavy mallet. The creature dropped dead, and his slayer
immediately knelt and stabbed him with a knife. As the blood ran out,
it was caught in a basin and sprinkled upon the altar, along with some
wine, incense, and a consecrated cake.
The lamb was now promptly cut up, and a crafty-looking haruspex
inspected the color and form of the still palpitating entrails. If
these had been declared “unfavorable” in form, color, or otherwise, a
second lamb must have been procured and the whole ceremony perforce
repeated until the results were fortunate, but the haruspex, certain of
his fee, after a decent studying of the gall, intestines, and liver,
lifted his head and said solemnly, “_Exta bona!_” “The entrails are
good!” Thereupon the flamen, hitherto passive or muttering formulas,
stepped forward, threw wine, meal, and incense upon the entrails; then
cast the whole mass of them upon the brightly kindled altar-fire.
Meantime the actual flesh of the lamb was being gathered up by Calvus’s
servants to take home for private consumption.
Calvus himself now drew the toga up over his head the second time,
and then called on Juno with loud voice, “since thou hast accepted
this lamb, duly proffered,” to continue her favor on him and his house
during the coming year, “in which case I vow unto thee another lamb,
white and without blemish even as is this.” He was again, it would
seem, the lawyer reminding the other party to the contract that by the
acceptance of the payment proffered, he or she was strictly obligated
to continue friendly for the next twelve months.
The ceremony was therewith ended. The flamen raised his hand and spoke
the solemn word of dismissal, “_Ilicet_,” “It is permitted to go.”
Sacrificer, flamen, spectators, and attendants all now hurried away
with shout and laughter to Calvus’s residence, there to join in a fine
feast wherein everybody received a portion of the slaughtered lamb.
=364. The Vestal Virgins: Their Sanctity and Importance.=--Great
are the pontiffs, the augurs, the flamens, and the members of the
other sacred colleges. But they are all too pragmatic and secular to be
taken quite seriously when they demand religious veneration. There is
one Roman college, however, which is beyond words holy, at whose claims
the most godless never scoff, and whose members will keep alive the
best traditions of the religion of Numa until old Rome is tottering to
its fall--the Sisterhood of the Vestal Virgins.
[Illustration: VESTAL VIRGIN.]
Numa himself, hoary tradition affirms, instituted this body of six
holy maidens, although no doubt similar companies could have been
discovered in many other primitive Italian communities. Their origin
is clear enough. To early man, fire was a thing very mysterious and
very necessary. Before the discovery of flint and steel it was no
trifling matter to kindle a new blaze by rubbing together a hard stick
and a soft; every village, therefore, maintained a central hearth
(_focus_) where some brands were ever smoldering and whither a boy
could be sent running for a spark to replenish the kitchen fires.
But beyond all other peoples the old Latins made of this homely need
a sacrosanct institution and a ritual. The Temple of the Fire Goddess
was perhaps at first only the hearth of the king, and her priestesses
were the king’s own daughters. Then the king disappeared: the Pontifex
Maximus took his place; and quite naturally just as the high pontiff’s
official residence, the Regia, stood on the verge of the Forum, the
Shrine of Vesta and the home of her maiden ministers stood close beside
it.
All across the ages this fire of Vesta has burned, tended with
inconceivable care; and for this humble shrine of Vesta and the six
Vestal Virgins all Romans from Emperor to lowest plebeian still retain
more genuine reverence than for anything else in the world, not
excluding the gilded Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus crowning the
Capitol and its pompous Flamen Dialis.
=365. The Temple of Vesta and the House of the Vestals.=--The Temple
of Vesta, directly on the verge of the roaring Forum and under the
shadow of the Imperial Palatine, is an ostentatiously small, simple
building, with a circular portico of pillars and surmounted with a low
cupola covered with sheets of metal. Often repaired, great pains have
been taken (so Ovid tells us) to preserve the original “style of Numa.”
Directly behind it, as you go east from the Forum, is the _Atrium
Vestæ_, the House of the Vestals, noticed when we traversed the Heart
of Rome.
Very simple externally, once inside those privileged to enter the House
discover not merely a fine comfortable dwelling, suitable for ladies of
rank and their numerous female attendants, but a very beautiful garden
some 200 feet long by 65 wide. There are spreading trees, winding
paths, marble seats, fountains and even a tiny grove--all within easy
stone’s throw of the very center of the metropolis.
The need for this garden, however, is obvious. The Vestals are women
of the very highest rank, yet they cannot leave Rome in the hot
season when nearly all other noble ladies flee to their cool villas.
The garden is their breathing spot and their recompense. Around the
garden runs a line of statues of the _Maximæ_ (Senior Vestals),
an imposing array of dignified elderly women of the grave Roman type.
Here too in the Atrium Vestæ, in a little room, is a small hand-mill
where the sacred virgins themselves can be seen each day laboriously
grinding the consecrated meal required in the cult of the Hearth
Goddess.
Within this house also the six Sisters spend their lives in a routine
of holy duties, and although the building is not an officially
consecrated “temple” it is really the most revered and sacrosanct spot
in Rome. In the Atrium Vestæ, therefore, are deposited the wills and
other precious documents of half the nobility, and the gods pity the
wretch who may do the place violence,--his fate at human hands will be
awful!
=366. Appointment of Vestals.=--This little sisterhood is divided
always into three categories--the novices, the active members, the
senior Vestals, of two members each. When there is a vacancy the
Pontifex Maximus makes choice among the girls of between six and ten
years in the patrician families,[233] who have both of their parents
living and happily married. A girl has to be physically perfect and
intellectually acute, certain, in short, to do honor to the greatest
position open to women in Rome.
The present Maxima is Salvia, a distant kinswoman of the late Emperor
Nerva. She was appointed many years ago in the reign of Titus. There
was such competition for the vacancy then that several noble families
offered their daughters, but Salvia was chosen because her parents were
on the best of terms, whereas her nearest rival’s father and mother
were known to have quarreled. The high pontiff (Titus) solemnly took
her by the hand repeating the ritualistic words, “I take you to be
‘Amata,’ that as Vestal Virgin you may perform the sacred rites lawful
for vestal virgins.” The title of _Amata_ was simply honorary. It
implied the gentle and loving character of the service of Vesta.
Salvia was immediately led over to the house of Vesta, her hair was cut
off, and hung upon the sacred lotus-tree in the garden; she was clothed
in long white garments with a special white band around her head, the
holy _infula_; and next she took oath to abide in her office and
to maintain her virginity not less than thirty years. She was now a
lawful vestal, withdrawn from the power of her father, and subject only
to the jurisdiction of the Pontifex Maximus.
=367. Duties of the Vestals: the Maxima.=--The six vestals enjoy
no sinecure. From the fountain of Egeria by the Cœlian Hill they must
bear all the water required for kneading their sacred cakes.[234] Daily
they must carefully cleanse the actual Temple in front of their mansion
with a mop, and deck it around with laurel. There are various great
festivals in which they have to play an important part, especially in
the very important Vestalia held June 9th, when all Rome unites to
honor the beloved Hearth Mother; and on June 15th when there is the
official cleansing of the Temple, and all the refuse of the year is
collected and removed with scrupulous ceremonies just as a good farmer
should cleanse his barns before the harvest.
The chief duty is, however, the simple and gracious task of tending
the sacred fire. For the first ten years of her sisterhood Salvia was
learning her responsibilities in this all-important particular; for the
next ten, she, or her associated second-class Vestal, had the actual
watch-care of the holy flame on the maintenance whereof seemed to rest
the prosperity of Rome; after that as one of the two senior Vestals she
could turn over to her juniors the active duties, confining herself to
the general oversight of the sisterhood. When the older senior Vestal
died she herself became Maxima--the most important woman in Rome,
enjoying a reverence and a certainty of tenure by no means shared by
every Empress.
=368. Punishments of Erring Vestals.=--To allow the sacred fire to
go out, by some fearful mischance, is an almost unheard-of calamity.
The ancient books ordain that the responsible Vestal on duty shall
first be stripped and scourged by the Pontifex Maximus, administering
his blows in the dark, then two pieces of wood must be taken from a
“lucky tree” and he must laboriously rekindle the fire with elaborate
ceremonies. After that other prolonged rites are needful to save the
state from the results of such a fearful “prodigy.”
Such lapses in the service of Vesta almost never occur. Slightly more
frequent have been charges of breaking the vow of chastity. In the few
recorded cases the guilty sister after trial before the college of
pontiffs has been buried alive with a kind of funeral ceremony in the
“Accursed Field” (_Campus Sceleratus_) just within the Colline
Gate. It is “bad luck” actually to put to death a consecrated Vestal,
but a deep pit is dug and in it are placed a couch, a lamp, and a
table bearing a little food. Then the guilty woman is lowered into the
pit and earth heaped upon it. She has simply been dismissed from the
presence of men:--what occurs out of all human sight is strictly the
affair of gods! Meantime her paramour has been publicly scourged to
death in the Forum with every form of ignominy.
The vow of virginity, nevertheless, is not perpetual. After thirty
years in the service, at an age still far below old womanhood, a Vestal
can quit the Atrium, and marry; but Salvia and her sisters seldom dream
of such a thing. Public opinion, though not the law, frowns upon the
act, and it means resigning a position of incomparable importance,
honor, and dignity.
=369. Remarkable Honors Granted the Vestals.=--If Salvia, for twenty
years at least, has thus taken her duties very seriously, she has
her great compensation. The Vestal Sisterhood is rich with a great
corporate income. The members alone of all Romans give their testimony
in court without the least oath. They have the seats of honor at all
public games and festivals. A lictor precedes each of them everywhere,
securing for his mistress the same public honors granted a magistrate,
and a magistrate’s lictors lower their fasces in respectful homage when
in a Vestal’s superior presence.
The slightest molestation of these priestesses’ persons is of course
punished capitally. They have the right to intercede even with the
Emperor in matter of pardons, and they nominate to sundry public
offices--_e.g._ the librarianship of the Imperial library, and
certain military tribuneships. Finally if they chance accidentally
to meet a criminal bound for execution, upon their demand he must be
spared and released--not out of motives of mercy, but because it is a
bad omen for the State for any holy Vestal to meet a person formally
condemned to die.[235]
One crowning honor also Salvia can anticipate: even Emperors
must ordinarily be buried outside the consecrated city limits
(_pomerium_), but the law specifically admits Vestals not merely
to the glories of a public funeral, but to burial inside the Heart of
Rome itself. What wonder that Salvia is loath to quit a post of such
glory and power for the uncertain prospects of matrimony!
Despite all the ceremonies, irrational and vain though they may seem
to a later standpoint, the worship of Vesta, the goddess of the honest
home, and the corporate life of her six maiden ministers remain among
the fairest things of the Roman Empire. Matters cannot be hopelessly
bad, when thus, in the center of the great, luxurious, sensual Imperial
city, womanly purity and orderly virtue are preëminently honored.
CHAPTER XXI
THE FOREIGN CULTS: CYBELE, ISIS, MITHRAS. THE CHRISTIANS IN PAGAN EYES
=370. Saturnalia: the Exchange of Presents on New Year’s Day.=--Could
our visit to Rome be prolonged across the year we should dwell on such
so-called religious festivals as the Saturnalia which lasts seven
days, beginning the 17th of December, when the whole city abandons
itself to carnival mirth, when slaves for a brief and happy interval
put on the tall pileus, the liberty cap, are allowed to be very pert
to their masters, and indulge in all kinds of pranks and liberties;
and when people exchange with all their friends semi-comic gifts of
wax tapers and amusing little terra-cotta images, or other gifts of
real value such as napkins, writing tablets, and dishes of preserved
sweetmeats.[236]
More decorous is the ensuing holiday on the Kalends of January (New
Year’s Day) when ceremonious official calls are paid on every magnate
from the Emperor downward, and more gifts are exchanged, often of the
highest value.[237] In these festivities and distributions of presents
can perhaps be found the prototypes for the winter holidays of another
religion and later age.
=371. Multiplication of Oriental Cults.=--One dare not quit the
Rome of Hadrian, however, without a cursory inspection of something
extremely evident since we began our explorations on plebeian Mercury
Street--the foreign religions and their temples.
Very reluctantly did the grave fathers of the old Republic admit
Anatolian, Syrian, and Egyptian cults into their beloved city. Even
unlicensed Greek ceremonies were frowned upon and the disorderly
orgiastic rites of the Eastern gods for long were extremely repulsive
to the dignified builders of the Commonwealth. But as the Republic
declined the foreign cults thrust themselves in and with the coming of
the Empire all attempts to prohibit them practically disappeared. The
most the authorities can now do is to see that these strange private
worships are conducted with a certain degree of decency. Rome has never
countenanced the vile revelings of the groves of Syrian Astarte, much
less the horrid child-burnings of the Phœnician Moloch.
The votaries of these Eastern gods are not merely Orientals who
have drifted to Rome. The new religions have a great appeal to many
persons of good old Latin stock and especially to the women. The
reason for this is fairly obvious: the Roman official religion is a
legalistic religion devoid of the slightest spirituality. “Sin” except
in the sense of reckless contract breaking, “communion with God,”
“reconciliation with God,” “The Hereafter,” “Life Eternal,” and like
phrases are utterly unknown to pontiff, augur, or flamen.
For intelligent persons to whom neither the Stoic nor the Epicurean
guesses at the riddle of existence prove satisfying, who are torn in
conscience, bowed with bereavement, or crushed by disaster, there
must be some outlet better than that of scrupulously offering a black
pig to Mars. Atheism can never satisfy for long,--and the Oriental
religions, appealing at once to the love for the mysterious, and to the
passionate desire for some supernatural explanation of the problems
of humanity, as a result draw in their votaries by thousands. Some
of these worshipers are utterly ignorant and credulous. Others are
men and women of wealth and deep learning, who can turn the Syrian or
Egyptian jargon into elegant Platonic myths, and see, behind the coarse
Levantine ritual, spiritual allegories which would have astonished old
Memphis or Tyre.
=372. The Cult of the Deified Emperors.=--The Imperial Government
itself has added to this tendency to multiply cults--it created a new
and a very important one, that of the “Deified Emperors.” Augustus
Cæsar was far too shrewd and matter-of-fact an Italian to permit
himself to be worshiped as an actual deity within his native land;
but he did not discourage Orientals (accustomed to adore almost any
successful monarch as a “god”) from setting up altars to him, and he
took a great satisfaction in having his adoptive father Julius Cæsar
officially deified at Rome, and then in accepting for himself the
glories coming to the _son_ of the “Divine Julius.”
Furthermore, even a living Emperor has his _genius_--his special
guardian spirit, often to be half-confounded with his own personality.
The worship of Augustus’s genius was soon an important part of the
state religion. Oaths were taken by it; an insult to it became the
vilest blasphemy. If Augustus did not become a god in his lifetime, the
aura and effluence of divinity assuredly played all around him.
=373. The “Divine Augustus” and His Successors.=--The instant Augustus
died a solemn decree of the Senate forthwith made him “Divus Augustus,”
with temples, priests, and ritual--all the paraphernalia in short of a
prominent member of the Pantheon. Since then in the provincial towns
the priests of Augustus, _Augustales_, are ordinarily appointed from
among the rich freedmen--men of short lineage but of great economic
influence, who are delighted at the trappings and pompous honors
awarded this holy office, and who become, therefore, the ardent
supporters of the imperial régime.
Since 14 A.D. there have been still other gods thus enrolled by vote
of the Senate--notably the “Divine Claudius” (“dragged to heaven by a
hook,” people sarcastically remark, remembering Agrippina’s poisoned
mushrooms), and the equally “divine” Vespasian, Titus, Nerva, and
Trajan. Their temples and cults are among the most splendid and
prominent in Rome. In the basilicas and in the government houses
(_prætoria_) and magistrates’ halls all over the Empire stand the
arrays of statues of these Deified Augusti along with that of the
“genius” of the reigning Hadrian himself. Every litigant and every
witness must cast his pinch of incense into the brazier before them and
swear by their godhead.
Intelligent men, of course, understand that these Imperial “gods”
somehow differ in nature from Jupiter, but the homage offered to them
seems really an affirmation of loyalty to the great principles of law
and order which bind the vast Empire together. Every good Emperor
is entitled to expect this honor, after a worthy reign. “I think
I’m becoming a god!” muttered the pragmatic Vespasian while on his
death-bed. On the other hand the refusal of deification is a form of
branding a tyrant’s memory; and Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, and Domitian
receive no incense.[238]
The state thus teaches all its subjects how easily new deities can be
introduced--apparently by very human agencies. Of the host of Oriental
gods that have thrust themselves into Rome there are three or four
which have won peculiar prominence; notably the cults of Cybele, Isis
and Serapis, and Mithras. There is also the extremely despised sect of
the Christians.
=374. The Cult of Cybele, the “Great Mother.”=--The cult of Cybele
is the oldest and best recognized of this foreign group. Cybele is an
Asiatic goddess with her most famous temple at Pessinus in Galatia. In
the crisis of the Hannibalic War when public opinion was on edge, the
Romans fetched an image of this “Great Mother of Pessinus” to Rome and
set up a temple to her on the Palatine. The Roman matrons, henceforth,
honored her with the festival of the Megalesia.
[Illustration: ARCHI-GALLUS, PRIEST OF CYBELE.]
The worship of Cybele, the Great Mother, despite this naturalization,
retains something about it that is grossly orgiastic and un-Italian.
Everywhere over the city can be met groups of her priestesses, the
Corybantes, and especially of her smooth-cheeked, squeaky-voiced eunuch
priests, the _Galli_, executing their wild, noisy dances with drums,
cymbals, and trumpets, and leaping about in suits of armor which they
clash violently, while uttering screams alleged to be inspired.
In the country districts bands of these Galli are reported to drift
frequently from village to village, exciting the rustics by displays
of “mysteries” which are simply a gross hocus-pocus, and which often
wind up in scenes of sheer depravity. Nevertheless, the cult has great
attractions for the superstitious. The processions of these effeminate
figures with redolent locks, painted faces, and soft womanish bearing
are always able to wheedle the sesterces out of the crowd.
The coarse legends of the Great Mother are furthermore caught up by
the philosophers and given a refined, metaphysical meaning, and among
the priests at her temples about the city are enrolled many senators
and equites, and among the priestesses a good many more of these
noblemen’s wives. To be a chanter, drummer, or cymbal player at her
great spectacular “orgies” has a morbid fascination--all the more
because much of the cult of Cybele worship is so gross that words
may not describe it. The Great Mother is, therefore, one of the most
undesirable of all the gifts offered to Rome by the conquered East.
[Illustration: SHRINE OF CYBELE.]
=375. Cult of Isis and Associated Egyptian Gods.=--Worthier and more
popular with the better classes is the worship of Isis.
The Egyptian story of Isis and Osiris, of the temporary death of the
latter and the sufferings of the former, a story that connected itself
with the Greek myths about Demeter and Dionysus, and also those about
Adonis, had become very old a thousand years before the founding of
Rome. The cult was a late invader of Italy; not until the time of Sulla
did it figure even as an important private superstition, and on account
of the marked Oriental tendencies of the Isis worship the Senate for
long discouraged it; nevertheless the stately ritual and the appeal of
the mysterious made the cult extremely popular with the multitude.
In vain in 50 B.C. the consul Lucius Æmilius himself (his
superstitious lictors hesitating) struck the first blow with the ax
to demolish a prohibited Isis temple. Augustus had to content himself
merely with forbidding the erection of such buildings within the
official pomerium of Rome, but these could multiply in the suburbs, and
by the time of Vespasian practically all restraints disappeared.
Everybody now frequents the shrines of Isis, and many of the noblest
citizens and matrons are among her initiates. Her great temple in the
Campus Martius is among the stateliest in Rome and every morning before
its doors are arrayed a perfect host of votaries.
=376. Ceremonies at an Isis Temple.=--If we desire, it is easy
to witness a large part of the ritual, although the meaning of
the allegories is refused the unelect.[239] Before day-break the
shaven-skulled priests, clothed in trailing robes of snow-white linen,
enter the temple by a side entrance and throw back the great central
doors, although a long white curtain still hangs across the interior.
The multitude of the devout now stream into the temple. The curtains
whisk aside, and a statue of the goddess, a majestic female sculptured
somewhat in the Egyptian style, with her head crowned with a lotus
flower and in her right hand a holy rattle (_sistrum_), is exposed
to view. At her side stands her son Horus, a naked boy, holding his
forefinger in his mouth, a lotus flower also upon his head, and a horn
of plenty in his left hand.
The worshipers now stand or sit on the stones for a long time in silent
prayer and contemplation; while the new light of the rising sun streams
athwart the silent columns and draperies of the great temple. Presently
a priest appears bearing a golden vessel of holy water from the Nile,
and he pours it over a sacrifice of fruits and flowers upon the altar
standing before the images. The worshipers all prostrate themselves in
awe, then rise. The ceremony is over.
This is the ordinary side of the Isis worship but at times there
lack not violent dances; processions of all manner of harlequin
participants, men robed as soldiers, hunters, or gladiators, women
leaping in white gauzy garments, and shaven priests bearing holy
vessels--usually wrought with Egyptian hieroglyphics, and carrying
especially as center of all the tumult a sacred snake, lifting its
wrinkled and venomous head upon an ark of burnished gold.
The Isis worship appeals often to men of high intelligence who grow
weary and disgusted at the failure of secular philosophy to solve the
great problems of existence. An elaborate explanation exists for all
these symbols; one might even add a spiritual meaning. It is even
claimed that Isis is simply “Nature,” and that her cult is merely the
worthiest expression of “the One Sole Divinity whom the whole earth
venerates under a manifold form.”
To the initiates (into whose esoteric lore we cannot penetrate) is
promised in this world a very fortunate life and that then “having
accomplished the span of this existence, they shall descend to the
realms below, and even there, dwelling as they shall in the Elysian
fields, they shall frequently adore me--the goddess.”[240]
=377. Cult of Serapis and of Other Oriental Gods.=--The Isis
worship thus has its nobler side. Not unworthy too is that of her
Græco-Egyptian associate Serapis, the patron deity of Alexandria,
who has a considerable following in Rome, acclaiming him as “lord of
all the elements, dispenser of all good and master of human life.”
Unfortunately, however, along with these deities there goes a whole
swarm of lesser Oriental divinities who do nothing but provide fine
chances for the scoffers and the charlatans.
The priests of the dog-headed Nile-god Anubis are denounced by Juvenal
as a “linen-clad and cheating crew,” who levy on silly women, and who
will declare any infamy to be morally “pardoned” for the bribe of a fat
goose or some thick slices of cake. Korybus, Sabazius, the bull Apis,
and the Syrian Baal cannot pretend to be better. Many a decent Roman
beholding their worship will reëcho Plutarch’s recent words, “Better
not to believe in a god at all, than to cringe before a god who is
worse than the worst of men.” Nevertheless there is _one_ Oriental
cult now penetrating Rome which seems to lay stress on moral purity and
on noble living--the religion of Mithras.
=378. The Cult of Mithras: Its Relative Nobility.=--Mithras is
by origin the Sun God of the Zoroastrian Persians.[241] He is the
“fiend smiter”; the beneficent light which disperses mental as well as
material darkness. _Sol Invictus_--“The All-Conquering Sun”--his
votaries call him, but in statues and pictures he is commonly
represented as a handsome youth, wearing the Phrygian cap and mantle,
and kneeling upon a bull which has been thrown upon the ground, and
whose throat the god is cutting. In the Mithras pictures there often
appear also the mysterious figures of a dog, a serpent, and a scorpion,
all somehow connected with the ritual of the god.
This cultus first passed from the East to the hardy pirates of
Cilicia, whom Pompey the Great subdued in the last years of the old
Republic. Then gradually the Western world began to learn about the
Mithras “chapels,” about the seven grades of initiates, about solemn
purifications from sin, and about an esoteric teaching which laid great
stress on personal righteousness, condemned vicious pretenses and
claimed to reconcile man with god in a manner promising the former a
joyous and noble hereafter.
[Illustration: MITHRAS THE BULL-SLAYER.]
The Mithras cult is now making its way very rapidly, especially in the
imperial army. All up and down the great garrison towns and standing
camps along the frontiers “Mithras chapels” are being erected, small
chambers suitable for only a few dozen of initiates. The rites and
teachings are very secret, and it is impossible to penetrate them as we
can part of the worship of Isis.
Mithras worship furthermore makes no pretense of being a cult for
the masses--it is a blessing reserved strictly for the proved and
purified. All we know about it, however, convinces us that its ethics
are noble, that it repudiates all coarse sensuality, and that it
leaves its votaries genuinely better men and women, summoning them to
be coadjutors of the “Unconquerable Sun” in his glorious war against
spiritual darkness.
As yet the Mithras worship in the West is relatively young, but the
time will approach when great Emperors, Aurelian and Diocletian,
will proudly number themselves among its initiates, and in Mithraism
ancient paganism will make its last real proffer for the allegiance of
high-minded men.[242]
[Illustration: MITHRAIC EMBLEMS.]
=379. The _Taurobolium_= (“=Bath in Bull’s Blood=”).--Connected with
these Oriental cults, worthy and unworthy, there has come in a ceremony
utterly strange to the religion of Numa, which, nevertheless, is
gaining increasing vogue,--the _Taurobolium_. Originally it belonged
to the votaries of Cybele, but the Mithras worshipers have adopted it
likewise.
The rite is supposed to give one a peculiar cleansing from sin, and
being decidedly expensive appeals not a little to wealthy personages
who do not mind showing how their riches can put them on better terms
with heaven than is possible for the run of mortals. With increasing
frequency can be seen tombstones of magnates inscribed “Reborn to
Eternity through the Taurobolium,” and it is held by many that persons
submitting to this ordeal are assured of a happy immortality--at least,
if they should die within twenty years of the ceremony; after which it
can be repeated.
Old line Romans ordinarily have not as yet felt a great need for the
Taurobolium,[243] but one of Calvus’s acquaintances, the senator
Faventinus, has followed his initiation into Mithraism by celebrating
the rite. It is indeed something which only deep religious convictions
can induce persons of sensitive and luxurious tastes to undergo,
although the special priests who conduct the proceeding know how to
render it an impressive ceremony.
Faventinus appeared at the appointed place before a concourse of
Mithraic initiates, wearing a golden crown and with his toga tightly
girded about him; then he descended into a deep pit over which was
placed a platform of stout boards. With mystical words and songs
a consecrated bull was led upon the platform and there directly
slaughtered in a manner causing its blood to flow freely through the
chinks in the timbers upon the worshiper below. As the blood descended
Faventinus extended his arms and uplifted his face that as much might
cover him as possible.
When the initiate was taken out--his whole person and garments
blood-soaked--other mysterious liturgies were recited over him. He
was now a “Father” in the Mithraic order--of the highest class of
initiates, purged of all human dross, and entitled to close communion
with the deity. After all, the price of a fine bull and round fees to
the priests seem little enough to pay for such an exalted privilege.
=380. The Christians: Pagan Account of Their Origin.=--There is still
another cult in Rome, although cultivated men and women no less than
the run of plebeians speak of it with utter aversion. Since the
reign of Claudius there has existed a sect of degraded creatures, at
first Jews[244] and Levantines, but later comprising also Greeks and
Italians, known as _Christians_.
Excluding the vulgar tattle of the mob, as good an authority as Tacitus
writes thus: “Christus from whom the name of the sect is derived was
put to death in the reign of Tiberius, by the procurator Pontius
Pilatus. The deadly superstition having been checked for a while, began
to break out again not only throughout Judea, where this mischief first
arose but also at Rome, where from all sides all things scandalous and
shameful meet and become fashionable.”[245]
By Nero’s time the Christians were in such disfavor with the populace,
being “misanthropes” and “enemies of the human race,” as well as
blasphemers of the gods, that the evil Emperor tried to make them
scapegoats for the burning of Rome--although the pretense was too
thin. People said the Christians were wicked enough, but that they were
not guilty at least of _that_!
=381. The Persecution of Christians: Their “Insane
Obstinacy.”=--Nowhere, in those respectable quarters in which our
visit has moved, can we get any detailed information as to what these
Christians really do and believe. Very few important persons have so
far adhered to them, although there is a story that Flavius Clemens,
a consul and a kinsman of Domitian (who put him to death along with
so many other nobles), was actually caught by their supposedly crazy
doctrines.
The sect has been declared unlawful ever since Nero’s day, and from
time to time its members have been arrested and their conventicles
(usually held in half-concealed burial places or in sand pits in the
suburbs) have been broken up. The magistrates, however, are slack; the
vigiles are busy chasing down ordinary thieves and murderers; and the
Christians most of the time are left alone. Hadrian, in fact, with
his general tolerance, is said somewhat to have discouraged active
persecution. The Christians, nevertheless, are still under the ban of
the law; and being mostly slaves, freedmen, and resident foreigners,
get very short shrift if actually brought before the Præfect.
It is extremely easy to convict them: there is no need of elaborate
testimony, you merely summon the defendants to burn incense to the
image of the Genius of the Emperor and to curse the name of Christus.
No Christian will ever do this. The trials therefore are usually very
brief, and soon after they occur the crowd at the Flavian is ordinarily
gratified by the sight of one of the Christians’ “overseers” (bishops)
or “assistants” (deacons) instead of an ordinary bandit, awaiting the
spring of the lion.
These sectaries are said to be very bold, professing not to fear death
which will only give them a surer and a better immortality than that
secured by the Taurobolium. Beyond a doubt (any cultivated man will
tell us) such defiant persons ought to be executed, if merely for their
“insane obstinacy,” although the edicts are only enforced spasmodically
and the Christians are often allowed several years of peace.[246]
=382. Current Charges against the Christians.=--If popular gossip,
however, means anything, these people should deserve the worst possible
fate. At their nocturnal gatherings, where men and women assemble,
it is alleged, for a wild orgy, the central rite is said to consist
of killing a babe and drinking its blood, while celebrants pledge
themselves to commit every kind of wickedness. Finally they tie a dog
to the lamp standards and incite the brute to upset the lights; then in
the ensuing darkness follow deeds of violence indescribable.
It is also rumored that their Christus (who, of course, died the basest
of possible deaths on the cross) actually had the head of an ass. You
can see crude wall drawings deriding his votaries, as for example, one
showing a youth kneeling before an ass-headed figure on a cross, with
the scribbled legend, “Alexander is adoring _his_ god.”[247]
How far are these gross charges true? Such aristocrats as Calvus
merely shrug their shoulders; they are not interested. However,
about 112 A.D. Pliny the Younger, while governor of Bithynia, being
compelled to enforce the Anti-Christian laws, seized two Christian
women known as “deaconesses” and put them to torture in order to find
out what _really_ happened at their gatherings. He reported that he
had discovered that nothing criminal went on but only “a perverse and
excessive superstition.” Probably, senatorial circles will assure us,
there is not much to be dreaded from such a movement which cannot
possibly appeal to educated men well grounded in philosophy. Of
course, Mithraism is very much more respectable, and according to all
fashionable judgment has a far greater future before it!
CHAPTER XXII
A ROMAN VILLA. THE LOVE OF THE COUNTRY
=383. Appreciation of Country Life by the Romans.=--No study of
Rome can be complete without recognition of one cardinal fact--the
intense desire of all Romans to get away from their turbulent city
for a large part of the year. The wealthier the citizen the longer is
likely to be his absence, although no doubt many a senator or eques
growing weary of his luxurious retreat begins to sigh again for the
Curia or the counting room long ere the formal “season” has ended.
During the parching summer months the city is really deserted by a
great part of its inhabitants. Only the most needful business goes on;
the public games are attended merely by the humblest type of plebeians;
the rhetoric schools cease their floods of oratory; the great baths
really seem empty; and the Forum crowd becomes thinned and spiritless.
Every person blessed with a moderate income and leisure has sought the
seashore or the mountains.
=384. Praises of the Country Towns and Villas.=--Never in after
ages will the blessings of country as against city life be better
appreciated than under the Roman Empire. The congestion, the noise, the
hurly-burly of the world metropolis probably exceeds that of any future
competitor.
The poets all sing the praises of existence amid rural charms. Martial
for example waxes enthusiastic over the chance to “get away” from the
porticoes of cold, variegated marbles and from the need of running on
morning greetings, so that he can empty his hunting nets before his own
fire, lift the quivering fish from the line and draw the yellow honey
from the “red-stained cask,” while his plump stewardess cooks his own
eggs for him. Juvenal extols the cheapness and satisfaction of living
in the country towns where for the rent of a dark garret in Rome you
can afford to buy a small house with a neat little garden and a shallow
well whence you can draw the water for your own plants. Wealthier folk
share the same passion, and Pliny the Younger writes that he longs for
the pleasures of his villas “as ardently as an invalid longs for wine,
the baths, and the fountains.”
[Illustration: TRAVELING CARRIAGE (_Reda_).]
The sentiment, indeed, is so common that no further instances need
be cited, save that of Similis, Trajan’s veteran prætorian præfect,
who, having retired under Hadrian, has just died after seven years of
honorable self-banishment in a quiet country retreat. On his tombstone
he has ordered to be graven: “_Here lies Similis, an old man, who has
LIVED just seven years._”
=385. Comfortable Modes of Travel: Luxurious Litters and
Carriages.=--So then at least by the time of the “tyrannous reign of
the Dog Star or the Lion” (mid-summer and September) all the roads
leading from Rome are covered with the great cortèges, if indeed, the
magnates have not quitted the city much earlier.
[Illustration: ROMAN BRIDGE: typical of thousands
which covered the Empire.]
This is no place to speak of the admirable Roman road system which
spreads as a vast network all over the Empire, and which is, of course,
at its best in Italy. Travel for the rich in Hadrian’s day is extremely
luxurious if not correspondingly rapid. If you are in no hurry, you can
ride in a comfortable litter borne by six or eight even-paced bearers
and so outfitted that you can read, write, sleep, and even play at
dice, while your retinue is winding its slow way over the Campagna, or
up into the mountains. If you are in greater haste, there are speedy
if somewhat less steady gigs and other open carriages which energetic
people drive themselves, although great folk, of course, demand plenty
of postilions and “well-girt running footmen.” In any case the journey
from Rome is a matter of great display for anybody with claims to
fortune. Fifty slaves and twenty baggage wagons are hardly enough to
become a senator; and four times as many of each is not an excessive
retinue.
However, less distinguished people can drive about in their own light,
open two-wheeled carriages (_cisia_), or can hire them at the posting
stations just outside the gates, and time would fail to tell of all
the kinds of _carpenta_ (two-wheeled covered vehicles) or _redæ_
(four-wheeled traveling carriages) which one can meet on the Via Appia
or the Via Latina.
Since Rome is a city without railroads and without first-class shipping
facilities, necessity has developed this carriage service to a fine
point. Some people indeed still bestride mules, like that of Horace,
“short of tail and heavy of gait,” and government carriers ride
horseback--but the wheeled vehicles are excellent. It will be a long
time before they can be surpassed in comfort.[248]
=386. Multiplication of Villas: Seashore Estates at Baiæ,
etc.=--Distant journeys we cannot consider, nor the service of imperial
and private messengers to the provinces. Our concern is with the fact
that over the whole of west-central Italy, well up into the Apennines,
and all along the Etruscan, Latin, and Campanian coasts one luxurious
estate follows upon another.
Many of these vast establishments indeed combine profit with pleasure.
Landed property is the most genteel form of wealth and close beside
the sumptuous _villa urbana_ which imitates the glories of the city
mansion, there often spreads the humbler and more utilitarian _villa
rustica_ which houses the great gangs of slaves or hireling laborers
who keep the broad acres under cultivation.
One cannot turn aside to examine Italian agriculture, but the residence
villas are so essential to every Roman of breeding and property that
to ignore them is impossible. Persons of means seem always purchasing
more villa property, indeed there are not a few magnates who can take a
long journey up and down Italy, spending each night upon one of their
own estates. If Publius Calvus contents himself with only _four_
country residences, he shows that he is poorer and less pretentious
than many fellow senators of prætorian rank.
Inevitably certain places are preferred beyond others. Upon the Bay
of Naples people of leisure, who do not mind a hundred and fifty
mile journey from Rome, find a famous and delightful center at Baiæ;
and indeed in the entire region of this bay, recovering now from
the ravages of the outbreak of Mt. Vesuvius. Outward along the more
southerly Bay of Pæstum [Bay of Salerno] the shore is lined with one
lofty marble-crowned villa after another, often erected upon elaborate
jetties thrusting far out into the sapphire sea.
There is, however, a whole series of handsome seaboard villas all the
way southward from Ostia--and Antium, Circei, Tarracina (where the
Via Appia strikes the coastline), and Formiæ are only a few of those
luxurious colonies to which the wealth and fashion of Rome scatter
during several months of the year. Many is the senator, eques, or great
freedman who can boast also of his magnificent yacht, painted in gay
colors, with purple sails, purple awnings on the poop, with rigging
entwined on gala days with leaves and flowers, and with liveried rowers
who are trained to swing together like automata.
=387. Villas in the Mountains; Small Farms near Rome.=--A great
many Romans, however, disperse towards the hills; indeed there are
many rich persons whose business will not permit them to go many miles
from the city, and others who keep a suburban villa for casual visits
from the town, reserving the seashore or the Apennines for the months
when the law courts are closed and the Senate forgets to assemble.
Calvus, we have seen, possesses a remote estate in the North by one of
the Italian lakes which he can visit only on set occasions, another
at Bauli close to Baiæ, also somewhat rarely visited, a third in the
Etruscan hills which is his regular retreat in hot weather, and a
fourth, a simpler affair, located a few miles up the Anio toward Tibur.
This last near Rome, so the senator likes to boast, is of real Spartan
simplicity. He affects to take great pleasure there in his hennery
maintained so near to the metropolis, the great flocks of geese,
Numidian (guinea) fowl, and Rhodian cocks and hens and the fields of
vegetables very grateful when sent down by the _villicus_ (farm
steward) to the city mansion. One suspects, however, that there is
greater satisfaction taken in the hot houses where, under the expensive
but well-known luxury of glass, rare fruits are ripened in cold
weather, and whence roses, violets, narcissus, hyacinths, and lilies
are dispatched to Rome for the _clarissimus’s_ banquets.
[Illustration: ROMAN SPADES.]
This establishment near the capital is, in fact, hardly the kind of
retreat Calvus likes best, although a good many literary gentlemen,
like Suetonius the biographer of the Cæsars, retire to modest suburban
estates “large enough to engage their minds but not large enough to
give them worry.” In such retreats they can pursue their learned
labors, “get rid of their headaches and walk lazily around their
boundary paths,” and yet keep in touch with their city friends.
=388. Great Estates in the Hills: Pliny’s Tuscan Villa.=--It is the
great villa in the hills which is the normal retreat and joy of Calvus,
his noble Gratia, and their equally noble children. Such places, be it
noticed, the true Roman does not care to locate very near to grandiose
mountain scenery. He is not fond of overpowering sublime views; what
he prefers is a gentle aspect over smiling plains, lush meadows, and
fertile corn-fields.
Lucretius rejoiced in the happy intervals when he could “recline by a
brook of running water beneath the leafage of a lofty tree,” and Virgil
desired “that he might always love tilled fields and streams that flow
among the valleys.” Hadrian is somewhat exceptional, among other ways,
in that he enjoys toiling up high mountains like Ætna for the sake of
the magnificent view. The average senator desires to ascend no further
than he can comfortably drive in his cisium, or be swung along in his
litter.
[Illustration: RUINS OF HADRIAN’S VILLA AT TIVOLI
(_Tibur_): partial view.]
The Tuscan villa of Calvus is easily visited. It constitutes, in fact,
an estate which the senator purchased some years ago from the heirs
of the younger Pliny. Few changes beyond needful repairs have been
made since its completion, and no words of ours can surpass those of
its former owner in explaining why life seems very pleasant to those
whom Jupiter or Destiny have made rich and fortunate in the imperial
age.[249]
[Illustration: RUINS OF HADRIAN’S VILLA AT TIVOLI
(_Tibur_): partial view.]
=389. Charming Location of Pliny’s Villa.=--“This property (wrote
Pliny) lies just under the Apennines, which are the healthiest of
our mountain ranges. In winter the air is cold and frosty; myrtles,
olives, and all other trees which require a constant warmth the climate
spurns, although the laurel usually prospers. But in summer the heat
is marvelously tempered; there is always a breath of air stirring,
and mild breezes are more common than high winds. The contour of the
district is most beautiful.
“Picture an immense amphitheater, wrought by Nature, with a
wide-spreading plain ringed with hills and the summits thereof covered
with the tall and ancient forests. Here there is plenty of hunting,
while down the mountain slopes there are stretches of underwoods, and
among these are rich deep-soiled hillocks which bear excellent crops.
Below these hillocks in turn, along the whole hillsides, stretch the
vineyards which present an unbroken line far and wide, bordered with
a fringe of trees. Then you can come down to the meadows and fields
where the soil is so thick that only the most powerful oxen can tug the
plows; but the meadows are jeweled with flowers, and produce trefoil,
and other herbs, always tender and soft.
[Illustration: VILLA OF PLINY THE YOUNGER: restored.]
“Through the middle of this plain flows the Tiber. Here it is navigable
for boats which carry down grain to the city in winter and spring,
although in summer the channel is only a dried-up bed. Gazing over the
district from the heights you think you are not looking so much upon
earth and fields but at a landscape picture of wonderful loveliness.
“My villa, though, lies at the foot of the hill enjoying as fine a
prospect as though it stood on the summit, the ascent is so gentle,
easy and unnoticeable. Behind lie the Apennines, but at a considerable
distance, yet even on a cloudless day the spot gets a gentle breeze
duly tempered from the hills.”
=390. Terraces of the Villa: the Porticoes: Summer-Houses and
Bedrooms.=--“Most of the house faces southward inviting the sun as
it were into the portico which is broad and long to correspond, and
contains a number of apartments and an old-fashioned hall. In front
there is a terrace bounded with an edging of box, then comes a sloping
ridge of turf with figures of animals on both sides cut out of the box
trees, while on the level ground stands an acanthus tree, with leaves
so soft that I might almost call them liquid. Around about there is a
walk bordered by evergreens pressed and trimmed into various shapes;
then comes an exercise ground, round like a circus, which surrounds
the box trees which are cut into different forms, and the dwarf shrubs
that are kept well clipped.[250] Beyond these there stretches a meadow
delightful for its natural charm as the things just described are for
their artificial beauty.
“At the head of the portico juts out the triclinium from the doors
whereof can be seen this terrace, meadow, and the expanse of country
beyond. Almost opposite the middle of the portico is a summer-house
with a small open space in the middle shaded by four plane trees.
Among them stands a marble fountain, from which the water plays upon
and sprinkles slightly the roots of the plane trees and the grass plot
around the four.
“In this pavilion there is located a bed chamber which excludes all
light, noise and sound, and adjoining it is another dining room
especially for my friends, which commands also a delightful view.
There is still another bed chamber, however, which is embowered and
shaded by the nearest plane tree and built of marble up to the balcony;
above [in the ceiling] is a picture of a tree with birds perched in
the branches, equally as beautiful as the marble. Here, too, there is
a small fountain with a basin around the latter, and into it the water
flows from a number of little pipes which produce a most agreeable
liquid sound.
[Illustration: ROMAN GARDEN SCENE.]
“In the corner of the portico there is yet a third bed chamber leading
out of the dining-room, some of its windows looking forth upon the
terrace, others upon the meadow, while the windows in front face the
fish-pond which lies just beneath them: right pleasant it is both to
eye and to ear, as the water falls from a considerable height and
glistens like snow as it is caught in the marble basin. This bed room
is agreeably warm even in winter, for it is flooded with an abundance
of sunshine.”
=391. The Baths: the Rear Apartments: the Riding Course.=--“To the
last named room adjoins the calidarium of the baths, and on a cloudy
day we can turn in the steam heat to take the place of the warm sun.
Next comes an ample and cheerful undressing room for the bath, from
which you pass into the cool frigidarium containing a large and shady
swimming pool. Adjoining this cold bath is the mild tepidarium, for
the sun shines upon it lavishly, although not so much as upon the hot
bath which is built further out. Above the adjacent dressing room is
a ball court where various kinds of exercise can be taken and several
games can go on at once; and close to this are more bed-chambers all
commanding enchanting views over the gardens, meadows, vineyards and
mountains.
[Illustration: MARBLE URN OR GARDEN ORNAMENT.]
“Such is the front part of the villa. In the rear and to the sides are
still other dining rooms and bedrooms; especially there are certain
that are so far underground as to be perfectly cool even in the hottest
weather. There is also an elaborate set of quarters for the servants.
“However, the most delightful part of the entire establishment is
perhaps the riding course. Around its borders are plane trees covered
with ivy, which creeps along the trunks and branches and spreading
across to the neighboring trees joins the whole line together. Between
the plane trees are set box-shrubs, and on the further side of the
shrubs is a ring of laurels which mingle their shade with that of the
plane.
“At the farther end, the straight boundary of the riding course is
curved into a semi-circular form which quite changes its appearance.
It is inclosed with cypress-trees, casting in places a dark and gloomy
shade, though spots are left quite open to the sunshine; in these last
bloom roses, and the warmth of the sun gives a delightful change from
the cool of the shadows. All around these avenues run paths lined with
other box-shrubs; and here and there are more of the box trimmed into a
great variety of patterns, some being cut into letters forming my name,
as being the owner, or that of the gardener.”
=392. The Fountains and Luxurious Pavilions in the Gardens.=--“At
the upper end of this hippodrome is a couch of white marble covered
with a vine. Jets of water gush from under the couch through small
pipes, and look as if they were forced out by the weight of the
persons reclining on the pillows, while the water rushes down into a
graceful marble basin with an underground outlet so it fills but never
overflows. When I dine at this spot the heavier dishes and plates are
set by the side of the basin, but the lighter ones, made in the shape
of little boats and birds, float on the surface and turn round and
round.
“Directly opposite this couch is a sleeping pavilion. It is formed of
glistening marble, and through the projecting folding doors you can
pass at once among the foliage, while from the windows you look upon
the same green picture. Within is a bed, and the shade is so dense that
little light can enter, while a wonderfully luxuriant vine has climbed
upon the roof and covers the whole building. You can fancy you are in
a grove as you lie here, only you do not feel the rain as you do amid
the trees. Here, too, a fountain rises, then immediately loses itself
underground. There are a number of marble chairs placed up and down,
very restful if you do not wish the bed. Near these chairs, yet again,
there are little fountains, and throughout the whole riding course you
can hear the murmur of tiny streams carried through pipes which run
wherever you please to direct them.”
=393. Life of Sensuous Luxury at Such a Villa. Contrast in Human
Conditions under the Roman Régime.=--“Besides the beauties herein
described one has perfect comfort, repose, and freedom from anxiety at
such a villa. I need not don the heavy toga; no neighbor ever calls to
drag me out; everything is placid and quiet; and this peace adds to the
healthfulness of the place, giving it, so to speak, a purer sky and a
more limpid air. Here I enjoy better health both in mind and body than
anywhere else, for I exercise the former by study, and the latter by
hunting. May the gods preserve to me this place in all its beauty!”
If life can consist of nothing more than a series of delightful
sensations, the eye to be pleased by entrancing vistas of marble,
greenery, or wooded hills, the ear by the soft murmur of musical
fountains, and every creature want ministered unto by scores of highly
trained menials, whose sole object in life seems to be to anticipate
their masters’ needs,--what greater fortune, one may ask, can any age
provide than to be possessor of such a villa, with the wealth and rank
such possession must imply? Happy its former, happy its present owner!
Is it forbidden to regret that one’s lot is not cast for a lifetime in
Italy in these prosperous days of the Empire?
Yet tarry--even while as Calvus’s guests we take our seats upon his
marble benches beside the musical fountain under the whispering
cypresses, and before we can converse amiably with the senator,
perhaps upon the Stoic theory of “The Highest Good” there are sounds
discordant--the clink of fetters, the snap of whips, the curses of
drivers, the groans of human cattle.
Along the road concealed by the shrubbery, is passing the slave coffle,
the gang of “speaking tools” on its way from the underground dungeon
(ergastulum) upon the great farm attached to the villa, to the daily
toil in the fields beneath a broiling sun. The refined luxury of the
fortunate few is purchased by the squalor, the ignorance, and often by
the lifelong misery of the brutalized many.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE RETURN OF THE EMPEROR
=394. Character of Hadrian: Prosperity and Good Government of His
Reign.=--Purposely we had visited Rome in the absence of Hadrian;
our interest had been in the city and its people, not in the versatile,
ever-wandering Cæsar and the administration of the Empire. But before
Publius Calvus could set forth for his Tuscan villa he and all other
Senators had to attend a great state ceremony--the reception of the
Emperor returning from his travels.
More than any other Roman ruler Hadrian had been an insatiable
traveler. The frontiers of Britain, Syria, and Africa, the garrison
towns on the Rhine, and the Danube--he knew them all. The peaceful
cities of Gaul, Spain, and Egypt reaped the benefits of his intelligent
benevolence when he visited them. Twice he had sojourned in Athens, the
city which perhaps he loved the best in all the world, finishing the
great Temple of Olympian Zeus left uncompleted since the days of the
Peisistratidæ and otherwise beautifying the now sleepy old university
town, so that its grateful dwellers acclaimed him as a second founder
like unto the original Theseus.
Hadrian’s personal life had been indeed marred with certain acts of
arbitrary caprice and even of cruelty; many senators grumbled at his
long absences from Rome and they somewhat dreaded his sudden judgments,
but the Empire at large had been incalculably happy under his sway.
The legions were under firm discipline, wars there were not save petty
rumblings on the frontiers and the embers of the last struggle of the
unhappy Jews, while peaceful commerce whitened the Mediterranean, and
merchants’ caravans wound confidently over the great road system with
little fear of bandits.
Under such an Emperor laws were scientifically administered without
fear or favor. The provincial governors were, despite an occasional
plunderer such as we saw haled before the Senate, men of genuine
intelligence, probity, and zeal. If the Senate was becoming a venerable
debating club, if the other forms of political liberty were either dead
or dying, under Hadrian despotism was showing its fairest face--with
a highly capable monarch earnestly devoting himself to his subjects’
good. What man, surveying the august fabric and social and governmental
machinery of the Empire, could have failed to echo the current
notion--that the dominion of Rome was divinely ordained and find that
her departed Cæsars were worthily ranked among the gods?[251]
[Illustration: HADRIAN.]
=395. Return of Hadrian to Italy.=--But Hadrian had been growing
old and a little weary of his philanthropic wanderings. And now at
length a peaceful armada had borne him back from Greece to Puteoli.
Hence with an enormous cortège he had traveled by easy stages along
the “Queen of Roads,” the Via Appia, to the outskirts of the capital.
And now to welcome him back to the Palatine the obsequious magistrates
arranged the inevitable public spectacle.
The Emperor is not returning as a conquering _triumphator_. No
formal triumph can therefore be ordained in his honor. He cannot wear
laurel as he rides in a gilded chariot, preceded by the long files of
fettered captives and, followed by the cohorts of his acclaiming army,
drive his car through the Porta Triumphalis near the Circus Flaminius,
next take a long circuit through the Circus Maximus and then down the
Via Sacra and across the Forum and finally mount upward to pay his vows
to Jupiter Best and Greatest on the Capitol. A magnificent procession,
nevertheless, is possible. At the third milestone from the city along
the Via Appia all the senators and equites in gala robes meet the
advancing Imperator. His Empress Sabina is greeted with equal ceremony
by the wives of the entire aristocracy.
In the city all the vast colonnades are hung with garlands of spring
flowers, all business is suspended; all the fora and streets along the
line of march are packed with throngs in brilliant costumes and equally
brilliant chaplets. One grows weary counting the magnificent litters
everywhere passing, followed by the gorgeously liveried retinues of the
wealthy.
=396. Imperial Procession Entering Rome.=--At last after duly
impressive delays the imperial procession starts from the spot known
as the Three Fountains.[252] The Prætorians are there in full force,
the City Cohorts, and heavy drafts of the vigiles, all the tribunes,
centurions, and privates parading in silvered or gilded armor with
scarlet plumes and mantles. The magistrates and ex-magistrates all wear
the colorful toga prætexta.
The ruler himself, “Holder of the Tribunician and Proconsular Power,
Pontifex Maximus, Cæsar Augustus, Father of his Country, First
Citizen and Imperator”; that is to say Hadrian in person rides in the
glittering chariot wherein Augustus rode in his triumph after the
battle of Actium. Four snow-white horses draw the car, and beside the
slim Greek charioteer stands the object of universal envy, the man
who is all but a god even in Italy, who is the “Son of the Divinity,”
Trajan, and who is actually worshiped as a deity before a thousand
altars throughout the subjected East.
Hadrian is a handsome bearded man of stature above the average. The
gray of advancing age is streaking his hair, but he retains that
graceful presence and piercing glance which would make him a notable
figure had he never donned the purple. Before him, bound to the end of
staves, are carried placards in large letters reciting the benefits he
has conferred on hundreds of communities; there is also a large roll
of papyrus symbolic of the “Perpetual Edict” which he has inspired
the learned jurist Salvus Julianus to compile preparatory to the
codification of the vast Civil Law.
Directly before the Emperor there is borne upon an open car a gilded
image of the beautiful youth Antinöos, Hadrian’s favorite companion,
whose mysterious death in Egypt the monarch has never ceased to mourn;
while behind the imperial chariot rides the marveling envoy of Chosröes
the Parthian King who has received peace at the hands of the Cæsar.
The hundreds of senators and thousands of equites marching in the
procession, now and again, perhaps at some signal, raise shouts of
applause to the master and sun of that glorious human universe wherein
they rejoice as the fortunate stars.
=397. Hailing the Emperor.=--So the procession enters Rome. At sight of
the tall, majestic Imperator, whose purple mantle gleams with gold, all
the streets and plazas burst into tumults of cheering. “_Io Triumphe!
Io Triumphe! Ave Cæsar! Ave Hadriane!_” while not a few in ecstatic
loyalty make haste even to salute him as “_Dominus et Deus!_”
As the imperial car passes each crossing of the streets, victims are
sacrificed, while loud prayers are raised for the monarch’s safety. The
air grows heavy with the perfumes of the incense burning on hundreds
of improvised altars. From the balconies matrons rain down masses of
roses; and at many a turn great volumes of saffron are sprinkled over
the marchers.
Onward Hadrian rides, his handsome features curling perchance with
pleasure but looking not to the right hand nor the left. Perhaps he
recalls that were this a formal triumph, a slave would have been
required to stand behind him whispering at intervals, “Remember, you
are but a man!”
=398. The Donatives, Fêtes, and Games.=--The procession thus
sweeps along the Sacred Way, pauses for a moment that the Emperor
may survey the latest touches upon his new Temple of Venus and Rome,
passes the holy House of Vesta and then turning away from the Forum
and the Capitol ascends into the Palatine. Here the gorgeously
arrayed companies of the official bureaucracy swell again the “_Io
Triumphe!_” and Hadrian dismounts from the car to offer his own
special thanksgiving for safe return, and to burn his own incense
within the Temple of Apollo of the Palatine.
All that afternoon the fête continues. The great public baths stand
open, absolutely free, not even the petty quadrans being exacted
from the plebeian visitors. The grain and bread doles are doubled;
the ticket holders receiving to boot measures of oil and wine. The
Prætorians drink deeply the imperial health--for a special donative of
1000 sesterces ($40) per man has been ordered for the entire corps.
In the Flavian Amphitheater Hadrian himself presides in the podium
while a lioness contends with an elephant, the most famous and skilful
netters and Thracians slaughter one another, and a desperate robber is
done to death by three panthers. Late into the evening the streets are
illuminated; there is feasting, dancing, reveling all through the wide
parks and the bosky groves stretching across the Campus Martius to the
Tiber. Everybody is praising the greatness and glory alike of Emperor
and Empire; and as for Rome, Imperial Rome, the center of all the
earth, who doubts that her power is ordained to stand forever?
=399. A Christian Gathering.=--Not all Rome this night is given over
to roses, wine, and reveling under the torchlight. In one of those
subterranean burial galleries near the Via Appia, which a later age
will call “Catacombs,” in a spot where a chamber of some dimensions has
been excavated, a group of soberly clad folk have gathered. They have
met stealthily,--posting sentries to give the alarm, for the vigiles
may not have become too drunk that night to be active.
[Illustration: VIEW IN THE CHRISTIAN CATACOMBS:
present state.]
The leader of their service is the Bishop Higinius whose name will
stand as the eighth Pope following the Apostle Peter. During their
simple liturgies some strains of boisterous music from the luxurious,
sensual, pitiless metropolis outside interrupt their hymns, and the
good bishop signs to one of the deacons. The latter opens the scroll
of the Book of Apocalypse where under the cryptic name of “Babylon” is
forewarned the fate even of imperial Rome; and thus he reads:
“For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her
iniquities; therefore shall her plagues come upon her in one day, death
and mourning and famine; and the kings of the earth who have committed
wickedness and lived deliciously with her shall bewail and lament her
when they see the smoke of her burning.
“And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her, for no
man buyeth their merchandise any more;--the merchandise of gold and
silver, and precious stones, and of pearls, and fine linen and purple
and silk and scarlet and all rare woods and all manner of vessels
of ivory, and all manner of vessels of most precious wood, and of
brass, and iron, and marble, and cinnamon, and odors and ointments,
and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and
beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and slaves, _and souls
of men_.”
INDEX
[References are to pages.]
_=Acta Diurna=_, 282 ff.
=Advocates=, methods of, 345;
great importance of, 355;
cheap pettifoggers, 356;
high abilities of some lawyers, 358.
=Agrippa=, Baths of, 361.
=Aliens=, vast numbers of, 123;
colonies of, in Rome, 145.
=Amphitheater=, 394 ff.;
(_see_ Gladiator Contests).
=Antiques=, often spurious, 58.
=Apicius=, the gourmand, 100.
=Aqueducts=, 303–304.
=Arch=, use of, 13.
=Architectural Forms=, usually Greek, 12;
use of arch and vault in, 13.
=Architecture=, very grandiose, 258.
=Arena=, arrangement of, 392;
(_see_ Gladiator Contests).
=Armor=, of legionaries, 318.
=Army=, real master of the Empire, 307;
held under stiff discipline, 308;
stationed on frontiers, 308–309;
legions in, 309 ff.;
size of, 331;
efficiency of, 332;
no reserves to, 332;
(_see_ Legionaries).
=Arria= (wife of Cæcina Poetus), 76.
=Atrium=, 42, 43.
=Auctions=, 226.
=Audiences= with emperors, 296.
=Augurs= and augury, 418–419.
=Augustus=, tomb of, 372;
deified, 439.
=Auspices=, taken in Senate, 340.
=Auxiliary cohorts=, 327–328.
=Ball games=, 206.
=Banks= and bankers, 227 ff.;
a great banker, 228;
forms of investment, 229;
trust business of, 229;
savings banks, 230;
safe deposits, 230;
deposits in Temple of Vesta, 231.
=Banquets= (_see_ Dinners).
=Barber shops=, 90, 91.
=Basilica Æmilia=, 271.
=Basilica Julia=, 272–274.
=Baths=, popularity of, 358;
luxurious private, 359;
private-owned, 360–361;
large government-owned, 360;
great Baths of Trajan, 361 ff.;
crowds at, 362;
often a kind of club house, 362–363;
entrance to, 363;
interior of, 364;
cold room (_frigidarium_), 365;
swimming pool, 365;
_tepidarium_, 365–366;
hot baths (_caldaria_), 366;
extreme luxury of, 367;
restaurants and shops at, 367–368;
parasites at, 368.
=Beards=, revival of, 91.
=Beast fights=, 399.
=Beggars=, multitude of, 252.
=Bonuses= (_donativa_), 245.
=Books=, 209 ff.;
format of, 210;
mounting and rolling of, 211;
copying of, 212;
publication of, 212, 213.
=Bread=, 103, 104.
=Breakfast= (_jentaculum_), 110.
=Building materials= used in Rome, 10.
=_Bulla_=, 186.
=_Caldaria_=, 366.
=Camp= of prætorian guard, 311.
=Camps=, military, 330.
=Campus Martius=, view from, 7;
general description of, 280;
great porticoes along, 368;
public buildings upon, 369.
=Carriages=, varieties of, 455–456.
=Catacombs=, used by Christians, 473.
=Cemeteries=, 179–180.
=Cena= (_see_ Dinner).
=Centurions=, in legions, 323–325.
=Chairs=, forms of, 55–56.
=Charioteers=, 383;
(_see_ Circus).
=Chests=, 57.
=Children=, legal status of, 184;
exposure of, 184;
very desirable, 185;
ceremonies after birth, 185;
names given, 186–189;
care in educating, 189;
toys and pets, 190;
taught Greek, 191;
schooling and education, 192 ff.
=Christianity=, pagan account of, 449;
persecution of, 450–451;
charges against, 451;
attitude of educated men towards, 452.
=Christians=, gathering of, in the Catacombs, 473.
=Circus=, popularity of, 382;
charioteers in, 383;
racing factions in, 383;
wagering in, 384;
_Circus Maximus_, 384 ff.;
race track, 384;
procession before races, 385–386;
beginning of races, 386;
dangers in races, 387;
proclaiming victors, 387–389.
=Circus=, Flaminian, 370.
=_Circus Maximus_=, 384 ff.
=Citizenship=, desirability of, 146;
case of St. Paul, 147.
=Claudius Etruscus=, powerful freedman, 142.
=Clientage=, old type, 147–148;
new type, 148.
=Clients=, morning salutation by, 148–149;
doles given, 150;
attend their patron, 151;
undergo insults, 151, 152.
=Clothing= (_see_ Garments).
=Cohorts=, city (_cohortes urbanae_), 313.
=_Collegia_=, 249 ff.
=Color=, used upon sculpture, 259.
=Column of Trajan=, 278–280.
=Concrete=, great use of, 11.
=_Congiaria_=, 244.
=Cookery=, refinements in, 109, 110.
=Correspondence=, 208.
=Couches=, general use of, 54.
=Country=, around Rome, 5;
view of, 5, 6.
=Country-life=, Roman love of, 453–454;
(_see_ Villas).
=Court=, imperial;
(_see_ Emperor).
=Courts=, law, 353 ff.;
(_see_ Legal Procedure).
=Crowds=, typical, upon a Roman street, 21.
=_Curia_=, 272.
=Curia Julia=, arrangement of, 339.
=Cybele=, worship of, 441.
=Daily Gazette= (_Acta Diurna_), 282 ff.;
entries and gossip in, 284, 285.
=Decurions=, provincial nobles, 152.
=Deified Augustus= and later emperors, 439.
=Dining room= (_triclinium_), 45, 46.
=Dinner= (_cena_), 111 ff.;
time for, 111;
standard number for, 113;
preparing for, 114;
arranging couches, 115;
serving of, 116;
courses at, 117;
drinking bout after, 118;
garlands and perfumes at, 119;
very elaborate banquets, 120;
simple home meals, 121.
=Dinner hunters=, 112;
at baths, 368.
=Discomforts= of life in Rome, 33.
=Doles=, public, of grain, 242, 243;
distribution of, 244.
=_Domus_= (mansions), 39 ff.;
often several owned by one magnate, 39;
plan of early, 40;
plan of developed, 40, 41;
price of a handsome, 41;
entrance to, 42;
atrium of, 42, 43;
decorations of, 43;
_peristylium_, 44;
_triclinium_, 45, 46;
special rooms in, 47;
garden behind, 47;
slaves’ quarters, 48;
floors and windows of, 49;
frescos in, 50;
statues in, 51, 52, 53;
furniture in, 54 ff.
=_Donativa_=, 245.
=Drinking bout= (_commissatio_), 118.
=Eagle= of legion, 325.
=Eating-houses=, 235, 236.
=Education=, selection of school, 192;
extent of literacy, 193;
instruction of girls, 193;
for lower classes, 193, 194;
low-grade schools, 194;
cruelty in schools, 195;
superior types of schools, 196;
methods of teaching, 197;
reading and writing, 198;
arithmetic, 199;
grammarians’ high schools, 199;
passion for oratory, 200;
rhetoric schools, 201;
mock debates, 202;
popularity of rhetorical studies, 203;
philosophy, study of, 204.
=Egypt=, worship of its gods, 442.
=Emperor=, center of social life, 294;
“friends of Cæsar,” 295;
audiences with, 296;
ruin through disfavor of, 296, 297;
favor most valuable, 298.
=Emperors=, cult of the deified, 439–440.
=Emporium=, 240.
=Encampments=, military, 330.
=Entrance= to house, 42.
=Epicureanism=, popular, 407.
=Equites=, second class nobles, 153;
qualifications and honors of, 154, 155;
review of, 156.
=Escorts=, of rich nobles, 25.
=Factions=, in circus, 383.
=Fame=, passion for, in letters, 214, 215;
in poetry, 216.
=_Familia_= of slaves, 129, 130;
organization of, 131.
=Festivals=, great number of, 374;
passion for spectacles, 375;
(_see_ Games, Public).
=_Fetiales_=, 422.
=Fire department=, 304 ff.
=Fish=, great demand for, 106.
=Flamens=, 420.
=Flavian amphitheater=, 394–397.
=Floors=, of houses, 49.
=Flowers=, varieties supplied from villa gardens, 458.
=Flute-blowers=, guild of, 251.
=Fora=, centers of Roman life, 254;
series of, 256;
crowds in, 256, 257;
centers for new, 257;
grandiose architecture in, 258;
use of color on sculptures, 259;
entrance upon the series, 260;
Temple of Venus and Rome, 261, 262;
colossal statue of Nero, 262;
Arch of Titus, 262;
Temple of Vesta, 265;
Temple of the Divine Julius, 265;
Old Forum, 265 ff.;
of the Emperors, 275 ff.
=Foreign= cults, numerous in Rome, 437;
why popular, 438;
cult of Cybele or “Great Mother,” 441;
Isis worship, 442;
ceremonies at Temple of Isis, 443;
Serapis worship, 445;
Mithras worship, 445;
nobility of Mithras cult, 446;
_Taurobolium_ ceremony, 448–449;
Christianity, pagan view of, 449 ff.
=Fortresses=, frontier, 330.
=Forum=, morning visit to, 111;
of Julius, 276;
of Augustus, 277;
of Nerva, 278;
of Trajan, 278;
(_see_ Old Forum _and_ Fora).
=_Forum Romanum_=, 265 ff.;
(_see_ Old Forum).
=Fountains=, public, 20.
=Freedmen=, how created, 140;
status of, 140, 141;
humble types of, 141;
wealthy, 142;
importance of, 143.
=Frescos=, in a Roman house, 50, 51.
“=Friends=” of Emperor, 295.
=_Frigidarium_=, 365.
=Fruits=, 104, 105.
=Fullers=, 89.
=Funeral monuments=, 179, 182.
=Funerals=, great interest in, 172;
preliminaries to, 173;
procession of “ancestors,” 174;
exhibits in procession, 175;
orations at, 176;
tombs, 177–180;
funeral pyre, 180, 181;
for poorer classes, 182.
=Gain=, passion for, 220.
=_Galli_=, 441.
=Gambling=, mania for, 375.
=Games=, children’s, 204;
played on boards, 205, 206;
out-door, 206.
=Games=, public, passion for, 375;
mania for gambling at, 375;
vast scale of, 375–376;
great expense of, 376;
popularity of, 377;
seating at, 378;
(_see_ Theater, Circus, _and_ Amphitheater).
=Gardens=, public, around Rome, 372.
=Garlands=, at dinners, 119.
=Garments=, types of, 80 ff.;
toga, 81;
tunica, 84;
capes, cloaks, and gala garments, 85;
women’s stola and palla, 86, 87;
materials of, 88;
use of silk, 89;
changing styles of, 89.
=Gladiators=, notice of display of, 29;
popularity of, 392;
(_see_ Gladiator Contests).
=Gladiator contests=, enormously popular, 389;
at funerals, 390.
=Gladiator schools=, 390;
inmates usually criminals, 391;
severe training in, 392;
typical arrangement of, 393;
Flavian Amphitheater, 394–395;
its interior arrangements, 395–396;
procession before contests, 397;
criminals thrown to beasts, 398;
fights with wild beasts, 399;
interval in sports, 400;
distribution of lottery tickets at, 400;
beginning of regular, 401;
chariot warfare, 402;
cavalry combats, 403;
signals for ruthlessness and signals for mercy, 403;
“Netters” and “Thracians,” 404–405;
reward of victors, 405–406.
=Glass=, used in windows, 49.
=Gluttony=, 100–102.
=Golden Milestone=, 269, 270.
=Gourmandizing=, delight in, 100.
=Government= of Rome, 299 ff.;
city præfect, 300;
curators and commissioners, 301;
water supply of, 301–302;
great aqueducts, 303;
police and fire department, 304–305.
=Grain=, trade in, 242;
doles of, 243;
distribution of, 244.
=Grammarians’ schools=, 199.
“=Great Mother=,” 441.
=Greek language=, constantly used in Rome, 22, 23.
=Guests= at dinner, proper number nine, 113;
arrangement on couches, 115.
=Guilds=, 249;
very ancient ones, 250;
importance of, 251;
festivals of, 252.
=Hadrian=, prosperity of his reign, 1, 468;
tomb of, 370;
his return to Italy, 469;
his procession entering Rome, 470;
how saluted, 472;
presides over fêtes, 472–473.
=Hairdressing=, women’s, 93;
ornaments on hair, 93.
=Heating= of houses, 49.
=Hills=, Seven, of Rome, 9.
=Hospitals=, almost nonexistent, 168.
=Hotels=, (_see_ Inns).
=House fronts=, on typical Roman streets, 18.
=Houses= (see _Insulæ_ and _Domus_).
=Idlers=, vast number of, 27.
=_Imagines_= (death masks), 54.
=Impeachment trial=, before Senate, 343 ff.
=Industry=, quarters for, 238;
conditions of labor in, 238, 239;
organization in guilds, 249 ff.
=Inns=, usually sordid, 231;
type of, 232;
reckonings at, 233;
frequenters of, 234;
eating houses, 235 ff.
=_Insulæ_= (tenement houses), 34 ff.;
typical _insula_, 35;
flats in, 36;
cheap attics in, 37;
dangers of, 37, 38.
=Isis=, cult of, 442 ff.
=Janus=, 413.
=_Jentaculum_= (breakfast), 110.
=Jesus=, legal status of, 144.
=Jewels=, 96 ff.
=Jews= in Rome, 145.
=Kissing=, habit of, in public, 27.
=Kitchens=, 109.
=_Lacerna_=, 85.
=Lacus=, Curtius, 274.
=Lares= and Penates, 414.
=_Latrunculi_= (game), 205.
=Lawyers= (_see_ Advocates).
=Legacies=, 170;
hunting for, 171;
public bequests, 172.
=Legal procedure=, highly scientific, 353;
great tribunals for, 354;
forms of verdicts, 355;
importance of advocates, 355;
cheap pettifoggers, 356;
character and slave witnesses, 357;
use of written evidence, 357–358.
=Legate= of the legion, 329.
=Legionaries=, enlistment of, 314;
organization of, 315;
training of, 316;
weapons of, 317–318;
armor of, 318;
rewards and punishment of, 319–320;
retiring bonuses for, 329;
pay and rations of, 320;
training of, 321;
non-military labors of, 322;
petty officers of, 322–323;
centurions of, 323–324;
_primipilus_ of, 325;
eagle of, 325.
=Legions=, number of, 309;
organization of, 315 ff.;
location and names of, 326;
commanders of, 328;
(_see also_ Legionaries).
=Letters=, 207, 208.
=Libraries=, size of, 217;
private, 218;
public, 219;
of Trajan, 280.
=Literary fame=, passion for, 214 ff.
=Luncheon= (_prandium_), 111.
=Magistrates=, public honors paid to, 24.
=Mansions= (see _Domus_).
=Manumission=, 139, 140.
=Marble trade=, 241.
=Marriage=, men often reluctant to marry, 61;
usually arranged by girls’ parents, 63;
marriage treaties, 64;
betrothal before, 65;
dowries, 66;
dressing bride, 66, 67;
actual ceremonies of, 67 ff.;
contract of, 68;
wedding procession, 69;
ceremonies at bridegroom’s house, 70;
often unhappy, 72;
divorce, easy and frequent, 74;
happy marriages, 75.
=Masks=, death (_imagines_), 54.
=Matrons=, honors paid to, 71, 72;
(_see_ Women).
=Meals= and meal times, 110 ff.
=Meat= and poultry, 105.
=Medicine= (_see_ Physicians).
=Mimes=, 380.
=Mithras=, worship of, 445–446.
=Morning=, how spent by gentlemen, 110.
=Morra=, game of, 205.
=Mosaics=, in Roman mansion, 43.
=Names=, intricacy of, 186;
irregular, 187;
of slaves, 188;
of women, 188;
confusion of, 189.
=Nero=, colossal statue of, 262.
=Notices=, public, 29.
=Old Forum=, 265 ff.;
noble traditions of, 266;
impression created by, 267;
crowds in, 268, 269;
area of, 268, 269;
western end of, 269;
Rostra, 269;
Golden Milestone, 269, 270;
Tullianum, 270, 271;
Basilica Æmilia, 271;
Temple of Janus, 271;
Senate House, 272;
Basilica Julia, 272;
Lacus Curtius, 274.
=Olive oil=, 107.
=Omens=, belief in, 419–420.
=Oratory=, passion for, 200;
training in, 201 ff.;
in Senate, 343 ff.
=Ostia=, trade through, 239;
shipping at, 247;
naval shipping at, 248;
harbor town at, 249.
=_Pænula_=, 85.
=Palace=, imperial, 288 ff.;
magnificent aspect of, 289;
famous buildings in, 290;
triclinium and throne-room of Domitian, 291–292;
enormous luxury of, 292;
swarm of officials present in, 293.
=Palatine=, view from, 260;
history of, 286;
fine residences upon, 287;
Augustus settles upon, 287–288;
commanding view from, 288;
imperial palace upon, 288 ff.
=_Palla_=, 88.
=Pantheon=, 280–282.
=Pantomimes=, 381;
high art in, 382.
=Papyrus=, 209, 210.
=Parasites=, swarm of, in Rome, 27;
at dinners, 112, 113;
at baths, 368.
=Park system= around Rome, 280;
toward Tiber, 369.
=_Patria Potestas_=, 184.
=Paul=, legal status of, 147.
=Pavements=, in Roman streets, 18.
=_Pax Romana_=, blessings of, 1.
=Pearls=, 97.
=Perfumes=, 98;
at dinners, 119.
=_Peristylium_=, 44.
=Pet animals=, 58;
of children, 190.
=Philosophy=, study of, 204.
=Physicians=, no training required, 160;
superior class of, 161;
fashionable doctors, 161, 162;
instruments and books of, 163;
famous remedies of, 164;
absurd medicines, 164;
theriac, 165;
fear of poisons, 165, 166;
disciples of, 166;
quack doctors, 167.
=Placards=, public, 28, 29.
=Plebeians=, the “mob,” 145.
=Pliny the Younger’s Tuscan villa=, 459;
charming location of, 460;
view from, 461;
terraces and porticoes of, 462;
bed-chambers of, 463–464;
gardens of, 465.
=Poetry=, passion for, 216.
=Police department=, 304–305.
=Pontiffs=, 417.
=Population= of Rome, 3, 4.
=Porticoes=, along Campus Martius, 368–369.
=Portrait busts=, trade in, 246.
=Præfect=, of city of Rome, 300;
of the police (_vigiles_), 306;
of the camps, 328.
=Prætorian guard=, 309–311;
præfect of, 311;
camp of, 311–312;
organization of, 313.
=Prætorian præfect=, 311.
=Prayer=, formal, at sacrifice, 428.
=Priests=, duties of, 417;
(_see_ Flamens).
=_Primipilus_=, 325.
=Processions=, attending great nobles, 24.
=Provincials=, status of, 143.
=Public games=, 375 ff.
=Publishers of books=, 213, 214.
=Punishments=, of slaves, 136;
of soldiers, 320.
=Regia=, 265.
=Regions= of Rome, 15.
=Religion=, signs of, everywhere, 407;
upper classes sceptical, 407–408;
Stoicism popular, 408;
revival of, under Empire, 409;
many foreign cults, 410;
plebeians very superstitious, 411;
based on old Italian agriculture, 412;
native Italian gods, 413;
Lares and Penates, 414;
personified virtues as gods, 415;
legalistic character of, 416;
priests not sacrosanct, 417;
_Pontifices_, 417–418;
_Augurs_, 418;
Flamens, 420;
_Salii_, 421;
_Fetiales_, 422;
Arval Brethren, 423;
rustic, 424;
soothsayers and astrologers, 424–425;
sacrifices, private, 425;
ceremony at temple, 426;
slaughtering the victim, 427;
formal prayer, 428;
Vestal Virgins, 429 ff.;
(_see_ Foreign Cults).
=Restaurants= (_see_ Eating-Houses).
=Rhetoricians=, 201;
schools of, 202 ff.
=Rings=, 96.
=Robbers=, game of, 205.
=Roman Empire= very prosperous under Hadrian, 1.
=Rome=, beautified by Augustus and later Emperors, 3;
reaches architectural perfection about 135 A.D., 3;
population of, 3, 4;
crowded condition of, 4;
country around, 5;
view from Campus Martius, 7;
Seven Hills of, 9;
regions and social quarters of, 15;
typical street in, 16;
discomforts of life in, 33;
vast alien population in, 122;
divisions of society in, 123 ff.;
great Jewish colony in, 145;
plebeians in, 145, 146;
life in, extravagant and expensive, 221;
a city of investors and buyers of luxuries, 222;
great shopping quarters in, 223;
industrial quarters in, 210 ff.;
city government of, 299 ff.
=Rostra=, 269.
=Sacrifices=, private description of, 425 ff.
=_Salii_=, 421.
=Salutations=, form of, in public, 26.
=Sandals=, 95.
=Saturnalia=, 437.
=Schools= (_see_ Educators).
=Scribblings=, upon every wall, 30, 31.
=Sculptures=, trade in, 246;
often colored, 259.
=Seat of honor=, at festivals, 378.
=Secretaries=, 209.
=Senate=, outward glory of, 334;
actual weakness of, 335;
actual authority of, 336;
organization and procedure of, 337–338;
_Curia_ (Senate House) for, 338;
arrangement of seats, 339;
precedence in, 339–340;
opening of session, 340;
auspices in, 340–341;
routine business in, 341;
taking of vote, 342;
impeachment before, 342–343;
use of water clocks, 344;
oratory in, 344;
advocates before, 345;
shouts and invectives during debates, 347;
taking the opinion of, 348 ff.;
speeches from floor of, 349;
uproar in, 350;
formal division in, 351;
decree of banishment, 352;
end of session, 352.
=Senate House=, 272.
=Senatorial order=, 156;
includes relatives of senators, 158.
=Senators=, social glories of, 157;
form a high aristocracy, 158;
insignia and titles of, 158;
great importance of, 159.
=Serapis=, worship of, 445.
“=Seven Hills=” of Rome, 9.
=Shipping=, merchant, 247, 248;
naval, 248.
=Shoes=, 95.
=Shop fronts=, 18.
=Shops=, vast number of, 18;
shopping districts in Rome, 223, 224;
arrangement of shops, 224;
of barbers, 225;
superior retail stores, 226.
=Shrines=, upon streets, 20.
=Siege warfare=, 331.
=Siesta=, custom of, 112.
=Silk=, use of, 89.
=Slaves=, notice to, 42;
vast numbers of, 124;
power of master over, 125;
city slaves and country slaves, 125–126;
purchase of, 126, 127;
auction of, 128;
sale of superior, 129;
size of household of, 129, 130;
workmen as, 130;
duties of, 131;
organization of, 131;
discipline of, 132;
frequently idle, 133;
degradation of slave system, 133;
evil results on masters, 134;
punishment of, 135;
branding of, 136;
pursuit of runaways, 137;
torture of, 138;
manumission of, 139.
=Society=, divisions of, 123, 124.
=Soldiers= (_see_ Legionaries).
=Soothsayers=, 424.
=Statues=, vast multiplication of, 51;
portrait busts, 52, 53.
=_Status_=, in Roman society, 123.
=Stoicism=, popularity of, 408.
=_Stola_=, 87.
=Streets=, typical in Rome, 16;
very narrow, 17;
paving of, 17, 18;
shops upon, 18;
shrines and fountains upon, 20, 21;
crowds in, 21;
noise and turmoil of, 23;
dark and dangerous at night, 32;
extremely noisy towards dawn, 33.
=Suicide=, not condemned, 168.
=Tables=, 56;
costly, of citrus wood, 57.
=Tablets=, writing, 207.
=Tactics=, in battle, 330.
=_Taurobolium_=, 447.
=Taverns= (_see_ Inns).
=Temple=, of the Divine Julius, 265;
of Janus, 271;
of Mars Ultor, 277;
of Peace, 276;
of Venus and Rome, 261, 262;
of Vesta, 265.
=Tenement blocks= (_insulæ_), 34 ff.
=_Tepidarium_=, 365.
=Theater=, not extremely popular, 378;
stage in, 379;
spectacles in, 380;
mimes, 380;
pantomimes, 381;
high art in latter, 382.
=Theaters= upon Campus Martius, 369.
=_Thermopolia_=, 236.
=Tiber=, and valley of, 6;
barges upon, 240;
trip down to Ostia, 247;
shipping upon, 248.
=Time=, measured by water clocks, 344.
=Titus=, arch of, 262.
=Toga=, 81–84.
=Toilets=, very elaborate, 94.
=Tombs=, 177–180;
of Hadrian, 370;
of Augustus, 372.
=Toys=, 190.
=Trade=, through Ostia and Campania, 239;
Emporium and wharves, 240;
upon Tiber, 240, 241;
in marble and grain, 241, 242;
in sculptures and portrait statues, 246.
=Trajan=, forum and column of, 278–280;
baths of, 361 ff.
=Travel=, modes of, 454–456.
=Traveler’s escorts=, 25, 26.
=_Triclinium_= (dining room), 45, 46.
=_Trigon_= (ball game), 206.
=Triumph=, ceremonies of a, 470.
=Tullianum=, 270, 271.
=_Tunica_=, 84.
=Turia=, story of, 78.
=Vegetables=, 104.
=Veterans=, care and rewards of, 329–330.
=Vesta=, Temple of, as safe deposit, 231.
=Vestal Virgins=, 429 ff.;
origin and sanctity, 430;
temple and residence of, 431;
how chosen, 432;
duties of, 433;
senior vestal (_Maxima_), 433;
punishment of, 434;
great honors of, 435.
=Via Sacra=, 261, 263 ff.
=Victory=, statue of, in Senate, 340.
=_Vigiles_=, city police, 28;
description of, 304 ff.
=Villas=, several owned by one senator, 39;
greatly enjoyed, 453;
comfortable travel to, 454–456;
multiplication of, 456;
by the sea shore, 457;
in the mountains, 457–458;
near Rome, 458;
great estates in the hills, 459;
Pliny’s Tuscan villa, 459 ff.
=Vitellius=, imperial glutton, 102.
=Wall scribblings=, 30.
=War=, ceremony of declaring, 423.
=Water clocks=, 57;
in Senate, 344.
=Water supply of Rome=, 301 ff.
=Wealth=, vast premium upon in Rome, 220, 221.
=Weapons=, of legionaries, 317, 318.
=Wills=, 169.
=Windows= of houses, 49.
=Wines=, 107, 108, 109.
=Writing tablets=, 207.
=Women=, honorable status of, 60;
rights and privileges when married, 61, 71, 72;
have control of property, 62;
selection of husbands for girls, 63;
marriage treaties, 64;
betrothal ceremonies, 65;
dowries of, 66;
marriage of, 66 ff.;
frivolous type of, 72, 73;
nobler types of, 75;
famous and devoted wives, 76, 77;
case of Turia, 78, 79.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Outside of these limits were, of course, wide and populous suburbs
whose inhabitants might be included in the estimated total of 1,500,000.
[2] At present, of course, largely a treeless waste, very sparsely
populated and afflicted with malaria.
[3] These are modern heights; since the days of the Empire there has
been much leveling down. All the hills were then somewhat higher.
[4] He wrote his great “Geography” not long after 1 A.D.
[5] This and many other terms for Roman building materials are from the
modern Italian.
[6] Very possibly the Etruscans were the actual inventors, although the
principle of the arch was known in the Old Orient.
[7] He died about 110 A.D.
[8] A well-known avenue in Pompeii was called “Mercury Street.”
[9] In describing Roman street life and its scenes let it be said
once and for all that many very obvious things were so disgusting and
revolting to modern notions that any description thereof is perforce
omitted. Ancient life contained a great deal of social dross and filthy
wickedness. There is no need to dwell on such matters, but their
existence should not be forgotten.
[10] If a magistrate had met any persons on horseback, they also would
have been bound to dismount on meeting him.
[11] If a praetor had been acting as governor, he would probably have
had six lictors instead of merely two while he was a judge in Rome.
[12] The wall placards and inscriptions quoted in this and the
following section are all substantially as found at Pompeii.
[13] For quotations of election notices at Pompeii see the author’s
“Readings in Ancient History,” Vol. II, “Rome,” pp. 261–262.
[14] These figures seem to come from the fourth century, but there is
no reason to think that housing conditions in Rome had changed very
much since the second century.
[15] Rentals in Rome, for all classes of lodgings, were unreasonably
high, as compared with the relative cost of other necessities: just as
is now complained to be the case in New York, Paris, and other great
cities.
[16] A familiar description of such a place by Juvenal.
[17] In small provincial cities like Pompeii the proportion of the
people who could live in separate houses was much greater than in Rome;
in fact separate residences were somewhat the rule. The Pompeiian
houses were usually of two stories and nearly all were decidedly small.
In Rome itself real estate was far too valuable to permit separate
houses except for the wealthy.
[18] That was the price that Cicero paid for his town house, at a time
when Roman real estate was worth probably much less than in the days of
Hadrian.
[19] Petronius represents his rich upstart Trimalchio as having four
ordinary dining rooms and also a special second story dining room.
[20] This heating by _hypocausts_ was used much more in Roman villas in
Gaul, the Rhinelands, and Britain, where winters were severe, than in
Italy. In Rome itself people ordinarily managed to shiver through the
relatively short cold spells by means of portable _charcoal braziers_,
placed in the more important rooms, and by piling upon themselves extra
tunics.
[21] One can make a long list of the marbles constantly used at
Rome: _e.g._ white marbles from Carrara, Paros, and Pentelicos;
crimson-streaked from Phrygia; orange-golden from Numidia; white and
pale green from Carystos; serpentine from Laconia; porphyry from Egypt,
etc.
[22] At this writing the number of wall paintings rescued from the
excavations of Pompeii runs well up to 4000; and Pompeii was a city
perhaps only a fortieth the size of Rome.
[23] Most of the finer scenes in Roman frescos seem to have been
pretty good copies of famous paintings from Greek mythology originally
produced by the masters of the Hellenistic age.
[24] It may be noted that the Romans seldom had built-in upholstery
upon their couches and chairs. They depended upon removable cushions
and apparently they had no metal springs.
[25] It had been suppressed for all practical purposes soon after 14
A.D.
[26] Witness, as most famous example, the case of Cornelia, mother of
Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus. Very many other instances could be cited.
[27] Readers of Plutarch will recall the story of how Appius Claudius,
then “Princeps Senatus,” proposed to Tiberius Gracchus at an evening
banquet of the College of Augurs that he should marry Claudius’s
daughter. Young Gracchus promptly accepted and the older nobleman
rushed home in delight (Tiberius being a great “catch”). On entering
his house Claudius called out with loud voice to his wife “Antistia,
I’ve got a husband for Claudia!” “What’s all the hurry about,” answered
she, “unless he’s Tiberius Gracchus?” Antistia evidently had to be
informed first; the glad news could be broken to her daughter later.
[28] This anecdote and the quotations are all from the letter of Pliny
the Younger to his friend Mauricius advising the latter (as per request
for counsel) to seek the hand of Minucius Ancilianus for his niece.
[29] All silk was imported by extremely long caravan routes from China.
If this veil was actually of pure silk and not mixed with cotton, it
was of enormous value.
[30] Possibly meaning “Hurrah for Talassus, the marriage god!” but the
exact significance of this time-honored shout had probably been long
since lost.
[31] Both of these instances are from Pliny the Younger.
[32] For a complete quotation of this highly interesting tablet, see
Fowler’s “Social Life at Rome,” pp. 159–167.
[33] The use of this garment gave his familiar nickname to the Emperor
Bassianus, “Caracalla,” who reigned 212–217 A.D. The Gauls also had
kind of trousers. This was counted against them as a token of sheer
barbarism: _bracatæ nationes_ (“trouser-wearing peoples”) was a term of
extreme contempt in Italy.
[34] Probably there were simpler and more complicated forms of togas.
The first were apparently shaped like an irregular semi-circle. We hear
of extremely large togas (in bad taste) whereof the total length was
four yards before draping. Experiments in certain American universities
at making and then draping a toga corresponding in effect to many
well-known statues have amply illustrated the great difficulty of
putting on the garment gracefully, and the real art required of a Roman
nobleman’s valet.
[35] See “A Day in Old Athens,” p. 44.
[36] There were various simpler garments, similar to the stola,
permitted to common women and to young girls. The distinctive feature
of the stola, forbidden to all save honorable matrons, seems to have
been the lower flounce, reaching to the feet.
[37] About twenty years after the reign of Hadrian, Chinese annals
record that certain “Roman” (Græco-Levantine?) traders actually reached
China, and gave themselves out as envoys to the “Son of Heaven” from
“Antun” (Antoninus Pius).
[38] Very like a modern copying press.
[39] Apuleius, writing probably a little later than this time, asserts
that a lady, with no matter how fine clothes or jewels, cannot be
considered really handsome unless an equal amount of attention has been
bestowed upon her hair.
[40] Called the “luna” (crescent); but the origin is really unknown,
although attempts were made to trace it back to some institution of
Romulus.
[41] Diamonds were not unknown, but they were so hard to cut and so
scarce that they figured rather seldom in Roman jewelry. They do not
appear in the list of the twelve precious stones given in Revelation,
XXI: 19–20.
[42] Stories about pearls are easily multiplied: _e.g._ how the son of
Asopus, a famous actor, on coming into a vast patrimony, deliberately
dissolved a large pearl in vinegar, then drank it down, in order to
boast that he had “tossed off a million sesterces ($40,000) at one
gulp!”
[43] Even less profitable, it would seem, is to try to list the
cosmetics wherewith many Roman ladies, like their sisters of all times,
covered their faces. Rouge was used in great quantities, and effeminate
young men were known to have employed it. Eyebrows were blackened with
antimony; lips were reddened, and of course hair dye was a familiar
article. Propertius suggests that some women went so far as to trace
over the veins in their temples with blue. Other women indulged in
small black patches somewhat as did English ladies in the days of Queen
Anne:--“There is nothing new under the sun.”
[44] In Capua there was a whole great square of the city, the Seplasia,
given over to perfumery shops and their wholesale trade.
[45] Vitellius was by no means alone in this disgusting practice.
Seneca denounced the numerous gluttons who “Vomit that they may eat,
and eat that they may vomit.”
[46] The difficulty of preserving fresh meat, once butchered, would
militate against its use as compared with poultry easily killed for
each customer.
[47] See “A Day in Old Athens,” p. 20.
[48] _Posca_ was probably the drink in which the sponge was steeped,
that was extended to Jesus as He hung on the cross.
[49] A long and curious list of gourmand’s precepts are enumerated
ironically by Horace in a familiar Satire (_Sat._, bk. II. 4).
[50] The very imperfect means of illumination alone available with
olive-oil lamps, would make many modern evening entertainments out of
the question. The ancient lamps were beautiful in shape but utterly
ineffective for lighting large halls, indoor theaters, etc.
[51] The love of “first-seats” at feasts, denounced in the New
Testament, was anything but a strictly Jewish vice; Greeks and Romans
were every whit as bad as Orientals.
[52] So given because here dispatches, etc., could be most readily
handed to a consul or other great officer if he were among the guests.
[53] Sometimes a guest’s personal valet brought a special towel for
his own master. Diners of an objectionable variety were occasionally
charged with stealing the towels or napkins if the host supplied them.
[54] This, of course, was a very simple private dinner. For the menu
of a really extensive banquet, see the citation from Macrobius, in the
writer’s “Readings in Ancient History,” Vol. II (Rome), p. 253.
[55] Brought, of course, from the summits of the Apennines with
infinite labor.
[56] They could not, of course, wear the toga, or, if female slaves,
the matronly stola.
[57] The ancients had intense fear of epilepsy, supposedly a visitation
of the gods. The questions given were the points on which slave-venders
had to give assurance, or formally to waive all responsibility.
[58] This is almost precisely the slave auctioneer’s speech in Horace.
(_Epodes_, bk. II, 1.)--If the dealer had failed to mention that the
boy had once tried to run away, he would have been legally liable.
[59] Probably, however, it would be counted discreditable to sell a
slave born in one’s house (a _verna_) unless the fellow was wholly
reprobate, or the master was in great financial straits.
[60] Slave unions had no legal status, but only a harsh and tactless
master would ordinarily break them up.
[61] Of course, in a large slave household frequently there were unruly
elements who often had to be punished privately, when, if free men,
their actions would have landed them in the police courts. The stripes
might be inflicted as a mild correction with the cane, or leather
strap, or more severely with the terrific _flagellum_ (loaded whip),
usually with three chains set with metal. A sound lashing with this
could cause death (see below, p. 137). The prejudice against brutal
whipping and the like was growing steadily, thanks to the advance of
the Stoic philosophy, even before the triumph of Christianity. Juvenal
denounces those who inflict outrageous floggings for slight faults.
“Does a man set his son a good lesson by calling in the torturer and
having a slave branded for stealing a couple of towels? Does such a man
hold that the bodies and souls of slaves are of the same elements as
our own?”
[62] “Three Letter Man” or “Man of Letters” became a common taunt among
slaves.
[63] A slave might be lashed to a _furca_ for some hours, as a minor
penalty without desire to put him to death.
[64] An actual proclamation from Petronius.
[65] There would be just enough of negroes in Rome for them to cease to
be great curiosities.
[66] It is impossible to estimate the proportion of the population
“enfranchised” finally by the oft-discussed edict of Caracalla in 214
A.D. It must have been over one half of the entire total.
[67] Apparently it was quite possible for impecunious persons to sleep
much of the year under the public arches and porticoes, and thus even
dispense with the need of paying rent!
[68] These hopes had practically died out by Hadrian’s day.
[69] That St. Paul was presently released after trial at Rome is the
consensus among very many competent scholars.
[70] Women as well as men could sometimes be enrolled as clients.
Comical stories abounded; how a husband appeared with a litter claiming
that his “sick wife” was inside--“and would the steward please hurry
with the fee”--when, on brushing aside the curtains, the litter was
found to be empty.
[71] Especially in Gaul, Spain, and North Africa; in the Eastern
provinces the city governments were not run so strictly in the Roman
mold and often kept their native characteristics.
[72] Hence they were often called _Curiales_ from their seat in the
local Senate House (_Curia_).
[73] This name is not wisely translated as “Knights,” unless there is
complete disassociation from the idea of the mediæval baron in armor.
[74] Apparently at this time two thirds of the jurors were equites and
one third senators, but the point is not quite certain.
[75] The Republican censors could also give the order, “Sell your
horse” without stigma to equites who appeared in the review when too
old or too fat!
[76] By the age of Hadrian we see signs of that rigid separation
between upper-class citizens (_majores_) and lower-class (_minores_)
which marked the Later Empire. The equites tended to be mingled with
the senators in the _majores_.
[77] Marcus Aurelius confirmed this legally about 170 A.D.
[78] See “A Day in Old Athens,” p. 77.
[79] Antoninus Pius, the ruler succeeding Hadrian, formally enjoined
the remission of civic burdens for “community physicians” in the
Province of Asia; five in small cities, seven in larger ones, and ten
in the largest.
[80] Establishments selling ready prepared salves, plasters, and other
standard remedies were not unknown, and must have supplied many doctors.
[81] Chemical analysis was, of course, unknown.
[82] These titles and much more of the data here given are from the
writings of the great Galen--the master physician of the imperial age;
who wrote his books under Commodus about 185 A.D.
[83] As in the case of the death of Cæsar Germanicus (19 A.D.)
whose death at Antioch was probably natural, but which all his friends
attributed to poison given by his personal enemy, the Proconsul Piso.
[84] Probably there were such in the eastern provinces.
[85] Without clinical thermometers or second-watches, the taking of
temperature, timing of pulse, etc., must have been a very tedious and
disagreeable as well as uncertain process.
[86] Apparently the organization of _public hospitals_ in the
fourth century of our era, was among the earliest and worthiest of the
distinctly Christian charities, after the toleration of Christianity by
the Roman government.
[87] Two similar cases are recorded in Pliny the Younger; in one
of them the person contemplating suicide, on being assured by the
physicians that his case was not quite desperate, “agreed to fight on a
little longer.”
[88] The legal status of women made it needful to resort to various
legal fictions when they drew wills, but they could execute effective
testaments also.
[89] Still greater revenge could be taken by making insulting
references in wills to old enemies, making them bequests of no value,
or burdened with unwelcome conditions, or even explaining at length,
without fear of a slander suit, why no bequest was left to them at all!
[90] An actual tomb inscription.
[91] A hundred imagines of curule ancestors would be a very respectable
but not an extraordinary showing. When young Marcellus (Augustus’s
nephew) died, _six hundred_ imagines of noble ancestors were borne
in his procession.
[92] Under the Empire only the Emperor could actually ride in a
triumph; but his lieutenants could enjoy the “triumphal ornaments.”
[93] The granting of an actual funeral pyre inside of Rome was an
extraordinary honor--reserved only for emperors and other unusually
favored personages.
[94] This, of course, was the monument which Trimalchio, Petronius’s
famous character, arranged for himself.
[95] Compare “A Day in Old Athens,” p. 57.
[96] The father might have “taken up” the child earlier to indicate his
intentions not to expose it, but some later act of legal acknowledgment
before witnesses was necessary.
[97] And hardly anybody outside the Claudian gens was ever named Appius.
[98] Literally “Number Ten”; but that meaning had disappeared.
[99] Very many such lengthy names are found under Hadrian.
[100] See “A Day in Old Athens,” p. 63.
[101] These verses have been preserved to the present age by being
inscribed upon the foot of the colossal statue of the “Speaking Memnon”
in Egypt, during the visit there of Hadrian and Sabina.
[102] Of course, there would be many lower class Italians who, although
fairly at ease with Latin, would be entirely unfamiliar with Greek.
[103] The writing end of the stylus (bone or metal) was sharp. The
opposite end was blunt and flattened for erasing on the soft wax.
[104] See “A Day in Old Athens,” p. 64.
[105] These are the words of Eumenius, a teacher of about 300
A.D., but they would have been equally proper in the age of
Hadrian.
[106] Persons who could recite the whole of the Iliad and Odyssey from
memory were not unknown, although they were usually learned slaves, not
Romans of the higher class.
[107] A tombstone for a boy who died at the age of ten boasts that its
subject “knew the dogmas of Pythagoras and the teaching of the books of
the learned.” He was also alleged to have read all of Homer and to have
studied Euclid “tablets in hand.”
[108] Senators, degraded and banished for reasons good or bad, could
earn a living in the provinces by opening rhetoric schools. Thus
Lucinianus did so in Sicily in Trajan’s time. Pliny the Younger records
that he began his first set oration by declaring: “O Fortune, what
sport you make to amuse yourself! You make professors into senators,
and senators into professors.”
[109] An actual case for young orators as explained by the Elder
Seneca. Less advanced pupils could be pitted in arguments as to
“Whether country life is better than city life,” or “married life
better than celibacy.”
[110] The zeal for philosophy and rhetoric, or at least for the
patronage thereof, is shown by the story of how Trajan, a very
simple-minded soldier, used to invite the great rhetorician Dion
Chrysostom to visit him and take long journeys with him. The Emperor,
greatly impressed by the other’s learning, openly declared to him, “I
don’t in the least understand what you keep talking about, but for all
that I love you like my own soul!”
[111] It is impossible to recover the exact details of these two games.
We know of “solitaire” forms of these games, with the board made of
terebinth wood, and with crystal pieces, or with gold and silver coins
in place of the common black and white counters.
[112] In very early Roman days public records seem to have been kept on
books of _linen_; but these soon disappeared.
[113] We hear, however, of a single copy of Thucydides that required
578 pages, making a roll about 100 yards long--a most cumbersome volume.
[114] The use of flat opening books of the style later so familiar came
in before the fall of the Roman Empire, but they were apparently used
only for merchants’ ledgers, etc., in the time of Hadrian.
[115] This was the probable method of multiplying popular books, but we
lack very precise knowledge.
[116] Pliny the Younger had a favorite reader Eucolpus. When he fell
ill his master was sadly tormented: “Who will read my books and take
such an interest in them? Where can I find another with so pleasant a
reading voice?”
[117] Hadrian’s famous and pathetic poem “To his own soul” was not, of
course, composed until he lay on his death bed (138 A.D.).
[118] These men were well-known poets according again to Pliny the
Younger. The world undoubtedly gained when their verses perished.
[119] The record for a private collection--62,000 rolls, owned by the
senator Serenus, dates about 235 A.D., but there is no reason
to suppose that there were not libraries equally large under Hadrian.
[120] Concerning the actual arrangement of these public libraries we
know very little.
[121] Of course, by Hadrian’s time an increasingly large proportion of
the privates of the army was being recruited in the provinces.
[122] All these hucksters’ stalls as well as the beggars and the
playing children are depicted in certain very informing frescos in a
house at Pompeii, showing life in the forum of that little city.
[123] See “A Day in Old Athens,” p. 24.
[124] This form of advertisement is given in Petronius.
[125] 12 per cent (one per cent per month) was the lawful and normal
rate of interest. Greater interest could be demanded on risky ventures,
especially those by sea. Rates of 36 and 48 per cent, heard of under
the Later Republic, were excessive, and usually unlawful.
[126] These verses are from the wall of an inn in Pompeii, and the
foregoing description is that of an actual Pompeiian inn.
[127] This scene is a familiar one from Juvenal.
[128] Another scene taken from an actual bas-relief and inscription.
[129] Marcus Aurelius belonged to this rich family on his mother’s side.
[130] The real name of such a vessel.
[131] The expression “Sharer in the Public Grain Doles” appears on many
tombstones of worthy burghers, to indicate that they enjoyed the full
rights of citizenship.
[132] It became so under the Later Empire.
[133] When Commodus became Emperor in 180 A.D., the congiarium
came to the ruinous sum of 725 denarii per citizen. This was $96.00
each, if the coins were of full weight and fineness, which probably at
that period they were not.
[134] Figures given by Lucian for a craft of this type.
[135] See “A Day in Old Athens,” pp. 125–134.
[136] There was practically no naval warfare worth mentioning in
the whole course of Roman history from the battle of Actium (31
B.C.) to 323 A.D., when considerable naval fighting
took place at the time Constantine captured Byzantium from his rival
Licinius.
[137] As at Ephesus where Demetrius used the guild of the silversmiths
to start his riot against St. Paul. (Acts, 19:25.)
[138] Such improvised gaming-boards have been discovered by the
archæologists.
[139] See “A Day in Old Athens,” p. 216.
[140] Later than the age of Hadrian this area was occupied by such
famous structures as the Temple of Antoninus and Faustina, the Basilica
of Constantine, etc.
[141] A difficult archæological question is connected with the exact
site of the Rostra _before_ Julius Cæsar’s time. Probably its
original position was nearer the other end of the Forum.
[142] Janus was about the only Latin deity for whom there could not be
assigned a Greek counterpart.
[143] Later visitors to the Forum would, of course, be impressed with
the fine, if ornate, _Arch of Septimius Severus_, erected about
211 A.D. at the northwest corner of the plaza.
[144] The column of Marcus Aurelius, erected about 180 A.D. in
much the same style as that of Trajan, although a magnificent monument,
is not equal in execution to the older column.
[145] He magnanimously allowed Agrippa’s name still to appear as the
builder of the temple. The Pantheon apparently owed its preservation
through the Middle Ages to the fact that it was early consecrated as a
Christian church, and hence was exempt from profanation.
[146] At the end of his reign the Senate so disliked him that (although
he had been in the main an excellent ruler) his successor Antoninus had
much trouble in getting him voted a “_divus_,” as were all good
Emperors.
[147] We have no copy of the Acta Diurna. We possess, however, what
seems a pretty literal parody of its style and contents in Petronius,
and can reconstruct part of an issue with some confidence.
[148] Both of these are actual cases from the reign of Augustus.
[149] Old Latin goddesses.
[150] The only important addition after Domitian was made by
Septimius Severus, who, about 200 A.D., built the very lofty
_Septizonium_, a new palace at the south-east corner of the hill.
[151] As is, of course, well known, such emperors as Tiberius, Nero,
and Domitian were popular with the provinces, which were usually well
governed under them. Their cruelties smote mainly upon the senatorial
nobility.
[152] About 230 A.D. Alexander Severus caught a palace menial
selling gossip, and had him executed by being burned in a fire of damp
wood. “He is punished by smoke,” said the irate monarch, “who sold
‘smoke.’”
[153] The ceremony was not unlike that of the _levée_ of French kings
like Louis XIV, under the Old Régime before 1789.
[154] The Empresses would give a similar reception, however, to the
wives of their husbands’ “Friends.”
[155] Sometimes, with an affectation of democracy, almost any decently
clad person would be admitted to present petitions or merely to pay
respects. Servile prostrations before the Emperor were not encouraged
under the Early Principate; once when a petitioner went through great
bowings and scrapings while presenting a scroll to Augustus, the latter
cried testily, “You act as if you were presenting some money to an
elephant.”
[156] This was the form used by Augustus in announcing to Fabius
Maximus the withdrawal of imperial favor.
[157] Polite chatter, as reported by Horace, such as was vouchsafed by
Augustus and his great associate Mæcenas, to their social favorites.
[158] Hadrian, although not a bloody man, was so averse to being
opposed in argument that the philosopher Favorinus, with whom he took
issue on a point in etymology, promptly announced that “Caesar was
correct,” and so ended the discussion amiably. “But _you_ were
really correct,” protested Favorinus’s friends afterward. “Ah!” replied
he with a laugh, “the master of thirty legions must be allowed to know
better.”
[159] These old “Republican” officers, now six in number, retained a
certain control of the public markets, baths, taverns, etc.
[160] As discovered by modern archæologists.
[161] For the attitude of provincials under Roman rule the student can
with interest read the speech put in the mouth of King Agrippa, the
descendant of Herod, by Josephus (“Jewish War”: book II, ch. 16) in
which he tells the Jews of Nero’s day, (1) that on the whole the Roman
rule is so reasonable and tolerable they have no real cause to revolt
against it; (2) that all nations, including the most warlike such as
Sparta, Macedonia, the turbulent Gauls and Spain, have long since
submitted; (3) that these have not merely submitted but keep obedient
with only a trifling local display of armed force; (4) that resistance
to Rome is so hopeless in any case that a revolt would be impious
suicide.
[162] About 200 A.D. they were raised to 33.
[163] Its site to-day is occupied by the chief railroad station of
Rome, by which most foreign visitors enter the city and depart.
[164] An ever larger proportion of legionary troops had to be enlisted
in the provinces, although preferably in the parts somewhat Romanized.
[165] In Hadrian’s time a change was taking place whereby the first
cohort in a legion contained about twice as many men as there were
in any of the other nine; but this alteration became only gradually
effective.
[166] In the earlier Empire it was only 900 sesterces ($36).
[167] It might be added that Roman legions appear to have had a medical
department under a _medicus legionis_, which cared efficiently
for the health of the troops. Camp sanitation was well understood, and
epidemics in the army were rare.
[168] The only materials for a crown assumed to be available in a
rescued fortress.
[169] The distribution of the legions varied somewhat from one period
to another according to the probable dangers on the exposed frontiers,
but the largest armies were always stationed along the Rhine, the
Danube, and the Euphrates. In Hadrian’s time apparently the main forces
lay thus:
Britain, 3 legions.
Germany (Rhinelands), 4 legions.
Danubian lands and Dacia, 10 legions.
Syria and Palestine, 5 legions.
Cappadocia, 2 legions.
In all the other provinces requiring legionary troops at all
(_e.g._ Egypt, Spain, Numidia, etc.), only one legion.
Apparently in the second Christian century the greatest danger point
seemed near the Danube, and the second greatest along the Euphrates,
with the Rhinelands relatively more secure than earlier, when more
legions had been stationed near them.
[170] Some legions were named for their organizers: Augustus,
Claudius, etc.; some for real or alleged martial qualities, “Ferrata,”
“Fulminata,” “Victrix,” and the like; one, the “Alauda,” from the
lark’s wings worn on the helmets; several which were made by dividing
existing legions were known as “Gemina,” and some from their place of
original recruiting, “Gallica,” “Italica,” etc.
[171] The centurion to whom St. Paul’s custody was intrusted (Acts
XXVII, 1) was of the “Augustan band,” _i.e._ one of the somewhat
numerous cohorts named for Augustus--the special number not being given.
[172] Also we know from the by-laws of these soldiers’ benefit clubs
that every member was entitled to a fine funeral, to an allowance for
travel money if obliged to go on a long journey, and finally to a fixed
sum as consolation money in case he was demoted!
[173] The process of demilitarizing the population went so far that
Trajan even discouraged the organization of regular bands of firemen in
cities of Bithynia “lest they become the prey of factions”--_i.e._
somehow start a movement against the government.
[174] The Roman Empire has been rightly called a “military monarchy,”
but was such only because the disarming of the civilian population
and the extreme efficiency of the professional army put the former at
the mercy of the latter. The imperial army and navy hardly exceeded
350,000 men, and _may_ have been as small as 300,000. At the time
this book was written the United States, with a population not greatly
exceeding that of the Roman Empire, had a total of some 250,000 men in
its standing forces (army, navy, and marine corps) not counting any
organized militia. Almost nobody would have pretended that the addition
of some 100,000 men to this force could have rendered a “military
monarchy” possible in America except as very peculiar conditions
favored it--as they did in the Roman Empire.
[175] Bad Emperors, _e.g._ Domitian, made it a practice to
_speak first_ in the Curia; any senator who later opposed their
opinions was liable to charges of disloyalty. If, however, an Emperor
spoke last he also left the groundlings miserable because they might
unwittingly have opposed him.
[176] The last avowedly constitutional “Princeps” was Alexander Severus
(murdered 235 A.D.); then followed the military monarchy.
Aurelian (270–275 A.D.) took on practically all the trappings
of a despot, and with Diocletian (284 A.D.) the absolute
monarchy existed without concealment.
[177] The law required, however, a minimum of certain specified numbers
for the passing of various important kinds of decrees.
[178] He did this because as holder of the military power it
was unlawful for him to come inside the consecrated city limits
(_pomerium_); so he built a suburban Senate House outside of these
confines.
[179] So called because, being last on the Senate list, and seldom
called upon to speak, they could express themselves with their “feet”
only--_i.e._ by voting when they walked out in divisions of the
house.
[180] Under the later Empire this statue (originally set up by
Augustus) came to be looked upon as the “Palladium” of Rome and its
removal from the Senate House in 384 A.D. by Valentinian the
Second, despite vigorous protests by the pagan party, was looked upon
as an official announcement of the triumph of Christianity.
[181] The other consul in 134 A.D. was Gaius Julius Servianius. The
consuls would settle as to their presidency from day to day either by
mutual agreement, by taking turns in rotation, or by the casting of
lots.
[182] This trial follows closely the account of the prosecution of
Marius Priscus, proconsul of Africa, before the Senate by Pliny the
Younger and Tacitus the historian; but in Priscus’s trial the mere
oratory actually took three whole days! (See Pliny the Younger: Book
II, 11.)
[183] Any student interested in the coarse and violent personalities
permissible in speeches before the Senate, should read Cicero’s speech
“Against Piso.”
[184] Short-hand reports of the Senate meetings were taken, and
seemingly embodied everything said, including even the applause and the
unfriendly interruptions. We do not know, however, whether they were
taken by senators, or by reporters brought in for the purpose.
[185] Apparently men not of prætorian rank rather seldom got the floor,
although in highly important cases the presiding officer had to call
for _sententiæ_ down through the ex-quæstors.
[186] As did, of course, Cicero in his “Orations against Verres,” and
in other orations.
[187] See “A Day in Old Athens,” p. 135.
[188] Very few civil cases involving merely private rights would be
heard by the Emperor, although they might by his deputy, the Prætorian
Præfect. Claudius sometimes seems to have sat on the tribunal, out of
a pedantic sense of duty, but often falling asleep until the advocates
bawled “O Cæsar!” loudly enough to wake him.
[189] “Eloquence” was looked upon as indispensable for everybody
expecting any kind of a public career. Even in the army there was much
speech-making prior to a pitched battle. Tacitus speaks of how an army
was so utterly surprised that its general “could neither harangue
his men nor draw them up in battle array”--two operations apparently
equally necessary. (Tacitus, “History,” iv, 33.)
[190] Litigants were required by law to take oath that before the trial
they had not promised any sum to their advocates or entered into any
bargain with them. After the trial they were “allowed” to “offer” their
lawyers not over 10,000 sesterces if they wished.
[191] See “A Day in Old Athens,” p. 138.
[192] Space lacks for a discussion of the formal training of the Roman
lawyer-orators, or concerning those public recitations which sometimes
were the means of winning even greater reputation than any ordinary
successes in the courts.
Some of these recitations in hired halls, with the audience carefully
sprinkled with a paid claque, were worse than pedantic and artificial.
Pliny the Younger, although he denounced the use of a claque, repeated
with pleasure how he gave a reading from his own works and plays which
lasted two days, “necessitated by the applause of my audience”; and
boasted how he “had not allowed himself to skip one word.”
[193] The Roman week, _nundinæ_, had eight days--seven working days,
then a market day. The Jewish week of seven days (_hebdomas_) became
known to the Romans by the time of Pompeius Magnus, but it was not
generally adopted until Christianity became the state religion.
[194] Undoubtedly along with this incessant bathing there often went
the presence of much squalor, dirt, obnoxious insects, etc. which seem
inescapable in Mediterranean countries. Probably many persons injured
their health by excessive and debilitating bathing.
[195] An actual inscription. From the small provincial towns we have
other inscriptions, advertising bath-houses “in city style (_more
urbico_) and fitted with every convenience.”
[196] The great Baths of Caracalla (built _circ._ 215 A.D.) and those
of Diocletian (_circ._ 300 A.D.) were not in existence, of course,
in the days of Hadrian. Their ruins are at present among the most
imposing in Rome, and they were probably somewhat larger than the Baths
of Trajan, which are to-day nearly demolished, but their aspect and
general arrangement were hardly different.
[197] Houses near private baths were counted undesirable for residence
or investment purposes on account of the noise, which, in private
baths, often kept up late into the night.
[198] The famous group of Laocoön and his sons, now in the Vatican, was
found in the ruins of these Baths of Titus and Trajan.
[199] Petronius’s “Satyricon” gives a vivid and informing picture of
the amusements and horseplay in the thermæ.
[200] The tepidarium in the later Baths of Diocletian was about 300
feet long by 92 feet wide, but probably that in the Baths of Trajan was
somewhat smaller.
[201] The Tomb of Hadrian was not actually completed until 139
A.D.--after his death.
[202] Under the Republic the ædiles had to preside over very expensive
games. Augustus, however, turned the _Cura Ludorum_ (“supervision
of the games”) over to the prætors, and the ædiles only gave spectacles
voluntarily.
[203] In the later Empire we hear of the case of Symmachus, an
office-holder whose games cost him 2000 pounds of gold, about $400,000.
[204] Italian audiences stowed very close. According to the marking
upon the stone seats in the theater at Pompeii, only 16 inches were
allowed for each spectator.
[205] High-flying tragedies were indeed ground out by Seneca and
by many inferior literary dabblers, but these “dramas” were hardly
intended to be genuine acting plays, but only to be read aloud.
[206] The ancient orchestra was of course for the dances of the chorus
never for seating the spectators.
[207] This figure seems decidedly too high; but the present ruinous
state of the Circus Maximus makes it very difficult to determine the
number more exactly.
[208] As many as ten cars could contend at once in the greatest games.
[209] The description of the Roman-style chariot race in Lew Wallace’s
famous novel “Ben Hur” is technically as well as rhetorically admirable
and accurate. However, no high-rank Roman, such as Messala is
represented to have been, would have driven a quadriga in the public
circus. The drivers were nearly always low-born men of provincial if
not of servile origin.
[210] The Spanish bull fights at their very worst were a relatively
harmless imitation.
[211] The gladiatorial games were never introduced in Athens. Once
when, in the local council, it was proposed to imitate Rome and build
an amphitheater, a prominent philosopher quashed the whole project by
moving “first to abolish the altar of Pity.”
[212] Actual epithets bestowed on gladiators in the Pompeiian wall
inscriptions.
[213] Taken from the “Gladiator Gossip” at Trimalchio’s Dinner in
Petronius’s “Satyricon.”
[214] As we know from paintings showing the surroundings of the
Amphitheater at Pompeii.
[215] Ordinarily it is stated that there was room for about 87,000
persons in the Flavian Amphitheater. There were seats, however, for
only some 50,000, although possibly 20,000 more could find standing
room in the great upper sections.
[216] The regular gladiatorial oath.
[217] Augustus once protested against the custom of eating in the
amphitheater as being undignified and said he would prefer to go away
and return. “That is all right for _you_,” answered his hearer,
“but _your_ seat is sure to be kept for you!”
[218] There were at least two other types of heavy-armed gladiators
who are often mentioned--the “Samnites” and the “Myrmillones”; but it
hardly seems profitable to examine the small particulars in which their
arms differed from those of the “Thracians.”
[219] An actual Roman epitaph. The Epicurean theory was capable of
statement in much more pleasing language than is given above, but the
effect of such a philosophy upon the ordinary human viewpoint and
conduct was inevitable.
At the Roman colony of Thamugade in Africa, a checkerboard was found
scratched in the pavement of the Forum, and beside it this plebeian
version of the Prætor’s inscription: “_To hunt, to bathe, to gamble,
to laugh--that’s living!_”
[220] In all the extensive correspondence of Pliny the Younger there is
hardly a single reference indicating that he had any religious beliefs,
or took the least interest in religious matters save as they involved
outward ceremonies or official policies.
[221] This apparently continued true until well into the fourth
century, when the whole pagan system was swept away by Christianity.
[222] Janus had no Greek counterpart. It was one of the absurdities of
the late Græco-Latin mythology that his wife Diana (_Dia Jana_ =
“Madame Goddess Jana”) should have been confounded with Artemis.
[223] Under the later Republic these sacred colleges were filled
according to the majority vote of 17 tribes of the people, selected
by lot from the entire 35 tribes into which the Comitia Tributa was
divided.
[224] In early times the Pontifex Maximus also kept a kind of dry
annals of sacred and profane events (_Annales Maximi_), valuable
for the preservation of many facts in early Roman history.
[225] A general in the field had to “take the auspices” to get good
omens for his army, but of course he could not always have an augur
present. Once in the first Punic War, Publius Claudius, a consul about
to engage in a naval battle, was disgusted to be told, “The chickens
will not eat.” “Very well then,” he retorted, “let them drink!” and
flung them into the sea. To his own ruin and to the vindication of
the official religion he was thereupon completely defeated by the
Carthaginians!
[226] These plants (_verbenæ_) seem to have been grown within one
special inclosure on the Capitol hill. They were carried by one of the
fetiales known as the _verbenarius_.
[227] A rustic goddess sometimes also called Ops.
[228] For a translation of this “Song of the Arval Brethren,” see the
author’s “Readings in Ancient History,” vol. II, p. 6.
[229] As is well known Tiberius in his ignoble retirement on the
Isle of Capri surrounded himself with “Chaldæans” and other types of
stargazers and magicians.
[230] There were a few isolated survivals in Italy of the practices of
ancient savagery. For example at Aricia, in Latium about 16 miles from
Rome, there was a holy grove of Diana wherein the priest was always a
runaway slave who obtained his position by killing his predecessor.
He was then safe from pursuit as long as he remained in the grove,
until another fugitive slave in turn killed him--and so on through a
succession of tragedies!
[231] Pigs were very common Roman offerings and were the regular
victims in most of the rustic sacrifices.
[232] Slightly adapted from the form of prayer given in Cato the
Elder’s “Handbook on Agriculture.”
[233] This qualification of patrician birth was sometimes waived under
the Empire, when genuine old-line patricians had become extremely few,
but great pains were taken as to all the other requirements.
[234] Alone of all the important buildings in Rome, the Atrium Vestæ
had no piped water-supply; everything had to be borne in by the vestals
or (for non-religious purposes) by their numerous attendants.
[235] This did not prevent Vestals from attending the arena spectacles.
The gladiators and persons thrown to the beasts had in theory a chance
for life.
[236] It was quite proper to play “April Fool” jokes at the Saturnalia:
_e.g._ to present what seemed a platter of delicious food when all
the viands were actually of clay.
[237] Substantially on the scale of “Christmas presents.”
[238] Owing to rough dealings with the Senate, Hadrian himself came
near missing deification, but Antoninus won his title of “Pius” by
his zeal for vindicating his adoptive father’s memory. Antoninus Pius
himself and Marcus Aurelius after him were, of course, promptly deified.
[239] Much of what we know of these cults of the pagan Orient comes
from early Christian writers who have no hesitation in betraying the
“Mysteries,” but whose statements naturally are often biased and very
incomplete.
[240] The quotations are from Apuleius, “The Golden Ass” (book XI,
_passim_), and are given at greater length in the author’s
“Readings from Ancient History,” vol. II (Rome), pp. 282–284.
[241] Technically he was the highest archangel under the one actual god
Ahura-Mazda, but the Persian “magi” soon attributed to him practical
divinity.
[242] Nearly all our evidence for Mithraism is archæological; we
know little of either its doctrines or its ritual. Apparently it had
a system of priests not unlike the Christian clergy and a ceremony
resembling the Christian sacrament. It owed its success largely to
the real nobility of its doctrines, but could not in the end maintain
itself by appealing simply to a remote myth, while Christianity was
able to appeal to a personal Founder.
[243] Mithras worship was only beginning to be important in the Age of
Hadrian, and the Taurobolium was then still comparatively rare; by 200
A.D. it had become decidedly common; by 300 A.D. it
was very frequent indeed.
[244] From the age of Augustus to that of Nero Judaism had a
considerable popularity in Rome. Its austere monotheism coupled with
the mysterious Mosaic law and ceremonies made a considerable appeal
to public opinion, and many fashionable persons--including apparently
Nero’s Empress, the notorious Poppæa Sabina--gave “Jewish doctrines”
a superficial patronage. It was also somewhat the fad to treat the
Hebrew Sabbath as a kind of “holy day.” All this favor collapsed after
the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus. The Jews became a scattered
and persecuted sect, without influence. As for Christianity, after 70
A.D. it lost nearly all its Jewish element and became pretty
strictly a Gentile religion.
[245] Tacitus undoubtedly obtained his statement about Christ and
Pilate from the official government reports in the Roman Record Office.
There is no reason to suppose that he, any more than his friend Pliny,
investigated Christian sources.
[246] The following are _some_ only of the reasons why the Roman
government insisted on persecuting the Christians, despite its usual
policy of religious tolerance:
1. The Christians persistently refused to sacrifice to the
deified Emperors and to the Genius of the reigning Emperor,
an act practically amounting in common opinion to a denial
of loyalty to the government, or at least capable of that
construction.
2. The Christians demanded the repudiation of the old gods,
including, of course, the official gods of Rome; they were not
content with simply worshiping “Christus” along with Jupiter,
Apollo, etc. as were for example the devotees of Isis.
3. The Christians maintained a tight interior organization,
separate socially from the pagans, under the control of its
bishops, presbyters, and deacons, and so far as possible judging
the disputes of its members. This seemed meddling with political
matters, a ticklish business with any Emperor.
4. The private meetings of the Christians, and the
misconstructions laid upon their ceremonies, gave rise to the
vilest possible stories.
5. The great proportion of slaves and of the lowest grade of
plebeians in the early Church seemed to justify the belief that
here was a subversive, degraded, and illicit movement.
[247] An actual wall-picture. For the charges here given against
Christian assemblies and for many gross details, see Minucius Felix
(“Octavius” VIII, 9.), who quotes the stories in order to refute them.
It seems needless in a book concerned strictly with pagan Rome, to
discuss the actual tenets and liturgies of the Early Christians. The
only point to be understood here is the vile character of the charges
brought against them by the ignorant heathen.
[248] Probably the Roman carriages were more convenient than anything
known later in Europe prior to 1800; and travel facilities in general
were as good, the inns possibly averaging worse but the roads decidedly
better, than at the dawn of the Nineteenth Century.
[249] The following is an abridgment of Pliny the Younger’s well-known
description of his Tuscan villa.
[250] The Romans delighted in formal and highly artificial gardens such
as were in vogue in the Italian Renaissance and the France of Louis XIV.
[251] Well known, of course, is the famous dictum of Gibbon (“Decline
and Fall of Roman Empire”: vol. i, chap. 2. Bury edition, p. 78): “If
a man were called to fix the period during which the condition of the
human race was most happy and prosperous he would, without hesitation,
name that which elapsed from the death of Domitian to the accession of
Commodus.” From the standpoint of a believer in aristocracy or monarchy
this opinion is largely justifiable.
[252] Where according to firm Christian tradition St. Paul was beheaded
in the days of Nero, having been rearrested after having once been set
at liberty.
[252] Where according to firm Christian tradition St. Paul was beheaded
in the days of Nero, having been rearrested after having once been set
at liberty.
Transcriber’s Notes:
1. Obvious printers’, punctuation and spelling errors have been
corrected silently.
2. Where hyphenation is in doubt, it has been retained as in the
original.
3. Some hyphenated and non-hyphenated versions of the same words have
been retained as in the original.
4. Italics are shown as _xxx_.
5. Bold print is shown as =xxx=.
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