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.