With the death of Sulla a new period of Roman history begins, a brief
and in many ways brilliant half-century, about which we know far more
than we do of any earlier time, since we possess the works, in writing,
architecture, sculpture, of the men, or of some of them, who helped to
make it. Roman life in these fifty years is, in many respects,
startlingly like that of our own day. True, the great discoveries of
science had not been achieved; there were no motors, telephones or
lifts, no railways, no electric light or power, no illustrated
papers--indeed the first newspaper of any kind was a small sheet issued
by Caesar. But in the things they did and said and thought about, and in
the way they acted and spoke and thought about them, the Romans who
lived in the sixty odd years before the birth of Christ were very much
like the Englishmen of our own day. The comfort of the lives of the
well-to-do, with their elegant town houses and charming country villas,
furnished with beautiful things brought from all parts of the world,
depended on the labour of innumerable slaves. In many ways, however,
these slaves were not worse off than the poor factory workers of our
great towns; in some they were more fortunate. The lot of those who were
being trained to fight in the games was certainly dreadful; but those
owned by private persons were for the most part kindly treated and could
and often did buy their freedom. The class of freedmen was a large and
growing one in Rome.
[Illustration: CUTLER'S SHOP]
The revolutionary wars had brought ruin to many. Large tracts of Italy
had been laid waste. But though the wounds that had been dealt at the
life of the country bled for long, prosperity returned surprisingly
quickly. If some families had lost everything, others had profited by
their losses. And from abroad wealth poured into Italy in
ever-increasing streams. A new class of rich men grew up, whose wealth
came from business of all sorts--tax-farming in the provinces, house
building, ship construction, agriculture on a large scale. Side by side
with them were the lawyers, an increasingly important body. As to-day,
a great many young men, when they had completed their education by
spending some time abroad, in Greece by preference, became barristers.
Success in the courts, the power of public speaking, opened the way to
success in politics, though it was long before any one could go far
along that road who had not won distinction as a soldier.
Very slowly and gradually, the sharp line between the new men and the
old patrician families began to soften. There were few so proud that
they would not go and eat a sumptuous dinner at the house of a man
because his parent had not worn the purple stripe on his toga that
marked the senator. Education spread. Sulla brought back with him from
Greece innumerable treasures, among them the works of Aristotle, which
became the educated young Roman's bible.
All over Italy wealth spread, as the fields blossomed with vine and
olive. Great roads made travel easier and swifter; aqueducts brought
water where it was needed; the marshes were drained; everywhere lovely
villas were built, their exquisite gardens adorned with beautiful
statues. Thither the tired Roman went for a few days' refreshment,
accompanied by his friends and escorted by trains of slaves. Slaves
wrote his letters for him, and carried them swiftly to his friends in
other parts of Italy or across the seas. They copied the verses and
prose sketches which the young Roman of fashion liked to have written,
so that the vellum roll circulated almost as quickly and freely, among
the well-to-do, as does the volume to-day. Life became more elegant and
refined. Music, dancing, games of all sorts provided distraction;
gambling became a passion with many; eating and drinking were as
luxurious as now. When we think of the Romans of the period after the
civil wars we must think of men intelligent, cultivated, educated,
polished by contact with a wide and various world of affairs, their
minds opened by foreign travel and the study of Greek language and
literature.
[Illustration: WRITING MATERIALS
Pens, Ink, Tablet, and Potsherd
Brit. Mus.]
War, however, remained the high road to popularity and fame. Since all
the provinces were held by military governors (pro-consuls or quaestors)
any one who aspired to high place in the State must have gone through
some sort of military training. The successful general was still the
favourite candidate. But military prowess alone was no longer enough.
The day was gone by when a boor like Marius could ride rough-shod over
the Republic. The hero of the new Rome was to be something more than a
soldier, though he must be a soldier too.
Within Italy the struggle between Romans and Italians was over. Italy
was one, as it had never been before. Having acquired the vote, though
not on terms of full equality with the Roman citizen, the Italian middle
class settled down to money-making and did not, as a rule, trouble much
about the stormy course of politics in the capital. More and more, it
was from Italy that the army came; the Roman populace liked the shows
given at the close of campaigns, but did not care much for the dangers
and hardship of service.
But although this struggle was over, another remained, sharper and more
bitter than before. The return of Sulla had meant the triumph of the
Senatorial Party, of the Conservatives, the men of old family and fixed
ideas. Sulla's proscriptions, the murder and banishment of innumerable
families and the seizure of their goods and estates, to be divided among
their enemies, left behind them a deep hatred between those who had
triumphed and those who had been defeated. After Sulla's death the sons
and grandsons of the proscribed began to come back, and what had once
been the Popular Party, led by Marius and Cinna, built itself up again.
At first it had no leaders. The men who were to be its leaders were
still too young. Gradually, however, in spite of the unpopularity that
had become attached to its very name, it gathered strength. The new rich
and the struggling lawyers joined its ranks, since there was more chance
there than in those of the Conservatives for fresh talent and new ideas.
A new kind of political organization was built up through the clubs and
workmen's associations.
The main source of the growing strength of this new Popular Party was
the weakness and inefficiency of the Government. Sulla had erected a
remarkable machine, intended to prevent all change and keep the power of
the State in the hands of a small ruling class, the patricians. But the
machine would not work when his strong directing hand was removed. It
was too stiff and rigid to cope with the growing tasks of administering
the great empire over which Rome had to rule. Bit by bit Sulla's system
broke down; his rules were swept aside. In the years between his death
and that of Caesar the rule of Rome extended enormously; each extension
made the need of a strong and efficient Government more pressing. The
actual government of Rome through the Senate was neither strong nor
efficient. Nothing was well managed. This growing mismanagement
compelled men of active minds to look around and ask themselves what was
wrong. They found different answers. But the need of change was clear.