LIFE IN THE MIDDLE AND LOWER CLASSES
Silius was a noble, with a nobleman's privileges and also his
limitations. The class next in rank below his consisted of the
"knights," of whom something has already been said. It will be
remembered that these men of the "narrow stripe" were the higher
middle class, who conducted most of the greater financial enterprises
of Rome and the provinces. While the senatorial order could govern the
important provinces, command legions, possess large estates, and
derive revenues from them, but could make money in other ways only
through the more or less concealed agency of knights or their own
freedmen, the knights were free to act as bankers, money-lenders,
tax-farmers, and merchants or contractors in a large way, and to take
charge of such third-rate provinces as the Caesar might think fit to
entrust to them. Money-lending at Rome was an extremely profitable
business. Not only was the nobleman often extravagant in his tastes,
but when once elected to a public position he was practically
compelled to spend money lavishly in giving shows and exhibitions of
the kind which will be described immediately, or upon some public
building, or otherwise. In consequence he often incurred heavy debts.
Meanwhile the smaller traders and agriculturists, who were in
competition with slave-labour and other false economic conditions, to
say nothing of bad seasons, were frequently in the hands of the
usurers. Though efforts were repeatedly made to check exorbitant rates
of interest, they were apparently quite as ineffectual as with us. An
almost standard charge was at the rate of one-twelfth of the loan, or
8-1/3 per cent, but another common rate was that of one per cent per
month. Rates both higher and lower are known to us from particular
cases. Naturally the question depended on the security, when it did
not depend upon the greed of the one side and the ignorance of the
other. Much, however, of what the books call money-lending was only
what we should consider legitimate banking. Be this as it may, the
knights made large fortunes from the practice. They were also the
tax-farmers, who operated in the case of those imposts which were
still left indirect. The practice was to make an estimate of the
amount of such a tax derivable from a province, to purchase it from
the government at as large a margin of profit as possible, and so
relieve the state of the trouble and cost of collecting it. For this
purpose "companies" were formed, with what we should call a "legal
manager" at Rome. The managers would bid at auction for the tax, pay
the purchase-money into the treasury, and proceed to get in the tax
through local managers and agents in the provinces concerned. It has
already been explained that the more important taxation of the empire
was at this date direct--a community in Gaul, Spain, Asia Minor, or
Syria knowing what its assessment was, taking its own measures, and
using its own native or local collectors. The knights at Rome might
still advance sums to such communities, but they were not in this case
tax-farmers. It is unfortunate that the word "publicans"--bracketed
with "sinners"--is used in the New Testament translation for the local
collectors like St. Matthew. Not only does the word convey either no
notion or a wholly incongruous one to the ordinary reader, but it is
apt to mislead those who know its origin. Because the financial
companies at Rome, in purchasing the taxes, were taking up a public
contract, they were called _publicani_. But it is not these men who
were themselves acting as petty collectors--in any case they had
nothing to do with the native collectors appointed by the
communities--and it is not these who enjoyed an immediate association
with "sinners." The fact is that the Latin word applied to the great
tax-farming companies, who were acting for Rome, was afterwards
transferred to even the smallest collecting agent with opportunities
for extortion and harshness.
The stratum of Roman society below the knights was extremely
composite. The slaves, of course, are not included. They have no right
to the Roman "toga," nor may they even wear the conical Roman cap,
except at the Saturnalia, when everything is deliberately topsy-turvy.
Omitting these, we may roughly divide the rest, as the Romans
themselves divided them, into "people" and "rabble." The rabble are
either persons without regular occupation, or _lazzaroni_, sheer
idlers, loafers, and beggars. Doubtless many of them would execute an
errand or carry a parcel for a small copper, otherwise they would be
found hanging about the public squares, lounging on the steps or in
the precincts of public buildings, such as temples, basilicas,
porticoes, and baths, and playing at what the Italians call _morra_--a
more clever and tricky species of "How many fingers do I hold up?"--or
at "Heads or Tails." The poor of ancient Rome, like those of modern
Italy, could subsist on very plain and simple food. Water, with a dash
of wine when it could be got--and apparently at this date wine cost
less than a penny a quart--and porridge or bread, however coarse,
would suffice, so long as there were amusements, sunshine, and no need
to work. Every considerable city of the empire round the Mediterranean
would doubtless contain its proportion of such "lewd fellows of the
baser sort," but it was naturally the imperial city that contained by
far the most. Rome was by no means the only city in which doles of
free corn were made and free spectacular exhibitions given. But in
other places the distributions were occasional and depended on the
bounty of local men of wealth or ambition, whereas at Rome the dole
was regular, and the spectacles frequent and splendid. Rome was the
capital, and the abode of the emperor. It claimed the privileges of
the Mistress City, including the enjoyment of the surplus revenues.
Policy also demanded that the rabble should be kept quiet by "bread
and games."
It is for these reasons that the names of some 200,000 citizens stood
upon a list to receive each month an allowance of corn--apparently
between six and seven bushels--at the expense of the imperial
treasury. This quantity they took away and made into bread as best
they could. In many cases doubtless they sold it to the bakers and
others. It must be added that, apart from the free distribution, the
imperial stores contained quantities of grain which could always be
purchased at a low rate. Occasionally a dole of money was added; in
one case Nero gave over £2 per man. Meanwhile there was water in
abundance to be had for nothing, brought by the carefully kept
aqueducts into numerous fountains conveniently placed throughout the
city. While, however, we must recognise that the number of idlers was
very large, we must be careful not to exaggerate. It is absurd to
assume, as some have done, that because 200,000 citizens are receiving
free corn there are 200,000 unemployed. The Roman emperors never
intended to put a premium on laziness, but only to deal with poverty.
In order to receive your dole of corn it was not necessary to show
that you were starving, but only that you were entitled, or in other
words, on the list. It is also a mistake to think that any chance
arrival among the Roman _olla podrida_ could claim his bushel and a
half of corn a week. In any case only Roman citizens could
participate. All the poorest workers, whether actually employed or
not, could take their corn with the rest. Nor must we forget that
among the unemployed there were a considerable number who were, for
one reason or another, only temporarily out of work. Nevertheless, it
requires no study of political economy to know, nor were Roman
statesmen blind to see, that the best way to make men cease to work is
to show them that they can live, however shabbily, without. The really
surprising thing is perhaps that the Roman government, with its
immense funds and resources, stopped short where it did. An unsound
economic system had brought about difficult conditions, with which the
emperors and their advisers dealt as best they could.
It was inevitable that among so numerous a pampered rabble, and so
many impoverished aliens who tried their fortunes in the capital,
there should be beggars in considerable numbers. We cannot tell
precisely how many they were. You might find them on the bridges,
where they marked, as it were, a "stand" for themselves and crouched
on a mat, or at the gates, or wherever carriages must proceed slowly
on the highroads near the city, as for instance up the slope of the
Appian Way as it passed over the south-western spur of the Alban
Hills. Other towns would be infested in the same manner. Nor were
thieves and footpads wanting in the streets or highwaymen upon the
roads, especially in the lonelier parts near the marshes between Rome
and the Bay of Naples. The city was, indeed, liberally policed, but
Roman streets, as we have seen, were for the most part narrow,
crooked, and unlighted at night. As usual, it was the comparatively
poor who suffered from the street robber; the rich, with their torches
and retinue, could always protect themselves.
After the "rabble" we will take the "people" in the sense current at
this date. We must begin by adjusting our notions somewhat. The Romans
made no such clear distinction as we do between trades and
professions. To perform work for others and to receive pay for it is
to be a hireling. Painters, sculptors, physicians, surgeons, and
auctioneers are but more highly paid and more pleasantly engaged
hirelings. Only so far do they differ from sign-painters, masons,
undertakers, or criers. No doubt the theory broke down somewhat in
practice, yet such is the theory. That which in our day constitutes a
"liberal" profession--a previous liberal education and a high code of
professional etiquette--can hardly be said to have existed in the case
of corresponding professions at Rome. If the liberality departs from
our own professional education and the etiquette is relaxed, we shall
presumably revert to the same state of things. A surgeon was commonly
a "sawbones," and a physician a compounder and prescriber of more or
less empirical drugs. Their knowledge and skill were by no means
contemptible, and their instruments and pharmacopoeia were
surprisingly modern. Among the Greeks and Orientals their social
standing was high, but at Rome, where they were chiefly foreigners,
for the most part Greeks, the old aristocratic exclusiveness kept them
in comparatively humble estimation, however large might be their fees
in the more important cases. Something will be said later as to the
state of science and knowledge in the Roman world. For the present it
is sufficient to note that artist, medical man, attorney,
schoolmaster, and clerk belong theoretically to the common "people,"
along with butchers, bakers, carpenters, and potters.
[Illustration: FIG. 69.--SURGICAL INSTRUMENTS. (Pompeii.)]
Setting aside the aristocratic and wealthy classes on the one hand,
and the pauperised class on the other, we have lying between them the
workers, whether native Romans or the emancipated slaves, who are now
citizens known as "freedmen." To these we must add the rather shabby
genteel persons whom we have already described as "clients." Among
workers are found men and women of all the callings most familiar to
ourselves, with one exception. They do not include domestic servants.
Romans who could afford regular servants kept slaves. It 18 true that
occasionally one of the poorer citizens, even a soldier on furlough,
might perform some menial task connected with a household, such as
hewing wood or carrying burdens; but such services were regarded as
"servile." With this exception there is scarcely an occupation in
which Roman citizens did not engage. In such work they often had to
compete with slave-labour. It is probable, doubtless, that the greater
proportion of the slave body were employed as domestic servants. But
many others tilled the lands of the larger proprietors. Others
laboured under the contractors who constructed the public works.
Others were used as assistants in shops and factories. It is obvious
that such competition reduced the field of free labour, when it did
not close it entirely, and the free labour must have been unduly
cheapened. But to suppose that all the Roman work, whether in town or
country, was done by slaves is to be grossly in the wrong. Romans were
to be found acting as ploughmen and herdsmen, workers in vineyards,
carpenters, masons, potters, shoemakers, tanners, bakers, butchers,
fullers, metal-workers, glass-workers, clothiers, greengrocers,
shopkeepers of all kinds. There were Roman porters, carters, and
wharf-labourers, as well as Roman confectioners and sausage-sellers.
To these private occupations must be added many positions in the lower
public or civil service. There was, for example, abundant call for
attendants of the magistrates, criers, messengers, and clerks.
Unfortunately our information concerning all this class is very
inadequate. The Roman writers--historians, philosophers, rhetoricians,
and poets--have extremely little to say about the humble persons who
apparently did nothing to make history or thought. They are mentioned
but incidentally, and generally without interest, if not with some
contempt, except where a poet is choosing to glorify the simple life
and therefore turns his gaze on the frugal peasantry, who doubtless
did, in sober fact, retain most of the sturdy old Roman spirit. About
the soldiers we know much, and not a little about the schoolmasters.
The connection of the one occupation with history and of the other
with authors will account for this fact. Something will be said of the
army and also of the schools in their special places. Keepers of inns
are not rarely in evidence in the literature of satire and epigram,
and no language seems too contemptuous for their alleged dishonesty.
But of inns enough has been said. We learn that the booksellers
made money out of the works of which they caused their slaves to
make copies, and which they sold in "well got up" style for four
shillings, or, in the case of slender volumes, for as little as
fourpence-halfpenny. But to this day we do not know how much profit an
author drew from the bookseller, or how it was determined, or whether
he drew any at all. It is most reasonable to suppose that he sold a
book straight out to the publisher for what he could get. Otherwise it
is hard to see how any check could be kept upon the sales. The only
occupation upon which literature offers us systematic information is
agriculture, including the pasturing of cattle and the culture of the
vine. For the rest we derive more knowledge from the excavations of
Pompeii than from any other source. From actual shops and their
contents, from pictures illustrating contemporary life, and from
inscriptions and advertisements, we are enabled to reconstruct some
picture of commercial and industrial operations. We can see the
fuller, the baker, the goldsmith, the wine-seller, and the
wreath-maker at their work. We can discern something of the retail
trade in the Forum; or we can see the auctioneer making up his
accounts.
[Illustration: FIG. 70.--BAKER'S MILLS. (Pompeii.)]
[Illustration: FIG. 71.--CUPIDS AS GOLDSMITHS. (Wall Painting.)]
[Illustration: FIG. 72.--GARLAND-MAKERS.]
[Illustration: FIG. 73.--BUST OF CAECILIUS JUCUNDUS.]
The baker, for example, was his own miller. There are still standing
the mills, with the upper stone--a hollow cylinder with a pinched
waist--capable of revolving upon the under stone and letting the flour
drop into the rim below. Into the holes in the middle of the upper or
"donkey" stone, and across the top, were fixed wooden bars, which were
either pushed by men or drawn by asses yoked to them. The oven is
still in place, and, charred as they are, we are quite familiar with
the round flat loaves shaped and divided like a large "cross" bun. The
dough was kneaded by a vertical shaft with arms revolving in a
receptacle, from the sides of which other arms projected inwards, so
that there was little room for the dough to be squeezed between them.
We have pictures of the fuller, to whom the woollen garments--the
togas and tunics, and the mantles of the women--were regularly sent to
be washed by treading in vats, to be beaten, stretched, and bleached
with sulphur, and to have their naps raised with a comb or a bunch of
thorns. The goldsmith is depicted at his furnace or his anvil. The
garland-makers are at work fastening the blossoms or petals on a
ribbon or a tough strip of lime-bark. Dealers in other goods are
showing the results of their labour to customers, who carefully
examine them by eye, touch, and smell. The tablets containing the
receipts for sales and rents still exist as they were found in the
house of the shrewd-looking Jucundus the auctioneer. They formally
acknowledge the receipt of such-and-such sums realised at an auction,
"minus commission," although unfortunately they do not happen to tell
us how much the commission was. We see the venders of wine filling the
jars for customers from the large wine-skin in the waggon. In
conclusion to this subject it should be observed that all manner of
descriptive signs were in use; and just as one may still see a
barber's pole or a gilt boot in front of a shop, or a painted sign at
a public-house, so one might see the representation of a goat at the
door of a milk-vender, or of an eagle or elephant at the door of an
inn.
[Illustration: FIG. 74.--PLOUGH. (Primitive and later forms.)]
Meanwhile out in the country we can perceive the farm, with its hedges
of quick-set, its stone walls, or its bank and ditch. The rather
primitive plough--though not always so primitive as it was a
generation or so ago in Italy--is being drawn by oxen, while, for the
rest, there are in use nearly all the implements which were employed
before the quite modern invention of machinery. It may be remarked at
this point that the rotation of crops was well understood and
regularly practised. Then there are the pasturelands, on the plains in
the winter, but in summer on the hills, to which the herdsmen drive
their cattle along certain drove-roads till they reach the unfenced
domains belonging to the state. There they form a camp of huts or
wigwams under a "head man," and surround their charges with strong
fierce dogs, whose business it is to protect them, not only from
thieves, but also from the wolves which were then common on the
Apennines--where, indeed, bears also were to be met. There was no want
of occupation in the country in the time of haymaking, of the vintage,
or of olive-picking. Even the city unemployed could gather a bunch of
grapes or pick an olive, just as they can with us, or just as the
London hop-picker can take a holiday and earn a little money in Kent.
In the vineyards, where the vines commonly trailed upon low elms and
other trees, various vegetables grew between the rows, as they still
do about Vesuvius; on the hills were olive-groves, which cost almost
nothing to keep in order, and which supplied the "butter" and the
lamp-oil of the Mediterranean world.
[Illustration: FIG. 75.--TOOLS ON TOMB.]
We need not waste much compassion upon the life of the Roman working
class. It is true that there was then no doctrine of the "dignity of
labour," but that there was reasonable pride taken in a trade
reputably maintained is seen from the frequent appearance of its tools
upon a tombstone. In respect of the mere enjoyment of life, the
labourers, of the Roman world were, so far as we can gather, tolerably
happy. They had abundant holidays, mostly of religious origin; but,
like our own, so frequently added to, and so far diverted from
religious thoughts, that they were more marked by jollity and sport
than by any solemnity of spirit. The workmen of a particular calling
formed their guilds, "city companies," or clubs, in the interests of
their trade and for mutual benefit. There was a guild of bakers, a
guild of goldworkers, and a guild of anything and everything else.
Each guild had its special deity--such as Vesta, the fire-goddess, for
the bakers, and Minerva, the goddess of wool-work, for the
fullers--and it held an annual festival in honour of such patrons,
marching through the streets with regalia and flag. Doubtless the
members of a guild acted in concert for the regulation of prices,
although the Roman government took care that these clubs should be
non-political, and would speedily suppress a strike if it seriously
interfered with the public convenience. The ostensible excuse for a
guild, and apparently the only one theoretically accepted by the
imperial government, was the excuse of a common worship. It is at
least certain that the emperors jealously watched the formation of any
new union, and that they would promptly abolish any which appeared to
have secret understandings and aims, or to act in contravention of the
law. In the towns which possessed local government the municipal
authorities were still elected by the people; and the guilds,
especially of shopkeepers, could and did play their parts in
determining the election of a candidate. The elections might make a
difference to them in those ways in which modern town-councillors and
mayors, may influence the rates, the conditions of the streets, the
rules of traffic, and so forth. There are sixteen hundred election
notices painted, in red and black about the walls of Pompeii, and we
find So-and-So recommended by such-and-such a trade as being a "good
man," or "an honest young man," or a person who will "keep an eye on
the public purse." It is amusing to note that, in satirical parody of
such appeals as "the fruitsellers recommend So-and-So," we find that
"the petty thieves recommend So-and-So," or we get the opinion of "the
sleepers one and all." Special objects connected with these and other
associations were the provision of "widows' funds," and of proper
burial for the members. Of the importance of the latter to the ancient
world we shall speak when we come to a funeral and the religious ideas
connected with it.
The most difficult task in dealing with antiquity is to visualise the
actual life as it was lived. In the life of the humbler citizens the
remains of Pompeii lend more help than anything else to the desired
sense of reality, but they are the remains of Pompeii, not of Rome.
Nevertheless there are many points in which we may fairly argue from
the little town to the larger, and it is customary to adopt this
course.
[Illustration: FIG. 76.--POMPEIAN COOK-SHOP.]
We may, therefore, think of the common people among these ancients as
very much alive in their frank curiosity, their broad humour, their
love of shows, and their keen enthusiasm for the competitions, their
interest in petty local elections, their advertising instincts, their
insatiable fondness for scribbling on walls and pillars, whether in
paint or with a "style," a sort of small stiletto with which they
commonly wrote on tablets. The ancient world becomes very near when we
read, side by side with the election notices, a line from Virgil or
Ovid scrawled in a moment of idleness, or a piece of abuse of a
neighbouring and rival town--such as "bad luck to the Nucerians"--or a
pretty sentiment, such as "no one is a gentleman who has not been in
love," or an advertisement to the effect that there are "To let, from
July 1, shops with their upper floors, a flat for a gentleman, and a
house: apply to Prinus, slave of So-and-So"; or "Found wandering, a
mare with packsaddle, apply, etc."--the latter, by the way, painted on
a tomb.
[Illustration: FIG. 77.--IN A WINE-SHOP.]
For places of social resort there were the baths, the colonnades, the
semicircular public seats, the steps of public buildings, the shops,
and the eating-houses and taverns. The middle classes, in the absence
of the modern clubs, met to gossip at the barber's, the bookseller's,
or the doctor's. Those of a humbler grade would often betake
themselves to the establishments corresponding to the modern Italian
_osterie_, where were to be obtained wine with hot or cold water and
also cooked food. As they sat on their stools in these "greasy and
smoky" haunts they might be compelled, says the satirist, to mix with
"sailors, thieves, runaway slaves, and the executioner," but even men
of higher standing were often not unwilling to seek low pleasures amid
such surroundings, especially when, as was frequently the case, there
was provision for secret dicing beyond the observation of the police.
From literature, meanwhile, we may fill in their vivacious language,
the courteous terms the people apply to each other, such as "you ass,
pig, monkey, cuckoo, chump, blockhead, fungus," or, on the other side,
"my honey, my heart, my dove, my life, my sparrowkin, my dainty
cheese." But to go more fully into matters like these would carry us
too far afield.
We will end this topic with a last look at the ordinary free workman,
who wears no toga, but simply a girt-up tunic, a pair of boots, and a
conical cap, and who goes home to his plain fare of bread, porridge,
lentil soup, goats'-milk cheese, "broad" and "French" beans, beetroot,
leeks, salted or smoked bacon, sausages, and black-pudding, which he
will eat off earthenware or a wooden trencher, and wash down with
cheap but not unwholesome wine mixed with water. He has no pipe to
smoke; he has never heard of tea, coffee, or spirits. He may have been
told that certain remote barbarians drink beer, and he may know of a
thing called butter, but he would not touch it so long as he can get
olive-oil. However humble his home, he will endeavour to own a silver
salt-cellar, and to keep it as an heirloom.