This book, like the volume on "Society and Politics in Ancient Rome,"
deals with the life of the common people, with their language and
literature, their occupations and amusements, and with their social,
political, and economic conditions. We are interested in the common people
of Rome because they made the Roman Empire what it was. They carried the
Roman standards to the Euphrates and the Atlantic; they lived abroad as
traders, farmers, and soldiers to hold and Romanize the provinces, or they
stayed at home, working as carpenters, masons, or bakers, to supply the
daily needs of the capital.
The other side of the subject which has engaged the attention of the
author in studying these topics has been the many points of similarity
which arise between ancient and modern conditions, and between the
problems which the Roman faced and those which confront us. What policy
shall the government adopt toward corporations? How can the cost of living
be kept down? What effect have private benefactions on the character of a
people? Shall a nation try to introduce its own language into the
territory of a subject people, or shall it allow the native language to be
used, and, if it seeks to introduce its own tongue, how can it best
accomplish its object? The Roman attacked all these questions, solved some
of them admirably, and failed with others egregiously. His successes and
his failures are perhaps equally illuminating, and the fact that his
attempts to improve social and economic conditions run through a period of
a thousand years should make the study of them of the greater interest and
value to us.
Of the chapters which this book contains, the article on "The Origin of
the Realistic Romance among the Romans" appeared originally in _Classical
Philology_, and the author is indebted to the editors of that periodical
for permission to reprint it here. The other papers are now published for
the first time.
It has not seemed advisable to refer to the sources to substantiate every
opinion which has been expressed, but a few references have been given in
the foot-notes mainly for the sake of the reader who may wish to follow
some subject farther than has been possible in these brief chapters. The
proofs had to be corrected while the author was away from his own books,
so that he was unable to make a final verification of two or three of the
citations, but he trusts that they, as well as the others, are accurate.
He takes this opportunity to acknowledge his indebtedness to Dr. Donald
Blythe Durham, of Princeton University, for the preparation of the index.
Frank Frost Abbott.
Einsiedeln, Switzerland
_September 2, 1911_