The party of reform emerges, as it were, personified in Marcus Porcius

Cato (520-605). Cato, the last statesman of note belonging to that

earlier system which restricted its ideas to Italy and was averse to

universal empire, was for that reason accounted in after times the

model of a genuine Roman of the antique stamp; he may with greater

justice be regarded as the representative of the opposition of the

Roman middle class to the new Hellenico-cosmopolite nobility. Brought

up at the plough, he was induced to enter on a political career by the

owner of a neighbouring estate, one of the few nobles who kept aloof

from the tendencies of the age, Lucius Valerius Flaccus. That upright

patrician deemed the rough Sabine farmer the proper man to stem the

current of the times; and he was not deceived in his estimate.

Beneath the aegis of Flaccus, and after the good old fashion serving

his fellow-citizens and the commonwealth in counsel and action, Cato

fought his way up to the consulate and a triumph, and even to the

censorship. Having in his seventeenth year entered the burgess-army,

he had passed through the whole Hannibalic war from the battle on the

Trasimene lake to that of Zama; had served under Marcellus and Fabius,

under Nero and Scipio; and at Tarentum and Sena, in Africa, Sardinia,

Spain, and Macedonia, had shown himself capable as a soldier, a staff-

officer, and a general. He was the same in the Forum, as in the

battle-field. His prompt and fearless utterance, his rough but

pungent rustic wit, his knowledge of Roman law and Roman affairs, his

incredible activity and his iron frame, first brought him into notice

in the neighbouring towns; and, when at length he made his appearance

on the greater arena of the Forum and the senate-house in the capital,

constituted him the most influential advocate and political orator of

his time. He took up the key-note first struck by Manius Curius, his

ideal among Roman statesmen;(50) throughout his long life he made it

his task honestly, to the best of his judgment, to assail on all hands

the prevailing declension; and even in his eighty-fifth year he

battled in the Forum with the new spirit of the times. He was

anything but comely--he had green eyes, his enemies alleged, and red

hair--and he was not a great man, still less a far-seeing statesman.

Thoroughly narrow in his political and moral views, and having the

ideal of the good old times always before his eyes and on his lips, he

cherished an obstinate contempt for everything new. Deeming himself

by virtue of his own austere life entitled to manifest an unrelenting

severity and harshness towards everything and everybody; upright and

honourable, but without a glimpse of any duty lying beyond the sphere

of police order and of mercantile integrity; an enemy to all villany

and vulgarity as well as to all refinement and geniality, and above

all things the foe of his foes; he never made an attempt to stop evils

at their source, but waged war throughout life against symptoms, and

especially against persons. The ruling lords, no doubt, looked down

with a lofty disdain on the ignoble growler, and believed, not without

reason, that they were far superior; but fashionable corruption in and

out of the senate secretly trembled in the presence of the old censor

of morals with his proud republican bearing, of the scar-covered

veteran from the Hannibalic war, and of the highly influential senator

and the idol of the Roman farmers. He publicly laid before his noble

colleagues, one after another, his list of their sins; certainly

without being remarkably particular as to the proofs, and certainly

also with a peculiar relish in the case of those who had personally

crossed or provoked him. With equal fearlessness he reproved and

publicly scolded the burgesses for every new injustice and every fresh

disorder. His vehement attacks provoked numerous enemies, and he

lived in declared and irreconcilable hostility with the most powerful

aristocratic coteries of the time, particularly the Scipios and

Flaminini; he was publicly accused forty-four times. But the farmers

--and it is a significant indication how powerful still in the Roman

middle class was the spirit which had enabled them to survive the day

of Cannae--never allowed the unsparing champion of reform to lack the

support of their votes. Indeed when in 570 Cato and his like-minded

patrician colleague, Lucius Flaccus, solicited the censorship, and

announced beforehand that it was their intention when in that office

to undertake a vigorous purification of the burgess-body through all

its ranks, the two men so greatly dreaded were elected by the

burgesses notwithstanding all the exertions of the nobility; and the

latter were obliged to submit, while the great purgation actually took

place and erased among others the brother of Africanus from the roll

of the equites, and the brother of the deliverer of the Greeks from

the roll of the senate.

Police Reform

This warfare directed against individuals, and the various attempts to

repress the spirit of the age by means of justice and of police,

however deserving of respect might be the sentiments in which they

originated, could only at most stem the current of corruption for a

short time; and, while it is remarkable that Cato was enabled in spite

of that current, or rather by means of it, to play his political part,

it is equally significant that he was as little successful in getting

rid of the leaders of the opposite party as they were in getting rid

of him. The processes of count and reckoning instituted by him and by

those who shared his views before the burgesses uniformly remained,

at least in the cases that were of political importance, quite as

ineffectual as the counter-accusations directed against him. Nor was

much more effect produced by the police-laws, which were issued at

this period in unusual numbers, especially for the restriction of

luxury and for the introduction of a frugal and orderly housekeeping,

and some of which have still to be touched on in our view of the

national economics.

Assignations of Land

Far more practical and more useful were the attempts made to

counteract the spread of decay by indirect means; among which, beyond

doubt, the assignations of new farms out of the domain land occupy the

first place. These assignations were made in great numbers and of

considerable extent in the period between the first and second war

with Carthage, and again from the close of the latter till towards the

end of this epoch. The most important of them were the distribution

of the Picenian possessions by Gaius Flaminius in 522;(51) the

foundation of eight new maritime colonies in 560;(52) and above all

the comprehensive colonization of the district between the Apennines

and the Po by the establishment of the Latin colonies of Placentia,

Cremona,(53) Bononia,(54) and Aquileia,(55) and of the burgess-

colonies, Potentia, Pisaurum, Mutina, Parma, and Luna(56) in the years

536 and 565-577. By far the greater part of these highly beneficial

foundations may be ascribed to the reforming party. Cato and those

who shared his opinions demanded such measures, pointing, on the

one hand, to the devastation of Italy by the Hannibalic war and the

alarming diminution of the farms and of the free Italian population

generally, and, on the other, to the widely extended possessions of

the nobles--occupied along with, and similarly to, property of their

own--in Cisalpine Gaul, in Samnium, and in the Apulian and Bruttian

districts; and although the rulers of Rome did not probably comply

with these demands to the extent to which they might and should have

complied with them, yet they did not remain deaf to the warning voice

of so judicious a man.

Reforms in the Military Service

Of a kindred character was the proposal, which Cato made in the

senate, to remedy the decline of the burgess-cavalry by the

institution of four hundred new equestrian stalls.(57) The exchequer

cannot have wanted means for the purpose; but the proposal appears to

have been thwarted by the exclusive spirit of the nobility and their

endeavour to remove from the burgess-cavalry those who were troopers

merely and not knights. On the other hand, the serious emergencies of

the war, which even induced the Roman government to make an attempt

--fortunately unsuccessful--to recruit their armies after the Oriental

fashion from the slave-market,(58) compelled them to modify the

qualifications hitherto required for service in the burgess-army, viz.

a minimum census of 11,000 -asses- (43 pounds), and free birth. Apart

from the fact that they took up for service in the fleet the persons

of free birth rated between 4000 -asses- (17 pounds) and 1500 -asses-

(6 pounds) and all the freedmen, the minimum census for the legionary

was reduced to 4000 -asses- (17 pounds); and, in case of need, both

those who were bound to serve in the fleet and the free-born rated

between 1500 -asses- (6 pounds) and 375 -asses- (1 pound 10 shillings)

were enrolled in the burgess-infantry. These innovations, which

belong presumably to the end of the preceding or beginning of the

present epoch, doubtless did not originate in party efforts any more

than did the Servian military reform; but they gave a material impulse

to the democratic party, in so far as those who bore civic burdens

necessarily claimed and eventually obtained equalization of civic

rights. The poor and the freedmen began to be of some importance in

the commonwealth from the time when they served it; and chiefly from

this cause arose one of the most important constitutional changes of

this epoch --the remodelling of the -comitia centuriata-, which most

probably took place in the same year in which the war concerning

Sicily terminated

Reform of the Centuries

According to the order of voting hitherto followed in the centuriate

comitia, although the freeholders were no longer--as down to the

reform of Appius Claudius(59) they had been--the sole voters, the

wealthy had the preponderance. The equites, or in other words the

patricio-plebeian nobility, voted first, then those of the highest

rating, or in other words those who had exhibited to the censor an

estate of at least 100,000 -asses- (420 pounds);(60) and these two

divisions, when they kept together, had derided every vote. The

suffrage of those assessed under the four following classes had been

of doubtful weight; that of those whose valuation remained below the

standard of the lowest class, 11,000 -asses- (43 pounds), had been

essentially illusory. According to the new arrangement the right of

priority in voting was withdrawn from the equites, although they

retained their separate divisions, and it was transferred to a voting

division chosen from the first class by lot. The importance of that

aristocratic right of prior voting cannot be estimated too highly,

especially at an epoch in which practically the influence of the

nobility on the burgesses at large was constantly on the increase.

Even the patrician order proper were still at this epoch powerful

enough to fill the second consulship and the second censorship, which

stood open in law alike to patricians and plebeians, solely with men

of their own body, the former up to the close of this period (till

582), the latter even for a generation longer (till 623); and in fact,

at the most perilous moment which the Roman republic ever experienced

--in the crisis after the battle of Cannae--they cancelled the quite

legally conducted election of the officer who was in all respects the

ablest--the plebeian Marcellus--to the consulship vacated by the death

of the patrician Paullus, solely on account of his plebeianism. At

the same time it is a significant token of the nature even of this

reform that the right of precedence in voting was withdrawn only from

the nobility, not from those of the highest rating; the right of prior

voting withdrawn from the equestrian centuries passed not to a

division chosen incidentally by lot from the whole burgesses, but

exclusively to the first class. This as well as the five grades

generally remained as they were; only the lower limit was probably

shifted in such a way that the minimum census was, for the right of

voting in the centuries as for service in the legion, reduced from

11,000 to 4000 -asses-. Besides, the formal retention of the earlier

rates, while there was a general increase in the amount of men's

means, involved of itself in some measure an extension of the suffrage

in a democratic sense. The total number of the divisions remained

likewise unchanged; but, while hitherto, as we have said, the 18

equestrian centuries and the 80 of the first class had, standing by

themselves, the majority in the 193 voting centuries, in the reformed

arrangement the votes of the first class were reduced to 70, with the

result that under all circumstances at least the second grade came to

vote. Still more important, and indeed the real central element of

the reform, was the connection into which the new voting divisions

were brought with the tribal arrangement. Formerly the centuries

originated from the tribes on the footing, that whoever belonged to a

tribe had to be enrolled by the censor in one of the centuries. From

the time that the non-freehold burgesses had been enrolled in the

tribes, they too came thus into the centuries, and, while they were

restricted in the -comitia tributa- to the four urban divisions,

they had in the -comitia centuriata- formally the same right with

the freehold burgesses, although probably the censorial arbitrary

prerogative intervened in the composition of the centuries, and

granted to the burgesses enrolled in the rural tribes the

preponderance also in the centuriate assembly. This preponderance was

established by the reformed arrangement on the legal footing, that of

the 70 centuries of the first class, two were assigned to each tribe

and, accordingly, the non-freehold burgesses obtained only eight of

them; in a similar way the preponderance must have been conceded also

in the four other grades to the freehold burgesses. In a like spirit

the previous equalization of the freedmen with the free-born in the

right of voting was set aside at this time, and even the freehold

freedmen were assigned to the four urban tribes. This was done in the

year 534 by one of the most notable men of the party of reform, the

censor Gaius Flaminius, and was then repeated and more stringently

enforced fifty years later (585) by the censor Tiberius Sempronius

Gracchus, the father of the two authors of the Roman revolution. This

reform of the centuries, which perhaps in its totality proceeded

likewise from Flaminius, was the first important constitutional change

which the new opposition wrung from the nobility, the first victory of

the democracy proper. The pith of it consists partly in the

restriction of the censorial arbitrary rule, partly in the restriction

of the influence of the nobility on the one hand, and of the non-

freeholders and the freedmen on the other, and so in the remodelling

of the centuriate comitia according to the principle which already

held good for the comitia of the tribes; a course which commended

itself by the circumstance that elections, projects of law, criminal

impeachments, and generally all affairs requiring the co-operation of

the burgesses, were brought throughout to the comitia of the tribes

and the more unwieldy centuries were but seldom called together,

except where it was constitutionally necessary or at least usual, in

order to elect the censors, consuls, and praetors, and in order to

resolve upon an aggressive war.

Thus this reform did not introduce a new principle into the

constitution, but only brought into general application the principle

that had long regulated the working of the practically more frequent

and more important form of the burgess-assemblies. Its democratic,

but by no means demagogic, tendency is clearly apparent in the

position which it took up towards the proper supports of every really

revolutionary party, the proletariate and the freedmen. For that

reason the practical significance of this alteration in the order of

voting regulating the primary assemblies must not be estimated too

highly. The new law of election did not prevent, and perhaps did

not even materially impede, the contemporary formation of a new

politically privileged order. It is certainly not owing to the mere

imperfection of tradition, defective as it undoubtedly is, that we are

nowhere able to point to a practical influence exercised by this much-

discussed reform on the course of political affairs. An intimate

connection, we may add, subsisted between this reform, and the

already-mentioned abolition of the Roman burgess-communities -sine

suffragio-, which were gradually merged in the community of full

burgesses. The levelling spirit of the party of progress suggested

the abolition of distinctions within the middle class, while the

chasm between burgesses and non-burgesses was at the same time

widened and deepened.

Results of the Efforts at Reform

Reviewing what the reform party of this age aimed at and obtained, we

find that it undoubtedly exerted itself with patriotism and energy to

check, and to a certain extent succeeded in checking, the spread of

decay--more especially the falling off of the farmer class and the

relaxation of the old strict and frugal habits--as well as the

preponderating political influence of the new nobility. But we fail

to discover any higher political aim. The discontent of the multitude

and the moral indignation of the better classes found doubtless in

this opposition their appropriate and powerful expression; but we do

not find either a clear insight into the sources of the evil, or any

definite and comprehensive plan of remedying it. A certain want of

thought pervades all these efforts otherwise so deserving of honour,

and the purely defensive attitude of the defenders forebodes little

good for the sequel. Whether the disease could be remedied at all by

human skill, remains fairly open to question; the Roman reformers of

this period seem to have been good citizens rather than good

statesmen, and to have conducted the great struggle between the

old civism and the new cosmopolitanism on their part after a somewhat

inadequate and narrow-minded fashion.

Demagogism

But, as this period witnessed the rise of a rabble by the side of the

burgesses, so it witnessed also the emergence of a demagogism that

flattered the populace alongside of the respectable and useful party

of opposition. Cato was already acquainted with men who made a trade

of demagogism; who had a morbid propensity for speechifying, as others

had for drinking or for sleeping; who hired listeners, if they could

find no willing audience otherwise; and whom people heard as they

heard the market-crier, without listening to their words or, in the

event of needing help, entrusting themselves to their hands. In his

caustic fashion the old man describes these fops formed after the

model of the Greek talkers of the agora, dealing in jests and

witticisms, singing and dancing, ready for anything; such an one was,

in his opinion, good for nothing but to exhibit himself as harlequin

in a procession and to bandy talk with the public--he would sell his

talk or his silence for a bit of bread. In reality these demagogues

were the worst enemies of reform. While the reformers insisted above

all things and in every direction on moral amendment, demagogism

preferred to insist on the limitation of the powers of the government

and the extension of those of the burgesses.

Abolition of the Dictatorship

Under the former head the most important innovation was the practical

abolition of the dictatorship. The crisis occasioned by Quintus

Fabius and his popular opponents in 537(61) gave the death-blow to

this all-along unpopular institution. Although the government once

afterwards, in 538, under the immediate impression produced by the

battle of Cannae, nominated a dictator invested with active command,

it could not again venture to do so in more peaceful times. On

several occasions subsequently (the last in 552), sometimes after

a previous indication by the burgesses of the person to be nominated,

a dictator was appointed for urban business; but the office, without

being formally abolished, fell practically into desuetude. Through

its abeyance the Roman constitutional system, so artificially

constructed, lost a corrective which was very desirable with reference

to its peculiar feature of collegiate magistrates;(62) and the

government, which was vested with the sole power of creating a

dictatorship or in other words of suspending the consuls, and

ordinarily designated also the person who was to be nominated as

dictator, lost one of its most important instruments. Its place

was but very imperfectly supplied by the power--which the senate

thenceforth claimed--of conferring in extraordinary emergencies,

particularly on the sudden outbreak of revolt or war, a quasi-

dictatorial power on the supreme magistrates for the time being, by

instructing them "to take measures for the safety of the commonwealth

at their discretion," and thus creating a state of things similar to

the modern martial law.

Election of Priests by the Community

Along with this change the formal powers of the people in the

nomination of magistrates as well as in questions of government,

administration, and finance, received a hazardous extension. The

priesthoods--particularly those politically most important, the

colleges of men of lore--according to ancient custom filled up the

vacancies in their own ranks, and nominated also their own presidents,

where these corporations had presidents at all; and in fact, for such

institutions destined to transmit the knowledge of divine things from

generation to generation, the only form of election in keeping with

their spirit was cooptation. It was therefore--although not of great

political importance--significant of the incipient disorganization of

the republican arrangements, that at this time (before 542), while

election into the colleges themselves was left on its former footing,

the designation of the presidents--the -curiones- and -pontifices-

--from the ranks of those corporations was transferred from the

colleges to the community. In this case, however, with a pious regard

for forms that is genuinely Roman, in order to avoid any error, only a

minority of the tribes, and therefore not the "people," completed the

act of election.

Interference of the Community in War and Administration

Of greater importance was the growing interference of the burgesses in

questions as to persons and things belonging to the sphere of military

administration and external policy. To this head belong the

transference of the nomination of the ordinary staff-officers from the

general to the burgesses, which has been already mentioned;(63) the

elections of the leaders of the opposition as commanders-in-chief

against Hannibal;(64) the unconstitutional and irrational decree of

the people in 537, which divided the supreme command between the

unpopular generalissimo and his popular lieutenant who opposed him in

the camp as well as at home;(65) the tribunician complaint laid before

the burgesses, charging an officer like Marcellus with injudicious and

dishonest management of the war (545), which even compelled him to

come from the camp to the capital and there demonstrate his military

capacity before the public; the still more scandalous attempts to

refuse by decree of the burgesses to the victor of Pydna his

triumph;(66) the investiture--suggested, it is true, by the senate--of

a private man with extraordinary consular authority (544;(67)); the

dangerous threat of Scipio that, if the senate should refuse him the

chief command in Africa, he would seek the sanction of the burgesses

(549;(68)); the attempt of a man half crazy with ambition to extort

from the burgesses, against the will of the government, a declaration

of war in every respect unwarranted against the Rhodians (587;(69));

and the new constitutional axiom, that every state-treaty acquired

validity only through the ratification of the people.

Interference of the Community with the Finances

This joint action of the burgesses in governing and in commanding was

fraught in a high degree with peril. But still more dangerous was

their interference with the finances of the state; not only because

any attack on the oldest and most important right of the government

--the exclusive administration of the public property--struck at the

root of the power of the senate, but because the placing of the most

important business of this nature--the distribution of the public

domains--in the hands of the primary assemblies of the burgesses

necessarily dug the grave of the republic. To allow the primary

assembly to decree the transference of public property without limit

to its own pocket is not only wrong, but is the beginning of the end;

it demoralizes the best-disposed citizens, and gives to the proposer

a power incompatible with a free commonwealth. Salutary as was the

distribution of the public land, and doubly blameable as was the

senate accordingly for omitting to cut off this most dangerous of all

weapons of agitation by voluntarily distributing the occupied lands,

yet Gaius Flaminius, when he came to the burgesses in 522 with the

proposal to distribute the domains of Picenum, undoubtedly injured the

commonwealth more by the means than he benefited it by the end.

Spurius Cassius had doubtless two hundred and fifty years earlier

proposed the same thing;(70) but the two measures, closely as they

coincided in the letter, were yet wholly different, inasmuch as

Cassius submitted a matter affecting the community to that community

while it was in vigour and self-governing, whereas Flaminius submitted

a question of state to the primary assembly of a great empire.

Nullity of the Comitia

Not the party of the government only, but the party of reform also,

very properly regarded the military, executive, and financial

government as the legitimate domain of the senate, and carefully

abstained from making full use of, to say nothing of augmenting, the

formal power vested in primary assemblies that were inwardly doomed to

inevitable dissolution. Never even in the most limited monarchy was a

part so completely null assigned to the monarch as was allotted to the

sovereign Roman people: this was no doubt in more than one respect to

be regretted, but it was, owing to the existing state of the comitial

machine, even in the view of the friends of reform a matter of

necessity. For this reason Cato and those who shared his views never

submitted to the burgesses a question, which trenched on government

strictly so called; and never, directly or indirectly, by decree of

the burgesses extorted from the senate the political or financial

measures which they wished, such as the declaration of war against

Carthage and the assignations of land. The government of the senate

might be bad; the primary assemblies could not govern at all. Not

that an evil-disposed majority predominated in them; on the contrary

the counsel of a man of standing, the loud call of honour, and the

louder call of necessity were still, as a rule, listened to in the

comitia, and averted the most injurious and disgraceful results.

The burgesses, before whom Marcellus pleaded his cause, ignominiously

dismissed his accuser, and elected the accused as consul for the

following year: they suffered themselves also to be persuaded of the

necessity of the war against Philip, terminated the war against

Perseus by the election of Paullus, and accorded to the latter his

well-deserved triumph. But in order to such elections and such

decrees there was needed some special stimulus; in general the mass

having no will of its own followed the first impulse, and folly or

accident dictated the decision.

Disorganisation of Government

In the state, as in every organism, an organ which no longer

discharges its functions is injurious. The nullity of the sovereign

assembly of the people involved no small danger. Any minority in the

senate might constitutionally appeal to the comitia against the

majority. To every individual, who possessed the easy art of

addressing untutored ears or of merely throwing away money, a path was

opened up for his acquiring a position or procuring a decree in his

favour, to which the magistrates and the government were formally

bound to do homage. Hence sprang those citizen-generals, accustomed

to sketch plans of battle on the tables of taverns and to look down on

the regular service with compassion by virtue of their inborn genius

for strategy: hence those staff-officers, who owed their command to

the canvassing intrigues of the capital and, whenever matters looked

serious, had at once to get leave of absence -en masse-; and hence

the battles on the Trasimene lake and at Cannae, and the disgraceful

management of the war with Perseus. At every step the government

was thwarted and led astray by those incalculable decrees of the

burgesses, and as was to be expected, most of all in the very

cases where it was most in the right.

But the weakening of the government and the weakening of the community

itself were among the lesser dangers that sprang from this demagogism.

Still more directly the factious violence of individual ambition

pushed itself forward under the aegis of the constitutional rights of

the burgesses. That which formally issued forth as the will of the

supreme authority in the state was in reality very often the mere

personal pleasure of the mover; and what was to be the fate of a

commonwealth in which war and peace, the nomination and deposition of

the general and his officers, the public chest and the public

property, were dependent on the caprices of the multitude and its

accidental leaders? The thunder-storm had not yet burst; but the

clouds were gathering in denser masses, and occasional peals of

thunder were already rolling through the sultry air. It was a

circumstance, moreover, fraught with double danger, that the

tendencies which were apparently most opposite met together at their

extremes both as regarded ends and as regarded means. Family policy

and demagogism carried on a similar and equally dangerous rivalry in

patronizing and worshipping the rabble. Gaius Flaminius was regarded

by the statesmen of the following generation as the initiator of that

course from which proceeded the reforms of the Gracchi and--we may

add--the democratico-monarchical revolution that ensued. But Publius

Scipio also, although setting the fashion to the nobility in

arrogance, title-hunting, and client-making, sought support for his

personal and almost dynastic policy of opposition to the senate in the

multitude, which he not only charmed by the dazzling effect of his

personal qualities, but also bribed by his largesses of grain; in the

legions, whose favour he courted by all means whether right or wrong;

and above all in the body of clients, high and low, that personally

adhered to him. Only the dreamy mysticism, on which the charm as well

as the weakness of that remarkable man so largely depended, never

suffered him to awake at all, or allowed him to awake but imperfectly,

out of the belief that he was nothing, and that he desired to be

nothing, but the first burgess of Rome.

To assert the possibility of a reform would be as rash as to deny it:

this much is certain, that a thorough amendment of the state in all

its departments was urgently required, and that in no quarter was any

serious attempt made to accomplish it. Various alterations in

details, no doubt, were made on the part of the senate as well as on

the part of the popular opposition. The majorities in each were still

well disposed, and still frequently, notwithstanding the chasm that

separated the parties, joined hands in a common endeavour to effect

the removal of the worst evils. But, while they did not stop the evil

at its source, it was to little purpose that the better-disposed

listened with anxiety to the dull murmur of the swelling flood and

worked at dikes and dams. Contenting themselves with palliatives,

and failing to apply even these--especially such as were the most

important, the improvement of justice, for instance, and the

distribution of the domains--in proper season and due measure, they

helped to prepare evil days for their posterity. By neglecting to

break up the field at the proper time, they allowed weeds even to

ripen which they had not sowed. To the later generations who survived

the storms of revolution the period after the Hannibalic war appeared

the golden age of Rome, and Cato seemed the model of the Roman

statesman. It was in reality the lull before the storm and the epoch

of political mediocrities, an age like that of the government of

Walpole in England; and no Chatham was found in Rome to infuse fresh

energy into the stagnant life of the nation. Wherever we cast our

eyes, chinks and rents are yawning in the old building; we see workmen

busy sometimes in filling them up, sometimes in enlarging them; but we

nowhere perceive any trace of preparations for thoroughly rebuilding

or renewing it, and the question is no longer whether, but simply

when, the structure will fall. During no epoch did the Roman

constitution remain formally so stable as in the period from the

Sicilian to the third Macedonian war and for a generation beyond it;

but the stability of the constitution was here, as everywhere, not a

sign of the health of the state, but a token of incipient sickness and

the harbinger of revolution.

Notes for Chapter XI

1. II. III. New Aristocracy

2. II. III. New Opposition

3. II. III. Military Tribunes with Consular Powers

4. All these insignia probably belonged on their first emergence only

to the nobility proper, i. e. to the agnate descendants of curule

magistrates; although, after the manner of such decorations, all of

them in course of time were extended to a wider circle. This can be

distinctly proved in the case of the gold finger-ring, which in the

fifth century was worn only by the nobility (Plin. H. N., xxxiii. i.

18), in the sixth by every senator and senator's son (Liv. xxvi. 36),

in the seventh by every one of equestrian rank, under the empire by

every one who was of free birth. So also with the silver trappings,

which still, in the second Punic war, formed a badge of the nobility

alone (Liv. xxvi. 37); and with the purple border of the boys' toga,

which at first was granted only to the sons of curule magistrates,

then to the sons of equites, afterwards to those of all free-born

persons, lastly--yet as early as the time of the second Punic war

--even to the sons of freedmen (Macrob. Sat. i. 6). The golden

amulet-case (-bulla-) was a badge of the children of senators in the

time of the second Punic war (Macrob. l. c.; Liv. xxvi. 36), in that

of Cicero as the badge of the children of the equestrian order (Cic.

Verr. i. 58, 152), whereas children of inferior rank wore the leathern

amulet (-lorum-). The purple stripe (-clavus-) on the tunic was a

badge of the senators (I. V. Prerogatives of the Senate) and of the

equites, so that at least in later times the former wore it broad, the

latter narrow; with the nobility the -clavus- had nothing to do.

5. II. III. Civic Equality

6. Plin. H. N. xxi. 3, 6. The right to appear crowned in public was

acquired by distinction in war (Polyb. vi. 39, 9; Liv. x. 47);

consequently, the wearing a crown without warrant was an offence

similar to the assumption, in the present day, of the badge of a

military order of merit without due title.

7. II. III. Praetorship

8. Thus there remained excluded the military tribunate with consular

powers (II. III. Throwing Open of Marriage and of Magistracies) the

proconsulship, the quaestorship, the tribunate of the people, and

several others. As to the censorship, it does not appear,

notwithstanding the curule chair of the censors (Liv. xl. 45; comp,

xxvii. 8), to have been reckoned a curule office; for the later

period, however, when only a man of consular standing could be made

censor, the question has no practical importance. The plebeian

aedileship certainly was not reckoned originally one of the curule

magistracies (Liv. xxiii. 23); it may, however, have been subsequently

included amongst them.

9. II. I. Government of the Patriciate

10. II. III. Censorship

11. II. III. The Senate

12. The current hypothesis, according to which the six centuries of

the nobility alone amounted to 1200, and the whole equestrian force

accordingly to 3600 horse, is not tenable. The method of determining

the number of the equites by the number of duplications specified by

the annalists is mistaken: in fact, each of these statements has

originated and is to be explained by itself. But there is no evidence

either for the first number, which is only found in the passage of

Cicero, De Rep. ii. 20, acknowledged as miswritten even by the

champions of this view, or for the second, which does not appear at

all in ancient authors. In favour, on the other hand, of the

hypothesis set forth in the text, we have, first of all, the number as

indicated not by authorities, but by the institutions themselves; for

it is certain that the century numbered 100 men, and there were

originally three (I. V. Burdens of the Burgesses), then six (I. Vi.

Amalgamation of the Palatine and Quirinal Cities), and lastly after

the Servian reform eighteen (I. VI. The Five Classes), equestrian

centuries. The deviations of the authorities from this view are only

apparent. The old self-consistent tradition, which Becker has

developed (ii. i, 243), reckons not the eighteen patricio-plebeian,

but the six patrician, centuries at 1800 men; and this has been

manifestly followed by Livy, i. 36 (according to the reading which

alone has manuscript authority, and which ought not to be corrected

from Livy's particular estimates), and by Cicero l. c. (according to

the only reading grammatically admissible, MDCCC.; see Becker, ii. i,

244). But Cicero at the same time indicates very plainly, that in

that statement he intended to describe the then existing amount of the

Roman equites in general. The number of the whole body has therefore

been transferred to the most prominent portion of it by a prolepsis,

such as is common in the case of the old annalists not too much given

to reflection: just in the same way 300 equites instead of 100 are

assigned to the parent-community, including, by anticipation, the

contingents of the Tities and the Luceres (Becker, ii. i, 238).

Lastly, the proposition of Cato (p. 66, Jordan), to raise the number

of the horses of the equites to 2200, is as distinct a confirmation of

the view proposed above, as it is a distinct refutation of the

opposite view. The closed number of the equites probably continued to

subsist down to Sulla's time, when with the -de facto- abeyance of the

censorship the basis of it fell away, and to all appearance in place

of the censorial bestowal of the equestrian horse came its acquisition

by hereditary right; thenceforth the senator's son was by birth an

-eques-. Alongside, however, of this closed equestrian body, the

-equites equo publico-, stood from an early period of the republic the

burgesses bound to render mounted service on their own horses, who are

nothing but the highest class of the census; they do not vote in the

equestrian centuries, but are regarded otherwise as equites, and lay

claim likewise to the honorary privileges of the equestrian order.

In the arrangement of Augustus the senatorial houses retained the

hereditary equestrian right; but by its side the censorial bestowal of

the equestrian horse is renewed as a prerogative of the emperor and

without restriction to a definite time, and thereby the designation of

equites for the first class of the census as such falls into abeyance.

13. II. III. Increasing Powers of the Burgesses

14. II. VIII. Officers

15. II. III. Restrictions As to the Accumulation and Reoccupation of

Offices

16. II. III. New Opposition

17. The stability of the Roman nobility may be clearly traced, more

especially in the case of the patrician -gentes-, by means of the

consular and aedilician Fasti. As is well known, the consulate was

held by one patrician and one plebeian in each year from 388 to 581

(with the exception of the years 399, 400, 401, 403, 405, 409, 411, in

which both consuls were patricians). Moreover, the colleges of curule

aediles were composed exclusively of patricians in the odd years of

the Varronian reckoning, at least down to the close of the sixth

century, and they are known for the sixteen years 541, 545, 547, 549,

551, 553, 555, 557, 561, 565, 567, 575, 585, 589, 591, 593. These

patrician consuls and aediles are, as respects their -gentes-,

distributed as follows:--

Consuls Consuls Curule aediles of those

388-500 501-581 16 patrician colleges

Cornelii 15 15 15

Valerii 10 8 4

Claudii 4 8 2

Aemilii 9 6 2

Fabii 6 6 1

Manlii 4 6 1

Postumii 2 6 2

Servilii 3 4 2

Quinctii 2 3 1

Furii 2 3 -

Sulpicii 6 4 2

Veturii - 2 -

Papirii 3 1 -

Nautii 2 - -

Julii 1 - 1

Foslii 1 - -

--- --- ---

70 70 32

Thus the fifteen or sixteen houses of the high nobility, that were

powerful in the state at the time of the Licinian laws, maintained

their ground without material change in their relative numbers--which

no doubt were partly kept up by adoption--for the next two centuries,

and indeed down to the end of the republic. To the circle of the

plebeian nobility new -gentes- doubtless were from time to time added;

but the old plebian houses, such as the Licinii, Fulvii, Atilii,

Domitii, Marcii, Junii, predominate very decidedly in the Fasti

throughout three centuries.

18. I. V. The Senate

19. III. IX. Death of Scipio

20. III. X. Their Lax and Unsuccessful Management of the War f.

21. III. VI. In Italy

22. III. VI. Conquest of Sicily

23. The expenses of these were, however, probably thrown in great part

on the adjoining inhabitants. The old system of making requisitions

of task-work was not abolished: it must not unfrequently have happened

that the slaves of the landholders were called away to be employed in

the construction of roads. (Cato, de R. R. 2 )

24. III. VI. Pressure of the War

25. III. VI. In Italy

26. III. VII. Celtic Wars

27. III. VI In Italy

28. III. VII. Latins

29. II. VII. Non-Latin Allied Communities

30. III. VII. Latins

31. Thus, as is well known, Ennius of Rudiae received burgess-rights

from one of the triumvirs, Q. Fulvius Nobilior, on occasion of the

founding of the burgess-colonies of Potentia and Pisaurum (Cic. Brut.

20, 79); whereupon, according to the well-known custom, he adopted the

-praenomen- of the latter. The non-burgesses who were sent to share

in the foundation of a burgess-colony, did not, at least in tin's

epoch, thereby acquire -de jure- Roman citizenship, although they

frequently usurped it (Liv. xxxiv. 42); but the magistrates charged

with the founding of a colony were empowered, by a clause in the

decree of the people relative to each case, to confer burgess-rights

on a limited number of persons (Cic. pro Balb. 21, 48).

32. III. VII. Administration of Spain

33. III. IX. Expedition against the Celts in Asia Minor

34. III. X. Their Lax and Unsuccessful Management of the War f.

35. II. I. Term of Office

36. III. VII. Administration of Spain

37. III. XI. Italian Subjects, Roman Franchise More Difficult of

Acquisition

38. III. XI. Roman Franchise More Difficult of Acquisition

39. In Cato's treatise on husbandry, which, as is well known,

primarily relates to an estate in the district of Venafrum, the

judicial discussion of such processes as might arise is referred to

Rome only as respects one definite case; namely, that in which the

landlord leases the winter pasture to the owner of a flock of sheep,

and thus has to deal with a lessee who, as a rule, is not domiciled in

the district (c. 149). It may be inferred from this, that in ordinary

cases, where the contract was with a person domiciled in the district,

such processes as might spring out of it were even in Cato's time

decided not at Rome, but before the local judges.

40. II. VII. The Full Roman Franchise

41. II. VII. Subject Communities

42. III. VIII. Declaration of War by Rome

43. II. III. The Burgess-Body

44. III. XI. Patricio-Plebian Nobility

45. The laying out of the circus is attested. Respecting the origin

of the plebeian games there is no ancient tradition (for what is said

by the Pseudo-Asconius, p. 143, Orell. is not such); but seeing that

they were celebrated in the Flaminian circus (Val. Max. i, 7, 4), and

first certainly occur in 538, four years after it was built (Liv.

xxiii. 30), what we have stated above is sufficiently proved.

46. II. II. Political Value of the Tribunate

47. III. IX. Landing of the Romans

48. III. IX. Death of Scipio. The first certain instance of such a

surname is that of Manius Valerius Maximus, consul in 491, who, as

conqueror of Messana, assumed the name Messalla (ii. 170): that the

consul of 419 was, in a similar manner, called Calenus, is an error.

The presence of Maximus as a surname in the Valerian (i. 348) and

Fabian (i. 397) clans is not quite analogous.

49. III. XI. Patricio-Plebian Nobility

50. II. III. New Opposition

51. III. III. The Celts Conquered by Rome

52. III. VI. In Italy

53. III. III. The Celts Conquered by Rome

54. III. VII. Liguria

55. III. VII. Measures Adopted to Check the Immigration of the

Transalpine Gauls

56. III. VII. Liguria

57. III. XI. The Nobility in Possession of the Equestrian Centuries

58. III. V. Attitude of the Romans, III. VI. Conflicts in the South of

Italy

59. II. III. The Burgess-Body

60. As to the original rates of the Roman census it is difficult to

lay down anything definite. Afterwards, as is well known, 100,000

-asses- was regarded as the minimum census of the first class; to

which the census of the other four classes stood in the (at least

approximate) ratio of 3/4, 1/2, 1/4, 1/9. But these rates are

understood already by Polybius, as by all later authors, to refer to

the light -as- (1/10th of the -denarius-), and apparently this view

must be adhered to, although in reference to the Voconian law the same

sums are reckoned as heavy -asses- (1/4 of the -denarius-: Geschichte

des Rom. Munzwesens, p. 302). But Appius Claudius, who first in 442

expressed the census-rates in money instead of the possession of land

(II. III. The Burgess-Body), cannot in this have made use of the light

-as-, which only emerged in 485 (II. VIII. Silver Standard of Value).

Either therefore he expressed the same amounts in heavy -asses-, and

these were at the reduction of the coinage converted into light; or he

proposed the later figures, and these remained the same

notwithstanding the reduction or the coinage, which in this case would

have involved a lowering of the class-rates by more than the half.

Grave doubts may be raised in opposition to either hypothesis; but the

former appears the more credible, for so exorbitant an advance in

democratic development is not probable either for the end of the fifth

century or as an incidental consequence of a mere administrative

measure, and besides it would scarce have disappeared wholly from

tradition. 100,000 light -asses-, or 40,000 sesterces, may, moreover,

be reasonably regarded as the equivalent of the original Roman full

hide of perhaps 20 -jugera- (I. VI. Time and Occasion of the Reform);

so that, according to this view, the rates of the census as a whole

have changed merely in expression, and not in value.

61. III. V. Fabius and Minucius

62. II. I. The Dictator

63. III. XI. Election of Officers in the Comitia

64. III. V. Flaminius, New Warlike Preparations in Rome

65. III. V. Fabius and Minucius

66. III. XI. Squandering of the Spoil

67. III. VI. Publius Scipio

68. III. VI. The African Expedition of Scipio

69. III. X. Humiliation of Rhodes

70. II. II. Agrarian Law of Spurius Cassius

CHAPTER XII

The Management of Land and of Capital

Roman Economics

It is in the sixth century of the city that we first find materials

for a history of the times exhibiting in some measure the mutual

connection of events; and it is in that century also that the economic

condition of Rome emerges into view more distinctly and clearly.

It is at this epoch that the wholesale system, as regards both the

cultivation of land and the management of capital, becomes first

established under the form, and on the scale, which afterwards

prevailed; although we cannot exactly discriminate how much of that

system is traceable to earlier precedent, how much to an imitation of

the methods of husbandry and of speculation among peoples that were

earlier civilized, especially the Phoenicians, and how much to the

increasing mass of capital and the growth of intelligence in the

nation. A summary outline of these economic relations will conduce

to a more accurate understanding of the internal history of Rome.

Roman husbandry(1) applied itself either to the farming of estates, to

the occupation of pasture lands, or to the tillage of petty holdings.

A very distinct view of the first of these is presented to us in the

description given by Cato.

Farming of Estates

Their Size

The Roman land-estates were, considered as larger holdings, uniformly

of limited extent. That described by Cato had an area of 240 jugera;

a very common measure was the so-called -centuria- of 200 -jugera-.

Where the laborious culture of the vine was pursued, the unit of

husbandry was made still less; Cato assumes in that case an area of

100 -jugera-. Any one who wished to invest more capital in farming

did not enlarge his estate, but acquired several estates; accordingly

the amount of 500 -jugera-,(2) fixed as the maximum which it was

allowable to occupy, has been conceived to represent the contents of

two or three estates.

Management of the Estate

Object of Husbandry

The heritable lease was not recognised in the management of Italian

private any more than of Roman public land; it occurred only in the

case of the dependent communities. Leases for shorter periods,

granted either for a fixed sum of money or on condition that the

lessee should bear all the costs of tillage and should receive in

return a share, ordinarily perhaps one half, of the produce,(3) were

not unknown, but they were exceptional and a makeshift; so that no

distinct class of tenant-farmers grew up in Italy.(4) Ordinarily

therefore the proprietor himself superintended the cultivation of his

estates; he did not, however, manage them strictly in person, but only

appeared from time to time on the property in order to settle the plan

of operations, to look after its execution, and to audit the accounts

of his servants. He was thus enabled on the one hand to work a number

of estates at the same time, and on the other hand to devote himself,

as circumstances might require, to public affairs.

The grain cultivated consisted especially of spelt and wheat, with

some barley and millet; turnips, radishes, garlic, poppies, were also

grown, and--particularly as fodder for the cattle--lupines, beans,

pease, vetches, and other leguminous plants. The seed was sown

ordinarily in autumn, only in exceptional cases in spring. Much

activity was displayed in irrigation and draining; and drainage by

means of covered ditches was early in use. Meadows also for supplying

hay were not wanting, and even in the time of Cato they were

frequently irrigated artificially. Of equal, if not of greater,

economic importance than grain and vegetables were the olive and the

vine, of which the former was planted between the crops, the latter in

vineyards appropriated to itself.(5) Figs, apples, pears, and other

fruit trees were cultivated; and likewise elms, poplars, and other

leafy trees and shrubs, partly for the felling of the wood, partly for

the sake of the leaves which were useful as litter and as fodder for

cattle. The rearing of cattle, on the other hand, held a far less

important place in the economy of the Italians than it holds in modern

times, for vegetables formed the general fare, and animal food made

its appearance at table only exceptionally; where it did appear, it

consisted almost solely of the flesh of swine or lambs. Although the

ancients did not fail to perceive the economic connection between

agriculture and the rearing of cattle, and in particular the

importance of producing manure, the modern combination of the growth

of corn with the rearing of cattle was a thing foreign to antiquity.

The larger cattle were kept only so far as was requisite for the

tillage of the fields, and they were fed not on special pasture-land,

but, wholly during summer and mostly during winter also, in the stall

Sheep, again, were driven out on the stubble pasture; Cato allows 100

head to 240 -jugera-. Frequently, however, the proprietor preferred

to let his winter pasture to a large sheep-owner, or to hand over his

flock of sheep to a lessee who was to share the produce, stipulating

for the delivery of a certain number of lambs and of a certain

quantity of cheese and milk. Swine--Cato assigns to a large estate

ten sties--poultry, and pigeons were kept in the farmyard, and fed as

there was need; and, where opportunity offered, a small hare-preserve

and a fish-pond were constructed--the modest commencement of that

nursing and rearing of game and fish which was afterwards prosecuted

to so enormous an extent.

Means of Husbandry

Cattle

The labours of the field were performed by means of oxen which were

employed for ploughing, and of asses, which were used specially for

the carriage of manure and for driving the mill; perhaps a horse also

was kept, apparently for the use of the master. These animals were

not reared on the estate, but were purchased; oxen and horses at least

were generally castrated. Cato assigns to an estate of 100 -jugera-

one, to one of 240 -jugera- three, yoke of oxen; a later writer on

agriculture, Saserna, assigns two yoke to the 200 -jugera-. Three

asses were, according to Cato's estimate, required for the smaller,

and four for the larger, estate.

Slaves

The human labour on the farm was regularly performed by slaves. At

the head of the body of slaves on the estate (-familia rustica-) stood

the steward (-vilicus-, from -villa-), who received and expended,

bought and sold, went to obtain the instructions of the landlord, and

in his absence issued orders and administered punishment. Under him

were placed the stewardess (-vilica-) who took charge of the house,

kitchen and larder, poultry-yard and dovecot: a number of ploughmen

(-bubulci-) and common serfs, an ass-driver, a swineherd, and, where a

flock of sheep was kept, a shepherd. The number, of course, varied

according to the method of husbandry pursued. An arable estate of 200

-jugera- without orchards was estimated to require two ploughmen and

six serfs: a similar estate with two orchards two plough-men and nine

serfs; an estate of 240 -jugera- with olive plantations and sheep,

three ploughmen, five serfs, and three herdsmen. A vineyard naturally

required a larger expenditure of labour: an estate of 100 -jugera-

with vine-plantations was supplied with one ploughman, eleven serfs,

and two herdsmen. The steward of course occupied a freer position

than the other slaves: the treatise of Mago advised that he should be

allowed to marry, to rear children, and to have funds of his own, and

Cato advises that he should be married to the stewardess; he alone had

some prospect, in the event of good behaviour, of obtaining liberty

from his master. In other respects all formed a common household.

The slaves were, like the larger cattle, not bred on the estate, but

purchased at an age capable of labour in the slave-market; and, when

through age or infirmity they had become incapable of working, they

were again sent with other refuse to the market.(6) The farm-

buildings (-villa rustica-) supplied at once stabling for the cattle,

storehouses for the produce, and a dwelling for the steward and the

slaves; while a separate country house (-villa urbana-) for the master

was frequently erected on the estate. Every slave, even the steward

himself, had all the necessaries of life delivered to him on the

master's behalf at certain times and according to fixed rates; and

upon these he had to subsist. He received in this way clothes and

shoes, which were purchased in the market, and which the recipients

had merely to keep in repair; a quantity of wheat monthly, which each

had to grind for himself; as also salt, olives or salted fish to form

a relish to their food, wine, and oil. The quantity was adjusted

according to the work; on which account the steward, who had easier

work than the common slaves, got scantier measure than these. The

stewardess attended to all the baking and cooking; and all partook of

the same fare. It was not the ordinary practice to place chains on

the slaves; but when any one had incurred punishment or was thought

likely to attempt an escape, he was set to work in chains and was shut

up during the night in the slaves' prison.(7)

Other Labourers

Ordinarily these slaves belonging to the estate were sufficient; in

case of need neighbours, as a matter of course, helped each other with

their slaves for day's wages. Otherwise labourers from without were

not usually employed, except in peculiarly unhealthy districts, where

it was found advantageous to limit the amount of slaves and to employ

hired persons in their room, and for the ingathering of the harvest,

for which the regular supply of labour on the farm did not suffice.

At the corn and hay harvests they took in hired reapers, who often

instead of wages received from the sixth to the ninth sheaf of the

produce reaped, or, if they also thrashed, the fifth of the grain:

Umbrian labourers, for instance, went annually in great numbers to the

vale of Rieti, to help to gather in the harvest there. The grape and

olive harvest was ordinarily let to a contractor, who by means of his

men--hired free labourers, or slaves of his own or of others--

conducted the gleaning and pressing under the inspection of some

persons appointed by the landlord for the purpose, and delivered the

produce to the master;(8) very frequently the landlord sold the

harvest on the tree or branch, and left the purchaser to look

after the ingathering.

Spirit of the System

The whole system was pervaded by the utter regardless-ness

characteristic of the power of capital. Slaves and cattle stood on

the same level; a good watchdog, it is said in a Roman writer on

agriculture, must not be on too friendly terms with his "fellow-

slaves." The slave and the ox were fed properly so long as they could

work, because it would not have been good economy to let them starve;

and they were sold like a worn-out ploughshare when they became unable

to work, because in like manner it would not have been good economy to

retain them longer. In earlier times religious considerations had

here also exercised an alleviating influence, and had released the

slave and the plough-ox from labour on the days enjoined for festivals

and for rest.(9) Nothing is more characteristic of the spirit of Cato

and those who shared his sentiments than the way in which they

inculcated the observance of the holiday in the letter, and evaded it

in reality, by advising that, while the plough should certainly be

allowed to rest on these days, the slaves should even then be

incessantly occupied with other labours not expressly prohibited.

On principle no freedom of movement whatever was allowed to them--a

slave, so runs one of Cato's maxims, must either work or sleep--and no

attempt was ever made to attach the slaves to the estate or to their

master by any bond of human sympathy. The letter of the law in all

its naked hideousness regulated the relation, and the Romans indulged

no illusions as to the consequences. "So many slaves, so many foes,"

said a Roman proverb. It was an economic maxim, that dissensions

among the slaves ought rather to be fostered than suppressed. In the

same spirit Plato and Aristotle, and no less strongly the oracle of

the landlords, the Carthaginian Mago, caution masters against bringing

together slaves of the same nationality, lest they should originate

combinations and perhaps conspiracies of their fellow-countrymen. The

landlord, as we have already said, governed his slaves exactly in the

same way as the Roman community governed its subjects in the "country

estates of the Roman people," the provinces; and the world learned by

experience, that the ruling state had modelled its new system of

government on that of the slave-holder. If, moreover, we have risen

to that little-to-be-envied elevation of thought which values no

feature of an economy save the capital invested in it, we cannot deny

to the management of the Roman estates the praise of consistency,

energy, punctuality, frugality, and solidity. The pithy practical

husbandman is reflected in Cato's description of the steward, as he

ought to be. He is the first on the farm to rise and the last to go

to bed; he is strict in dealing with himself as well as with those

under him, and knows more especially how to keep the stewardess in

order, but is also careful of his labourers and his cattle, and in

particular of the ox that draws the plough; he puts his hand

frequently to work and to every kind of it, but never works himself

weary like a slave; he is always at home, never borrows nor lends,

gives no entertainments, troubles himself about no other worship than

that of the gods of the hearth and the field, and like a true slave

leaves all dealings with the gods as well as with men to his master;

lastly and above all, he modestly meets that master and faithfully and

simply, without exercising too little or too much of thought, conforms

to the instructions which that master has given. He is a bad

husbandman, it is elsewhere said, who buys what he can raise on his

own land; a bad father of a household, who takes in hand by day what

can be done by candle-light, unless the weather be bad; a still worse,

who does on a working-day what might be done on a holiday; but worst

of all is he, who in good weather allows work to go on within doors

instead of in the open air. The characteristic enthusiasm too of high

farming is not wanting; and the golden rules are laid down, that the

soil was given to the husbandman not to be scoured and swept but to be

sown and reaped, and that the farmer therefore ought first to plant

vines and olives and only thereafter, and that not too early in life,

to build himself a villa. A certain boorishness marks the system,

and, instead of the rational investigation of causes and effects, the

well-known rules of rustic experience are uniformly brought forward;

yet there is an evident endeavour to appropriate the experience of

others and the products of foreign lands: in Cato's list of the

sorts of fruit trees, for instance, Greek, African, and Spanish

species appear.

Husbandry of the Petty Farmers

The husbandry of the petty farmer differed from that of the estate-

holder only or chiefly in its being on a smaller scale. The owner

himself and his children in this case worked along with the slaves or

in their room. The quantity of cattle was reduced, and, where an

estate no longer covered the expenses of the plough and of the yoke

that drew it, the hoe formed the substitute. The culture of the olive

and the vine was less prominent, or was entirely wanting.

In the vicinity of Rome or of any other large seat of consumption

there existed also carefully-irrigated gardens for flowers and

vegetables, somewhat similar to those which one now sees around

Naples; and these yielded a very abundant return.

Pastoral Husbandry

Pastoral husbandry was prosecuted on a great scale far more than

agriculture. An estate in pasture land (-saltus-) had of necessity in

every case an area considerably greater than an arable estate--the

least allowance was 800 -jugera- --and it might with advantage to the

business be almost indefinitely extended. Italy is so situated in

respect of climate that the summer pasture in the mountains and the

winter pasture in the plains supplement each other: already at that

period, just as at the present day, and for the most part probably

along the same paths, the flocks and herds were driven in spring from

Apulia to Samnium, and in autumn back again from Samnium to Apulia.

The winter pasturage, however, as has been already observed, did not

take place entirely on ground kept for the purpose, but was partly the

grazing of the stubbles. Horses, oxen, asses, and mules were reared,

chiefly to supply the animals required by the landowners, carriers,

soldiers, and so forth; herds of swine and of goats also were not

neglected. But the almost universal habit of wearing woollen stuffs

gave a far greater independence and far higher development to the

breeding of sheep. The management was in the hands of slaves, and was

on the whole similar to the management of the arable estate, the

cattle-master (-magister pecoris-) coming in room of the steward.

Throughout the summer the shepherd-slaves lived for the most part not

under a roof, but, often miles remote from human habitations, under

sheds and sheepfolds; it was necessary therefore that the strongest

men should be selected for this employment, that they should be

provided with horses and arms, and that they should be allowed

far greater freedom of movement than was granted to the slaves

on arable estates.

Results

Competition of Transmarine Corn

In order to form some estimate of the economic results of this system

of husbandry, we must consider the state of prices, and particularly

the prices of grain at this period. On an average these were

alarmingly low; and that in great measure through the fault of the

Roman government, which in this important question was led into the

most fearful blunders not so much by its short-sightedness, as by an

unpardonable disposition to favour the proletariate of the capital at

the expense of the farmers of Italy. The main question here was that

of the competition between transmarine and Italian corn. The grain

which was delivered by the provincials to the Roman government,

sometimes gratuitously, sometimes for a moderate compensation, was in

part applied by the government to the maintenance of the Roman

official staff and of the Roman armies on the spot, partly given up to

the lessees of the -decumae- on condition of their either paying a sum

of money for it or of their undertaking to deliver certain quantities

of grain at Rome or wherever else it should be required. From the

time of the second Macedonian war the Roman armies were uniformly

supported by transmarine corn, and, though this tended to the benefit

of the Roman exchequer, it cut off the Italian farmer from an

important field of consumption for his produce. This however was

the least part of the mischief. The government had long, as was

reasonable, kept a watchful eye on the price of grain, and, when there

was a threatening of dearth, had interfered by well-timed purchases

abroad; and now, when the corn-deliveries of its subjects brought into

its hands every year large quantities of grain--larger probably than

were needed in times of peace--and when, moreover, opportunities were

presented to it of acquiring foreign grain in almost unlimited

quantity at moderate prices, there was a natural temptation to glut

the markets of the capital with such grain, and to dispose of it at

rates which either in themselves or as compared with the Italian rates

were ruinously low. Already in the years 551-554, and in the first

instance apparently at the suggestion of Scipio, 6 -modii- (1 1/2

bush.) of Spanish and African wheat were sold on public account to the

citizens of Rome at 24 and even at 12 -asses- (1 shilling 8 pence or

ten pence). Some years afterwards (558), more than 240,000 bushels of

Sicilian grain were distributed at the latter illusory price in the

capital. In vain Cato inveighed against this shortsighted policy:

the rise of demagogism had a part in it, and these extraordinary, but

presumably very frequent, distributions of grain under the market

price by the government or individual magistrates became the germs of

the subsequent corn-laws. But, even where the transmarine corn did

not reach the consumers in this extraordinary mode, it injuriously

affected Italian agriculture. Not only were the masses of grain which

the state sold off to the lessees of the tenths beyond doubt acquired

under ordinary circumstances by these so cheaply that, when re-sold,

they could be disposed of under the price of production; but it is

probable that in the provinces, particularly in Sicily--in consequence

partly of the favourable nature of the soil, partly of the extent

to which wholesale farming and slave-holding were pursued on the

Carthaginian system(10)--the price of production was in general

considerably lower than in Italy, while the transport of Sicilian and

Sardinian corn to Latium was at least as cheap as, if not cheaper

than, its transport thither from Etruria, Campania, or even northern

Italy. In the natural course of things therefore transmarine corn

could not but flow to the peninsula, and lower the price of the grain

produced there. Under the unnatural disturbance of relations

occasioned by the lamentable system of slave-labour, it would perhaps

have been justifiable to impose a duty on transmarine corn for the

protection of the Italian farmer; but the very opposite course seems

to have been pursued, and with a view to favour the import of

transmarine corn to Italy, a prohibitive system seems to have been

applied in the provinces--for though the Rhodians were allowed to

export a quantity of corn from Sicily by way of special favour, the

export of grain from the provinces must probably, as a rule, have been

free only as regarded Italy, and the transmarine corn must thus have

been monopolized for the benefit of the mother-country.

Prices of Italian Corn

The effects of this system are clearly evident. A year of

extraordinary fertility like 504--when the people of the capital paid

for 6 Roman -modii- (1 1/2 bush.) of spelt not more than 3/5 of a

-denarius- (about 5 pence), and at the same price there were sold 180

Roman pounds (a pound = 11 oz.) of dried figs, 60 pounds of oil, 72

pounds of meat, and 6 -congii- (= 4 1/2 gallons) of wine--is scarcely

by reason of its very singularity to be taken into account; but other

facts speak more distinctly. Even in Cato's time Sicily was called

the granary of Rome. In productive years Sicilian and Sardinian corn

was disposed of in the Italian ports for the freight. In the richest

corn districts of the peninsula--the modern Romagna and Lombardy

--during the time of Polybius victuals and lodgings in an inn cost on

an average half an -as- (1/3 pence) per day; a bushel and a half of

wheat was there worth half a -denarius- (4 pence). The latter average

price, about the twelfth part of the normal price elsewhere,(11) shows

with indisputable clearness that the producers of grain in Italy were

wholly destitute of a market for their produce, and in consequence

corn and corn-land there were almost valueless.

Revolution in Roman Agriculture

In a great industrial state, whose agriculture cannot feed its

population, such a result might perhaps be regarded as useful or at

any rate as not absolutely injurious; but a country like Italy, where

manufactures were inconsiderable and agriculture was altogether the

mainstay of the state, was in this way systematically ruined, and the

welfare of the nation as a whole was sacrificed in the most shameful

fashion to the interests of the essentially unproductive population

of the capital, to which in fact bread could never become too cheap.

Nothing perhaps evinces so clearly as this, how wretched was the

constitution and how incapable was the administration of this

so-called golden age of the republic. Any representative system,

however meagre, would have led at least to serious complaints and to

a perception of the seat of the evil; but in those primary assemblies

of the burgesses anything was listened to sooner than the warning

voice of a foreboding patriot. Any government that deserved the name

would of itself have interfered; but the mass of the Roman senate

probably with well-meaning credulity regarded the low prices of grain

as a real blessing for the people, and the Scipios and Flamininuses

had, forsooth, more important things to do--to emancipate the Greeks,

and to exercise the functions of republican kings. So the ship drove

on unhindered towards the breakers.

Decay of the Farmers

When the small holdings ceased to yield any substantial clear return,

the farmers were irretrievably ruined, and the more so that they

gradually, although more slowly than the other classes, lost the moral

tone and frugal habits of the earlier ages of the republic It was

merely a question of time, how rapidly the hides of the Italian

farmers would, by purchase or by resignation, become merged in

the larger estates.

Culture of Oil and Wine, and Rearing of Cattle

The landlord was better able to maintain himself than the farmer.

The former produced at a cheaper rate than the latter, when, instead

of letting his land according to the older system to petty temporary

lessees, he caused it according to the newer system to be cultivated

by his slaves. Accordingly, where this course had not been adopted

even at an earlier period,(12) the competition of Sicilian slave-corn

compelled the Italian landlord to follow it, and to have the work

performed by slaves without wife or child instead of families of free

labourers. The landlord, moreover, could hold his ground better

against competitors by means of improvements or changes in

cultivation, and he could content himself with a smaller return from

the soil than the farmer, who wanted capital and intelligence and who

merely had what was requisite for his subsistence. Hence the Roman

landholder comparatively neglected the culture of grain--which in many

rases seems to have been restricted to the raising of the quantity

required for the staff of labourers(13)--and gave increased attention

to the production of oil and wine as well as to the breeding of

cattle. These, under the favourable climate of Italy, had no need to

fear foreign competition; Italian wine, Italian oil, Italian wool not

only commanded the home markets, but were soon sent abroad; the valley

of the Po, which could find no consumption for its corn, provided the

half of Italy with swine and bacon. With this the statements that

have reached us as to the economic results of the Roman husbandry very

well agree. There is some ground for assuming that capital invested

in land was reckoned to yield a good return at 6 per cent; this

appears to accord with the average interest of capital at this period,

which was about twice as much. The rearing of cattle yielded on the

whole better results than arable husbandry: in the latter the vineyard

gave the best return, next came the vegetable garden and the olive

orchard, while meadows and corn-fields yielded least.(14)

It is of course presumed that each species of husbandry was prosecuted

under the conditions that suited it, and on the soil which was adapted

to its nature. These circumstances were already in themselves

sufficient to supersede the husbandry of the petty farmer gradually by

the system of farming on a great scale; and it was difficult by means

of legislation to counteract them. But an injurious effect was

produced by the Claudian law to be mentioned afterwards (shortly

before 536), which excluded the senatorial houses from mercantile

speculation, and thereby artificially compelled them to invest their

enormous capitals mainly in land or, in other words, to replace the

old homesteads of the farmers by estates under the management of land-

stewards and by pastures for cattle. Moreover special circumstances

tended to favour cattle-husbandry as contrasted with agriculture,

although the former was far more injurious to the state. First of

all, this form of extracting profit from the soil--the only one which

in reality demanded and rewarded operations on a great scale--was

alone in keeping with the mass of capital and with the spirit of the

capitalists of this age. An estate under cultivation, although not

demanding the presence of the master constantly, required his frequent

appearance on the spot, while the circumstances did not well admit of

his extending the estate or of his multiplying his possessions except

within narrow limits; whereas an estate under pasture admitted of

unlimited extension, and claimed little of the owner's attention. For

this reason men already began to convert good arable land into pasture

even at an economic loss--a practice which was prohibited by

legislation (we know not when, perhaps about this period) but hardly

with success. The growth of pastoral husbandry was favoured also by

the occupation of domain-land. As the portions so occupied were

ordinarily large, the system gave rise almost exclusively to great

estates; and not only so, but the occupiers of these possessions,

which might be resumed by the state at pleasure and were in law

always insecure, were afraid to invest any considerable amount in

their cultivation--by planting vines for instance, or olives.

The consequence was, that these lands were mainly turned to

account as pasture.

Management of Money

We are prevented from giving a similar comprehensive view of the

moneyed economy of Rome, partly by the want of special treatises

descending from Roman antiquity on the subject, partly by its very

nature which was far more complex and varied than that of the Roman

husbandry. So far as can be ascertained, its principles were, still

less perhaps than those of husbandry, the peculiar property of the

Romans; on the contrary, they were the common heritage of all ancient

civilization, under which, as under that of modern times, the

operations on a great scale naturally were everywhere much alike.

In money matters especially the mercantile system appears to have been

established in the first instance by the Greeks, and to have been

simply adopted by the Romans. Yet the precision with which it was

carried out and the magnitude of the scale on which its operations

were conducted were so peculiarly Roman, that the spirit of the Roman

economy and its grandeur whether for good or evil are pre-eminently

conspicuous in its monetary transactions.

Moneylending

The starting-point of the Roman moneyed economy was of course

money-lending; and no branch of commercial industry was more

zealously prosecuted by the Romans than the trade of the professional

money-lender (-fenerator-) and of the money-dealer or banker (-argent

arius-). The transference of the charge of the larger monetary

transactions from the individual capitalists to the mediating banker,

who receives and makes payments for his customers, invests and borrows

money, and conducts their money dealings at home and abroad--which is

the mark of a developed monetary economy--was already completely

carried out in the time of Cato. The bankers, however, were not only

the cashiers of the rich in Rome, but everywhere insinuated themselves

into minor branches of business and settled in ever-increasing numbers

in the provinces and dependent states. Already throughout the whole

range of the empire the business of making advances to those who

wanted money began to be, so to speak, monopolized by the Romans.

Speculation of Contractors

Closely connected with this was the immeasurable field of enterprise.

The system of transacting business through mediate agency pervaded the

whole dealings of Rome. The state took the lead by letting all its

more complicated revenues and all contracts for furnishing supplies

and executing buildings to capitalists, or associations of

capitalists, for a fixed sum to be given or received. But private

persons also uniformly contracted for whatever admitted of being done

by contract--for buildings, for the ingathering of the harvest,(15)

and even for the partition of an inheritance among the heirs or the

winding up of a bankrupt estate; in which case the contractor--usually

a banker--received the whole assets, and engaged on the other hand to

settle the liabilities in full or up to a certain percentage and to

pay the balance as the circumstances required.

Commerce

Manufacturing Industry

The prominence of transmarine commerce at an early period in the Roman

national economy has already been adverted to in its proper place.

The further stimulus, which it received during the present period, is

attested by the increased importance of the Italian customs-duties in

the Roman financial system.(16) In addition to the causes of this

increase in the importance of transmarine commerce which need no

further explanation, it was artificially promoted by the privileged

position which the ruling Italian nation assumed in the provinces, and

by the exemption from customs-dues which was probably even now in many

of the client-states conceded by treaty to the Romans and Latins.

On the other hand, industry remained comparatively undeveloped.

Trades were no doubt indispensable, and there appear indications that

to a certain extent they were concentrated in Rome; Cato, for

instance, advises the Campanian landowner to purchase the slaves'

clothing and shoes, the ploughs, vats, and locks, which he may

require, in Rome. From the great consumption of woollen stuffs the

manufacture of cloth must undoubtedly have been extensive and

lucrative.(17) But no endeavours were apparently made to transplant

to Italy any such professional industry as existed in Egypt and Syria,

or even merely to carry it on abroad with Italian capital. Flax

indeed was cultivated in Italy and purple dye was prepared there,

but the latter branch of industry at least belonged essentially

to the Greek Tarentum, and probably the import of Egyptian linen

and Milesian or Tyrian purple even now preponderated everywhere over

the native manufacture.

Under this category, however, falls to some extent the leasing or

purchase by Roman capitalists of landed estates beyond Italy, with

a view to carry on the cultivation of grain and the rearing of cattle

on a great scale. This species of speculation, which afterwards

developed to proportions so enormous, probably began particularly in

Sicily, within the period now before us; seeing that the commercial

restrictions imposed on the Siceliots,(18) if not introduced for

the very purpose, must have at least tended to give to the Roman

speculators, who were exempt from such restrictions, a sort of

monopoly of the profits derivable from land.

Management of Business by Slaves

Business in all these different branches was uniformly carried on by

means of slaves. The money-lenders and bankers instituted, throughout

the range of their business, additional counting-houses and branch

banks under the direction of their slaves and freedmen. The company,

which had leased the customs-duties from the state, appointed chiefly

its slaves and freedmen to levy them at each custom-house. Every one

who took contracts for buildings bought architect-slaves; every one

who undertook to provide spectacles or gladiatorial games on account

of those giving them purchased or trained a company of slaves skilled

in acting, or a band of serfs expert in the trade of fighting. The

merchant imported his wares in vessels of his own under the charge

of slaves or freedmen, and disposed of them by the same means in

wholesale or retail. We need hardly add that the working of mines and

manufactories was conducted entirely by slaves. The situation of

these slaves was, no doubt, far from enviable, and was throughout less

favourable than that of slaves in Greece; but, if we leave out of

account the classes last mentioned, the industrial slaves found their

position on the whole more tolerable than the rural serfs. They had

more frequently a family and a practically independent household, with

no remote prospect of obtaining freedom and property of their own.

Hence such positions formed the true training school of those upstarts

from the servile class, who by menial virtues and often by menial

vices rose to the rank of Roman citizens and not seldom attained

great prosperity, and who morally, economically, and politically

contributed at least as much as the slaves themselves to the ruin

of the Roman commonwealth.

Extent of Roman Mercantile Transactions

Coins and Moneys

The Roman mercantile transactions of this period fully kept pace with

the contemporary development of political power, and were no less

grand of their kind. Any one who wishes to have a clear idea of the

activity of the traffic with other lands, needs only to look into the

literature, more especially the comedies, of this period, in which the

Phoenician merchant is brought on the stage speaking Phoenician, and

the dialogue swarms with Greek and half Greek words and phrases.

But the extent and zealous prosecution of Roman business-dealings may

be traced most distinctly by means of coins and monetary relations.

The Roman denarius quite kept pace with the Roman legions. We have

already mentioned(19) that the Sicilian mints--last of all that of

Syracuse in 542--were closed or at any rate restricted to small money

in consequence of the Roman conquest, and that in Sicily and Sardinia

the -denarius- obtained legal circulation at least side by side with

the older silver currency and probably very soon became the exclusive

legal tender. With equal if not greater rapidity the Roman silver

coinage penetrated into Spain, where the great silver-mines existed

and there was virtually no earlier national coinage; at a very

early period the Spanish towns even began to coin after the Roman

standard.(20) On the whole, as Carthage coined only to a very limited

extent,(21) there existed not a single important mint in addition to

that of Rome in the region of the western Mediterranean, with the

exception of that of Massilia and perhaps also those of the Illyrian

Greeks in Apollonia and Dyrrhachium. Accordingly, when the Romans

began to establish themselves in the region of the Po, these mints

were about 525 subjected to the Roman standard in such a way, that,

while they retained the right of coining silver, they uniformly

--and the Massiliots in particular--were led to adjust their

--drachma-- to the weight of the Roman three-quarter -denarius-, which

the Roman government on its part began to coin, primarily for the use

of Upper Italy, under the name of the "coin of victory" (-victoriatus-

). This new system, dependent on the Roman, not merely prevailed

throughout the Massiliot, Upper Italian, and Illyrian territories; but

these coins even penetrated into the barbarian lands on the north,

those of Massilia, for instance, into the Alpine districts along the

whole basin of the Rhone, and those of Illyria as far as the modern

Transylvania. The eastern half of the Mediterranean was not yet

reached by the Roman money, as it had not yet fallen under the direct

sovereignty of Rome; but its place was filled by gold, the true and

natural medium for international and transmarine commerce. It is

true that the Roman government, in conformity with its strictly

conservative character, adhered--with the exception of a temporary

coinage of gold occasioned by the financial embarrassment during the

Hannibalic war(22)--steadfastly to the rule of coining silver only in

addition to the national-Italian copper; but commerce had already

assumed such dimensions, that it was able even in the absence of money

to conduct its transactions with gold by weight. Of the sum in cash,

which lay in the Roman treasury in 597, scarcely a sixth was coined or

uncoined silver, five-sixths consisted of gold in bars,(23) and beyond

doubt the precious metals were found in all the chests of the larger

Roman capitalists in substantially similar proportions. Already

therefore gold held the first place in great transactions; and,

as may be further inferred from this fact, in general commerce the

preponderance belonged to that carried on with foreign lands, and

particularly with the east, which since the times of Philip and

Alexander the Great had adopted a gold currency.

Roman Wealth

The whole gain from these immense transactions of the Roman

capitalists flowed in the long run to Rome; for, much as they went

abroad, they were not easily induced to settle permanently there, but

sooner or later returned to Rome, either realizing their gains and

investing them in Italy, or continuing to carry on business from Rome

as a centre by means of the capital and connections which they had

acquired. The moneyed superiority of Rome as compared with the rest

of the civilized world was, accordingly, quite as decided as its

political and military ascendency. Rome in this respect stood towards

other countries somewhat as the England of the present day stands

towards the Continent--a Greek, for instance, observes of the younger

Scipio Africanus, that he was not rich "for a Roman." We may form some

idea of what was considered as riches in the Rome of those days from

the fact, that Lucius Paullus with an estate of 60 talents (14,000

pounds) was not reckoned a wealthy senator, and that a dowry--such as

each of the daughters of the elder Scipio Africanus received--of 50

talents (12,000 pounds) was regarded as a suitable portion for a

maiden of quality, while the estate of the wealthiest Greek of this

century was not more than 300 talents (72,000 pounds).

Mercantile Spirit

It was no wonder, accordingly, that the mercantile spirit took

possession of the nation, or rather--for that was no new thing in

Rome--that the spirit of the capitalist now penetrated and pervaded

all other aspects and stations of life, and agriculture as well as the

government of the state began to become enterprises of capitalists.

The preservation and increase of wealth quite formed a part of public

and private morality. "A widow's estate may diminish;" Cato wrote in

the practical instructions which he composed for his son, "a man must

increase his means, and he is deserving of praise and full of a divine

spirit, whose account-books at his death show that he has gained more

than he has inherited." Wherever, therefore, there was giving and

counter-giving, every transaction although concluded without any sort

of formality was held as valid, and in case of necessity the right of

action was accorded to the party aggrieved if not by the law, at any

rate by mercantile custom and judicial usage;(24) but the promise of a

gift without due form was null alike in legal theory and in practice.

In Rome, Polybius tells us, nobody gives to any one unless he must do

so, and no one pays a penny before it falls due, even among near

relatives. The very legislation yielded to this mercantile morality,

which regarded all giving away without recompense as squandering; the

giving of presents and bequests and the undertaking of sureties were

subjected to restriction at this period by decree of the burgesses,

and heritages, if they did not fall to the nearest relatives, were at

least taxed. In the closest connection with such views mercantile

punctuality, honour, and respectability pervaded the whole of Roman

life. Every ordinary man was morally bound to keep an account-book of

his income and expenditure--in every well-arranged house, accordingly,

there was a separate account-chamber (-tablinum-)--and every one took

care that he should not leave the world without having made his will:

it was one of the three matters in his life which Cato declares that

he regretted, that he had been a single day without a testament.

Those household books were universally by Roman usage admitted as

valid evidence in a court of justice, nearly in the same way as we

admit the evidence of a merchant's ledger. The word of a man of

unstained repute was admissible not merely against himself, but also

in his own favour; nothing was more common than to settle differences

between persons of integrity by means of an oath demanded by the one

party and taken by the other--a mode of settlement which was reckoned

valid even in law; and a traditional rule enjoined the jury, in the

absence of evidence, to give their verdict in the first instance for

the man of unstained character when opposed to one who was less

reputable, and only in the event of both parties being of equal repute

to give it in favour of the defendant.(25) The conventional

respectability of the Romans was especially apparent in the more and

more strict enforcement of the rule, that no respectable man should

allow himself to be paid for the performance of personal services.

Accordingly, magistrates, officers, jurymen, guardians, and generally

all respectable men entrusted with public functions, received no other

recompense for the services which they rendered than, at most,

compensation for their outlays; and not only so, but the services

which acquaintances (-amici-) rendered to each other--such as giving

security, representation in lawsuits, custody (-depositum-), lending

the use of objects not intended to be let on hire (-commodatum-), the

managing and attending to business in general (-procuratio-)--were

treated according to the same principle, so that it was unseemly to

receive any compensation for them and an action was not allowable even

where a compensation had been promised. How entirely the man was

merged in the merchant, appears most distinctly perhaps in the

substitution of a money-payment and an action at law for the duel

--even for the political duel--in the Roman life of this period.

The usual form of settling questions of personal honour was this: a

wager was laid between the offender and the party offended as to the

truth or falsehood of the offensive assertion, and under the shape of

an action for the stake the question of fact was submitted in due form

of law to a jury; the acceptance of such a wager when offered by the

offended or offending party was, just like the acceptance of a

challenge to a duel at the present day, left open in law, but was

often in point of honour not to be avoided.

Associations

One of the most important consequences of this mercantile spirit,

which displayed itself with an intensity hardly conceivable by those

not engaged in business, was the extraordinary impulse given to the

formation of associations. In Rome this was especially fostered by

the system already often mentioned whereby the government had its

business transacted through middlemen: for from the extent of the

transactions it was natural, and it was doubtless often required by

the state for the sake of greater security, that capitalists should

undertake such leases and contracts not as individuals, but in

partnership. All great dealings were organized on the model of these

state-contracts. Indications are even found of the occurrence among

the Romans of that feature so characteristic of the system of

association--a coalition of rival companies in order jointly to

establish monopolist prices.(26) In transmarine transactions more

especially and such as were otherwise attended with considerable risk,

the system of partnership was so extensively adopted, that it

practically took the place of insurances, which were unknown to

antiquity. Nothing was more common than the nautical loan, as it was

called--the modern "bottomry"--by which the risk and gain of

transmarine traffic were proportionally distributed among the owners

of the vessel and cargo and all the capitalists advancing money for

the voyage. It was, however, a general rule of Roman economy that one

should rather take small shares in many speculations than speculate

independently; Cato advised the capitalist not to fit out a single

ship with his money, but in concert with forty-nine other capitalists

to send out fifty ships and to take an interest in each to the extent

of a fiftieth part. The greater complication thus introduced into

business was overcome by the Roman merchant through his punctual

laboriousness and his system of management by slaves and freedmen

--which, regarded from the point of view of the pure capitalist, was

far preferable to our counting-house system. Thus these mercantile

companies, with their hundred ramifications, largely influenced the

economy of every Roman of note. There was, according to the testimony

of Polybius, hardly a man of means in Rome who had not been concerned

as an avowed or silent partner in leasing the public revenues; and

much more must each have invested on an average a considerable portion

of his capital in mercantile associations generally.

All this laid the foundation for that endurance of Roman wealth,

which was perhaps still more remarkable than its magnitude. The

phenomenon, unique perhaps of its kind, to which we have already

called attention(27)--that the standing of the great clans remained

almost the same throughout several centuries--finds its explanation

in the somewhat narrow but solid principles on which they managed

their mercantile property.

Moneyed Aristocracy

In consequence of the one-sided prominence assigned to capital in

the Roman economy, the evils inseparable from a pure capitalist system

could not fail to appear.

Civil equality, which had already received a fatal wound through the

rise of the ruling order of lords, suffered an equally severe blow in

consequence of the line of social demarcation becoming more and more

distinctly drawn between the rich and the poor. Nothing more

effectually promoted this separation in a downward direction than the

already-mentioned rule--apparently a matter of indifference, but in

reality involving the utmost arrogance and insolence on the part of

the capitalists--that it was disgraceful to take money for work; a

wall of partition was thus raised not merely between the common day-

labourer or artisan and the respectable landlord or manufacturer, but

also between the soldier or subaltern and the military tribune, and

between the clerk or messenger and the magistrate. In an upward

direction a similar barrier was raised by the Claudian law suggested

by Gaius Flaminius (shortly before 536), which prohibited senators

and senators' sons from possessing sea-going vessels except for the

transport of the produce of their estates, and probably also from

participating in public contracts--forbidding them generally from

carrying on whatever the Romans included under the head of

"speculation" (-quaestus-).(28) It is true that this enactment was

not called for by the senators; it was on the contrary a work of the

democratic opposition, which perhaps desired in the first instance

merely to prevent the evil of members of the governing class

personally entering into dealings with the government. It may be,

moreover, that the capitalists in this instance, as so often

afterwards, made common cause with the democratic party, and seized

the opportunity of diminishing competition by the exclusion of the

senators. The former object was, of course, only very imperfectly

attained, for the system of partnership opened up to the senators

ample facilities for continuing to speculate in secret; but this

decree of the people drew a legal line of demarcation between those

men of quality who did not speculate at all or at any rate not openly

and those who did, and it placed alongside of the aristocracy which

was primarily political an aristocracy which was purely moneyed--the

equestrian order, as it was afterwards called, whose rivalries with

the senatorial order fill the history of the following century.

Sterility of the Capitalist Question

A further consequence of the one-sided power of capital was the

disproportionate prominence of those branches of business which were

the most sterile and the least productive for the national economy as

a whole. Industry, which ought to have held the highest place, in

fact occupied the lowest. Commerce flourished; but it was universally

passive, importing, but not exporting. Not even on the northern

frontier do the Romans seem to have been able to give merchandise in

exchange for the slaves, who were brought in numbers from the Celtic

and probably even from the Germanic territories to Ariminum and the

other markets of northern Italy; at least as early as 523 the export

of silver money to the Celtic territory was prohibited by the Roman

government. In the intercourse with Greece, Syria, Egypt, Cyrene, and

Carthage, the balance of trade was necessarily unfavourable to Italy.

Rome began to become the capital of the Mediterranean states, and

Italy to become the suburbs of Rome; the Romans had no wish to be

anything more, and in their opulent indifference contented themselves

with a passive commerce, such as every city which is nothing more than

a capital necessarily carries on--they possessed, forsooth, money

enough to pay for everything which they needed or did not need. On

the other hand the most unproductive of all sorts of business, the

traffic in money and the farming of the revenue, formed the true

mainstay and stronghold of the Roman economy. And, lastly, whatever

elements that economy had contained for the production of a wealthy

middle class, and of a lower one making enough for its subsistence,

were extinguished by the unhappy system of employing slaves, or,

at the best, contributed to the multiplication of the troublesome

order of freedmen.

The Capitalists and Public Opinion

But above all the deep rooted immorality, which is inherent in an

economy of pure capital, ate into the heart of society and of the

commonwealth, and substituted an absolute selfishness for humanity

and patriotism. The better portion of the nation were very keenly

sensible of the seeds of corruption which lurked in that system of

speculation; and the instinctive hatred of the great multitude, as

well as the displeasure of the well-disposed statesman, was especially

directed against the trade of the professional money-lender, which for

long had been subjected to penal laws and still continued under the

letter of the law amenable to punishment. In a comedy of this period

the money-lender is told that the class to which he belongs is on a

parallel with the -lenones- --

-Eodem hercle vos pono et paro; parissumi estis ibus.

Hi saltem in occultis locis prostant: vos in foro ipso.

Vos fenore, hi male suadendo et lustris lacerant homines.

Rogitationes plurimas propter vos populus scivit,

Quas vos rogatas rumpitis: aliquam reperitis rimam.

Quasi aquam ferventem frigidam esse, ita vos putatis leges.-

Cato the leader of the reform party expresses himself still more

emphatically than the comedian. "Lending money at interest," he says

in the preface to his treatise on agriculture, "has various

advantages; but it is not honourable. Our forefathers accordingly

ordained, and inscribed it among their laws, that the thief should be

bound to pay twofold, but the man who takes interest fourfold,

compensation; whence we may infer how much worse a citizen they deemed

the usurer than the thief." There is no great difference, he elsewhere

considers, between a money-lender and a murderer; and it must be

allowed that his acts did not fall short of his words--when governor

of Sardinia, by his rigorous administration of the law he drove the

Roman bankers to their wits' end. The great majority of the ruling

senatorial order regarded the system of the speculators with dislike,

and not only conducted themselves in the provinces on the whole with

more integrity and honour than these moneyed men, but often acted as

a restraint on them. The frequent changes of the Roman chief

magistrates, however, and the inevitable inequality in their mode

of handling the laws, necessarily abated the effort to check such

proceedings.

Reaction of the Capitalist System on Agriculture

The Romans perceived moreover--as it was not difficult to perceive

--that it was of far more consequence to give a different direction

to the whole national economy than to exercise a police control over

speculation; it was such views mainly that men like Cato enforced

by precept and example on the Roman agriculturist. "When our

forefathers," continues Cato in the preface just quoted, "pronounced

the eulogy of a worthy man, they praised him as a worthy farmer and a

worthy landlord; one who was thus commended was thought to have

received the highest praise. The merchant I deem energetic and

diligent in the pursuit of gain; but his calling is too much exposed

to perils and mischances. On the other hand farmers furnish the

bravest men and the ablest soldiers; no calling is so honourable,

safe, and free from odium as theirs, and those who occupy themselves

with it are least liable to evil thoughts." He was wont to say of

himself, that his property was derived solely from two sources

--agriculture and frugality; and, though this was neither very logical

in thought nor strictly conformable to the truth,(29) yet Cato was not

unjustly regarded by his contemporaries and by posterity as the model

of a Roman landlord. Unhappily it is a truth as remarkable as it is

painful, that this husbandry, commended so much and certainly with so

entire good faith as a remedy, was itself pervaded by the poison of

the capitalist system. In the case of pastoral husbandry this was

obvious; for that reason it was most in favour with the public and

least in favour with the party desirous of moral reform. But how

stood the case with agriculture itself? The warfare, which from the

third onward to the fifth century capital had waged against labour,

by withdrawing under the form of interest on debt the revenues of the

soil from the working farmers and bringing them into the hands of the

idly consuming fundholder, had been settled chiefly by the extension

of the Roman economy and the throwing of the capital which existed in

Latium into the field of mercantile activity opened up throughout the

range of the Mediterranean. Now even the extended field of business

was no longer able to contain the increased mass of capital; and an

insane legislation laboured simultaneously to compel the investment

of senatorial capital by artificial means in Italian estates, and

systematically to reduce the value of the arable land of Italy by

interference with the prices of grain. Thus there began a second

campaign of capital against free labour or--what was substantially the

same thing in antiquity--against the small farmer system; and, if the

first had been bad, it yet seemed mild and humane as compared with the

second. The capitalists no longer lent to the farmer at interest

--a course, which in itself was not now practicable because the petty

landholder no longer aimed at any considerable surplus, and was

moreover not sufficiently simple and radical--but they bought up the

farms and converted them, at the best, into estates managed by

stewards and worked by slaves. This likewise was called agriculture;

it was essentially the application of the capitalist system to the

production of the fruits of the soil. The description of the

husbandmen, which Cato gives, is excellent and quite just; but how

does it correspond to the system itself, which he portrays and

recommends? If a Roman senator, as must not unfrequently have been

the case, possessed four such estates as that described by Cato, the

same space, which in the olden time when small holdings prevailed had

supported from 100 to 150 farmers' families, was now occupied by one

family of free persons and about 50, for the most part unmarried,

slaves. If this was the remedy by which the decaying national economy

was to be restored to vigour, it bore, unhappily, an aspect of extreme

resemblance to the disease.

Development of Italy

The general result of this system is only too clearly obvious in the

changed proportions of the population. It is true that the condition

of the various districts of Italy was very unequal, and some were even

prosperous. The farms, instituted in great numbers in the region

between the Apennines and the Po at the time of its colonization, did

not so speedily disappear. Polybius, who visited that quarter not

long after the close of the present period, commends its numerous,

handsome, and vigorous population: with a just legislation as to corn

it would doubtless have been possible to make the basin of the Po, and

not Sicily the granary of the capital. In like manner Picenum and the

so-called -ager Gallicus- acquired a numerous body of farmers through

the distributions of domain-land consequent on the Flaminian law of

522--a body, however, which was sadly reduced in the Hannibalic war.

In Etruria, and perhaps also in Umbria, the internal condition of the

subject communities was unfavourable to the flourishing of a class

of free farmers, Matters were better in Latium--which could not be

entirely deprived of the advantages of the market of the capital, and

which had on the whole been spared by the Hannibalic war--as well as

in the secluded mountain-valleys of the Marsians and Sabellians. On

the other hand the Hannibalic war had fearfully devastated southern

Italy and had ruined, in addition to a number of smaller townships,

its two largest cities, Capua and Tarentum, both once able to send

into the field armies of 30,000 men. Samnium had recovered from the

severe wars of the fifth century: according to the census of 529 it

was in a position to furnish half as many men capable of arms as all

the Latin towns, and it was probably at that time, next to the -ager

Romanus-, the most flourishing region of the peninsula. But the

Hannibalic war had desolated the land afresh, and the assignations

of land in that quarter to the soldiers of Scipio's army, although

considerable, probably did not cover the loss. Campania and Apulia,

both hitherto well-peopled regions, were still worse treated in the

same war by friend and foe. In Apulia, no doubt, assignations of land

took place afterwards, but the colonies instituted there were not

successful. The beautiful plain of Campania remained more populous;

but the territory of Capua and of the other communities broken up in

the Hannibalic war became state-property, and the occupants of it were

uniformly not proprietors, but petty temporary lessees. Lastly, in

the wide Lucanian and Bruttian territories the population, which was

already very thin before the Hannibalic war, was visited by the whole

severity of the war itself and of the penal executions that followed

in its train; nor was much done on the part of Rome to revive the

agriculture there--with the exception perhaps of Valentia (Vibo,

now Monteleone), none of the colonies established there attained

real prosperity.

Falling Off in the Population

With every allowance for the inequality in the political and economic

circumstances of the different districts and for the comparatively

flourishing condition of several of them, the retrogression is yet on

the whole unmistakeable, and it is confirmed by the most indisputable

testimonies as to the general condition of Italy. Cato and Polybius

agree in stating that Italy was at the end of the sixth century far

weaker in population than at the end of the fifth, and was no longer

able to furnish armies so large as in the first Punic war. The

increasing difficulty of the levy, the necessity of lowering the

qualification for service in the legions, and the complaints of the

allies as to the magnitude of the contingents to be furnished by them,

confirm these statements; and, in the case of the Roman burgesses, the

numbers tell the same tale. In 502, shortly after the expedition of

Regulus to Africa, they amounted to 298,000 men capable of bearing

arms; thirty years later, shortly before the commencement of the

Hannibalic war (534), they had fallen off to 270,000, or about a

tenth, and again twenty years after that, shortly before the end of

the same war (550), to 214,000, or about a fourth; and a generation

afterwards--during which no extraordinary losses occurred, but the

institution of the great burgess-colonies in the plain of northern

Italy in particular occasioned a perceptible and exceptional increase

--the numbers of the burgesses had hardly again reached the point at

which they stood at the commencement of this period. If we had

similar statements regarding the Italian population generally,

they would beyond all doubt exhibit a deficit relatively still more

considerable. The decline of the national vigour less admits of

proof; but it is stated by the writers on agriculture that flesh and

milk disappeared more and more from the diet of the common people.

At the same time the slave population increased, as the free

population declined. In Apulia, Lucania, and the Bruttian land,

pastoral husbandry must even in the time of Cato have preponderated

over agriculture; the half-savage slave-herdsmen were here in reality

masters in the house. Apulia was rendered so insecure by them that a

strong force had to be stationed there; in 569 a slave-conspiracy

planned on the largest scale, and mixed up with the proceedings of the

Bacchanalia, was discovered there, and nearly 7000 men were condemned

as criminals. In Etruria also Roman troops had to take the field

against a band of slaves (558), and even in Latium there were

instances in which towns like Setia and Praeneste were in danger of

being surprised by a band of runaway serfs (556). The nation was

visibly diminishing, and the community of free burgesses was resolving

itself into a body composed of masters and slaves; and, although it

was in the first instance the two long wars with Carthage which

decimated and ruined both the burgesses and the allies, the Roman

capitalists beyond doubt contributed quite as much as Hamilcar and

Hannibal to the decline in the vigour and the numbers of the Italian

people. No one can say whether the government could have rendered

help; but it was an alarming and discreditable fact, that the circles

of the Roman aristocracy, well-meaning and energetic as in great part

they were, never once showed any insight into the real gravity of the

situation or any foreboding of the full magnitude of the danger. When

a Roman lady belonging to the high nobility, the sister of one of the

numerous citizen-admirals who in the first Punic war had ruined the

fleets of the state, one day got among a crowd in the Roman Forum, she

said aloud in the hearing of those around, that it was high time to

place her brother once more at the head of the fleet and to relieve

the pressure in the market-place by bleeding the citizens afresh

(508). Those who thus thought and spoke were, no doubt, a small

minority; nevertheless this outrageous speech was simply a forcible

expression of the criminal indifference with which the whole noble

and rich world looked down on the common citizens and farmers.

They did not exactly desire their destruction, but they allowed it to

run its course; and so desolation advanced with gigantic steps over

the flourishing land of Italy, where countless free men had just been

enjoying a moderate and merited prosperity.

Notes for Chapter XII