CHAPTER XXXVIII. ASPECTS OF CIVILISATION OF THE FIRST TWO CENTURIES OF

THE EMPIRE

THE SPIRIT OF THE TIMES

In the first century of the empire the political circumstances of the

world were in a deplorable condition. Power was entirely concentrated in

Rome and the legions, and there the most shameful and degrading scenes

occurred. The Roman aristocracy which had conquered the world, and which,

in fact, alone had a share in the government under the rule of the

Cæsars, gave themselves up to saturnalian crimes of the most unbridled

kind ever witnessed.

Cæsar and Augustus, when instituting the imperial office, had clearly

discerned the needs of their times. The world was politically so corrupt

that no other form of government would have been possible. Since Rome had

conquered numberless provinces, the ancient constitution, founded on the

privileges of the patrician families, who were a species of obstinate

and malevolent Tories, could no longer continue. But Augustus in leaving

the future to chance had entirely neglected his political duty. Without

legitimate heirs, without laws of election, without proper rules of

adoption, without constitutional limits, Cæsarism was like an enormous

weight on the deck of a ship without ballast. The most terrible upheavals

were inevitable.

Three times in one century, under Caligula, under Nero, and under

Domitian, the greatest power that has ever existed fell into the hands

of execrable or extravagant men. The results were seen in horrors which

have hardly been surpassed by the monsters of Mongolian dynasties.[36] In

the fatal succession of rulers, we are almost reduced to making excuses

for Tiberius, who was wholly wicked only towards the end of his life, or

Claudius, who was only eccentric, wanting in judgment, and surrounded by

evil counsellors.

The most shameful ignominies of the empire, such as the apotheosis of the

emperor and his deification when still living, came from the East and

more particularly from Egypt, which was then the most corrupt country

in the world. The true Roman spirit still existed. Human nobility was

far from being extinct. There was still great traditional pride in

some families, who came into power with Nerva, who rendered the age of

the Antonines glorious. An epoch during which such absolutely virtuous

people lived as, for example, Quintilian, Pliny the Younger, and Tacitus

[are reputed to have been], is not an epoch of which one need despair.

Outward debauchery did not touch the great foundation of honesty and

sobriety which still existed in good Roman society; a few families were

still models of good conduct, of devotion to duty, of concord and solid

virtue. Admirable wives and admirable sisters were still to be found in

the houses of the patricians. Was there ever a more touching fate than

that of the chaste and youthful Octavia, daughter of Claudius and wife of

Nero, who remained pure in the midst of all this infamy, and was put to

death at twenty-two years of age, without ever having known happiness?

Women who in inscriptions are called _castissimæ_, _univiræ_ are not

rare. Wives accompany their husbands into exile, others share their

heroic death. The old Roman simplicity was not entirely lost, children

were wisely and carefully educated. The most aristocratic women were

known to work in wool; the vanities of the toilet were almost unknown in

the best families.

[Illustration: ROMAN KITCHEN UTENSILS

(In the British Museum)]

Those excellent statesmen who under Trajan seemed to spring from the

ground were not the product of the moment. They had been in office during

the preceding reigns, only they had had but little influence, being kept

in the background by the freedmen and infamous favourites of the emperor.

Men of the greatest merit thus occupied high places under Nero. The

framework was good, and the rise of the bad emperors to power, although

disastrous, did not suffice to change the general order of things and the

principles of the state. The empire, far from being decadent, was in all

the vigour of a most robust youth. The decadence was to come two hundred

years later, and strange to say under far less wicked emperors.

Politically the situation was analogous to that of France, which since

the Revolution has never enjoyed a direct succession of its ruling

powers, and can pass through perilous fortunes without hopelessly

damaging its internal organisation and national force. We naturally

compare the first century of the empire to the eighteenth century, an

epoch absolutely corrupt if we judge from the collections of anecdotes

belonging to the times, and during which certain families nevertheless

maintained their austere customs.

Philosophy made alliance with the honest Roman families and offered a

noble resistance. The school of stoics produced such grand characters as

Cremutius Cordus, Thrasea, Helvidius Priscus, Annæus Cornutus, Musonius

Rufus--all admirable upholders of aristocratic virtue. The rigidity and

exaggeration of this school were due to the horrible cruelty of the

government of the cæsars. The one idea of a man of real worth was to

accustom himself to pain and to prepare for death. Lucan with bad taste,

and Persius with superior talent, expressed the highest sentiments of

a great spirit. Seneca the philosopher, Pliny the Elder, and Papirius

Fabianus kept up a high standard of learning and philosophy. All were

not corrupted; there were some shining lights; but too often their only

alternative was death. The ignoble portion of humanity from time to time

got the upper hand. The spirit of frenzy and of cruelty then burst forth

and turned Rome into a veritable hell.

The government, which in Rome was so uncertain, was far better in the

provinces, and the shocks which disturbed the capital were hardly felt

there. In spite of its faults the Roman administration was far superior

to the monarchies and republics which had disappeared through conquest.

The reign of sovereign municipalities had passed away many centuries

before. The small states had been killed by their egotism, their

jealousy, their ignorance, and their disregard of private rights. The old

Grecian life, made up of struggles entirely external, no longer satisfied

the people. It had been charming in its day; but that brilliant Olympus,

a democracy of demi-gods, having lost its freshness, had become hard,

unfeeling, vain, superficial, for lack of sincerity and real uprightness.

This was the cause which resulted in the Macedonian domination, followed

by Roman rule.

The evils of excessive centralization were yet unknown to the empire.

Up to the time of Diocletian the towns and provinces were allowed great

liberty. In Palestine, Syria, Asia Minor, Lower Armenia, and Thrace

there were independent kingdoms under the protection of Rome. These

kingdoms only became sources of danger from the time of Caligula onwards,

because the great and far-sighted policy which Augustus had traced

with regard to them had not been carried out. The free towns--and they

were numerous--governed themselves according to their own laws; they

had legislative power and administered justice as in a self-governing

country; until the third century, municipal decrees were promulgated

with the formula, “the senate and the people.” Theatres served not only

for scenic pleasures, they were everywhere centres of agitation and

public opinion. The favour of the Romans towards the human race was the

theme of some adulatory orations which were not, however, devoid of

all sincerity. The doctrine of the “Roman peace,” the idea of a great

democracy organised under the protection of Rome, was the basis of all

thought. A Greek orator displayed vast learning in proving that the glory

of Rome ought to be regarded by all the branches of the Hellenic race

as a sort of common inheritance. As far as Syria, Asia Minor, and Egypt

are concerned, it may be said that the Roman conquest did not destroy a

single liberty. Those countries were either indifferent to political life

or had never known it.

In spite of the exactions of the governors and the acts of violence

inseparable from absolute government, the world, in many ways, had never

been so happy. An administration coming from a centre far away was such

an advantage, that even the pillage of the prætors of the latter end of

the republic did not succeed in rendering it odious. Moreover, the _lex

Julia_ had greatly limited the field of abuses and extortion. Excepting

under Nero, the follies or the cruelty of the emperor did not go beyond

the Roman aristocracy and the immediate surroundings of the prince. Never

had those who wished to leave politics alone lived in greater peace. The

republic of ancient times, where everyone was forced into party quarrels,

was not pleasant to live in; supersession and exile were too frequent.

Now it seemed as if the times were ripe for wide propagandism, superior

to the quarrels of little towns, to the rivalries of dynasties. Attempts

against liberty owed their origin to the independence which still

remained to the provinces and communities, rather than to the Roman

administration. In those conquered countries where political needs had

not existed for several centuries, and where the people were deprived

only of the power of tearing each other to pieces by continual warfare,

the empire was an era of prosperity and welfare until then unknown and,

we may add without paradox, of liberty. On the one hand the freedom of

trade, and industry, and that personal liberty of which the Greek had no

idea, became possible. On the other hand the freedom which consists in

liberty of opinion could only be benefited by the new régime.

This liberty always gains in dealing with kings and princes more than

in dealing with a jealous and narrow-minded middle class. The Greek

republics had no such liberty of opinion. The Greeks achieved great

things without it, thanks to the unequalled power of their genius, but

for all that, Athens was actually under an inquisition. The inquisitor

was the archon, the holy office was the royal portico where charges of

impiety were tried. Accusations of this nature were very frequent--it was

the favourite theme of Attic orators. Not only philosophical offences,

such as denying God or providence, but the slightest offence against

the municipal doctrines, preaching a strange religion, the most puerile

omissions of the scrupulous laws pertaining to the mysteries, were crimes

punished with death. The gods whom Aristophanes scoffed at on the stage

could sometimes slay. They slew Socrates, they all but slew Alcibiades;

Anaxagoras, Protagoras, Theodorus the atheist, Diagoras of Melos,

Prodicus of Ceos, Stilpo, Aristotle, Theophrastus, Aspasia, Euripides,

were more or less seriously threatened.

Liberty of thought was, in fact, the fruit of the kingdoms which sprang

from the Macedonian conquest. Attalus and Ptolemy were the first to give

to thinkers a liberty which none of the old republics had ever offered

them. The Roman Empire continued on the same lines. There existed, under

the empire, more than one severe law against philosophers, but that was

on account of their meddling in politics. One might look in vain, in the

collection of Roman laws previous to Constantine, for a passage against

liberty of thought, or in the history of the emperors for a lawsuit about

abstract doctrines. Not a scholar was disturbed. Men who would have

been burned in the Middle Ages, such as Galen, Lucian, Plotinus, lived

peacefully, protected by the law.

The empire inaugurated a period of liberty, in the sense that it

abolished absolute government in families, towns, and tribes, and

replaced or modified such governments by that of the state. Absolute

power is even more vexatious than usual when it exercises its power in

a narrower circle. The ancient republics and feudalism tyrannised over

the individual more than the state has ever done. Granted that the Roman

Empire, at certain epochs, cruelly persecuted Christianity, at least

it did not kill it. The republics would have made it quite impossible;

Judaism, if it had not felt the pressure of Roman authority, would have

sufficed to crush it. It was the Roman magistrates who prevented the

Pharisees from destroying Christianity.

A broad idea of universal brotherhood, the outcome for the most part of

stoicism, and a kind of general sentiment of humanity were the fruit

of the less narrow form of government, and of the less circumscribed

education to which the individual was subjected. A new era and new

worlds were dreamed of. The public wealth was great, and, in spite of

the imperfections of the economic doctrines of the times, comfort was

widespread. Manners were not what they are often imagined to be. In Rome,

certainly, vice vaunted itself with revolting cynicism. Theatres, above

all, had introduced horrible depravity; certain countries, such as Egypt,

had also fallen to the lowest depths. But in the greater number of the

provinces there existed a middle class, amongst whom kindness, conjugal

fidelity, domestic virtue, and uprightness were sufficiently common.

[Illustration: ROMAN MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS]

Does there exist a more charming and ideal picture of family life in

the world of the honest middle class of small towns than that described

by Plutarch? What good nature, what peaceful habits, what chaste and

amiable simplicity! Chæronea was certainly not the only town where life

was so pure and innocent. There still remained in the general customs,

even beyond Rome, something cruel, either as a relic of ancient habits,

everywhere equally sanguinary, or through the special influence of Roman

austerity. But there was improvement in that respect. What sweet and pure

sentiment, what an impression of melancholy tenderness there is in the

writings of Virgil and of Tibullus! The world was taking shape and losing

its ancient rigour, acquiring freedom and moral sensibility. Principles

of humanity spread everywhere; equality and abstract ideas of the rights

of man were loudly preached by stoicism. Woman, thanks to the system of

dowries under Roman law, became more and more her own mistress; rules as

to the treatment of slaves were made--Seneca dined with his. Slaves were

no longer necessarily the grotesque and evil beings who were introduced

into Latin plays to be laughed at, and of whom Cato urges that they

should be treated as beasts of burden. Times had changed. The slave was

his master’s moral equal, and admittedly capable of virtue and fidelity,

of which he gave proof. Prejudice concerning nobility of birth was

diminishing.

Humane and just laws were passed even under the worst emperors. Tiberius

was an able financier; he founded a system of land tenure on a sound

basis. Nero introduced into the system of taxation, until then iniquitous

and barbarous, improvements which might shame even the present day. The

progress made in legislation was considerable, although the death penalty

was much too common. Love for the poor, charity, and universal sympathy

were accounted virtues.

The theatre was one of the scandals which gave the greatest offence to

virtuous people, and one of the first causes to excite the antipathy of

Jews and Judaisers of all kinds against the profane civilisation of the

time. These gigantic cauldrons seemed to them sewers in which all the

vices simmered. Whilst the front rows were applauding, scenes of the

greatest repulsiveness and horror were often taking place on the upper

benches. In the provinces gladiatorial combats were only established

with difficulty. The Hellenic countries, at least, disapproved of them,

and kept for the most part to the ancient Greek exercises. In the East,

cruel games always preserved a marked stamp of their Roman origin. The

Athenians, wishing to rival the Corinthians, having one day discussed

the subject of imitating their barbarous games, a philosopher got up and

proposed that first of all the altar of Pity should be overthrown. The

horror of the theatre, the stadium, the gymnasium, that is of all public

places which were the essential elements of a Greek or Roman town, was

thus one of the deepest sentiments of the Christians, and one of those

which had the greatest results.

Ancient civilisation was of a public kind; everything took place in

the open air, before the assembled citizens; in opposition to ours,

where life is private and secluded within the precincts of the home.

The theatre had succeeded the agora and the Forum. The anathema hurled

against the theatres reflected upon the whole of society. A deep rivalry

was established between the church, on the one hand, and the public

games on the other. The slave, hunted from the games, took refuge in

the church. One cannot sit down in these gloomy arenas, which are

always the best preserved remains of an ancient town, without seeing in

spirit the struggle between the two classes; here, the poor honest man,

seated in the last row, hiding his face and going out indignant, there

a philosopher getting up suddenly and reproaching the crowd with its

depravity.

These instances were rare in the first century. Nevertheless

protestations began to be heard, and the theatre fell into disrepute.

The legislation and administration of the empire was still in a state

of chaos. The central despotism, municipal and provincial liberty, the

caprice of governors, the outrages of independent communities, jostled

each other violently. But religious liberty gained in these conflicts.

The perfected autocratic government which was established from the time

of Trajan was to be far more fatal to the newly born religion than the

state of disorder, fertile in surprises, and the absence of a regular

police which characterised the time of the cæsars.

The institutions for public relief, founded on the principle that the

state has paternal duties towards its subjects, only developed to any

great degree from the time of Nerva and Trajan onwards. A few instances

of it are however found during the first century. There already existed

asylums for children, organised distributions of food to the needy,

fixed prices for bread with indemnities to the bakers, precautions for

provisioning, premiums and insurance for ship-owners, bread bonuses,

which permitted the purchase of corn at a reduced rate. All the emperors,

without exception, showed the greatest solicitude for these questions,

minor ones, perhaps, but such as at certain epochs took precedence of

all others. In remote antiquity, it might be said, the world needed no

charity. The world was then young and vigorous, almshouses were useless.

The good and simple Homeric ethics, according to which the guest and the

beggar come from Jupiter, are the ethics of a robust and gay adolescence.

Greece, in her classical age, enunciated the most exquisite maxims of

pity, of beneficence, of humanity, without a latent thought of social

anxiety or of melancholy. Man in that epoch was still healthy and happy,

evil could not be realised. With respect to mutual assistance the Greeks

were far in advance of the Romans. No liberal and benevolent disposition

came from that cruel aristocracy which exercised such oppressive sway

during the republic. At the time of which we are writing the colossal

fortunes of the aristocracy, luxury, the concentration of population in

certain places, and especially the hardness of heart peculiar to the

Roman and his aversion to pity, resulted in the birth of “pauperism.”

The kindness shown by certain emperors towards the riff-raff of Rome

only aggravated the danger. Bribery and the _tesseræ frumentariæ_ not

only encouraged the vice of idleness, but brought no remedy to misery.

In this particular, as in many others, the East was really superior to

the Western world. The Jews had true charitable institutions. The temple

of Egypt seemed to have possessed alms-boxes. The college of monks and

nuns of the Serapeum of Memphis was also, in a manner, a charitable

institution. The terrible crisis through which mankind was passing in the

capital of Europe was little felt in remote lands, where everyday life

had remained more simple. The reproach of having poisoned the earth, the

comparison of Rome to a courtesan who has poured out to the world the

wine of her immorality, was true in many ways. The provinces were better

than Rome, or rather the impure elements from all parts, accumulating

in Rome as in a sink, had formed an infectious spot where the old Roman

virtues were stifled and where good seed germinated slowly.[b]

MANNERS AND CUSTOMS

But it is the life of the capital itself that must chiefly claim our

attention here. Let us turn from the glowing generalities of Renan to a

more specific consideration of some important phases of the everyday life

of the people in the great centre to which all roads were said to lead.

In the early days of the empire, Rome was in the crisis of that

transitional state which most great capitals have experienced, when a

rapid increase in their population and in the transactions of daily life

has begun to outstrip the extension of their means of accommodation. The

increase of numbers must necessarily multiply the operations of industry,

which cross and recross each other in the streets of a great city; and

though neither the commerce nor manufactures of Rome were conducted on

the scale to which our ideas are accustomed, the retail traffic which

passed from hand to hand, and the ordinary affairs of business and

pleasure, must have caused an ever increasing stir and circulation among

the vast assemblage of human beings collected within its walls. The

uninterrupted progress of building operations, and the extension of the

suburbs simultaneously with the restoration of the city, must have kept

every avenue constantly thronged with wagons and vehicles of all sorts,

engaged in the transport of the cumbrous materials employed therein; the

crush of these heavy-laden machines, and the portentous swinging of the

long beams they carried round the corners of the narrow streets, are

mentioned among the worst nuisances and even terrors of the citizen’s

daily walk.

Neither of the rival institutions of the shop and the bazaar had been

developed to any great extent in ancient Rome. A vast number of trades

was exercised there by itinerant vendors. The street cries, which have

almost ceased within our own memory in London, were rife in the city of

the cæsars. The incessant din of these discordant sounds is complained of

as making existence intolerable to the poor gentleman who is compelled to

reside in the midst of them. The streets were not contrived, nor was it

possible generally to adapt them, for the passage of the well-attended

litters and cumbrous carriages of the wealthy, which began to traverse

them with the pomp and circumstance of our own aristocratic vehicles

of a century since;[37] while the police of the city seems never to

have contemplated the removal of the most obvious causes of crowd and

obstruction, in the exhibition of gymnastic and gladiatorial spectacles,

of conjurors’ tricks and the buffoonery of the lowest class of

stage-players, in the centre of the most frequented thoroughfares.

The noble never crossed his threshold without a numerous train of clients

and retainers; the lower people congregated at the corners of the streets

to hear the gossip of the day and discuss the merits of racers and

dancers; the slaves hovered over the steam of the open cookshops, or

loitered, on their masters’ errands, to gaze on the rude drawings or pore

over the placards on the walls. The last century had filled the imperial

capital with multitudes of foreigners, attracted from curiosity as much

as from motives of business to the renowned emporium of the wonders of

the world, who added to the number of idlers and loungers in the streets

of Rome; men of strange costumes and figures and, when they spoke, of

speech still stranger, who, while they gazed around them with awe and

admiration, became themselves each a centre of remark to a crowd of

wondering citizens. The marked though casual manner in which the throng

of the streets is noticed by the Roman writers, shows, in the strongest

way, how ordinary a feature it was of life in the city.

The streets, or rather the narrow and winding alleys, of Rome were

miserably inadequate to the circulation of the people who thus moved

along or thronged them; for the vici were no better than lanes or alleys,

and there were only two viæ, or paved ways, fit for the transport of

heavy carriages, the Sacra and the Nova, in the central parts of the

city. The three interior hills, the Palatine, the Aventine, and the

Capitoline, were sore impediments to traffic; for no carriages could pass

over them, and it may be doubted whether they were even thoroughfares for

foot passengers. The occurrence, not unusual, of a fire or an inundation,

or the casual fall of a house, must have choked the circulation of

the life-blood of the city. The first, indeed, and the last of these,

were accidents to which every place of human resort is liable; but the

inundations of Rome were a marked and peculiar feature of her ancient

existence.

Augustus, with far-seeing economic sagacity, was anxious to employ all

men of rank and breeding in practical business, while at the same time

he proposed to them his own example as a follower both of the Muses and

the Graces. The Roman noble rose ordinarily at daybreak, and received

at his levée the crowd of clients and retainers who had thronged the

steps before his yet closed door from the hours of darkness. A few words

of greeting were expected on either side, and then, as the sun mounted

the eastern sky, he descended from his elevated mansion into the Forum.

He might walk surrounded by the still lingering crowd, or he might be

carried in a litter; but to ride in a wheeled vehicle on such occasions

was no Roman fashion.[38] Once arrived in the Forum, he was quickly

immersed in the business of the day. He presided as a judge in one of

the basilicas, or he appeared himself before the judges as an advocate, a

witness, or a suitor. He transacted his private affairs with his banker

or notary; he perused the public journal of yesterday, and inquired how

his friend’s cause had sped before the tribunal of the prætor. At every

step he crossed the path of some of the notables of his own class, and

the news of the day and interests of the hour were discussed between them

with dignified politeness.

Such were the morning occupations of a _dies fastus_, or working day: the

holy day had its appropriate occupation in attendance upon the temple

services, in offering a prayer for the safety of the emperor and people,

in sprinkling frankincense on the altar, and, on occasions of special

devotion, appeasing the gods with a sacrifice. But all transactions of

business, secular or divine, ceased at once when the voice of the herald

on the steps of the Hostilian Curia proclaimed that the shadow of the sun

had passed the line on the pavement before him, which marked the hour of

midday. Every door was now closed; every citizen, at least in summer,

plunged into the dark recesses of his sleeping chamber for the enjoyment

of his meridian slumber. The midday siesta terminated, generally

speaking, the affairs of the day, and every man was now released from

duty and free to devote himself, on rising again, to relaxation or

amusement till the return of night. If the senate had been used sometimes

to prolong or renew its sittings, there was a rule that after the tenth

hour, or four o’clock, no new business could be brought under its notice,

and we are told of Asinius Pollio that he would not even open a letter

after that hour.

[Illustration: ROMAN WRESTLERS]

Meanwhile Rome had risen again to amuse and recreate itself, and the

grave man of business had his amusements as well as the idler of the

Forum. The exercises of the Field of Mars were the relaxation of the

soldiers of the republic; and when the urban populace had withdrawn

itself from military service, the traditions of the Campus were still

cherished by the upper ranks, and the practice of its mimic war

confined, perhaps, exclusively to them. The swimming, running, riding,

and javelin-throwing of this public ground became under the emperors a

fashion of the nobility: the populace had no taste for such labours, and

witnessed perhaps with some surprise the toils to which men voluntarily

devoted themselves who possessed slaves to relieve them from the most

ordinary exertions of the day. But the young competitors in these

athletic contests were not without a throng of spectators; the porticoes

which bordered the field were crowded with the elder people and the

women, who shunned the heat of the declining sun; many a private dwelling

looked upon it from the opposite side of the river, which was esteemed

on that account a desirable place of residence. Augustus had promised

his favour to every revival of the gallant customs of antiquity, and all

the Roman world that lived in his smiles hastened to the scene of these

ancient amusements to gratify the emperor, if not to amuse themselves.

The ancients, it was said, had made choice of the Field of Mars for the

scene of their mimic warfare for the convenience of the stream of the

Tiber, in which the weary combatants might wash off the sweat and dust,

and return to their companions in the full glow of recruited health and

vigour. But the youth of Rome in more refined days were not satisfied

with these genial ablutions. They resorted to warm and vapour-baths, to

the use of perfumes to enhance the luxury of refreshment.

[Illustration: ROMAN BATH IMPLEMENTS]

The Romans had, indeed, a universal and extraordinary fondness for the

bath, which degenerated in their immoderate use of it into a voluptuous

and enervating luxury. The houses of the opulent were always furnished

with chambers for this purpose; they had their warm and cold baths as

well as their steam apparatus, and the application of oil and perfumes

was equally universal among them. From the earliest times there were

perhaps places of more general resort, where the plebeian paid a trifling

sum for the enjoyment of this luxury; and among other ways of courting

popular favour was that of subsidising the owners of these common baths,

and giving the people the free use of them for one or more days. Agrippa

carried this mode of popular bribery to excess. Besides the erection of

lesser baths to the number of 170, he was the first to construct public

establishments of the kind, or thermæ, in which the citizens might

assemble in large numbers, and combine the pleasure of purification with

the exercise of gymnastic sports; while at the same time their tastes

might be cultivated by the contemplation of paintings and sculptures, and

by listening to song and music.

The Roman, however, had his peculiar notion of personal dignity, and

it was not without a feeling of uneasiness that he stripped himself

in public below the waist, however accustomed he might be to exhibit

his chest and shoulders in the performance of his manly exercises. The

baths of Mæcenas and Agrippa remained without rivals for more than

one generation, though they were ultimately supplanted by imperial

constructions on a far more extensive scale. In the time of Augustus the

resort of women to the public baths was forbidden, if indeed such an

indecorum had yet been imagined. At a later period, whatever might be

the absence of costume among the men, the women at least were partially

covered. An ingenious writer has remarked on the effect produced on

the spirits by the action of air and water upon the naked body. The

unusual lightness and coolness, the disembarrassment of the limbs, the

elasticity of the circulation, combine to stimulate the sensibility of

the nervous system. Hence the thermæ of the great city resounded with the

shouts and laughter of the bathers, who, when emerged from the water and

resigned to the manipulations of the barbers and perfumers, gazed with

voluptuous languor on the brilliant decorations of the halls around them,

or listened with charmed ears to the singers and musicians, and even to

the poets who presumed upon their helplessness to recite to them their

choicest compositions.

SUPPERS AND BANQUETS

The bath was a preparation for the _cæna_ or supper, which deserves

to be described as a national institution; it had from the first its

prescriptions and traditions, its laws and usages; it was sanctified by

religious observances, and its whole system of etiquette was held as

binding as if it had had a religious significance. Under the protection

of the gods to whom they poured their libations, friends met together for

the recreation equally of mind and body. If the conversation flagged, it

was relieved by the aid of minstrels, who recited the gallant deeds of

the national heroes; but in the best days of the republic the guests of

the noble Roman were men of speech not less than of deeds, men instructed

in all the knowledge of their times, and there was more room to fear lest

their converse should degenerate into the argumentative and didactic than

languish from the want of matter or interest.

It is probable, however, that the table talk of the higher classes at

Rome was peculiarly terse and epigrammatic. Many specimens have been

preserved to us of the dry, sententious style which they seem to have

cultivated; their remarks on life and manners were commonly conveyed

in solemn or caustic aphorisms, and they condemned as undignified and

Greekish any superfluous abundance in the use of words. The graceful and

flowing conversations of Cicero’s dialogues were imitated from Athenian

writings, rather than drawn after the types of actual life around him.

“People at supper,” said Varro, himself not the least sententious of his

nation, “should neither be loquacious nor mute; eloquence is for the

Forum, silence for the bed chamber.” Another rule of the same master of

etiquette, that the number of the guests should not exceed nine, the

number of the Muses, nor fall short of three, the number of the Graces,

was dictated by a sense of the decorous proprieties of the Roman banquet,

which the love of ostentation and pride of wealth were now constantly

violating.

Luxury and the appetite for excitement were engaged in multiplying

occasions of more than ordinary festivity, on which the most rigid of

the sumptuary laws allowed a wider license to the expenses of the table.

On such high days the numbers of the guests were limited neither by law

nor custom; the entertainer, the master or father, as he was called, of

the supper, was required to abdicate the ordinary functions of host,

and, according to the Greek custom, a king of the wine or arbiter of the

drinking, was chosen from among themselves by lot, or for his convivial

qualities, by the bacchanalian crew around him.

Our own more polished but not unmanly taste must look with amazement and

even disgust at the convivial excesses of the Romans at this period,

such as they have themselves represented them to us. Their luxury was a

coarse and low imitation of Greek voluptuousness; and for nothing perhaps

did the Greeks more despise their rude conquerors than for the manifest

failure of their attempts at imitating the vices of their betters.

The Romans vied with one another in the cost rather than the elegance of

their banquets, and accumulated with absurd pride the rarest and most

expensive viands on their boards, to excite the admiration of their

parasites, not to gratify their palates. Cleopatra’s famous conceit, in

dissolving the pearl in vinegar, may have been the fine satire of an

elegant Grecian upon the tasteless extravagance of her barbarian lover.

Antony, indeed, though he degraded himself to the manners of a gladiator,

was a man of noble birth, and might have imbibed purer tastes at the

tables of the men of his own class; but the establishment of the imperial

régime thrust into the high places of society a number of low-born

upstarts, the sons of the speculators and contractors of the preceding

generation, who knew not how to dispense with grace the unbounded wealth

their sires had accumulated.

[Illustration: ROMAN DINNER-TABLE

(After De Montfaucon)]

Augustus would fain have restrained these excesses, which shamed the

dignified reserve which he wished to characterise the imperial court; he

exerted himself by counsel and example, as well as by formal enactments,

to educate his people in the simpler tastes of the older time, refined

but not yet enervated by the infusion of Hellenic culture.[39] His laws,

indeed, shared the fate of the sumptuary regulations of his predecessors,

and soon passed from neglect into oblivion. His example was too austere,

perhaps, to be generally followed even by the most sedulous of his own

courtiers. He ate but little, and was content with the simplest fare:

his bread was of the second quality, at a time when the best was far

less fine than ours; and he was satisfied with dining on a few small

fishes, curds or cheese, figs and dates, taken at any hour when he had

an appetite rather than at regular and formal meals. He was careful,

however, to keep a moderately furnished table for his associates, at

which he commonly appeared himself, though he was often the last to

arrive, and the first to retire from it.

The ordinary arrangement of a Roman supper consisted of three low

couches, disposed, horse-shoe fashion, before a low table, at which

the attendant slaves could minister without incommoding the recumbent

guests. Upon each couch three persons reclined, a mode which had been

introduced from Greece, where it had been in use for centuries, though

not from heroic times. The Egyptians and Persians sat at meat; so, till

the Greeks corrupted them, did also the Jews; the poetical traditions

of Hellas represented the gods as sitting at their celestial banquets.

The Macedonians also, down to the time of Alexander, are said to have

adopted the more ordinary practice; and such was the custom at Rome till

a late period. When the men first allowed themselves the indulgence of

reclining, they required boys and women to maintain an erect posture,

from notions of delicacy; but in the time of Augustus no such distinction

was observed, and the inferiority of the weaker sex was only marked by

setting them together on one of the side couches, the place of honour

being always in the centre.

Reclined on stuffed and cushioned sofas, leaning on the left elbow, the

neck and right arm bare and his sandals removed, the Roman abandoned

himself, after the exhaustion of the palæstra and the bath, to all the

luxury of languor. His slaves relieved him from every effort, however

trifling; they carved for him,[40] filled his cup for him, supplied every

dish for him with such fragmentary viands as he could raise to his mouth

with his fingers only, and poured water upon his hands at every remove.

Men of genius and learning might amuse themselves with conversation

alone; those for whom this resource was insufficient had many other

means of entertainment to resort to. Music and dancing were performed

before them; actors and clowns exhibited in their presence; dwarfs and

hunchbacks were introduced to make sport for them; Augustus himself

sometimes escaped from these miserable vulgarities by playing at dice

between the courses; but the stale wit and practical humour, with which

in many houses the banquet seems to have been seasoned, give us a lower

idea of the manners of the Roman gentlemen than any perhaps of these

trifling pastimes. The vulgarity, however, of the revellers of Rome was

far less shocking than their indecency, and nothing perhaps contributed

more to break down the sense of dignity and self-respect, the last

safeguard of pagan virtue, than the easy familiarity engendered by their

attitude at meals.

Some persons, indeed, men no doubt of peculiar assurance and conceit,

ventured to startle the voluptuous languor of the supper-table by

repeating their own compositions to the captive guests. But for the

most part the last sentiments of expiring liberty revolted against this

intolerable oppression. The Romans compounded for the inviolate sanctity

of their convivial hours by surrendering to the inevitable enemy a solid

portion of the day. They resigned themselves to the task of listening as

part of the business of the morning.[c]

Banquets of a more pretentious order played a very important part in the

life of the Romans of all classes. Anniversaries, religious festivals,

the necessity also that those who belonged to the same college should

treat common affairs together, or simply the desire of spending life

more enjoyably, had multiplied them during the empire to an unlimited

degree. Men of distinction especially sought at them the pleasure of

conversing freely with their friends. During the endless and capricious

conversations politics were not forgotten. What was said after dinner,

when the heat of festivity had animated the guests and loosened their

tongues was not always favourable to the imperial government. It was

during one of these repasts that the prætor Antistius read those

insulting verses concerning Nero which led to his banishment. As has just

been said, however, the banquet-hall was not the place usually chosen

for reading verses or other compositions. Freer scope for this and for

the public promulgation of serious ideas in general was found in the

so-called “circles.”

THE CIRCLES

It is not so easy to know what was meant by the circles. To form an

exact idea of them, the habits of the ancient nations must be taken into

account. In those delightful climates people do not remain shut up all

day at home; on the contrary, the day is generally spent out of doors.

The inhabitants of Rome when they were not at the theatre or the circus

walked about looking at the perpetual sights the Eternal City offered to

the curious of all nations. They went about the streets, they stopped

in the public squares, seated themselves when they were tired, on the

benches and _exedræ_, with which the public places were supplied. These

groups of idlers, gathered together to look at something or to talk,

were called _circuli_. They collected especially in the Campus Martius

and in the Forum, around the quacks selling their remedies, the showmen

with their rare or performing animals and those who performed feats of

strength. Sometimes a miserable poet, unhappy at having no readers,

took advantage of these groups to venture to spout his verses to the

assembly. Very often they were gathered together only to listen to those

people who posed as persons of importance, and professed to be well

informed. There were a great number of such in Rome, and at times of

crisis, in those moments of anxiety and expectation when men are anxious

to hear what they tremble to know, they acquired much credit. After

having listened to them, everybody gave his opinion. Blame or praise

was gravely meted out to the generals, plans of campaign were made, and

treaties of peace discussed. Towards the end of the republic and during

the beginning of the empire these street politicians assembled together

at the foot of the tribune reserved for speeches, which won them the name

of _subrostrani_. Thence were spread gloomy rumours which alarmed Rome.

It was said that the Parthians had invaded Armenia, that the Germani had

crossed the Rhine, and the crowd that listened to this sinister news

did not always spare the emperor and his ministers, who were not taking

strong enough measures for the protection of the frontiers. The emperor

had consequently taken steps to have these bold speakers watched. He sent

disguised soldiers who mingled in these groups, and reported to their

chiefs what they had heard.

These open-air discussions which the spies of the prince could hear, were

thus not without danger. Those who did not care to run the risk of being

ruined took care to say nothing there; they only spoke out in company in

which they thought themselves safe. Besides, opportunities for speaking

were not wanting. I do not doubt that there existed in Rome at that time

something similar to what is nowadays called society, that is to say,

meetings of people, usually unknown to each other, of different origin

and fortune, who have no affairs to discuss, no common interests to

debate, and who in collecting only seek the pleasure of being together.

What is for us the peculiar characteristic of society, that the women

freely associate with the men, was often found at Rome also. It was not

forbidden to the women to appear at the banquets, even when strangers to

the family were invited, and Cornelius Nepos tells us that nobody was

astonished to see a Roman taking his wife with him when he went to dine

out, a thing which would have greatly shocked the Greeks. Thus repasts

were already social assemblies, but it may be safely asserted that

there were many others although accounts of them have not reached us.

I even believe that as early as the first century, the habit of living

together had sometimes given rise to a certain gallantry between the two

sexes, hitherto unknown in ancient society, and which at moments might

resemble the customs of our seventeenth century. Here is the portrait

which Martial sketches, of a dandy of his time: “A dandy is a man whose

hair is nicely parted, who breathes perfumes, who hums between his teeth

songs from Spain and Egypt, and knows how to beat time with his hairless

arms; he does not leave the chairs of the ladies during the whole day, he

has always something to whisper in their ears, knows all the scandal of

Rome, will tell you the name of the woman with whom so-and-so is in love,

whose society another person frequents, and knows by heart the genealogy

of the horse Hirpinus.” It seems to me this dandy is not very different

from Molière’s marquis, and like him he has the habit of not “leaving the

chairs of the ladies.” There were some people at Rome whose assiduity

took them far; and Tacitus tells us of a consul, a clever man, and a

terrible banterer as well, who owed his political rank to the influence

of women.

When men are alone together they discuss and discourse; in presence of

ladies they are forced to converse. Seneca described wonderfully well

these society conversations where everything was treated and nothing

thoroughly discussed, and where one subject followed another so easily.

In a few hours the conversation of these clever people wandered far from

the starting-point. They talked doubtless much of themselves and other

people. The habit of living together encouraged a taste for studying each

other, and everyone’s passions and characteristics became thoroughly

known. In that immense town, which might easily, as Lucan says, have

contained the whole world, where so many bitter battles were waged daily

to conquer power and wealth, subjects of study were not wanting to these

worldly moralists. They collected amusing anecdotes of well-known people

and came in the evening to relate them to their friends. Literature was

also an absorbing topic. The whole of Roman society liked and cultivated

it. As a rule Romans were orators by occupation; poets simply as a means

of distraction. A little poetry flourished in those days which has not

lived until our time; it did not deserve to live, being merely written

to charm the elegant society of those days. As in the time of the Abbé

Delille, games of dice or chess, fishing and swimming, dancing and music,

the art of ordering a dinner or receiving guests, were all sung in verse.

However agreeable this poetry might be, it could not always charm, and

new subjects had constantly to be thought of to animate the conversation.

It was thus that, when literature and scandal had been thoroughly

exhausted, politics followed in the natural course.

It is quite conceivable that much raillery was indulged in by these

clever people who above everything did not wish to appear fools, and

would not take seriously all the comedies that were being played in the

senate. Reserved and sharp lookers-on, little disposed towards any kind

of enthusiasm, they must have smiled at the excessive flattery with which

the prince was overwhelmed, and the deification of the dead or living

emperor must have left them quite unmoved. Society generally develops

a leaning towards irony; to know how to lash a neighbour agreeably is

doubtless a very estimable quality, and probably it was valued still more

when this neighbour was an emperor. A dangerous game it must have been,

and raillery aimed so high might have cost dear, but danger was not a

sufficient reason for stopping a joke when it was clever and appreciated.

“I cannot be sorry,” said Seneca, “for those people who would rather

lose their heads than a clever saying.” In this charming but frivolous

society, nobody would miss uttering a clever repartee, even at the risk

of losing his head. All had to compensate themselves for the restraint

they had gone through in the senate, where they were forced to have

smiling faces and to second the praises which were showered upon the

prince by his friends. They always left dissatisfied with themselves

and with others, their hearts filled with rage that must find vent. They

expressed themselves freely directly they were sure of being amongst

friends whom they could trust. In these secret meetings they above all

liked to communicate news “which could not be spoken of or listened to

without danger.”

Rome was then overrun by those bearers of news which newspapers and

telegraphy have done away with. We met some just now in the clubs; they

were still more numerous in society gatherings. They knew everything

that was being talked of in the army and in the provinces, and gave

the most precise information on whatever happened. When an important

personage died, they related all the circumstances of his death, they

said without hesitation who had held the dagger or poured out the poison.

Such a number of wicked rumours had never circulated in Rome as since

the right of free speech had been denied the people. The authorities in

trying to find those who spread the rumours only gave them more credit

than they deserved. Besides it is in nature with difficulty to believe

what is openly told and to accept without a word what is whispered in

the ear. Thus all measures taken by the government were used against

itself. Everything became known; everything was believed; reasons were

found for everything; and the most natural reasons were not those most

readily believed; to be listened to it was necessary to imagine strange

and improbable explanations for everything.

[Illustration: ROMAN NETTING NEEDLES

(In the British Museum)]

This opposition took many different forms and changed according to

circumstances. Sometimes it was very much on the surface, at others it

was hidden in the shade, but bold or timid, visible or hidden, it never

died out, and it was this suppleness and obstinacy which composed its

strength. Sometimes it dared to reveal itself to all through the medium

of a pamphlet; one of those satirical testaments, for example, which it

was the fashion to invent for important personages, in which the dead

said exactly what they thought of the living. Sometimes it took the

form of malicious verses which were whispered around, and after having

travelled through every rank of this discontented population ended by

being written, by an unknown hand, on the walls of the Forum. “Tiberius

disdains wine,” they said, “now that he thirsts for blood; he drinks

blood to-day as formerly he drank wine.” If this audacity seemed too

risky, they fell back on malicious allusions which were easily grasped

by wide-awake minds. When these allusions were followed up and punished,

a few furtive words were exchanged by friends at meeting. If it became

impossible to speak at all there was an eloquence in the people’s

silence, which showed what they were thinking of, and means were found to

render even silence seditious.

PUBLIC READINGS

Public lectures or readings became the fashion about the middle of

the reign of Augustus--they were introduced by Pollio. They attained

rapid success, which is not to be wondered at, taking into account the

occupations and tastes of the people of that period. Literature was much

liked, and if we believe Horace, nearly everyone cherished a belief

in his ability to write. It is never customary to keep one’s writings

for one’s self, seeming sin not to let them be known to the public.

Unfortunately in antiquity books could not be so easily propagated as

to-day. Those of celebrated writers spread quickly enough and went far,

but the others ran the risk of remaining in obscurity. Thus the authors,

to escape this sad destiny and to make themselves known in some manner,

thought of reading their words in public, thereby saving their works from

the death which threatened them. If these authors were poor they went

where crowds were likely to gather, to the Forum, under the porticoes,

in the public baths; they even stopped the passers-by and spouted their

poetry to them at the risk of being hissed or torn to pieces, if the

people were not in a humour to listen to them. If rich they invited their

clients and friends to dinner, treated them well, and took advantage of

their gratitude to cause themselves to be listened to and admired. Horace

tells us the amusing story of a terrible creditor who gathered together

his insolvent victims on the day of reckoning to read to them the very

dull works he had written; they had to come or pay. In order to obtain

leniency the unfortunate guests had to bend their backs as resigned

victims and applaud.

Pollio was not poor enough to have to resort to the public places nor

foolish enough to be satisfied with bought praise. He wished particularly

to have his tragedies and tales become known. This vain person who had

helped Cæsar and Octavius to the first place was not satisfied with the

second, and expected to obtain in literature the importance and place

that he had failed to get in politics. This gave him the idea of choosing

a room in a house, of arranging it like a theatre, that is, with an

orchestra and galleries, and inviting by tickets people whom he knew or

wished to know, to come to hear his works read. Soon others followed his

example, and it was soon the fashion to do nothing else in Rome during

the months of April and August but to assemble in these lecture rooms.

It is easy to form an idea of the sentiments brought by the guests to

these literary festivals. Auditors and lecturers belonged, as a rule,

to the best society, and shared in all the hates and prejudices of the

upper class. Opposition, as it may be supposed, flourished in these

public lectures. It was here that one could speak, when speech was not

forbidden; here that Titinius Capito, after the death of Domitian, read

the story of his victims. It was a duty to come and listen. “It seemed,”

says Pliny, “that we were listening to the melancholy praises of the

victims who had not been given funeral honours.” Under the harsh rulers

caution was naturally necessary, yet nevertheless a way was found to

speak. In the darkest times of the reign of Nero, Curiatius Maternus, the

poet, dared to read a poem full of disagreeable allusions to the emperor.

He continued, under Vespasian, his little war of epigrams. “He read one

day of Cato, and forgot himself,” says Tacitus, “to think only of his

hero.” Applause was not wanting to the bold tirades of the poet; the next

day the whole of Rome spoke about his audacity and the dangers to which

it would expose him.

The tragedies of Curiatius Maternus are lost, but those of Seneca remain,

and give us an idea of what was allowed to be said in the lecture rooms.

These works are second rate, and could be judged very severely if

considered in the light of plays for the theatre, or if compared to the

works of Sophocles and Euripides. It must be remembered, however, that

they were not written for the stage, being destined for public reading.

They are drawing-room tragedy, hence must not be treated as tragedy for

the theatre. This order of play may seem unworthy or false; it can be

severely condemned; it is a distinct order, nevertheless, and is not

subject to the rules that govern others; also, having a different public,

certain defects are necessary to enable it to please. Seneca, who was

eager to succeed, submitted to these conditions willingly. His aim was to

flatter the tastes of his audience, and he knew that he could interest

them only by speaking of their times and their friends; he did this

openly and without hesitation; it might be said from the way he expressed

himself that he wished them to see for themselves that the present

interested him more than the past; that he was always thinking of Rome

even when speaking of Argos or of Thebes. This is why political allusions

are so frequent in his works.[e]

LIBRARIES AND BOOK-MAKING

It must not be supposed, however, that the author in Rome depended solely

upon verbal utterance for the circulation of his ideas. Nothing could be

further from the fact. The publishing no less than the writing of books

was a recognised form of business and one that apparently flourished.

Notwithstanding the entire loss of all the books produced in Rome in the

early days, we are supplied with tolerably full information as to the

making and use of books there during the later period of the republic,

and throughout the empire.

The private library discovered at Herculaneum gives a perfectly clear

idea of the way in which the books were kept in an ordinary house. This

library contained seventeen hundred books. It was so small a room,

however, that all its shelves could be reached from its centre. The

books themselves, consisting of rolls, were contained in round cases

called _capsæ_, and we have the further evidence of various statues and

pictures, as well as written descriptions, to prove that this was the

usual method of caring for manuscripts.

The books of this period were always in rolls, never folded after the

modern method. This applies not merely to papyrus books, but to the

parchment ones also. Generally the strip of papyrus or parchment was

inserted at one end into a slit in a reed or cane about which the

manuscript was rolled as written. Usually a corresponding cane was

supplied at the other end after the book was completed, so that the

book could be rolled either way, thus greatly facilitating the reading.

Presumably the book as ordinarily kept ready for use would be rolled on

the lower reed, so that anyone unrolling it began at once with the first

column, the columns being arranged transversely. A tag or label was

usually attached to the manuscript, and these tags are represented in the

paintings on the walls of Pompeii as projecting from the cases in which

the books are stored. The length of a papyrus or parchment strip varied

indefinitely, but it appears to have been usual to write an entire

book of any given work on a single strip. The relatively short books

into which most classical works were divided facilitated this method;

or perhaps it became customary to divide works into small books for the

convenience of the scribe, rather than because of any logicality in the

method itself.

It appears that in the later Roman times it was quite the fashion to

have a library in every ordinary house, and some of these libraries

attained very respectable proportions. Thus it is said that the

grammarian Epaphroditus had a library of thirty thousand volumes, and

that Sammanicus Serenus had one of sixty-two thousand volumes. The fact

that Augustus confiscated two thousand copies of the pseudo-sibylline

oracles testifies to the wide prevalence of the reading, or at least the

book-buying, habit. No doubt this distinction between the buying and

the reading of books should be clearly drawn in the case of the Romans

as elsewhere. Still, it will not do to draw too sweeping conclusions

from the sneers of Seneca and Cicero, which are so often quoted as

implying that the Romans bought books as ornaments, rather than for their

contents. Doubtless the reproach was true then as now of a large number

of purchasers; still, the making and the selling of books must always

imply the existence of a taste for books, and such a fashion could never

have come into vogue unless a very large number of people were actually

book readers. In point of fact, the book business in Rome assumed

proportions that seem almost incredible. Book stores were numerous in

the more frequented parts of the city, and, as far as one can learn, the

trade flourished quite in the modern fashion. Within the shop the rolls

were ranged on shelves for the inspection of the would-be purchaser, and

outside on pillars were advertised the names of the authors represented.

Naturally enough, when private libraries were the fashion there were

numerous public libraries as well. According to Publius Victor, there

were no fewer than twenty-nine of these public libraries in Rome. Asinius

Pollio, the friend of Cæsar, and the famous patron of literature of his

time, who died in the year 6 B.C., was credited with being the founder

of the first public library, although there is a tradition that Orielus

Paullus, the conqueror of Macedonia, brought back with him to Rome a

large collection of books in 168 B.C. Be that as it may, there probably

was no very great taste for reading in Rome at that early period, and it

was not until the time of Augustus that public libraries began to assume

real importance.

Augustus himself, carrying out the intention of Julius Cæsar, founded two

public libraries, one called the Octavian, and the other the Palatine.

From that time the founding of public libraries became a fashion with the

emperors, Tiberius, Vespasian, Domitian, and Trajan successively adding

to the number, the most famous collection of all being the Ulpian library

of Trajan. No available data have come down to us as to the exact size of

these libraries, but the respectable proportions of some of the private

collections make it a safe inference that some, at least, of these public

libraries must have contained hundreds of thousands of books, since we

can hardly suppose that a private library would be allowed to outrival

the imperial collections.

When one reflects on this prevalence of books, the very natural query

arises as to how they were produced, and the answer throws a vivid

light on the social conditions in Rome. The enormous output of books,

almost rivalling the productions of the modern press, was possible

solely because of the great number of slaves in Rome. Book-making

was a profession, but it was a profession apparently followed almost

exclusively by slaves, who were known as _librarii_. These educated

slaves were usually Greeks, and a large publishing house, of which there

were several in Rome, would keep a great number of them for purposes

both of making the materials for books, and of transcribing the books

themselves.

It is known that shorthand was practised extensively in Rome, and it

has been supposed that a very large number of the current books were

written in this abbreviated hand. This supposition, however, appears

more than doubtful, for it is hardly to be supposed that the general

public took the trouble to learn the Tironian system, by which name

the shorthand script was known; Tiron, the secretary of Cicero, being

commonly, though no doubt incorrectly, credited with its invention. As

to the latter point, there are various references in the Greek classical

authors to the practice of shorthand in ancient times. It is said even

that Xenophon took down the lectures of Socrates in this way, and whether

or not that statement is true, the existence of the rumour is in itself

evidence of the prevalence of the custom from an early day. Very probably

Tiron developed a modified and greatly improved system of shorthand

writing, and doubtless this became popular, since lexicons were written

interpreting the Tironian script in terms of ordinary Latin. But, as has

been said, all this does not make it probable that the average reader

understood the script, and it seems much more likely that the popular

authors were represented in the ordinary script, subject, however, to

numerous abbreviations. The writers who were most in vogue in imperial

Rome are said to have been Ovid, Propertius, and Martial among the

satirists; Homer, Virgil, and Horace among the poets; and Cicero, Livy,

and Pliny among prose writers. It is alleged that the works of most

of these were in every private collection. Of all this great store of

literary treasures not a single line has been preserved in the original

manuscript, save only a few rolls from the library at Herculaneum, and

most of these are charred and damaged beyond recognition.

Thanks to the use of slave labour, it would appear that the Roman

publisher was able, not merely to put out large editions of books, but

to sell these at a very reasonable price. According to a statement of

Martial himself, a very good copy of the first book of his epigrams

could be purchased for five denarii. This presumably must refer to the

cheapest edition, probably a papyrus roll, though no definite data as

to the relative cost of papyrus and parchment are available. Naturally,

there were more expensive editions put out for those who could afford

them. It was customary, for example, to tint the back of the parchment

roll with purple; at a later day the inscribed part itself was sometimes

tinted with the same colour, and this custom also may have prevailed as

early as the Roman time. Certain books were illustrated with pictures,

as appears from a remark of Pliny; but this practice was undoubtedly

very exceptional. It may not have been unusual, however, to ornament or

emphasise portions of the manuscript by using red ink, for the ink wells

illustrated in the paintings of Pompeii are often shown to be double, and

the presumable object of this was to facilitate the use of ink of two

colours.

The pen employed by the Roman scribe was made of a reed and known as a

_calamus_. It was sharpened and split, not unlike a modern quill pen.

The question has been raised many times as to whether the Romans did not

employ the quill pen itself. Certain pictures seem to suggest that the

quill pen was used not merely by the Romans, but by the Egyptians as

well. There seems little ground for this supposition, however, and the

first specific reference to a quill pen was in the writings of Isidorus,

who died in 636 A.D. This proves that the use of quills had begun not

later than the seventh century, but it is extremely doubtful whether the

Romans employed them, though the quill seems so obvious a substitute for

the reed that its non-employment causes wonder. But the history of all

simple inventions shows how fallacious would be any argument drawn from

this obvious inference. Incidentally it may be noted that the reed pen

held its own against the quill for some centuries after the invention

of the latter. Even in the late Middle Ages the reed was still employed

for particular kinds of writing in preference to the quill, and no doubt

a certain number of people for generations continued to prefer the

reed, just as there are people now who prefer a quill pen to the steel

pens that were perfected in 1830. Every desk in the reading room at the

British Museum to-day is supplied with a quill as well as a steel pen;

and a fair proportion of the readers there seem to prefer the former.

It would not do to leave the subject of Roman books without at least

incidental mention of the tablets which were in universal use. These were

probably not employed in writing books for the market, but it is quite

probable that many authors used them in making the first drafts of their

books. The so-called wax tablet was really made of wood, quite in the

form of a modern child’s slate, the wax to receive the writing being put

upon the portion that corresponds to the slate proper. These tablets were

usually bound together in twos or threes, and only the inner surfaces

were employed to receive the writing, the outer surface being reserved

for a title in the case of business documents, or for the address when

the tablet was used as a letter. When used as business records or in

correspondence, the tablets were bound together with a cord, upon which

a seal was placed. It was quite the rule for a Roman citizen to carry

a tablet about with him for the purpose of making notes. The implement

used in writing was a pointed metal needle known as the _stylus_. It was

almost dagger-like in proportions, and was sometimes used as a weapon. It

was said that Cæsar once transfixed the arm of Cassius with his stylus in

a fit of anger in the senate chamber itself. The other end of the stylus

was curved or flattened, and was used to erase the writing on the tablet

for corrections or to prepare the surface for a new inscription.[j]

Turning from the practicalities of literature to a yet more important

phase of everyday life, let us witness

THE CEREMONY OF A ROMAN MARRIAGE

The solemn ritual of marriage was based on the virginity of the bride,

and so appeared in a curtailed version when a widow married again,

which, even in later times, was regarded as somewhat shocking and in the

earliest period of antiquity was of rare occurrence.

Particular care was taken in choosing the wedding-day, because certain

times of the year were, from a religious point of view, ill adapted for

the wedding ceremony, particularly the whole month of May and the first

half of June. For the Lemuria and the sacrifice of the Argei fall in

May, and in the beginning of June come the _dies religiosi_, devoted

to the holiness of Vesta, which come to a close on the 15th of June

with the purification of the temple of Vesta. Other days to be avoided

were the _dies parentales_ (from the 13th to the 21st of February), the

first half of March, the three days on which the Nether World was open

(_mundus patet_ on the 24th of August, the 5th of October, and the 8th

of November), all _dies religiosi_, the calends, the nones, and the

ides. But solemn marriages were not conducted on festival days chiefly

because, in early times at all events, the participators in the marriage

were hindered by the festival. Widows on the other hand did not exclude

such days from their selection.

All that we are told of the decoration of the bride is again concerned

with virgins. On the day before marriage the girl laid aside her virginal

attire (_toga prætexta_), sacrificing it with her toys to the gods and

perhaps originally to the Lares of her father’s house. As was the custom

for a youth before taking the _toga_, she was invested (_ominis causa_)

with a new garment suitable to her new condition before going to sleep, a

_tunica recta_ or _regilla_, and upon her head was placed a red hair net.

The bridal dress itself was a _tunica recta_, that is to say a garment

woven according to ancient custom with vertical, not horizontal, threads,

held together with a woollen girdle (_cingulum_) that was bound with a

_nodus herculeus_; instead of the hair net she was provided with a red

scarf (_flammeum_) with which she veiled her head (_nubit_, _obnubit_);

its red colour only distinguished it from those scarfs which all women

wore when they went out. Her hair was arranged in _sex crines_, that is,

plaits or locks held together not with a comb but with a crisping pin

bent at the end (_hasta cælibaris_) and separated by ribbons. Beneath the

scarf on her head she wore a wreath of flowers gathered by herself, and

at a later period the bridegroom himself also wears a wreath.

The ceremony of the marriage day falls into three parts: the handing

over of the bride, her home taking, and her reception into the

husband’s house; with regard to the disposition of the separate customs

appertaining to these three acts we are to some extent left to conjecture.

The solemnisation of marriage began with _auspicia_, which were usually

taken by proper _auspices_ in the silence of early morning, just as at

the _sponsalia_ it was sought to inquire into the will of the gods by

an omen before sunrise. In the earliest times the flight of birds was

observed, this kind of divination being later on replaced in private

life (as it already existed in public) by the easier process of causing

a _haruspica_ to examine entrails. But the sacrifice made with a view

of consulting the gods, the performers of which have also been called

_auspices_, must not be confounded with the main sacrifice, for it took

place before the handing over of the bride. The sacrificial animal

was probably a sheep, the skin of which was afterwards used for the

_confarreatio_.

On the assembly of the guests the _auspices_ entered to announce the

result of their investigation. After this only is the marriage contract

completed, and even in later times before ten witnesses such as were

accustomed to be present at the ancient _confarreatio_; the bride and

bridegroom then declare their consent to the wedding, and where there

is a _confarreatio_ the former declares her will to enter into the

_manus_ and thereby the family of her husband, originally announcing also

her readiness to exchange her own name for that of her husband in the

formula _quando tu Caius ego Caia_. After this declaration the bridal

pair are brought together by a married woman (_pronuba_) and take each

other’s hands (_dextras jungunt_), upon which, at the _confarreatio_, in

accordance with the most ancient Roman sacrificial custom, a bloodless

sacrifice is brought consisting of fruits and a _panis farreus_. It was

dedicated to Jupiter and so was probably performed by the _flamen Dialis_

present; he pronounced the forms of prayer in which the gods of wedlock,

especially Juno, and the rustic deities Tellus, Picumnus, and Pilumnus

were invoked. During the sacrifice the bridal pair sat upon two chairs

joined together, over which the skin of the sheep that had been slain was

stretched; at the prayer they wandered round the altar from right to

left; a _camillus_ lent his services, bearing a _cumerum_ in which _mola

salsa_ and other requisites of the sacrifice were received.

Whether at the _confarreatio_ there was an animal sacrifice besides the

sacrifice of grain, or not, we do not know; Ulpian seems to assume that

there was. In later times the sacrifice of corn fell into desuetude, but

for the rest the old ritual was maintained as far as possible, so that

for instance there was always a prayer delivered, if not by a priest,

by an _auspex nuptiarum_ and addressed to other gods. Also in these

later times the celebration of marriage centred round the sacrifice of a

calf or even of a pig, and the newly wedded pair set out this sacrifice

themselves, not always in the house but sometimes before a public temple.

Not only have we express witnesses to testify to this, but also pictorial

representations in which partly the temple is sketched and partly the

sacrifice in process of performance, which would have no sense if the

sacrifice took place in the house. So it comes that sacrifice of animals

could only be conducted in the house, as in the temple, under certain

conditions, whereas it was quite common on the sacrificial altars erected

especially for private sacrifice in front of the temples. The witnesses

having expressed their congratulations (_feliciter_) in a shout of

approval, the sacrifice was followed by the _cena_, which, like all

earlier portions of the celebration, was usually held in the house of the

bride’s father.

[Illustration: HEAD-DRESSES]

The guests having risen from this at fall of night, the _deductio_

begins. The bride is taken from the arms of her mother and conducted in

solemn procession to the new house, the procession including not only the

guests but also the interested public. Flute-players and torch-bearers

lead the way, the procession sings a fescennine song and echoes the cry

_talasse_; the boys bid the bridegroom strew walnuts as he is now taking

leave of the games of childhood. The bride is accompanied by three _pueri

patrimi et matrimi_, one of them bearing a torch in front, the other two

leading the bride; after her are borne distaff and spinning-wheel. The

bridegroom’s torch is not, like the others, made of fine resin, but of

white thorn (_Spina alba_), which is sacred to Ceres and a charm against

witchery; it is captured by the guests and carried away by violence. The

procession having reached the new house, the bride anoints the door-posts

with fat or oil and binds them with woollen fillets; then she is borne

over the threshold of the house and received in the atrium by her husband

into the common possession of fire and water; that is to say, she is made

a partner in domestic life and the service of the gods. In the atrium,

her future living room, opposite the door, the _lectus genialis_ is made

ready by the _pronuba_; here she prays to the gods of the new home for a

happy marriage. On the day after the wedding she receives relations at

the feast of _repotia_ as a matron and presents her first sacrifice to

the gods of the house.[f]

THE STATUS OF WOMEN

The restoration of the temples of Juno by Augustus and his consort

indicated the interest the new government felt in the institution of

marriage. Neither the history nor literature of Rome can be understood

without clear ideas upon this branch of her social economy. All nations

have agreed in investing marriage with a religious sanction; but religion

and policy were closely connected through every phase of the social life

of the Romans, and in none more closely than in this. Marriage they

regarded as an institution hallowed by the national divinities for the

propagation of the Roman race, the special favourite of the gods. Its

object was not to chasten the affections and purify the appetites of man,

but to replenish the curies and centuries, to maintain the service of

the national temples, recruit the legions and establish Roman garrisons

in conquered lands. The marriage therefore of Caius and Caia, of a Roman

with a Roman, was a far higher and holier matter, in the view of their

priests and legislators, than the union of a Roman with a foreigner, of

aliens with aliens, or of slaves with slaves. Even the legitimate union

of the sexes among the citizens was regulated by descending scale of

confarreation, coemption, and mere cohabitation; and the offspring of the

former only were qualified for the highest religious functions, such as

those of the flamen of Jupiter, and apparently of the vestal virgins, on

which the safety of the state was deemed most strictly to depend.

These jealous regulations were fostered in the first instance by a

grave political necessity; but the increase of the power of Rome, the

enlargement of her resources, the multiplication of her allies, her

clients and dependents, had long relaxed her vigilance in maintaining

the purity of her children’s descent. The dictates of nature, reinforced

by the observation of foreign examples, had long rebelled in this matter

against the tyrannical prescriptions of a barbarous antiquity. After the

eastern conquests of the republic it became impossible to maintain the

race in its state of social isolation. In his winter quarters at Athens,

Samos, or Ephesus, the rude husbandman of Alba or the Volscian hills

was dazzled by the fascinations of women whose accomplishments fatally

eclipsed the homely virtues of the Latin and Sabine matrons. To form

legitimate connections with these foreign charmers was forbidden him by

the harsh institutions of a Servius or Numa; while his ideas were so

narrowed and debased by bad laws, that he never dreamt of raising his own

countrywomen by education to the level of their superior attractions.

Gravely impressing upon his wife and daughters that to sing and dance,

to cultivate the knowledge of languages, to exercise the taste and

understanding, was the business of the hired courtesan, it was to the

courtesan that he repaired himself for the solace of his own lighter

hours. The hetæræ of Greece had been driven to the voluptuous courts of

Asia by the impoverishment, and perhaps the declining refinement, of

their native entertainers. They were now invited to the great western

capital of wealth and luxury, where they shared with viler objects the

admiration of the Roman nobles, and imparted perhaps a shade of sentiment

and delicacy to their most sensual carouses. The unnatural restrictions

of the law formed a decent excuse for this class of unions, which were

often productive of mutual regard, and were hallowed at least at the

shrine of public opinion.

Such fortunate cases were, however, at the best, only exceptional. For

the most part, the Grecian mistress of the proconsul or imperator, the

object of a transient appetite, sought to indemnify herself by venal

rapacity for actual contempt and anticipated desertion. The influence of

these seductive intriguers poisoned the springs of justice before the

provincial tribunals. At an earlier period a brutal general could order a

criminal to be beheaded at his supper table, to exhibit to his paramour

the spectacle of death; at a later, the luxurious governor of a province

allowed his freedwoman to negotiate with his subjects for the price of

their rights and privileges, or carried her at his side in his progress

through Italy itself. The frantic declamations of Cicero against the

licentiousness of Verres and Antony in this respect were a fruitless and,

it must be admitted, a hollow attempt to play upon an extinct religious

sentiment.

The results of this vicious indulgence were more depraving than the vice

itself. The unmarried Roman, thus cohabiting with a freedwoman or slave,

became the father of a bastard brood, against whom the gates of the city

were shut. His pride was wounded in the tenderest part; his loyalty to

the commonwealth was shaken. He chose rather to abandon the wretched

offspring of his amours, than to breed them up as a reproach to himself,

and see them sink below the rank in which their father was born.

In the absence of all true religious feeling, the possession of children

was the surest pledge to the state of the public morality of her

citizens. By the renunciation of marriage, which it became the fashion

to avow and boast, public confidence was shaken to its centre. On the

other hand, the women themselves, insulted by the neglect of the other

sex, and exasperated at the inferiority of their position, revenged

themselves by holding the institution of legitimate marriage with almost

equal aversion. They were indignant at the servitude to which it bound

them, the state of dependence and legal incapacity in which it kept

them; for it left them without rights, and without the enjoyment of

their own property; it reduced them to the status of mere children,

or rather transferred them from the power of their parent to that of

their husband. They continued through life, in spite of the mockery of

respect with which the laws surrounded them, things rather than persons;

things that could be sold, transferred backwards and forwards, from one

master to another, for the sake of their dowry or even their powers of

child-bearing. For the smallest fault they might be placed on trial

before their husbands, or if one were more than usually considerate in

judging upon his own case, before a council of their relations. They

might be beaten with rods, even to death itself, for adultery or any

other heinous crime; while they might suffer divorce from the merest

caprice, and simply for the alleged departure of their youth or beauty.