'Rome has united the scattered empires. She has given
softness to manners; she has made the industry of all
peoples, the productiveness of all climates, a common
possession. She has given a common language to nations
separated by the discordance and the rudeness of their
dialects. She has civilized the most savage and most
distant tribes. She has taught man humanity.'
'War,' says another writer, 'is now nothing more than a
tale of ancient days, which our age refuses to believe; or,
if it does chance that we learn that some Moorish or
Getulean clan has presumed to provoke the arms of Rome, we
seem to dream, as we hear of these distant combats. The
world seems to keep perpetual holiday. It has laid aside
the sword, and thinks only of rejoicings and feasts. There
is no rivalry between cities except in magnificence and
luxury; they are made up of porticoes, aqueducts, temples,
and colleges. Not cities only, but the earth itself puts on
gay attire and cultivation, like that of a sumptuous
garden. Rome, in one word, has given to the world something
like a new life.'
M. de Champagny thinks that our present civilization would 'seem mean
and poor to one of the contemporaries of Cicero, or even to one of the
subjects of Nero.' ('Les Césars,' vol. ii. 397.) He shows how this
would be felt, both as to public and private life, and especially
refers to Pompeii. In proof of his assertion we must refer our readers
to a passage, much too long to quote, as to the daily life of Rome
itself. He follows a Roman, 'not opulent, but merely well off' through
his day:--
The sun has no sooner risen than his house is thronged by
clients (_manè salutantes_). This is a hasty _levée_. Then
the patron, surrounded by his followers, goes down to the
forum; if he likes, he is carried in a litter by his
slaves. There the serious business of the day is
conducted--causes, money payments, and arrangements; "all
is activity, chatter, noise." But, at noon, all ceases; the
audience breaks up, the shops are deserted, the streets are
soon silent, and during the artificial night of the
_siesta_ no one is to be seen but stragglers returning to
their houses, or lovers, who come, as if it were really
night, to sigh beneath the balcony of their ladies.
Business to-morrow. For the rest of the day Rome was free;
Rome was asleep. The poor man lay down to sleep in the
portico; the rich on the ground-floor of his house, in the
silence and darkness of a room without windows, and to the
sound of the fountains in the _cavædium_, slept, mused, or
dreamed. Later than four o'clock, no business might be
proposed in the Senate, and there were Romans who after
that hour would not open a letter.
'About two the streets began to fill again. The crowd
flowed towards the Campus Martius. There was a vast meadow,
where the young men practised athletics, ran, and threw the
javelin. The elders sat, talked, and looked on. Sometimes
they had exercises of their own; often they walked in the
sun. The exposure of the naked body to its life-giving
action served them instead of the gymnasium. The women had
their walks under the porticoes. This, too, was an hour of
activity, but of merry, gay, satisfied activity.
'At three a bell sounded, and the baths were opened. The
bath combined business, medical treatment, and pleasure.
The poor enjoyed them in the public baths, the voluptuous
rich, in their palaces.... The bath was a place of
assembly, with a degree of boyish freedom. There was
laughing, talk, gaming, even dancing.... There, too, the
great affair of the day was arranged--the supper--almost
the only social meal of a Roman. As evening came on, the
party stretched themselves, leaning on their elbows, round
the hospitable table, and had before them for the meal and
for society all the hours till night. It commonly consisted
of six or seven (never more than the Muses, said the
proverb, or less than the Graces), stretched on couches of
purple and gold, round a table of precious wood. A large
band of servants was employed in the service of the feast;
the _maître d'hôtel_ provided it, the _structor_ placed the
dishes in symmetrical order, the _scissor_ carved. Young
slaves, in short tunics, placed on the table the huge
silver salver, changed for each course, upon which the
dishes were tastefully arranged. Children kept, what
Indians in our day call punkahs, in motion over the heads
of the company, to drive away the flies, and to cool them.
Young and beautiful cup-bearers, with long robes and
flowing hair, filled the cups with wine, others sprinkled
on the floor an infusion of vervain and Venus-hair, which
was supposed to promote cheerfulness. Round the table are
songs, dances, and symphonies, tricks of buffoons, or
discussions of philosophers. In the midst of all this
merry-making the king of the feast gives the toasts, counts
the cups, and crowns the guests with short-lived flowers.
"Let us lose no time to live," he said, "for death is
drawing near; let us crown our heads before we go down to
Pluto." In fact, the dominant thought of ancient society
was to live, to enjoy, to shut out from life as much as
possible everything of suffering, care, toil, and
duty.'--('Les Césars,' vol. ii. p. 388.)[4]
One essential feature of the Roman world, as compared with ours,
judging alike by the remains which still exist, and by the hints of
ancient authors, was the far greater extent and magnificence of the
public buildings of all kinds, and the comparatively confined size of
ordinary private houses. This our author especially points out at
Pompeii, a country town of the third or fourth class, the public
buildings of which, as far as they have hitherto been uncovered,
astonish modern visitors by their extent and magnificence. Such was
the natural tendency of a society in which men spent little time in
their own houses, and mixed much with their fellows. Many a Roman in
easy circumstances seems to have used his house chiefly for sleeping
and meals. It mattered little, with such habits, how contracted might
be the other parts, if the public banqueting room was spacious and
highly ornamented; and such was the character of the houses at
Pompeii. The extreme magnificence of the baths, porticoes, theatres,
&c., at Rome, all the world knows. Our author enlarges on this part of
the subject. But we will quote a few words upon it from a living
English writer:--
'What was the life that Rome bestowed upon her inhabitants?
Judge of it by the gift of an emperor to his people; of
such gifts there were many in Rome. A vast square, of more
than a thousand feet, comprehended within its various
courts three great divisions. One contained libraries,
picture and sculpture galleries, music halls, and every
need for the cultivation of the mind. A second, courts for
gymnastics, riding, wrestling, and every bodily exercise. A
third, the baths; but how little the word, associated with
modern poverty conveys a notion of the thing! There were
tepid, vapour, and swimming baths, accompanied with
perfumes and frictions, giving to the body an elastic
suppleness. [We believe the author has omitted the chief
thing conveyed to a Roman by the term, viz., what we now
call the Turkish bath, dry heat, producing perspiration.]
Then, as to their material: alabaster vied with marble;
mosaic pavements, with ceilings painted in fresco; walls
were encrusted with ivory, and a softened daylight
reflected from mirrors; while on all sides a host of
servants were engaged in the various offices of the bath.
The afternoon _siesta_ is over; a bell sounds, the _thermæ_
open. There all Rome assembles, to chat, to criticise, to
declaim. There is the coffee-house, theatre, exchange,
palace, school, museum, parliament, and drawing-room, in
one. There is food for the mind, exercise and refreshment
for the body. There, if anywhere, the eye can be satisfied
with seeing, and the ear with hearing; and every sense and
every taste find but a too ready gratification. This feast
of intellect, this palace of ancient power and art is open
daily, without cost, or for the smallest sum, to every
Roman citizen. Private wealth in modern times bestows a few
of these gifts on a select number; but poor as well as rich
could revel in them, without fear of exhaustion, in this
treasure-house of material civilization.'
We have enlarged on the material blessings enjoyed under the Roman
Empire, because, as we began by saying, we are convinced that the
mass, even of those who have received a classical education, have
never sufficiently estimated them. But it is curious, on the other
hand, to observe how much the judgment even of the most learned and
thoughtful men, whose standard of excellence was merely earthly, has
been dazzled when they have allowed themselves seriously to consider
them. Gibbon goes so far as to say, 'If a man were called upon to fix
the period in the history of the world during which the condition of
the human race was most happy and prosperous, he would without
hesitation name that which elapsed from the death of Domitian to the
accession of Commodus.'